Australian Storm 1876

  Chapter 738 Kunpeng One

The "surabaya tragedy" that occurred on the island of Java did not affect the remaining itinerary of King Li Fushou. After inspecting East Kalimantan, he led a group of high-level government officials to inspect South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan. State, passing through North Kalimantan and finally arriving at Lanfang State.

  Everything I saw along the way made him quite satisfied.

Before the development of the large chemical industry, the entire Borneo was dominated by agricultural economy and characteristic plantations, rich in spices, natural rubber and rice and other crops, especially in Central Kalimantan, which arrived in Sampit from the port of Semuda to the north. City, more than a hundred kilometers southeast to Palangkaraya, tens of thousands of square kilometers are contiguous rice-producing areas.

There are abundant water sources and ravines, and irrigation water conservancy facilities are connected into a network. It is the second largest rice granary after the Qingshui River Basin. It supplies the food needs of more and more people in the Ocean Kingdom. There is still room to export to Java and other places, and the basis for agricultural production Already quite solid.

In North Kalimantan, large areas of rubber plantations and sugarcane forests have been reclaimed, and have become an important base for the export of characteristic cash crops in the region. On this basis, more rubber plantations are being developed to cope with the increasing number. need.

   until the end of 1896

Borneo under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Oceans has a population of more than 4.3 million, 16 million acres of fertile land, 24,000 kilometers of roads, 660 kilometers of railways, more than 8,700 kilometers of irrigation rivers and backbone ditches, and more than 800 bridges and culverts. There are 17 coastal ports, and the infrastructure construction is connected in a network, which effectively guarantees agricultural production and lays a solid foundation for the next development.

Overall

The Ocean Kingdom’s development of Borneo is still far from adequate. Most of them are concentrated within 100 kilometers of the coast. Only the grain production area of ​​Central Kalimantan from Sampit to Palangkaraya goes deep inland, reaching the farthest Even more than 270 kilometers of narrow strip along the river.

The developed area occupies 12% of the area of ​​Borneo (owned by the Ocean Kingdom). A large inland area is still covered by tropical virgin rain forests that have not been visited for thousands of years. This endless green ocean is still waiting to be developed. Be exploited.

  At the end of 1896, King Li Fushou ended his one-and-a-half month expedition to Borneo and returned to Australia by boat.

  At this time, the patrol's Borneo fleet off Batavia has returned and completed the deterrent cruise mission.

  The stern signal sent from here was quickly received by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which made them terrified.

The Government of the Dutch East Indies’ reckless behavior to indulge the local indigenous people’s abuse of Chinese immigrants has been stopped by an emergency order from Amsterdam, ordering it to immediately strengthen security control in the Surabaya area, severely suppress the local indigenous riots, and reasonably compensate local Chinese merchants for their losses, as far as possible. Seek the understanding of the Ocean Kingdom to avoid unbearable things.

A crisis was resolved. On January 11, 1897, Zheng Yunsong, the diplomatic representative of the Consulate of the Kingdom of Oceans in Batavia, signed the "Memorandum of Understanding on the Aftermath of the Surabaya Incident" with the Administrative Officer of the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies. Referred to as "Sabaya Memorandum". Among them, Batavia, Surabaya and other cities with large populations of Chinese descent are designated as areas of special concern for the Ocean Kingdom.

The Ocean Kingdom has special interests in the above-mentioned areas. The Chinese groups, including citizens of the Ocean Kingdom, have equal and fair rights in business, property purchase, justice, and personal and property safety. The Dutch East Indies have made a solemn guarantee to Effectively strengthen regional public security.

  The Surabaya incident ended with the powerful oppression of the Governor’s Mansion by the Ocean Kingdom and was forced to humiliately sign the Surabaya Memorandum. This is no less than a loud slap in the face. The consequences can be imagined.

The current Governor-General Van Helsma-Buffon was impeached by the Parliament of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The governor’s term has hurriedly ended. The new Governor-General is on the way to arrive by boat. I am afraid that Viscount Van Helsma-Buffon has returned home in a humble manner. Would be great.

  But this has nothing to do with the Ocean Kingdom. After this matter was publicized by Australian local public opinion, it set off another round of patriotic upsurge in China. Citizens are deeply proud of the strength of the country and greatly deepen the sense of belonging.

  Current citizens who go to overseas countries will repeatedly emphasize their official status as citizens of the Ocean Kingdom, and are reluctant to mention the Manchu dynasty in the old days. What they bring is only humiliation and blindness.

  End of February 1897

  The Qing court issued the Emperor Guangxu’s Zhao Decree, which was then awarded the title of Prince Gu Yanchuan, the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and awarded the scholar of Wenhua Temple, the first-class perseverance earl, in order to reward his merits.

  Because of his advanced age and lack of physical strength, he should be removed from the post of the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi and returned to his hometown for support.

  I hereby appoint Gu Zhixue as the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. You should guard southern Xinjiang conscientiously and be loyal to the monarch, and you will live up to the trust of the Lian...

  This late appointment to the court broke the silence for nearly half a year, and finally let Li Fushou, who was far away in the Ocean Kingdom, breathed a sigh of relief. After half a year of hard work, the court was not in vain. The court was softened.

  Although there is no clear order to open the sea, for those shrewd and slick governors everywhere, this imperial appointment is no less than a beacon.

  If you don’t know how to do it anymore, that would be really stupid.

  The current situation is very clear. The imperial court only promises in front of foreigners. Even if the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi Gu Yanchuan acted so recklessly, he still got a good place to be promoted and promoted.

  Gu Zhixue took over as the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. He sat in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions to listen to the announcement. With 70,000 new troops in his hand, he seemed to have become the hegemon of one party, making people doubt whether the Guangdong and Guangxi regions belonged to the court or the Gu family.

  However, this is the weird scene that happened in China at the end of the century, and the prestige of the imperial court was greatly affected.

  In the Guangdong and Guangxi regions, there is a faint rising momentum to become the leader of the Southeastern provinces.

  Under the leadership of the secret forces, the governors of the southeast provinces tacitly relaxed the imperial ban on the sea. The immigration process is slowly recovering, but it will take time to return to the scale of 1895.

  The huge and bloated Qing empire reacted slowly, coupled with the prevalence of bureaucracy, exorbitant taxes and levies, the government's horrible slowness, and the suffering of the civilians were simply not considered.

  Even if the immigration department is desperate, it can only succumb to reality and get through one link after another step by step.

This has had a serious impact on the Ocean Kingdom. From January to March 1897, the total number of immigrants was only 46,600, which was only 1/9 of the previous year. With the efforts of the immigration department, it is expected that the second quarter and the third quarter will be Resuming growth occurred.

  Considering the full protection of the construction of the large chemical industry, all the current Chinese immigrants are all invested in the Balikpapan area to meet the demand for a large amount of labor in the blooming construction projects and ensure the smooth progress of the kingdom's number one key project.

  The absence of immigrants for three months has directly led to a substantial increase in the wages of local employees in Australia, and the impact will be transmitted to overseas states. There is a shortage of labor markets in various places, and wages have increased significantly in varying degrees.

  Eat one bite more and you will endure it, and one bite less will make you hungry. The market's reaction is so direct and rude, completely unreasonable.

  In April 1897, the Greek-Turkish War broke out.

  The Greek-Turkish War was a war between the Kingdom of Greece and the Ottoman Empire to fight for the island of Crete.

As early as May 1896, the Greeks on Crete launched an armed uprising in order to get rid of the cruel oppression of the Ottoman Empire and to merge into Greece. In November of the same year, the Ottoman Empire declared war on the Cretans as an answer.

In February 1897, a force of the Kingdom of Greece came to assist the local descendants of the uprising. Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, the Oceanic Kingdoms and the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared that Crete was autonomous under the "protection of Europe." The position is very obvious, and the intention to dismember the "Sick Man of West Asia" Ottoman Empire is not concealed at all.

  On April 5th, Greece sent landing troops to occupy the island. The Ottoman Empire immediately declared war on the Kingdom of Greece, and the Greek-Turkish War officially broke out.

  These messy things in Europe Li Fushou doesn't care. There will be a battle there every other time, and when it hardly stops, what he cares about now is another matter.

On April 9, 1897, at the "Winners Cup First Power Aircraft Design Grand Prix" held in Brisbane, the two-wing powered aircraft designed by the Chinese engineer Fu Changge and Fu Changsheng brothers was named "Kunpeng No. 1". A 270-meter-long powered flight was carried out at the flight site. This is considered the world's first aircraft flight and went down in history. It won the Grand Prix 5000 Golden Ocean Award and won the "Winner's Cup."

  Li Fushou turned over the resumes of the Chinese engineer Fu Changge and the brothers Fu Changsheng. The father of the two was an early Chinese immigrant named Fu Dexing. He ran a small inland river shipyard in Songjiang City with relatively rich living conditions.

  Fu Changge, the brothers of Fu Changsheng immigrated to Australia in 1883. They were 13 years old and 9 years old. They belonged to relatives.

  The two brothers had been in the shipyard since they were young, and they became very interested in mechanical design. When they grew up, they were admitted to the mechanical design major of Red River Valley University as an engineer and worked in the design department of the Phoenix Bicycle Factory.

In Australia

  The glider movement from the West is nothing new. Fu Changge and Fu Changsheng are both senior members of the Songjiang Long-Sky Glider Club and have hundreds of glider flying experiences.

  In recent years, the various design dreams and blueprints of powered airplanes imported from the West have been widely known in the glider club, and many interested people have started to study. Fu Changge and Fu Changsheng brothers are one of them.

  Thanks to the government's preferential policies to guide the development of science and technology, the two brothers had received 200 Jinyang scientific research funding from the "National Science and Technology Innovation Fund". Although the money was not much, it greatly encouraged the enthusiasm of scientists and technicians.

  The real opportunity for qualitative change was the announcement by the government to hold the "Winners Cup First Power Aircraft Design Grand Prix", which caused great repercussions in the Kingdom, attracting hundreds of technological innovators to participate in the competition, and dozens of aircraft design schemes appeared.

It is precisely because of previous accumulation that Fu Changge and Fu Changsheng, with their solid engineering skills, designed the upper and lower wings to expand the wing area on the basis of the glider, and used Volkswagen’s 16-horsepower gasoline engine as power. After the first technical verification and field flight, a year later, the "Kunpeng 1" biplane was finally successfully designed.

  This is 6 years ahead of the original history when the Wright brothers designed the first aircraft in 1903.

  Li Fushou touched his chin interestingly, with a sense of accomplishment flooding his mind.

  A careless one, he changed history again.

It seems that as long as they point the right direction, the hardworking Chinese technologists are not lacking in creativity. The world's first inflatable bicycle, tractor, car, tank, and aircraft all came from Australia. , Dayang Kingdom has become one of the powerful countries in mechanical technology.

  Red River Valley University’s Institute of Science and Technology is the world’s top science and engineering institution, and has made a great reputation in the world of science and technology. The famous diesel engine power laboratory is well-known overseas and is recognized as an authority in the industry.

  The innovative gearbox technology laboratory is also famous. It has developed a series of high-tech products such as three-speed gearboxes and clutches, which have been quickly put into industrial applications and achieved dazzling economic returns.

As an emerging world power in machinery technology, Ocean Kingdom is second only to Germany and the United States in this field. Due to its population size and technological heritage, what it lacks is only a single category of machinery technology, not a leader in the entire field of machinery equipment and manufacturing. .

  Even so, I am proud of it.

   Through the intervention of science and technology policy, Li Fushou incubated many important scientific and technological achievements ahead of time. This made him happy, but he also felt a sense of uncertainty and anxiety about the future.

  The incitement of butterfly wings greatly reduced his foresight advantage.

  If there is no follow-up strong support, these scientific and technological achievements incubated in advance will guide the world, which is an issue that must be paid attention to.

  Finger count

  The birth of the world’s first inflatable bicycle, Dayang Kingdom has formed many bicycle brands. In the market competition, a hundred flowers bloom, and the products are exported to Europe and the United States and are widely popular.

  There are two crucial factors. The first is that Goodyear Rubber Company holds many patents on air tires. Although there have been many infringers in Citi, they have seized a considerable part of the market.

  However, this issue is not a concern, and let him run wild for a while. After many years, it will naturally be possible to settle accounts after the fall, so that these infringers can spit out even the profits.

  The second is the natural rubber resource advantage of the Ocean Kingdom. Located in the endless natural rubber plantations in the Jinshui River Basin and North Kalimantan, it is the kingdom's sufficient confidence to develop the tire and rubber industry.

According to the statistics

The Ocean Kingdom’s natural rubber accounts for 72% of the world’s output, Malaya under the British Straits Governor’s House, Penang and other places account for 13%, Northern Thailand accounts for 4.2%, Central America accounts for 6.59%, and other scattered tropical regions account for the remaining production share. .

It can be seen from the distribution of resources that natural rubber plantations are basically distributed along the equator. Except for a few areas in Central America, most of the production is concentrated in the Ocean Kingdom and the British Straits Settlements, accounting for 85% of the total. Nearly 90% in Northern Thailand.

  Now in the overseas states of the Ocean Kingdom, the developing 3-8-year rubber plantations are gradually entering the rubber tapping period, which will further promote the production of natural rubber, increase the share, and effectively protect the development of the tire industry and the natural rubber industry.

  This is a resource advantage that other regions can’t catch up with no matter how much they can’t catch up with it.

  Natural rubber trees are not random plants. They have very high requirements for climate, rainfall and sunshine. The closer to the equator, the more obvious geographical advantages, the higher the yield, and the better the quality of natural rubber.

  It can grow in other places, but don’t demand too much quality.

The development of automobiles, tractors and other industries has benefited from this. The Kingdom of Oceans imposes a heavy resource tax on the export of natural rubber, with a tax rate as high as 78%. This makes the export of natural rubber puree unprofitable. Exporting can reasonably avoid taxes and earn more profits.

  For capitalists, what to do is self-evident.

  The lack of natural rubber resources, coupled with the lack of core patented technology, made it impossible for industrial countries such as the United States, Germany and France to develop and expand the automobile and tractor industries. They were gradually left behind by the Kingdom of Oceans, and the distance was getting farther and farther.

  (End of this chapter)