On November 10, 1696, at the Ningnan Port Naval Base, a warship sailed out of the port in a low-key manner in the darkness.

Ningnan Port now has a population of about 15,000, and the total population of the county has exceeded 40,000. In this Nanci area, it can be said to be a big city. Of course, Ningnan County is not the most powerful county in the Magellan Strait. In fact, Xingnan County is the well-deserved first, both in terms of population and economic scale.

There, there is the commercial center and logistics center that other counties dream of, and a large number of goods from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are transported here, and the transportation volume is even far greater than the shipping volumes in Magellan and Cape Horn. After all, the shipping speed is slow, the insurance costs are high, and it is easy to get into trouble. In the windy and wave environment, the goods are also prone to moisture and damage, so no one chooses this mode of transportation.

In Xingnan County, other industries have also developed quite well, such as the Sea Eagle Watch Factory, Sea Eagle Musical Instrument Factory, and Sea Eagle Precision Instrument Factory under the Mo Family. The former almost occupies most of the market for timekeeping instruments such as pocket watches, clocks, navigation clocks, etc., not to mention the musical instrument factory, which almost monopolizes the domestic market, making other workshop-style small factories breathless. Even the Sea Eagle Precision Instrument Factory is in fierce competition with the East Coast Precision Instrument Company in various scientific instruments, occupying a certain market share, and is one of the three pillars of the Mo Family.

In addition, Nantie Company also has considerable assets in this city. Nantie Weekly, Nantie Maternal and Child Hospital (joint venture with the Mo family), Nantie Bank, etc. have also contributed a lot of tax and employment opportunities to the local area, which makes other counties envious.

The only thing that can compete with them is probably Arakan County, which also has a strong manufacturing industry. This county also has the bonus of the Two Ocean Railway. At the same time, it has the famous Heishan Industrial Company, a heavy industrial enterprise famous for manufacturing hydraulic machines in the Heishan Township. Unfortunately, the other industries in this county are really sparse, and business cannot beat Xingnan County. The agriculture and fishery are far from each other, and they are on the Pacific side, otherwise they will probably have to overcome Xingnan County.

Compared with these two counties, Ningnan, Weihai and Shanhou are all inferior. Ningnan mainly uses seafood processing and leather processing. In addition, the existence of Ningnan Port naval base has also brought many benefits to the local economy. Weihai County has almost nothing to mention. In addition to the Heijin Island Coal Mine, which has to be rested for half a year in winter, a large county mainly relies on island pastures. The so-called island pastures actually use the large number of broken islands in the local area to develop animal husbandry. Just as the Chileans later operated a large number of livestock farms on these islands, people on the east coast also raised a large number of sheep, goats, cattle and horses here. Among them, private mainly rented some smaller islands, and several families often united to grazle cattle and sheep; state-owned ranches exist on larger islands or peninsulas, and these livestock are also mainly used.

In addition, on some relatively closed islands, the moose, reindeer, musk ox, North American bison, Siberian tiger and other animals introduced from the outside decades ago by people from the East Coast have now been breeding and occupying more and more islands. Each island is a closed prison. The East Coast agricultural department has hired many people in the local area, regularly checked the island and counted the population. After finding that it exceeded the local environmental capacity limit, it opened up the next "colonial island" for those animals. It has now become quite large.

A while ago, the Ministry of Agriculture held a special meeting to discuss whether it is possible to hunt and kill animals on the island regularly. Especially musk ox, its fur has excellent texture, a lot of meat, and also produces musk. People from northern pharmaceutical factories are said to want to use it to make some perfumes or medicines, and are very excited about hunting musk ox. In addition, there are also many tigers, with about 300 heads. Living on various islands, whether it can also be hunted and killed can also be proved.

In short, this is a rich resource and a huge wealth. Except for Xingnan County, other counties are all tied to each other. If the Ministry of Agriculture's argument can be captured, it will still have quite positive significance to the local economy. However, according to everyone's speculation, the possibility of relaxation is still not high, and it may be left to the next government or even the next government for discussion, which is a bit regrettable.

Shanhou County is somewhat different among the five southern counties, because this county is mainly based on tourism. Because of its unique geographical location and superior natural environment, Shanhou County was attracted by the state-owned Oriental Hotel Group many years ago. It has built a lot of construction here and built many high-standard hotels, sanatoriums, and conference centers, focusing on tourism concepts such as "End of the World". In addition, the animal and plant resources here are also very special, with a fresh climate and rich seafood, especially the famous shrimps and crabs, and the fish sashimi are also famous and can watch the sunset. It is very popular among the increasingly wealthy middle class in China. Later, Xu Hao, a giant in the catering and entertainment industry, also came here and invested in the construction of Penglai Hotel and fought in person with the Oriental Hotel Group, which injected a lot of vitality into the local economy.

Of course, we may have forgotten a group of islands that are not far away from here, namely the Madao Islands. In this desolate island group with only one town and thousands of people, the East Coast government still set up a county, namely the Madao County. The importance of this county is self-evident. In the era when the East Coast was invented, due to the abundant nearby fishery resources, a large amount of cephalopod seafood was provided here, which supplemented the people of the East Coast with important proteins. It was not until the bison hunting industry gradually emerged in the Pampa Plain that its importance was reduced, but it was still an important seafood base.

Not to mention, there are very rich seal resources here, and most whaling ships also set off here, hunt whales on the nearby sea surface, and then transport them back to the port for processing. To this day, Madao County is still the largest whale product production area in the country, the largest high-end lubricant oil production area, and the second largest phosphate production area, which shows its importance.

The entire county of Madao is only a few thousand people, and it has many resources, so the local residents are undoubtedly very rich. This seems to be an important reason why they are unwilling to move to other places. Although it is remote and the winter is cold, it has all kinds of goods. Everyone has a high income and a slow pace of life. Why do you have to go to other places to work hard? Of course, it is not ruled out that some young people who are looking to the outside world will leave, but most people are still content with the status quo.

In this season of mid-November, due to the high temperature, most whales have left this relatively warm sea area and have gone to play and live near the Antarctic continent. Therefore, most whaling ships have moved to Southern Chile now, and only a small number of ships are still left at the port for maintenance. Therefore, when the armored warship "Bianliang" sailed out of the Ningnan Port Naval Base in a low-key manner and spent more than three days on the road to reach the Baleen Whale Port, not many people were seen.

After several transformations at the shipyard, the performance of the "Bianliang" armored warship has become much more stable. This time, the ship moved south from the Hailing Port military base to test its navigation and combat capabilities in strong winds and waves. Therefore, from the moment he left Ningnan Port, even at night, this huge warship was undergoing various trainings: live-fire shooting training, fire rescue training, night raid training, etc. The entire navigation process was quite fulfilling.

It can also be seen from here that the "Bianliang" armored warship, which has undergone many tests, improvements, and improvements, is really very mature. According to the planning of the Navy, after sufficient tests in the strong winds and waves in the waters near the Ma Island, the warship will be driven back to Zhenhai Port for evaluation. If everything is good, then this will be used as the final model and start construction of the "Luoyang" and "Daming" as soon as possible. Some people even broke the shocking news that the Navy is lobbying the Executive Committee to find ways to build two more armored warships, namely the "Yingtian" and "Chang'an", so that the east coast navy's armored warships will reach five, which can exert its power on more fronts.

It is said that the Executive Committee does not agree much about this, and even if it reluctantly agrees, it will not increase the total military expenditure, because the government's current financial burden is already very heavy. This basically means that if the Navy really wants to build the fourth and fifth armored warships, it can only rob money from the army and reduce the army's expenses. It can be imagined that if this happens, the army will be so lying on grass. Maybe it will rush into the Joint Staff Headquarters with excitement and denounce the "traitors".

Just as the armored warship "Bianliang" was training in the waters near Madao, nearly 30 main ships of the Navy's First Fleet also gathered in the waters near Xingnan Port, conducting large-scale exercises. Because of the high winds and rapid waves in the North Atlantic, naval warships had to conduct adaptive exercises in advance, so they selected the Magellan Strait, which was also harsh in the sea conditions, for concentrated exercises.

The East Coast Navy has not had a great war for many years. Although it has been training hard and the quality and combat skills of the soldiers are also good, the older generation of experienced naval officers and soldiers have retired a lot. To prevent these young people from being in a hurry when they go to the battlefield, large-scale maritime military exercises are still necessary, especially military exercises close to the local sea conditions, which will be of higher value. So, you see that the Navy Department allocated a large amount of funds to bring all ships without combat readiness tasks and started practical exercises in a straightforward manner. In the future, other ships will also take turns to practice battle line artillery battles, maritime repairs, and transport wounded personnel to further enhance combat effectiveness.
Chapter completed!