On June 10, 1703, in Bailing Township (near the later Cruz del Ehe City), the East Coast Salt Association's delegation had just returned from the Salt Marsh District, north of Mingjing District, Luoyang Prefecture.

The salt marsh area is divided into two parts, namely the Great Salt Lake in the south and the Qing Salt Lake in the north. Both areas are large, even during the dry season, exceeding the Qinghai Lake in China. After the injection of mountain melt water in summer, its area can even be more than doubled, becoming a veritable large lake.

Although both are saltwater lakes, the Da Salt Lake and Qing Salt Lake are still not as attractive to the people of Luoyang. After all, it is a real lake with vast water surface, vast smoke and deep water, so it can be used to sail. It is not as shallow water swamps as the first two. But they also have their own advantages, that is, the scenery is beautiful, and some shallow water areas of the mudflats are as beautiful as mirrors of the sky, which makes people fascinated.

The above is for ordinary tourists. For industrial investors, they prefer the Great Salt Lake and Qing Salt Lake. First, because Daming Lake is planned as an environmental protection area and has become a summer resort for middle-class people in the capital to escape and relax in summer. Second, because the resources (salt) here are richer, easier to mine, and easier to use (polluting).

As an industry association of domestic edible salt, industrial salt, salt chemical and related enterprises, the East Coast Salt Industry Association is naturally very concerned about this huge salt marsh area - very large, much larger than the salt marsh area in Yancheng County, which they are currently focusing on. Therefore, with the Luoming Highway open to traffic and the Luoming Railway is stable, it seems that we can come here to take a look, providing a new foundation for the sustainable development and growth of the industry.

So they came. They set up an office in Bailing Township and hired hundreds of people to serve several inspection teams they sent. The results of the inspection were very gratifying. The various salt resources here are very rich, and the storage capacity over the past thousands of years is amazing. It is an unimaginable huge wealth. After running to Mingjing District to pass the news to Yancheng Port through a cable telegram, as the chairman of the Salt Industry Association, the state-owned East Coast Salt Industry Company immediately made a decision to start a business in the area of ​​Da Salt Lake and Qing Salt Lake, and vigorously develop the salt chemical industry.

You should know that with the development of the East Coast economy, the demand for salt chemical-related products is getting bigger and bigger, such as paper and cloth bleaching, drinking water bleaching and sterilization, soda ash, caustic soda and hydrochloric acid of important chemical intermediates, and there are also some chemicals with smaller demand. In short, the total market is still very large and is also one of the main forces exporting overseas. Therefore, you can understand now why the chairman of the Salt Association, the Dongban Salt Company, the important member enterprise, the state-owned chlor-alkali chemical factory, and the Northern Chemical Factory will send people here one after another. It is really exciting.

There are many settlements near the Great Salt Lake and Qingyan Lake, which were newly established in the past two years, namely Bailing Township, Guangxian Township (near the town of Cilino in the later generation), Houfeng Township (near the town of Serezuela in the later generation), Anfu Township (near the town of de Anfune in the later generation), Yongchang Township (near the town of Lucio Mansilla in the later generation), Fanglan Township (near the town of San Francisco del Chaniare in the later generation), Leluo Township (near the town of Ojo de Agua in the later generation), Gaoqiao Township (near the town of Atamikis in the later generation), Yinshi Township (near the town of Lostrares in the later generation), Xianshui Township (near the town of Recreo in the later generation), a total of ten towns, and there are no less than 50,000 people who have been resettled, making a living by agriculture and animal husbandry, and it has basically stabilized.

According to the plan of the State Administration of Development, these ten settlements will be under the jurisdiction of the districts and counties below Luoyang Prefecture in the future. Therefore, they have received a large amount of material and money support, and the population is also sufficient. The early development speed is very fast. It is indeed not comparable to ordinary new inland settlements - the people of the capital, even in the rural areas of the remote districts and counties below, they are also the people of the capital, right?

These 50,000 residents are all agricultural populations, mainly laying the foundation. If the local salt and chemical industry rise in the future, it will inevitably attract a large number of workers. If the population of these ten settlements is not surprising, there will be explosive growth, and local fiscal and tax revenue will also rise.

According to the gossip, Shendu District and Mingjing District are currently competing for jurisdiction over multiple towns near the two major salt marshes, and want to include them within their area. Mingjing District said that it is close to it and its jurisdiction is convenient, and Shendu District said that you are incorrect in positioning. These are industrial towns and should be under their jurisdiction. In short, it is a mess and very ugly. However, reality may disappoint them, because the superiors have decided that these places will set up two new counties, which are on par with Mingjing District and Shendu District, and are directly under the jurisdiction of Luoyang Prefecture.

The reason for Luoyang Prefecture is that it may take a long time for these ten townships to develop. Because the Luoming Highway is completed, and even if the Luoming Railway is accelerated, it will take several years to see the dawn of opening the traffic. In this way, it is better to set up two new counties and let them manage themselves, which may develop much faster than custody.

It is worth mentioning that the salt chemical industry in the East Coast is now reliant on electricity, especially the workshops for electrolyzing salt water, which must require a very stable power supply. In order to ensure operation, the production workshop of the chlor-alkali chemical factory in Yancheng Port has jointly built a small coal-fired power plant with the East Coast Power Company to solve the problem of power supply. In the future, these projects will be launched in the salt marsh, and stable power supply will also be required, so the entry of the East Coast Power Company has become a necessity.

In fact, the company's senior management came a few months ago to inspect the location of the future power plant and have a preliminary plan. After years of development, Dongpin Company has accumulated some strength. Not only has its cables, motors, arc lamps, small power generation equipment and power meters sold well, but it has recently undertaken many telegraph office upgrades and renovation projects (changed from battery power to power plant power supply), with abundant oil and water, which is enough to inject a shot of a cardiac to their next development.

Therefore, the company's CEO Ma Xiaopeng is ambitious and plans to further expand its business nationwide, promote power, a new energy source, to various industries as much as possible, and increase the company's turnover. To this end, he first expanded the scale of the East Coast Power Company's first plant (producing various types of power generation equipment) and second plant (producing cables) located in Xingnan Port, Nanshu District. Especially the second plant, because the price of copper obtained in the East Coast Republic has been declining year by year and the volume has become increasingly large in the past, the cost bottleneck that restricts the development of the power industry has loosened, and large-scale cheap (compared to the past) production of cables has become possible, which will inevitably inject new impetus into the development of the power industry.

At this time, we cannot ignore the diversification of copper sources in the East Coast Republic. First of all, it is produced by itself in China. Wolong Nonferrous Metals Company mines many metals including copper, lead, zinc, tin, manganese, tungsten, and chromium in many places in China. Although the mines are not large ores, the output is also considerable in fragments and fragments, which is enough to solve a considerable part of the supply.

Secondly, the copper blocks and copper flakes brought back to the east coast by Taiwan Bank and its agents at all levels. Due to the lack of copper in mainland China, few people come from this area. Although it is said that the East Coast people cooperated to explore Jiangxi's copper resources and had the intention to mine them, there has been no substantial progress in the end. Therefore, there is very little copper purchased from China every year, which can only be said to be better than nothing. Therefore, at present, Japanese copper is still the largest source of the East Coast copper market. The annual purchase amount is very huge and the price is low, which has made a huge contribution to the development of East Coast industrial.

In addition, copper from the Philippine Islands has grown rapidly in recent years, which shows great potential. The main export port of Philippine copper is Hanyang Port, controlled by Guangdong warlord Li Yuanyin. Hanyang Mining Company, controlled by Taiwan Bank, is booming in the local area. It currently mines seven mining sites at the same time, with annual sales exceeding 400,000 yuan. This year (1703), it can even create sales of more than 500,000 yuan, with an amazing growth rate. Moreover, according to insider information, Hanyang Mining Company has recently discovered some new mines and has begun to mine. They are very confident that they will make the company's sales reach one million mark in the next five years and become another cash cow under the Bank of Taiwan.

The rapid development of mining industry has also given rise to the economic prosperity of Hanyang City. So far, the total population of this colonial city has exceeded 50,000 (excluding natives), while there were only a few thousand people a few years ago. This change is very amazing. Seeing that the economic situation of the colony is so gratifying, Li Yuanyin immediately became excited and signed a series of loan agreements with the Bank of Taiwan and the East Coast Agricultural Bank of China, purchasing a large amount of supplies and food, hiring many ships, and immigrating to Mindanao.

At present, Li Yuanyin has opened the island opposite Hanyang Port (Samar Island in later generations) into Guozhong County, and relies on part of the originally developed land to plant grain, log and process, and do some offshore fishing to make a living. Moreover, Guozhong County is so close to Hanyang County (a radius of dozens of miles around Hanyang Port) and there will naturally be considerable capital inflows, which in turn promotes the development of the local economy.

In addition, under the persuasion of the Taiwan Bank and Hanyang Mining Company, Li Yuanyin sent a force to go deep into the place where Davao City was later. After easily defeating the local natives, they set up Baozhong County there and formally immigrated to settle down. The reason for this was that the Hanyang Mining Company's prospecting team discovered copper mines in the local area and believed that they had mining value, so the armed colonization began, which was that simple.

It can be expected that in the next ten years, Hanyang Mining Company will likely grow into a daunting world-class copper mine player and make outstanding contributions to the development of the power industry in the East Coast Republic of China. In this process, the Li Yuanyin family will naturally share a lot of benefits.
Chapter completed!