Anyone who has been to middle school knows that the East Coast Republic of China is a major producer of iron, but it is also a major importer of major metals such as copper, lead, and tin.

Copper is the most important raw material in the power industry, and many copper alloys are widely used in the mechanical field. Lead is an important material for the production of sulfuric acid, and it is also widely used in navigation and civil water supply facilities. Needless to say, tin is almost everywhere and everywhere, and all kinds of alloys need such metals. In addition, with the development of the economy, the industrial demand for metals such as zinc, nickel, gold, silver, and platinum is also gradually increasing. The industrial beast on the east coast has shown a huge interest in various metals. The country spends huge amounts of money to import ore or rough-processed products of the above metals every year.

Under such strong market demand, the local capital of the East Coast will naturally look for mineral veins and find ways to mine. Of course, they have also achieved some achievements and discovered some mineral deposits such as copper ore, lead ore, chromite ore, and tungsten ore. Although the scale is not large, it is also very good at this stage, and it is better than nothing.

The Wolong Mountains on the Pampa Plain are such a metal-rich ore belt, mainly zinc ore and tungsten ore. There are also some small gold and silver ore, but their reserves are very small and it is estimated that it will not be mined for a few years.

The three townships of Houde, Guangli and Xiuye ​​are mining centers in the Wolong Mountains. They have received large investments in recent years and have developed very rapidly. Correspondingly, more than 30,000 Indians and Mestiso people are working on the local mines, and there are tens of thousands of non-national labor workers active on the nearby highway construction site, serving this metal-rich ore vein.

The newly established state-owned enterprise Wolong Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd., has a registered capital of 500,000 yuan. It specializes in mining all non-ferrous metal ores in the East Coast except iron, gold and silver. The mines that already belong to the East Coast are not under their control. For example, the manganese ore that is being mined by the Tieling Heavy Industry Consortium is a very strong enterprise.

After the establishment of Wolong Nonferrous Metals, the first major task was to fully develop several mines in the Wolong Mountains that had been invested intermittently, and then produce qualified metals to supply downstream enterprises. After all, you must be worthy of your name! First understand the mines in the Wolong Mountains, obtain profits, and be able to maintain your own hematopoietic ability, and then slowly find ways to develop other things, such as nickel ore in the Pacific and chromite in South Africa.

The headquarters of Wolong Nonferrous Metals Company is not in the mountains, but in Luoyi District, Luoyang Prefecture, on the eastern foot of the mountain range. The company's board of directors, administrative department, finance department, legal department and other departments are all in the local Nareshkin Building, but the specific engineering construction, mining and smelting departments are all in the west of Shanxi. It is obvious that most of the taxes of Wolong Nonferrous Metals will not be handed over to these two counties, but Luoyang Prefecture.

Houde and Xiuye ​​were newly established at the beginning of this year, namely the 205th and 206th county-level administrative units in the country. Among them, Houde County is under the jurisdiction of Houde Town, Houzai Township, Boqiao Township (located in the Pocho Town of later Boqiao), and Taiqing Township (located in the Laigrala in later generations.

There are currently more than 14,000 residents in four settlements near the small town of Higuera. This county is quite interesting. There is a large fertile plain in the territory, located between Houde Town and Houzai Township, which can produce a large amount of grain. In the Taiqing Township area in the north of the county, farmland water conservancy facilities based on Taiqing Lake are also being built, which can irrigate some farmland along the river, but most areas are still mainly animal husbandry. In the east, mining production is in full swing, and the smelting plant of Wolong Nonferrous Metals Company has been completed. The whole county can be said to be both industrial, agricultural and animal husbandry in the future. Perhaps there is also a commercial addition, because this county is a must-pass road for the new capital Luoyang Prefecture to go to Datong, Tongyuan, Ande and other important towns in the west. A high-level first-class national highway is being built in an orderly manner, and commercial transactions are still relatively frequent. The potential in this area cannot be underestimated.

Xiuye ​​County is similar to Houde County. There are also a large number of plains and valleys in the county. If suitable water conservancy irrigation facilities are built, there is great potential for agricultural production. At the same time, it is close to the mining production area and can supply food nearby, which is very convenient and saves a lot of costs. In the hilly areas west of the county, the conditions for developing orchards and animal husbandry are also very mature, and it is already in progress, and food can be exported to the mining area in the future.

Xiuye ​​County is under the jurisdiction of Xiuye ​​Town, Chongye Township, Bishui Township, Zaoshu Township and Guangli Township. There are a total of five settlements, with more than 18,000 people currently settled here and engaged in industrial and agricultural production. It can be said that the two counties of Hude and Xiuye ​​are the base camps and production bases of Wolong Nonferrous Metals Company. Most of the workers and families of the company live here. Considering its geographical location close to the capital, it is likely to become a wealthy capital in the future. In fact, these two counties are currently under the jurisdiction of Luoyang Prefecture.

To the west of the two counties of Hude and Xiuye, Datong, Tiancheng, Tongyuan and Ande, which were established this month (April 1701), will be inferior to the four counties. The reason why these four counties were established so quickly was that the State Development Administration considered adding economic hinterland to the new capital Luoyang Prefecture, and the other was that once a war broke out with the Kingdom of Spain, these counties could better organize production, and then transport various materials through a large number of channels in the middle of the Andes to support front-line combat. Of course, in peacetime, these counties could also provide a very good land commercial channel, which was also the direction of the first-class national highway from Luoyang Prefecture to Tongyuan Town.

Datong County is 207 county-level administrative units across the country, with Datong Town, Tongli Township, Meicheng Township (near Mercedes Town in later generations), Yuantan Township (near Achilas Town in later generations), and Huangni Township (near Sanshitas Village in later generations). There are a total of five settlements, with a total population of more than 30,000, which is quite a lot. It can be seen that the economic strength is still OK, not as bad as imagined. At least there are many people, right?

Tiancheng County (208th County) has five townships under the jurisdiction of Tiancheng Town, Guangling Township, Fengyi Township, Yinyue Township and Enkong Township. There are also five townships, but there are less than 10,000 people. However, the county is still large in area and has a vast land and sparsely populated population. The economy of this county is not much to say, and it is mainly agriculture and animal husbandry, and the future will not be much better, just like that.

Tongyuan County, the 209th county-level administrative unit in the country, is under the jurisdiction of Tongyuan Town, Shanyang Township, Chahe Township, Zhupei Township and Qingtai Township. The five settled towns live in about 32,000 people, and the agricultural conditions are pretty good, otherwise so many people would not be able to support. The towns, farmland, orchards and pastures left over from the Spanish colonial period were fully utilized. After the East Coast people took over, they invested a lot of manpower and material resources to repair the irrigation system established by the Spanish, which raised the utilization of local river water and mountain snow water resources to a new level.

By the way, there are some mines in this county, mainly small iron ore, silver ore, and copper ore. In the future, Wolong Nonferrous Metals Company will definitely come to mine. Before that, the local economy could only be maintained by wheat, olives, peanuts, raisins/wine, vegetables and food deep processing industries that use them as raw materials. However, it is said that the Ministry of Geology is currently sending a working team to move nearby, and it is said to want to explore and see if there are any oil and natural gas resources. If they can make major discoveries, they will definitely become an important economic growth point in the county in the future.

Ande County, located north of Tongyuan County, is the 210th county in the country. The county is under the jurisdiction of four settlements: Ande Town, Xilou Township, Huangtai Township and Shunhe Township. Currently, there are about 24,000 settled people. This county has rich mining resources, including copper, gold, lead, tin, zinc, and tungsten, and its reserves are not small. At least it can meet the current industrial production needs (the stage where the power industry has not yet developed greatly), as long as it can be successfully mined, refined and transported.

To be honest, mining in the mountains has never been a difficult task. The difficulty is how to transport and export. There is no other good way to do this, so you have to spend money to improve traffic conditions. The road is not very good, so it is better to be a railway. After all, whether it is copper ore or thick copper, the weight is very large. It is really exhausting to transport by road, and the cost will definitely remain high.

Unfortunately, the two major railway companies on the East Coast currently have no focus on their operations, and there are too many projects on hand. The debt burden is so heavy that it makes people want to tear off the financial statements. If they wait for them to handle the existing projects on hand and then build railways from Luoyang Prefecture to Ande County, Tongyuan County and other places, God knows how many years it will take, ten years, fifteen years or twenty years? Don’t joke, it’s better to build a highway first.

So, if you want to get rich, you must build roads first. At present, the only one who wants to build railways in this area is probably the only army, except for the local county and township governments, because they have been planning a war between the East and West countries, and they have been planning to attack Chile from the Andes, so that the enemy can distract themselves and cannot take care of each other. Think about it, how close is Tongyuan County to Santiago, and coming out of the mountain and stabbing it horizontally, it really feels like a divine weapon descending from the sky.

It’s a pity that they have no money and have no say in this matter, so all kinds of proposals can only be verbally. If they have to endure the "research and research" and there will be no actual changes.
Chapter completed!