Chapter 819 - Below Cat's Ear Mountain
Yan Maoda stood at the peak of Cat's Ear Mountain. Rising four hundred meters above sea level, the mountain was steep, rugged, and treacherous to climb—but he had made the ascent for the bird's-eye view it afforded.
Cat's Ear Mountain was a landmark along the coast near Hongji. Legend held that a "True Ancestor Emperor" had once composed a "poem" here, and in subsequent generations, throngs of self-proclaimed "famous scholars," "heroes," and "gallants" had flocked to add verses of their own. Locals euphemistically called it "Poem Mountain." In the old timeline's 1950s, this mountain had become linked to the Vietnamese revolution. According to certain "revolutionary memoirs," during French rule, a flagpole had stood at the summit. From the late 1940s through the early 1950s, Viet Minh fighters would climb up every May 1st and September 2nd to raise their "national flag."
"We won't need a national flag here," Yan Maoda's secretary remarked, gazing down at the land and sea spread out below them. "We could install a lighthouse instead. Guide ships into port."
Cat's Ear Mountain was a rocky prominence, half of it jutting out into Halong Bay. The coastline undulated with hills and mounds; only a long, narrow strip of flat land—perhaps two to three kilometers in length—ran along the shore at the mountain's foot. The Hongji City of the old timeline would rise here, built gradually atop the foundations of the French-established Hongji Coal Company.
"What river is that?" Yan Maoda pointed toward a broad waterway entering the sea a few kilometers distant.
"That's the Bach Dang River," Bei Kai replied. "Also called the White Vine River. Legend says the Yuan army was defeated by Tran Hung Dao at this very estuary." His study of Vietnamese had given him a passing familiarity with the country's history.
"Ah, so it's an ancient battlefield." Yan Maoda watched the churning current. The river was wide, dotted with sandbars. The tide was rising; seawater churned yellow while the river ran green, the two forming a sharp boundary in the center—a spectacular sight. "Seems our armed trading post carries considerable risks."
"Where would be the optimal site for the post?" Yan Maoda asked. As a member of the exploration team, Bei Kai had led an advance party here previously and knew the local geography well.
"The most suitable location, naturally, is at the foot of the mountain—where Hongji City will stand in the old timeline." Bei Kai pointed. "There's flat terrain for buildings and yards, excellent port conditions, and we can draw water from the Bach Dang River nearby for coal washing and daily use."
"And defense?"
"Since it's a trading post, defenses should remain moderate. We don't want to attract too much attention. Besides, if we build something too large and formidable, it requires not only massive construction investment but a larger garrison as well." Bei Kai adjusted his hat. "The Executive Committee prefers we try peaceful means. They don't want a major conflict here."
Yan Maoda nodded. "Indeed. Let's head down."
Below, the marines and sailors of Zhennan were constructing a temporary earth-walled enclosure along the shore. A ditch encircled it, bristling with the standard bamboo spike defenses. Prefabricated watchtowers were rising on an urgent schedule.
At the center of the enclosure stood a wooden building assembled from prefabricated components—Bei Kai's residence and future office. The marines providing security lived in a wooden barracks on the opposite side.
The thought of directing development from this crude earthwork compound filled Bei Kai with quiet dread. Besides thirty marines and a single 12-pound mountain howitzer, his most reliable asset was a silicon 2-watt radio operated by his maid. Staying alone on this desolate coast inspired genuine fear. But he couldn't back down now—if he let this opportunity to govern a region slip away, his chances of becoming a regional power broker later would evaporate.
"Bear with it for now." Yan Maoda seemed to recognize that the facilities were rather spartan. If ten thousand Vietnamese soldiers truly descended on them, Bei Kai would be finished. "I'll arrange ships to bring construction materials, workers, and a proper garrison the moment I return."
Bei Kai steeled himself to play the hero. "It's manageable. With thirty marines and a cannon, we can hold off local bandits and pirates well enough. The Northern LĂŞ Dynasty won't dispatch an entire army against us without clear provocation."
"Supplies for expanding the base will arrive within three or four days—it's a short voyage from Lingao." Yan Maoda tried to offer reassurance. "Once I'm back, I'll send Zhennan to you. It will be at your disposal. Zhang Dabala knows these sea and land routes intimately; he'll make an excellent second-in-command."
"Wonderful." Bei Kai allowed himself a moment of relief. With Zhennan and Zhang Dabala nearby, he felt considerably safer—at worst, he could flee on the ship. Aloud, he said: "Zhang Dabala's knowledge of the routes will prove invaluable."
Yan Maoda surveyed the terrain. "Where exactly is the open-pit mine?"
"Cat's Ear Mountain isn't in an open-pit zone," Bei Kai explained. He had personally supervised the digging of test pits during the last expedition and possessed firsthand data on the coal distribution. "The Quang Ninh area is rich with coal underground, but there are only a few accessible open pits. The largest is at Cam Pha—about fifteen kilometers inland from here."
"That far? I thought it was on the coast."
"There is coal by the sea as well," Bei Kai assured him. "We dug test pits last time."
The results had revealed coal seams beneath hills throughout the region, but most lay too deep, requiring shaft mining. After a week of searching, Bei Kai had finally located an outcrop about three and a half kilometers from Cat's Ear Mountain, beneath a small hill. The face was modest—maximum diameter under four hundred meters—but remarkably shallow, with only two meters of overburden. It was the shallowest seam they'd found within five kilometers of the mountain.
Escorted by marines, the two men walked for more than twenty minutes through weed-choked wasteland. Fortunately, the fierce sea breeze kept the vegetation sparse and the grass low. Yan Maoda could still make out traces of the path cleared during the previous expedition. In places, deep ruts left by Purple Lightning carts remained visible.
At the foot of the hill, they found a small excavated ring pit, its bottom filled with water and now become a stagnant pool. Weeds had sprouted around its edges. Clearly, no one had returned since Bei Kai's departure.
"We named this 'Cat Shit Pit No. 1,'" Bei Kai said with a laugh. "The coal quality is excellent—all premium anthracite, virtually no impurities. Our Dajing crew extracted a hundred tons in a single week. Unfortunately, proper development requires major investment. We didn't have the resources to commit at the time, and later Old Chang negotiated the sugar-for-coal deal with the Vu family—Vu Ngoc Giap's estate has plenty of mineable coal deposits too."
"So the 'Hongji coal' we use isn't actually from Hongji proper?"
"'Hongji coal' is just a commercial designation," Bei Kai explained. "It means coal shipped out through Hongji. In reality, it comes from Quang Ninh—called Guang'an in the old timeline. Genuine Hongji coal should come from Cam Pha, which hosts the largest open pit in the greater Hongji mining region."
Yan Maoda looked around, thinking. The site was four kilometers from the sea; they would need a small railway to improve transport efficiency. Washing coal on-site would be ideal—river water was available. After some consideration, he asked: "How much coal can this pit yield?"
"Bai Guoshi reviewed our data and estimated at least forty to fifty thousand tons extractable—and that's a conservative figure."
"Fifty thousand tons!" Yan Maoda mused that in the old timeline, such a number was trivial. A 200-megawatt thermal power plant burned over forty tons per hour at peak load; fifty thousand would be two months' consumption at most. But for Lingao's fledgling industrial system, it represented a massive resource. Particularly since Hongji coal was high-calorific anthracite, far superior to the inferior Guangdong lignite they currently relied upon. It could fill a critical gap in coal-chemical feedstock—the Chemical Ministry's coking plant currently operated at only forty percent capacity, throttled by coal shortages.
"At a hundred tons a day, that's three thousand tons per month," Yan Maoda calculated. "Enough for seven or eight months."
"A hundred tons a day is too conservative. Wu De won't be satisfied." Bei Kai had already thought this through. "Using carts and light rails—even without animal power or other machinery—each miner can extract a ton to a ton and a half daily. A hundred workers with shovels can easily manage that output. I'm thinking at least two hundred tons per day. That's a production level the Executive Committee will find justifies developing Hongji. They might even allocate mechanized equipment, which could push us to five hundred tons daily."
"At two hundred tons a day, Cat Shit No. 1 only lasts three months. Then what—move inland?"
Bei Kai had prepared for this question. "Those three months give us time to continue exploring. The ground here is riddled with coal; I'm confident we can locate other open pits nearby. Also, the fifty thousand tons is just the open-pit reserve. If we dig deeper, there are additional seams—though at higher investment cost."
"In the long run, we'll eventually need to control the entire Hongji-Cam Pha region." Yan Maoda settled onto a rock beside the pit, contemplating the black water below. "How will you address the labor shortage?"
"We'll send a batch of naturalized miners as a core workforce, then recruit locally." Bei Kai had considered this as well. "Zhu Fuyuan says farming life around here is brutal. Arable land near Hongji is scarce; they grow dry rice with poor yields, and taxes aren't light. Two crops of dry rice and one of miscellaneous grain barely keep bellies from going empty—people starve every year. We should be able to recruit plenty of willing hands. The problem is we still know too little about Tonkin's local conditions."
(End of Chapter)