Chapter Thirty Basic Industries

  The base was built in just one week. The base is fully enclosed, with its own personnel on the platform, and even Lian Xiaojun cannot enter.

  The method of cultivating rice is very simple. Just take the high-yielding rice grains and process them a bit, then they can be planted again. However, Xia Jun obviously didn't have any on hand.

  So it's still exchanged from the system, but the exchange price is very low, 1 point of credit can be exchanged for 100 kg of unripe rice.

  Xia Jun immediately exchanged 10 million kilograms of rice and sent it to the breeding base for cultivation. The first batch of rice was quickly cultivated.

  "Lao Lin, from now on you won't have to worry about not having rice seeds. With this breeding base here, we can have as much as we want in the future." Xia Jun said to Lin Debao.

  Lindbao exclaimed with joy: "Now we don't have to worry about dividing the rice seeds anymore."

  Lin Debao was recently in a flurry, looking at the bags of rice seeds in front of him, how could he not be overjoyed? It's not easy being the Minister of Agriculture.

  Xia Jun recently assigned him a task, which is to clearly count the agricultural and forestry resources of Xixiang, and 50% of the self-grown forests need to be cut down.

  The felled self-grown timber is used for papermaking, and after felling, the mountain is planted with Phyllostachys nigra and fir trees. About 40% of Fujian's arable land is concentrated in the coastal plain along the coast, while western Fujian has more than 60% of forest resources. The economy of western Fujian still relies mainly on the development of forests, and those wood processing are all money.

  Xia Jun currently lacks many basic industries, such as steel mills, cement plants, sand quarries, and stone quarries. To get a clear picture of the resource distribution, Xia Jun had to exchange for a resource distribution map of the Minbei region on the platform. This map was very expensive, requiring 500,000 points just for the Minbei region.

  Xia Jun, who had just invested 1 million points to build a level 4 high-yield rice cultivation base, now has very few points left. Although the efficiency of eliminating bandits this week was not bad, Xia Jun only had 120,000 points left in his hands.

  But Xia Jun is not a geological expert, how can he explore it?

  He could only hold his nose and acknowledge it, so Xia Jun spent 50,000 points to buy the '4th-level Minbei resource distribution map'. The resource detection is divided into four levels, with level 4 being the lowest. The detection won't be too comprehensive, and those relatively hidden mineral deposits won't be detected.

  Upon receiving the distribution map, Xia Jun was delighted to discover that there were three small iron ore deposits, two small coal mines, one small phosphate mine, and a massive limestone deposit.

  There are also gold, silver and copper deposits, but they are scattered and have relatively small reserves.

  There are iron ore, which can be used to set up a steel mill to produce rebar. Limestone can be used to produce cement. Coal can be used to manufacture urea (nitrogen fertilizer). Phosphate mines can be used to manufacture phosphate fertilizers. Unfortunately, there is no potash mine. China's potash reserves are not many, and later generations need to import them.

  In industry, there is cement, steel bars and sandstone, which can repair many infrastructure facilities. The most urgent need is roads. The road conditions in Fujian need to be improved, otherwise, where can development take place?

  In agriculture, there are nitrogen fertilizers and phosphorus fertilizers, which can increase crop yields.

  At the same time, Xia Jun also needs an arsenal that can at least produce bullets and grenades on its own. Once the army expands to a certain extent, bullets are also very expensive in terms of points.

  Xia Jun has been time-traveling for nearly half a year and has gained a comprehensive understanding of the exchange platform. The key to exchanging is not directly exchanging eggs, but rather directly exchanging hens.

  Even if something is cheaper, it's still more cost-effective to produce it yourself, while points are used to exchange for those key technologies and equipment.

  Even some points should be reserved for contingencies that may arise in war.

  Xia Jun needs nothing more than three aspects. One aspect is finance, which has a paper mill and a planned cigarette factory to make profits for him, plus the high-yielding rice variety breeding base that has already been built, so financially it should not be a problem for the time being.

  The second aspect is the basic industry. Fujian's transportation is so poor, and the infrastructure needs to be overhauled. At least the roads need to be improved. This requires building materials, steel bars, cement, sand, and gravel are essential. In addition, energy is also needed, which means power generation is necessary.

  The third aspect is military industry. At least solve the problem of bullets, hand grenades and other non-technical things with huge demand that can be satisfied by production.

  The quarry and sand field did not require any technicality, Xia Jun directly exchanged the equipment of the quarry and the sand dredger, and soon selected the location for quarrying and sand extraction.

  The quarry is located in Xixiang, where there are more places to quarry stone. The sand dredging boats operate on the Jianxi River (one of the three major tributaries of the Minjiang River), which is also a section of the Dongfeng and Dongyou rivers.

  The sand dredgers and quarry equipment only cost Xia Jun more than 5,000 points to exchange for twenty sand dredgers and enough equipment for five quarries.

  Xia Jun's exchange was not for leading equipment, but just ordinary equipment and sand dredgers.

  Currently, China does not lack labor force. The benefit of leading equipment is to save labor, but since current China has a demographic dividend, not all factories need to adopt leading equipment.

  Besides, opening a factory is not limited to Xixiang, it can be opened anywhere in northern Fujian, who dares to come and cause trouble?

  Immediately afterwards, Xia Jun successively built a steel mill, cement plant and fertilizer plant. Except for some leading equipment used in the steel mill and cement plant, all the others were ordinary equipment.

  But these ordinary devices were also the best of their time.

  These small factories didn't cost many points, and in total they only used up 1.5 million of Xia Jun's points.

  The cement plant can produce 1 million tons of cement per year, with higher quality cement. The steel mill uses a converter to smelt steel, rather than an open-hearth furnace.

  Compared with open-hearth furnaces, converters have higher production capacity. More importantly, converters use electricity instead of coal for heating.

  This small-sized converter steel plant cost Xia Jun 500,000 points and can produce 100,000 tons of steel per year.

  However, the equipment exchange arrived, but except for the quarry, sand dredger and cement plant, phosphate fertilizer plant that were put into operation, the nitrogen fertilizer plant and steel plant did not enter operation.

  There is no other reason, just a lack of people.

  The nitrogen fertilizer plant design encountered chemical problems. After Xia Jun replaced the equipment from the steel mill, he found that this advanced equipment required a higher level of culture to operate.

  The munitions factory did not have the conditions because there were no raw materials.

  Due to the establishment of those factories, Xia Jun felt financial pressure. The cement plant, phosphate fertilizer plant, quarrying and sand mining were all not for external sales, these things were all supplied for their own construction use.

  Things are produced and naturally used for construction, but construction costs money! If you don't build, the factory will be idle, which is not cost-effective at all.

  The workers in these factories and the miners need more than 2,000 people, with a monthly salary of three silver dollars, and they have to spend 6,000 silver dollars per month.

  Besides, Liu Jinshan's side might bring a large group of people next time they come.

  Xia Jun still had to run the school, and he also had to pay subsidies and high salaries, which made the finances even more insufficient. In terms of points, due to the expansion of various second-line units, logistics support was becoming increasingly difficult under the condition of inconvenient transportation, and the next step would require road repair. Moreover, the income from bandit-suppressing points would also decrease, because the bandits were decreasing as they were being eliminated.

  Xia Jun once again put the expansion of administrative regions on the agenda.

  The more areas are incorporated into the administrative scope, the more points are scored in terms of public opinion. At the same time, promoting high-yielding rice varieties can also solve financial problems by extracting 100 kilograms of rice per mu.

  At this time, the conditions for rural areas surrounding cities have been met. Xia Jun now has high-yielding rice seeds and has also trained the first batch of administrative personnel.

  These administrative personnel are not in short supply, and those ordinary cultural people are not rare. Xia Jun offered such a high treatment, giving 10 silver coins per month, and naturally they came flocking.

  Zhang Sigou recruited more than 30 people in Jian'an County to go to Xixiang, and these people were all sent to the administrative training class. The autonomy of Xixiang was no longer a problem.

  Xia Jun then appointed the first batch of autonomous region directors, a total of eight people, dividing the entire northern Fujian into eight regions. These eight regions adopted the same system and strategy as Xixiang.

  In each area, a company of troops is stationed to take charge of the bandit suppression within that area and not to go elsewhere for bandit suppression, with the aim of thoroughly eliminating the local bandits.

  The Propaganda Department and the Intelligence Department should also be expanded. Administrative expansion requires the Propaganda Department to strengthen its propaganda, while the Intelligence Department needs to monitor the movements of local officials.

  The directors of these 8 autonomous regions were dispatched at the end of April, with each bringing 5 administrative personnel and an additional platoon of troops to assist with the work.

  At the same time, Xia Jun expanded the administrative training class and continued to recruit scholars into the training class. His administrative system was not complicated, mainly consisting of three departments: the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Agriculture.

  The Ministry of Civil Affairs is responsible for household registration and also helps households in difficulty.

  The Ministry of Justice is responsible for upholding justice, in short, the main purpose is to crack down on local tyrants. In some places, there are indeed some ruthless and cruel local tyrants who must be resolutely eliminated.

  The Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for guiding agricultural production, but there's nothing much to guide, at most teaching farmers how to use fertilizers.

  The Ministry of Agriculture is also responsible for issuing high-yielding rice varieties and collecting fees for them. For every kilogram of seeds, 100 kilograms of rice must be submitted after harvest.

  When promoting rice varieties, the Ministry of Agriculture signs an agreement with farmers who receive the seeds. If the yield does not meet expectations, they do not need to pay, including natural disasters.

  Apart from planting high-yielding rice which requires 100 kilograms of rice as tax, there are no other taxes.

  ——————

  The second update is here!

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