Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Great Construction

  Xia Jun wrote a very affirmative letter, and after Li Shijin received it, her heart was suddenly filled with certainty, and she no longer felt the previous confusion.

  Soon Xia Jun and Li Shi Jing called out the token of their engagement, which was a strand of hair. And they agreed that as soon as Li Shilin returned, Xia Jun would immediately go to propose.

  ……

  Just as Xia Jun was building a large factory in northern Fujian and repairing roads, the British, French, German and American banking consortium forced the Qing government to sign a contract for borrowing money to repair roads.

  Great powers wanting more benefits in China also need roads, and railways are a key link.

  With the railways, the powerful nations can transport China's raw materials to their own countries for processing and then dump the products in wider areas, further plundering China's wealth.

  The Railway Protection Movement has kicked off. When the Qing government was building railways, Sichuan's gentry and peasants all bought railway stocks. Later, the Qing government took over the railways and refused to refund the construction fees, which triggered the Railway Protection Movement.

  The Railway Protection Movement can be said to be the prelude to the Xinhai Revolution!

  ……

  Jianning Prefecture and Shaowu Prefecture in northwest Fujian Province were all under construction at this time.

  After Xia Jun's points surged, he exchanged more than 500 engineering vehicles, each with an exchange price of over 500, spending 3 million points.

  These excavators, road rollers, bulldozers, loaders, graders and truck cranes can greatly increase construction efficiency while saving labor input.

  And other construction machinery that does not require any technical content, such as mixers, are very cheap. A mixer that can mix 100 kg of concrete only requires 10 points, and Xia Jun exchanged more than a thousand units.

  A large number of construction machinery and engineering vehicles were transported, and the technical school in Xixiang also became very busy.

  Everywhere has also entered a state of construction. Due to the expansion of the paper mill's production capacity and the manufacture of acetic acid fiber, only reeds are no longer sufficient.

  So we have to go up the mountain to cut down trees and open roads on the mountain.

  This road leading to the mountain only needs to be passable by a tractor, although the engineering quantity is small, but if there are many roads to open, the engineering quantity will also increase.

  At the same time, the roads under the mountain also need to be repaired. The roads under the mountain are between villages, and some of these roads have already started to be paved with cement.

  The cement road was built with Xixiang as the center, extending east to Feng, Dongyou, Jianyang and other directions, without stopping for a moment. Those captured bandits were the main workers.

  These bandits were not mistreated, they worked hard, and from time to time they could also eat some meat. As long as they ate their fill, there was no problem. Therefore, many of these bandits worked with peace of mind, and after two years of labor reform, they would be free.

  The militia aspect is also proceeding continuously. As Xia Jun withdrew five regiments to northwest Fujian, the local garrison has recently increased, and the militia activities have become more frequent.

  In addition, the security team also often sends doctors to the towns to provide free medical treatment for the people. Those medicines were directly exchanged by Xia Jun from the system.

  The exchange price of medicines is also very cheap, similar to agricultural products. Xia Jun's points surged and immediately opened up for exchange.

  After all, there is no return without investment.

  Hydroelectric power stations are also being built in a tense manner, and 10 small hydroelectric power stations have entered the construction state in Xixiang. These small hydroelectric power stations were built very quickly.

  Xia Jun, who was all about the points, ran to Jianxi to inspect and immediately found Xu Wenbo and Wu Bingkong, planning to build a hydropower station with an installed capacity of 1 million kilowatts in Jianxi.

  The hydropower resources in the Min River basin are very rich, and the water flow of its tributary Jianxi is even more turbulent. The entire Min River has a huge potential for power generation. In later generations, the conventional hydroelectric stations in the Min River basin were the most numerous in East China, and the power generation was also the largest.

  The factories have started one after another, and electricity is a problem.

  Especially for building ordnance factories later on, this is extremely power-hungry. The construction of hydroelectric power plants requires a certain period and must be built ahead of time.

  Those factories are now in operation and running quite well, most of the equipment is semi-automated, not requiring too much technical expertise, but even being semi-automated is already at a leading level.

  Liu Jinshan's funds had not been recovered at that time, and he sent a telegram saying that there was no way to pay for this month's paper, so Xia Jun began to sell the paper externally.

  Cotton fabric has also been produced, but it has not been sold externally yet.

  The cotton fabric produced by the textile mill is of very high quality, and the production cost is low. It's just that there is no dyeing factory, and it still belongs to semi-finished products. Zhang Cheng is busy setting up a dye factory. He studied chemistry and is more familiar with chemical dyes.

  Xia Jun directly exchanged the equipment for him and also exchanged a batch of dyes from the system, and the dyeing factory was quickly set up.

  The textile mill is like a dragon that comes down directly to make finished cotton cloth, and the cost of the finished cotton cloth is at least 50% lower than the market price.

  However, for sale within China, taxes need to be paid, and the Qing government's tax collection checkpoints are everywhere. Most of these are operated by local officials, who take a cut of the taxes, making the cost 10% lower than that of foreign cloth.

  If cigarette factories are for external use, then textile mills are for internal use.

  Cigarette factories are in a monopolistic position, while textile mills are in a competitive state. The goal is to regain the market, defeat foreign goods and stop the dumping of foreign commodities.

  The first batch of cotton cloth from the dyeing factory directly flooded into the markets of various counties and towns in northwest Fujian, immediately defeating foreign cloth. In northwest Fujian, the government had no administrative power, and it was even more impossible to set up checkpoints outside the city to collect taxes. These cotton cloths entered the market in a tax-free state, with very low transportation costs. With such a huge cost advantage and better quality, foreign cloth had no competitive edge at all.

  Merchants coming to Xixiang to purchase goods are gradually increasing, paper and cotton cloth are the main products of Xixiang at present. Due to the huge storage of building materials in Fujian, the production of cement plants is constantly increasing, and it will not take long to be used for export.

  In June, Xia Jun exchanged a large number of engineering vehicles, built a larger hydropower station in Jianxi, and improved roads everywhere, while exchanging tens of thousands of tractors to various towns.

  More than 10 million points were used up, leaving only 4 million, and the money was spent like flowing water, with a large amount of labor, those bandits were not enough to use.

  Construction, schooling, and military pay, nearly 200,000 silver coins were spent in just one month, and the construction volume is still increasing. Those skilled workers and construction personnel are being trained and put into the construction site one after another, as long as there are people, new construction sites can be started immediately.

  This is a poor and backward China, and also a less accessible Fujian. In order to develop industry in this place, these investments are necessary.

  Fortunately, Xia Jun had a platform for exchange in his hands. Under this good but painful construction, the traffic situation of Jianning Prefecture and Shaowu Prefecture changed rapidly.

  ——————

  Monday, rush ranking!

  It's a big deal! Extremely urgent!