nucmednet Chapter 9 The Road to Wealth
Chapter 9 The Road to Wealth
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For the past month, Liu Ye and Liang Xiaoming have been working tirelessly. After a month of research by Liang Xiaoming, they believe that production can begin as soon as they have more funding.
Liu Ye felt that relying on the existing salt fields and the windfall gained from attacking Tangjiazhuang was insufficient to support the continued development of the military industry. Making guns and cannons was not as simple as building a workshop and hammering a few times; it involved skilled craftsmen, qualified iron ore or pig iron, iron smelting industry, and long-term capital investment.
Without quality assurance, qualified raw materials, an iron smelting industry, and sufficient capital investment, the resulting guns and cannons would be a tragedy. The arquebuses of the Ming Dynasty are a perfect example of this. In fact, high-quality arquebuses were considered decent firearms at the time, but due to insufficient military spending from the imperial court, embezzlement by officials at all levels of the Ministry of Works, and the lack of strict quality control, craftsmen cut corners, and the frequent barrel explosions of the arquebuses produced. As a result, although a large number of arquebuses were issued to the army at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the soldiers were unwilling to use them.
They accepted Liu Ye's plan to maintain the saltworks' current profitability, develop new profit growth points, and at the same time try to mine iron ore.
Liu Ye's plan was to establish salt fields and a new source of income, and then, after developing iron ore, launch a large-scale firearms project. Mining iron ore himself would ensure a stable supply of materials and put his fate in his own hands—in this timeline, pig iron was a strategic resource, and it was difficult to purchase enough to manufacture firearms.
When talking about mining and iron smelting, Liang Xiaoming became proud, as this was his specialty. He told Liu Ye, "God is still very kind to us. Hainan Island has China's largest open-pit iron mine—Shilu Iron Mine, and the ore grade is quite high, averaging 51.2% and reaching as high as 69%. The iron ore reserves are about 3 million tons. Most importantly, it is an open-pit mine, so with our current conditions, we can mine it on a large scale."
Liu Ye wasn't very knowledgeable in this area, but he grasped two key points in Liang Xiaoming's words—location and open-pit mining. "So, Hainan Island has easily exploitable rich mines?"
"That's it simply."
Where exactly is it?
"At that time, we were in Shilu Town, Changjiang County. I don't know what it was called in the Ming Dynasty. It wasn't too far from Lingao."
"Yes!" Liu Ye clenched his fist, this was probably the most celebratory thing since he transmigrated.
After determining the general direction and the iron ore issue, the next step was to explore new sources of revenue.
When this topic came up, Liang Xiaoming's interest waned noticeably. Clearly, this wasn't his area of interest, and he casually replied, "In ancient times, there weren't any high-tech industries like yours. It was all about food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. Making money wasn't that easy."
Liu Ye agreed, noting that he came from a high-tech background and wasn't very familiar with traditional industries, let alone those from ancient times.
In ancient times, food was limited to restaurants and eateries, but there were no chain stores, and no merchant in history became wealthy by opening a restaurant or eatery. Clothing was simply clothing; there was no concept of ready-made clothes in ancient times, and people bought cloth and sewed their own clothes. As for lodging, ancient inns combined the functions of restaurants and hotels, and there was no prospect of making money from them. Finally, transportation was completely ignored by Liu Ye, as there were no cars, trains, or airplanes in those days.