"Why?" Shao Shude was a little puzzled, "Don't you make money?"

"Have you heard of the money-holding in the downtown area?" Ma Vest took a sip of coffee and said, "Why do you want to make so much money? At present, we can balance income and break even and have a slight surplus. Next year, the market of East Bank cloth will further expand, and fiscal revenue will also usher in explosive growth. How much money do you want to make? To be a joke, the wealth created by nearly 13,000 people in our population is estimated to exceed 10,000 US dollars based on purchasing power. This is considered a developed country in the future. We are so few people now and have such weak strength. Why do we make so much money next time? Create inflation for ourselves? Or attract jealous pirates or Europeans to rob?"

"Hehe." Shao Shude thought about it, the population is indeed a bottleneck of constraints. But he is not afraid to immigrate openly. Whether it is European immigration or Ming Dynasty immigration, there is actually a fixed number every year. With the current number of cadres and missionary personnel, if the immigration exceeds this fixed number, the country will be indigested and will be supported to death. This troublesome thing is really a headache.

The two chatted casually for a while. Seeing that there was no more benefits, Shao Shude simply ran to the dock to take a boat to Zhenhaibao. After arriving at Zhenhaibao, he found a return coal ship and returned to Ping'an Fort, which had been away for three weeks. Before he arrived here, several other shallow water transport ships affiliated to the iron ore working group had also arrived at Ping'an Fort Wharf, preparing to load new immigrants and some supplies.

Shao Shude did not meet Qian Hao this time. It is said that this kid went to the Dayuhe Arsenal to urge the textile machine, and a large group of people near the dock were busy building something in the factory area next to Ping'an Steel Factory.

No one has ever questioned the rise of the textile industry in the East Coast Republic of China. As of November this year, a total of 82,000 white cotton cloth were sold throughout the year, and nearly 4,000 of various wool velvets were obtained. Numerous benefits were gained.

Among them, the Gascone region in southwestern France is the largest dumping place for textiles in the East Coast Republic, with more than 65,000 pieces of cotton flowing into the French market through agents; in addition to the French, the second largest buyer of textiles in the East Coast Republic of China was the Spanish, and it was sold to La Plata through the city of Colonia, and the East Coast white cotton cloth in the East Coast Region also steadily rose to 12,000 pieces, and even the expensive woolen velvet was sold 4,000 pieces; in addition, the number of cotton cloth sold to Brazil, French Santo Domingo, East Florida and other places reached 5,000 pieces.

In short, the situation was unexpectedly good. Therefore, with the strong support of the Executive Committee and the State Council, Tao Chenxi, Director of the State Administration of Textile Industry, submitted by Tao Chenxi, the report "Ping An Machine Weaving Factory's New Round of Production Expansion and Technical Reform" was approved immediately. The central leaders even asked frequently, asking for money, equipment, and workers to give workers. The green lights were all on, and Ping An Machine Weaving Factory was in the limelight for a while.

Tao Chenxi's report summarizes three main points: First, considering the in-depth development of various markets next year, several hydraulic cotton gins, spinning machines and looms are needed, and enough workers are recruited to strive to increase the cotton production capacity next year to 200,000. Second, given that the current products are too single (only one white cotton cloth), new machines are needed to weave goods such as stockings, scarves, towels, and cotton blankets (this behavior will lead to bankruptcy of several handicraftsmen). Enrich downstream products and gain more benefits. Third, in order to impact the lucrative high-end markets such as dyed cloth and printed cloth (currently basically monopolized by Indian cotton cloth), the chemical department is urgently needed to artificially synthesize bright dyes.

As soon as this report was released, all departments were in chaos. It is easy to say that the machines were added. At present, the comprehensive workshop of the Dayuhe Arsenal and the First Machinery Factory were working overtime. It is easy to say that the 800 new French textile workers and their families have been moved to the new city of Ping'anbao. After a period of training, these former French hand-crafted textile workers will transform into textile industry workers in the East Coast Republic of China.

However, those machines that weave stockings, scarves, cotton blankets, etc. cannot be made in a short while. This thing needs to be first developed and then produced parts. The whole process is probably less than a year or two. Fortunately, this is not something you have to do now and develop slowly. Moreover, the sock weaving machine seems to have already been ready-made in Europe at this time. Next time, you can ask someone to buy a few to come back to study.

In addition, dyes are also a headache. At this time, Europe uses natural dyes, such as: blue dye extracted from indigo and syrup; red dye extracted from cochineal, safflower, Brazilian mahogany to ores; "lichen purple" extracted from moss, "imperial purple" extracted from snails; etc. Due to limited raw materials and complex extraction process, many dyes are priced comparable to gold, and most of them can only be enjoyed by nobles and royal families.

Moreover, the disadvantages of natural dyes are also very obvious. For example, incomplete chromatography, or poor dyeing fastness, especially when dyeing cloth is rinsed with soap and exposed to sunlight, it often fades. It can be imagined that if the East Coast Republic of China can successfully develop even a chemical synthetic dye at this time, it will become a new generation of gold-making machines. The cloth dyed with these dyes will definitely kill any cloth dyed with a color similar to its color, because chemical synthetic dyes are perfectly better than natural dyes.

Of course, the Executive Committee and the State Council have adopted a more cautious attitude towards this matter. Before they have enough strength, creating these dyes comparable to gold will only cause trouble for themselves. After all, there will be no shortage of greedy guys who covet other people's wealth at any time. However, it is still necessary to do it. It will be done first in the laboratory, and it will be discussed whether it will be carried out in the future. Moreover, with the level of the few talents who understand chemistry (middle school chemistry teachers, a few chemical factory workers and technicians) who can produce synthetic dyes, it is still a matter of whether the Executive Committee and the State Council are obviously not very confident about them.

Of course, the chemical department cannot be disdainful. A former coking plant worker suggested that the aniline in coal tar can be mixed with sulfuric acid to make sulfate and then added strong oxidants such as potassium dichromate to produce the synthetic dye aniline purple. Many people who study chemistry have heard of the story of the first synthetic dye aniline purple that was made by Baiqin. Moreover, based on the raw material of aniline, many colors such as yellow, cyan, and red dyes can be artificially synthesized.

People in the chemical industry couldn't help but get excited. Coal tar is a by-product of coal coking. At first, people completely used it as a paint. This was a waste of resources in the eyes of people in the chemical industry. Coal tar can extract and separate various substances such as benzene, aniline, asphalt, fuel, etc., and each has great use.

At present, a coking plant has been built on the plot adjacent to Ping'an Steel Plant. The coking plant is mainly composed of a coking oven. The refined coal powder produces coke after high-temperature distillation in the coking oven, which can be used for iron and steelmaking. Of course, in the original plan, the gas (coal gas, coal tar) generated during the coal powder distillation process is directly discharged into the atmosphere. However, after the State Council proposed to light up the scientific and technological tree of coal tar, the chemical department solemnly proposed to the coking plant to add gas condensation devices to separate coal tar in the distilled gas.

The coking plant was just about to start production, and under the order of the State Council, it started the transformation again. To be honest, these half-baked engineers were completely disgusted and could only think about it while renovating. The chemical department was not idle either. Taking advantage of the attention of the superiors, they used a large number of simple experimental equipment produced by Henan glass factories and other units to start many chemical experiments. The first thing they needed to do was to obtain coal tar by condensation in the laboratory environment, and then separate the substances in it one by one through the fractions.

This is not a difficult task. They used small steel containers to distillate the refined coal powder and then obtained coal tar through the condensation gas. However, their level was limited to this. They only knew a few of the complex components in coal tar, and even these components were not even clear about the boiling point, they only knew about it.

Well, the next step is a lot of boring experiments. Through massive experiments, the boiling points of various components are determined to prepare for the separation of coal tar in the future.

What Shao Shude saw at Ping'an Castle at this time was like this. Construction workers demolished the original chimney on the coke oven and began to build a long condensing piping. As for how this condensing piping is designed and laid out, everyone doesn't know anything about it, and they can only explore it themselves at the moment.

"I guess there will be problems at the end of the day after the official starts production." Shao Shude grinned unkindly, "I used to be coking, but now you have to make a trick of recycling coal tar. It's all the first time, let's explore it slowly. Sometimes taking detours is also a kind of wealth."

A total of five inland shallow water transport ships affiliated with the coal working group were moored at the Ping'anbao Pier. The 400 immigrants who were preparing to send to the Changshanbao iron mine area will arrive here later today, and Shao Shude could only wait here. Of course, they were not having nothing to do. Some supplies were loading ships one by one under the busy worker's work, including vegetables, cured meat, dairy products, wine, potatoes and even precious rice.

Relying on the warm climate and abundant water near Ping'an Fort, immigrants from the Ming Dynasty opened up many paddy fields to grow rice, and had harvested it for a season last year. The processed rice was definitely a first-class luxury at this time. They themselves were even reluctant to eat it. All the rice was shipped to Dongfang County for sale, which was the largest consumer group in the country.
Chapter completed!