Chapter 438: Local Industrial Potential

“Every time I look at it, I’m amazed. It turns out the steel industry is the traditional pillar industry of Guangzhou Prefecture!” Liu Xiang had to sigh again after carefully reorganizing the data.

This was not a secret, but Liu Xiang rarely paid attention to historical materials of areas outside his jurisdiction. Now that he saw it, he was very surprised.

From the reorganized results, the current Guangzhou Prefecture, due to the long-term intervention of the Senate’s economic circle, had formed three major industrial clusters in the secondary industry: iron smelting, wood processing, and brewing. But among these three clusters, iron smelting was still the traditional pillar industry.

He opened the Great Library’s Compilation of Historical Materials on Guangzhou’s Economy, Industry, and Commerce. It turned out that the iron of Guangdong in this time was already very famous. The so-called “southern iron” and “Guangdong iron” referred to the pig iron produced by the small workshops here. And the smelting and casting industry of Foshan was historically very famous.

Zhanjiang had high-grade iron ore. After being collected, it was scattered into various small workshops along the West River, where it was smelted into iron ingots by traditional blacksmiths, and finally concentrated in Guangzhou Prefecture. The imperial court even set up an iron administration and an iron tax in Guangzhou Prefecture to specifically manage this industry.

Because the pig iron here was all smelted with charcoal, it was not mixed with a large amount of impurities like the pig iron smelted with coal in the north, especially without sulfur, so the quality of the pig iron was very high. Therefore, the Ming court tried to arrange for the casting of Hongyi cannons in Guangdong as much as possible.

The huge industrial appetite of Lingao had further expanded this traditional advantage industry—the Senate’s industrial system had always relied on importing pig iron from Guangdong for re-smelting to supply its steel needs before building its own blast furnace. Even now, with the existence of the Ma Niao Steel Company, the Planning Commission still imported a portion of high-quality pig iron from Guangdong for direct production.

The wood processing industry was directly driven by the Hong Kong shipyard. The standardized production model not only brought convenience to the Hong Kong shipyard, but the production capacity of various workshops that had undergone industrial transformation had also been greatly improved. In particular, the improvement of precision and the unification of weights and measures made it possible to realize large-scale cooperative production and subcontracting. In addition to the production of ship materials, which had the largest profit and could “learn the craft” the most, these old-style workshops also began to try to cooperatively produce some other products according to the “Australian craft.” However, they almost completely relied on orders from the Planning Commission, and their technical level and processing capacity were still very low. To further improve, it was necessary to carry out relevant technology transfer and increase processing equipment. The latter was difficult to achieve for the industrial departments whose production tasks were full. Therefore, Liu Xiang felt that the potential was not great.

The biggest impact was on the brewing industry, which was driven by the domestic and foreign sales of distilled spirits such as “Great Tang Princess,” “Peerless National Scholar,” and “Orchid Noble.” Due to the large-scale purchase of local brews, and the complete disregard for taste and only focusing on alcohol content, local brewing workshops sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain. Even farm households with some surplus grain—and there seemed to be many more such households since sweet potatoes were widely sold in Guangzhou Prefecture—would make a jar of local wine and keep it warm in their quilts, waiting for the people who collected local spirits to come and exchange it for some money.

With more people making wine, grain seemed to be more in demand. In the past two years, many families had switched to growing grain, especially sweet potatoes. It can be said that this has changed the agricultural structure around Guangzhou Prefecture, which was traditionally dominated by vegetables, aquaculture, and economic crops such as indigo and other plant-based dyes, to a certain extent. This was a huge impact that crossed a major industrial category!

“This is the power of industrialization! Even just the radiant heat from some industries can boil the water of a small-scale peasant economy society!”

“Vietnam and Ryukyu can also use this line of thinking!” Liu Xiang continued to deduce in his mind.

“Ryukyu…” Liu Xiang casually pulled out a map of East Asia and used the body of his pen to measure the length.

“Looking at the straight-line distance, Jeju and Ryukyu are actually about the same distance from Japan’s main trading ports. But the problem is that besides us, who dare to sail the Black Water Ocean, other sea merchants don’t dare! They will inevitably still follow the island chain north. Then the main function of these islands in Ryukyu should be as a cargo distribution center.”

Liu Xiang struggled for a long time between the Three Mountains Islands and the Amami Islands, and finally drew a red circle at the location of Naha Port.

“I’m still deeply influenced by ‘Daikoukai,’” Liu Xiang sighed again. “Sulfur…唉, forget it, fine-grained crushing is not something this small archipelago can do. Just pack it in boxes and ship it away.” Liu Xiang recalled the posts on the BBS that had once heatedly discussed the comprehensive utilization of sulfur. He found that he really did not have the ability to support a sulfur chemical industry with the unreliable output of manual collection from volcanic craters.

“If I were to work on this, I’m afraid I’d have to write about the advantages of a single-center star-shaped logistics system again. I wonder if those guys in logistics will endorse my ‘theory.’” Liu Xiang looked at the arc-shaped coastline of eastern China, and his confidence increased a little: with a shape like this, it would be a waste of transport capacity not to use a star-shaped logistics system!

“Vietnam, I feel there’s a high probability I’ll go to this place! Coal and grain, isn’t this situation the same as what I did in Qiongshan! It’s just that the Jiazi Coal Mine has been replaced by the Hongji Coal Mine. This full sense of familiarity!” Liu Xiang had spent the least amount of thought on Vietnam. Because from an industrial analysis, if he went to Vietnam, besides increasing the military proportion, the rest would just be an expanded version of Qiongshan County—and even more unscrupulous! After all, the Vietnamese were not “of the same culture and race” in Liu Xiang’s perception, so he could act more aggressively.

“However, I must make it clear that I will absolutely not implement a governor-general system in Vietnam!” Liu Xiang thought to himself again: “Many Elders are holding maps of the Han Dynasty and saying that the two lands of Northern and Central Vietnam are ‘historically’ the inherent territory of China, the nine true and Rinan commanderies. If we implement a governor-general system, will we also have to establish a governor-general’s office when we fight for the core territory of the ancient nine provinces in the future? This is purely starting off on the wrong foot and causing trouble for ourselves.” Liu Xiang sighed.

“When the three Lius left the capital, they abolished the provincial inspectorates and established provincial governorships. The chaos of the Yan Han began! Will the one who started it be without descendants!” Suddenly, his train of thought jumped to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Liu Xiang began to lament again.

Looking at the map, recalling the endless cycle of history of this land of Vietnam—internal annexation, submission, rebellion, independence—a certain person who claimed to be “the best in liberal arts among engineering students, the strongest in science among liberal arts students, and the best in engineering among science students” had already begun to conceive the “Declaration of War Against the Southern Yue Rebels.”

“…You hundred tribes of Southern Yue, before the Qin established the Guilin and Xiang commanderies, were all barbarians, disrespecting your ancestors, without written language, and without the name of a state. It was only when Zhao Tuo established himself that civilization began… And now, our Great Song’s Australian government-in-exile, the Senate, has specially dispatched an elite army of one hundred thousand, and ten thousand ships, to hunt in the land of Southern Yue, only to restore China and save the common people! You should follow the will of heaven and respond to the will of the people, and welcome the king’s army with food and drink…” Liu Xiang took a deep breath, pushed open the porthole, and shouted at the sea with the last sentence: “Do not say you were not warned!” After shouting, Liu Xiang instantly felt as if he had been buffed by a hundred buffs, and various light and shadow effects spewed out with the purpose of blinding all the pay-to-win dogs.

“Ba…baaaa…”

Liu Xiang was hit by the “direct death cute sound,” and his expression immediately softened.

“Miss! Are you the reinforcement sent by the monkey?” Liu Xiang, who was in a state of being unable to fight, took the little girl who had just woken up from her nap, tickling her and teasing her.

Guo Ling’er looked at the father and daughter, who were laughing happily, with a baffled expression.

“What monkey?” As soon as she asked, Guo Ling’er saw the few documents on the table, especially the map of the Indochina Peninsula that she had seen many times and was familiar with even if she wasn’t familiar with it. She instantly understood that her husband had been considering state affairs just now.

“Husband, the ship is about to arrive. Do you need to change your clothes?” Guo Ling’er asked as she tidied up the things on the table.

“Yes, raise my flag,” Liu Xiang nodded.

Ever since Old Ming had raised his admiral’s flag on the Lichun, the broad masses had expressed that such a thing that raised one’s “逼格 (bīgé - a slang term for ‘level of coolness’ or ‘class’)” should be popularized among all the Elders. In addition, with the encouragement of Elders like Hong Huangnan, who had been sparing no effort to promote the establishment of a college of arms, the Executive Committee did a favor and allowed each Elder to design their own coat of arms and flag. As soon as the document was issued, the five hundred members were like cold water being poured into hot oil. In an instant, the thresholds of the homes of various Elders related to art and design were worn down. Foreign artisans like Trini became even more popular.

The design Liu Xiang had for himself was not complicated. Originally, he had only planned to use a seal script character for “Liu.” But Liu was a common surname, and many Elders had the same surname. To make a distinction, Liu Xiang added a red dragon and a white python circling the outer ring, with the red on top and the white on the bottom—an allusion to the story of Gaozu slaying the white snake, the Red Emperor and the White Emperor. This practice was resolutely resisted by other Elders with the surname Liu. In the end, a compromise had to be made, which was that any Elder with the surname Liu could use this red dragon and white python mark if they wished.

Although the red dragon and white python were relatively complex, compared to the complex European-style coats of arms with various flowers, grasses, griffins, etc., designed by other Elders, it was already very simple and clear—at least it was not difficult for the refugees transported from Jiangnan to embroider the red dragon and white python. The embroideresses there were skilled workers in this area.

First, the Qiming flag was raised, then Liu Xiang’s personal flag. Liu Xiang stood on the deck with his daughter in his arms, enduring the setting sun, which was still extremely dazzling, and looked at the Elders’ exclusive pier in Lingao.

“I’m back again!” Liu Xiang sighed in his heart. Although he had returned to Lingao many times during his term in Qiongshan for work reports or to “lobby for funds,” he always felt as if there was a rubber band tied to his back, pulling him back after a short stay. This time, coming to Lingao, he truly felt a sense of “coming home.” Although new work would soon be piled on him, this time he would at least have a month or so to rest properly in Lingao.