Chapter 43: At the Foot of Cat Ear Mountain

Yan Maoda stood on the top of Cat Ear Mountain. This mountain was 400 meters high, with steep slopes and grotesque rocks, making it very difficult to climb. The reason Yan Maoda wanted to climb it was to get a bird’s-eye view of the terrain in this area.

Cat Ear Mountain was a landmark small mountain by the sea in Hon Gai. It was said that a “True Ancestor Emperor” had composed a “poem” here, and later a group of so-called “famous scholars,” “heroes,” and “outstanding figures” also composed “poems” here, so the local people also beautifully called it “Poem” Mountain. This mountain was also related to the Vietnamese revolution in the 1950s of the old timeline. According to some “revolutionary memoirs,” during the French rule of Vietnam, there was a flagpole on the top of the mountain. From the late 1940s to the early 1950s, every “May Day” and “September 2nd,” Viet Cong members would climb the mountain and hang the “national flag” on the flagpole at the top.

“We don’t need to hang a national flag here. We can build a lighthouse to guide ships into the port,” said the secretary next to Yan Maoda. He looked down at the land and the sea. Cat Ear Mountain was a rocky mountain, half of which protruded into Ha Long Bay. The coastline was dotted with hills and small mountains, and only at the foot of Cat Ear Mountain was there a long, narrow strip of flat land, two or three kilometers long, along the sea. The Hon Gai city of the old timeline was located here. And Hon Gai city was gradually built on the basis of the Hon Gai Coal Company established by the French.

“What river is that?” Yan Maoda asked, pointing to a wide river that entered the sea a few kilometers away.

“This is the Bach Dang River,” Bei Kai said. “It’s also called the White Vine River. It’s said that the Yuan army was defeated by Tran Hung Dao at this estuary.” Because he had studied Vietnamese, he also knew a lot about Vietnamese history.

“Oh, so it’s an ancient battlefield. It seems that an armed trading post also has great risks.” Yan Maoda looked at the rolling river water. The river was wide, dotted with sandbars. It was high tide now, and the rising tide was yellow water, while the river flow was greenish water, with a clear dividing line in the middle of the river, which was very spectacular.

“Where is a better place to set up the trading post?” Yan Maoda asked. As a member of the exploration team, Bei Kai had specially led a team here to explore and was very familiar with the surrounding geographical environment.

“The most suitable location, of course, is at the foot of the mountain, the Hon Gai city of the old timeline,” Bei Kai said, pointing. “There is flat land here, where we can build houses and yards. The port construction conditions are also good. We can also draw water from the Bach Dang River nearby for coal washing and daily life.”

“What about defense?” Yan Maoda was very concerned about this.

“Since it’s a trading post, the scale of the fortifications must be moderate, so as not to attract too much attention. Besides, if it’s really built too large and too strong, not only will it require a large layout, but it will also need more troops,” Bei Kai said, adjusting his hat. “Let’s try to use peaceful means. The Executive Committee’s intention now is not to fight a big battle here.”

Yan Maoda nodded, “Indeed. Let’s go down the mountain.”

At the foot of the mountain, the marines and sailors of the Zhennan had already started to build a temporary earthen enclosure on the shore, surrounded by a ditch filled with standard bamboo stakes. A watchtower built with prefabricated parts was under construction in full swing.

In the open space in the middle of the earthen enclosure was a wooden house built with prefabricated parts. This was Bei Kai’s residence and office. The marines responsible for security lived in a wooden barracks on the other side.

Bei Kai felt a little scared thinking that he would have to work and preside over the development in this earthen enclosure. Apart from 30 marines and a 12-pounder mountain howitzer, his most reliable thing was a 2-watt silicon radio, operated by his female servant. The thought of being alone on this desolate coastline was an indescribable fear. But he couldn’t back down now—if he let this opportunity to take charge slip away, it would be difficult to become a regional leader in the future.

“You’ll have to make do for now,” Yan Maoda said, probably also feeling that the facilities were a bit too simple. If ten thousand Vietnamese troops really came, Bei Kai would definitely be done for here. “I’ll arrange for ships to transport building materials, workers, and a garrison to you as soon as I get back.”

Bei Kai braced himself and played the hero, “It’s fine. With 30 marines and one cannon, it’s enough to deal with local bandits and pirates. The Northern Le Dynasty won’t be so bored as to launch a large army to deal with us.”

“It won’t take more than three or four days to send you all the materials for expanding the base—it’s a short sea journey from Lingao!” Yan Maoda tried his best to reassure him. “As soon as I get back to Lingao, I’ll have the Zhennan come back, and it will be at your disposal from now on. Zhang Da-bala is very familiar with the situation in Vietnam and will be a capable assistant.”

“That’s great.” Bei Kai was overjoyed. Having the Zhennan and Zhang Da-bala here would be much more reassuring—at the very least, he could escape by boat. He said, “Zhang Da-bala is familiar with both the sea and land routes here, a very useful talent.”

Yan Maoda looked around, “Where is the open-pit mine here?”

“The Cat Ear Mountain area is not an open-pit mining area.” Bei Kai had personally presided over the drilling of exploration pits when he came to Hon Gai last time and had first-hand information on the distribution of coal mines. “The underground of this entire Quang An area is almost all coal, but there are only a few open-pit mining areas. The largest open-pit mine is in Cam Pha—inland, about 15 kilometers from here.”

“So far? I thought it was right by the sea.”

“There is also coal by the sea,” Bei Kai said. “We drilled exploration pits last time.”

The results of the exploration pits showed that there were coal seams everywhere under the small hills in this area. The disadvantage was that most of them were buried relatively deep and required vertical shafts for mining. At that time, it took almost a week for Bei Kai to find an open-pit coal seam under a small hill 3.5 kilometers away from Cat Ear Mountain. The mining face was very small, with a maximum diameter of less than 400 meters, but it was buried very shallow, with an overburden of only 2 meters. It was the shallowest coal seam they had explored within a 5-kilometer radius of Cat Ear Mountain.

The two of them, escorted by marines, walked for more than 20 minutes on the overgrown wasteland. Fortunately, this was by the sea, the sea breeze was strong, the vegetation was not dense, and the grass was not high. Yan Maoda could still vaguely see the traces of the small path that had been opened up before. The deep ruts of the Zidian handcart could still be faintly identified in some places.

Walking to the foot of the small hill, they could see that a small circular pit had been dug here. The bottom of the pit was filled with water, forming a stagnant pool. The area around the pit was overgrown with weeds. It was clear that no one had been here since Bei Kai and his team left.

“We named this place Cat Shit Pit No. 1,” Bei Kai said with a laugh. “The coal quality is very good, all high-quality anthracite, with almost no impurities. At that time, the crew of our Great Whale took a week to dig a hundred tons of coal. Unfortunately, developing this place would require a major effort. We didn’t have the resources to invest at that time, and later Old Chang made an agreement with the Vo family to exchange sugar for coal—there are also many coal seams on Vo Ngoc Giap’s manor that can be mined.”

“So the Hon Gai coal we are using now is not actually produced in Hon Gai?”

“Hon Gai coal is just a commercial name,” Bei Kai had spent a lot of time in the exploration team and had been to Hon Gai before, so he knew a lot about the ins and outs. “It means coal transported from Hon Gai. In fact, it’s coal from Quang An—called Quang Ninh in this era. To be precise, the real Hon Gai coal should come from Cam Pha—the largest open-pit mine in the Hon Gai mining area.”

Yan Maoda looked at it. It was 4 kilometers from this pit to the sea. A small railway or something similar would be needed to improve the efficiency of coal transportation. It would be best to wash the coal on site—there was readily available river water here. He thought for a long time and asked, “How much coal can this pit produce?”

“Bai Guoshi looked at our exploration data and said that at least forty to fifty thousand tons can be mined—this is a conservative estimate.”

“Fifty thousand tons!” Yan Maoda thought that this number was insignificant in the old timeline—a 200,000-kilowatt medium-sized thermal power plant would consume more than 40 tons of coal per hour at peak load. Fifty thousand tons, even if fully mined, would only be consumed in two months. But for Lingao’s industrial system, it was an incredible resource. In particular, the coal here in Hon Gai was all high-calorific-value anthracite, which was much better in calorific value than the low-quality lignite from Guangdong that they were currently using. It could also play a big role in filling the gap in coal chemical raw materials—at present, the operation efficiency of the Chemical Department’s coal coking complex was not high, only reaching 40% of its designed production capacity. The lack of sufficient coal security was a bottleneck problem.

“If this pit is mined at a rate of 100 tons a day, that’s 3,000 tons a month. It can be mined for seven or eight months,” Yan Maoda calculated.

“100 tons a day is too low. Wu De will definitely not be satisfied,” Bei Kai said. “If we can use pushcarts and small rails, even without animal power and other tools and equipment, each miner can complete 1-1.2 tons of mining per day. 100 workers equipped with simple tools like shovels can do it. I think at least 200 tons a day. This way, the Executive Committee will feel that developing Hon Gai is fully meaningful. The Executive Committee might even allocate some mechanized equipment to assist in coal mining, so 500 tons a day is possible.”

“Even at 200 tons a day, Cat Shit Pit No. 1 can only be mined for three months. What about after that? Go deeper inland?”

Bei Kai had already made a plan, “We can continue to explore during these three months. The underground of this Quang Ninh area is full of coal. I believe we can still find other open-pit mines nearby. Besides, the fifty thousand tons of Cat Shit Pit No. 1 is the open-pit reserve. If we are willing to continue digging deeper, there are still coal seams to be mined. It’s just that the construction investment will be larger.”

“In the long run, we will eventually have to completely control the Hon Gai-Cam Pha area,” Yan Maoda said, sitting on a rock by the side of the pit, looking at the black water at the bottom of the pit. “How do you plan to solve the problem of miners?”

“First, send a batch of naturalized miners over to serve as the backbone, and then recruit some local people,” Bei Kai said. “Zhu Fuyuan said that the peasants here have a very hard life. There is little arable land in the Hon Gai area, and they all grow upland rice. The yield is low, and the taxes of the Le Dynasty are not light. Two crops of upland rice and one crop of miscellaneous grains are not enough to eat, and people starve to death every year. We should be able to recruit a lot of workers. It’s just that we know too little about this Bac Ky region.”