Chongzhen Undergraduates

"Okay! I want you to start production at full capacity after testing the water for one month. After one year and six months, I want to see six ironclad ships sailing before my eyes." Zhu Youjian said.

"Yes!"

Chapter 751: Canal Construction Site

Panama is a bit hot because it is very close to the equator, but not too hot because it has a tropical maritime climate.

Panama has only a rainy season and a dry season, with a lot of precipitation.

Daming still underestimated the difficulty of construction in Panama, especially the earthwork excavation project.The construction site, which was still dry just now, turned into a swamp after a heavy rain, and the muddy site could not be constructed at all.If this kind of scene is placed in later generations, it will have no effect on bulldozers and excavators, but this is in the seventeenth century, and there is no machinery for earth and stone excavation.

"Manager Zhu, what should we do now?" A young man was obviously inexperienced and stood there dumbfounded.

In front of him stood a technician in his forties, who looked like an experienced project manager in appearance.This person is the prince Zhu Cihong.

"The construction plan must be changed, and the drainage canal must be opened to go downstream first, otherwise we will not be able to do anything if there is heavy rain every day." Zhu Cihong said, pointing to the piece of construction in front of him.

The project at this time is not a refined construction, and there is no need to read the drawings at all.The canal is so wide that there is no need to build slope protection on both sides of the canal. All they have to dig is a channel.This is why Zhu Youjian dared to let Daming undertake the excavation of the Panama Canal.

"Changing the construction plan means increasing the number of laborers. Is our expenditure enough?" Xiao Tech said.

"We have to do it even at a loss. This is the image project of our Daming." Zhu Cihong said.

The laborers on the canal construction site were mainly blacks and South American natives. Some of these people were men and women, and they were all driven into the construction site to work day and night.There are a hundred thousand people.

According to the contract, the management of these people is still owned by a security company founded by the Spaniards. To put it bluntly, they are slave owners.But Daming needs to pay these laborers wages. Although the wages themselves are not high, they cannot do without.

Before, the money was paid directly to the security company, but after Zhu Cihong came, the money was required to be paid directly to the slaves themselves.Today is the day when wages are paid, so Zhu Cihong is also quite busy.

The laborers were asked to line up, go to a work shed one by one, and press their fingerprints on the roster.

"What name is this? Why is it A, A, B, or C? This is a serial number, not a name." Zhu Cihong stared at the roster.

"But this is the roster given to us by the Spaniards." The accountant was also helpless.

"What's your name?" Zhu Cihong pointed to a black slave at the front and asked.

"...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...￥..." The slave chattered for a long time, but Zhu Cihong didn't hear what he was talking about.

"Hey, those smart people are really stupid. They thought that giving money to these stupid pigs would work. These people took the money and didn't spend it with each other." A group of Spanish supervisors were gathering together in twos and threes, and they were talking. From time to time, the contents of the book drifted into Zhu Cihong's ears.

"Manager, do you want to continue posting?" the accountant looked at Zhu Cihong and asked.

"Send it! But you can't send Mexican silver dollars. You pay wages according to Ming's banknotes." Zhu Cihong said.

The payment of wages began, and the slaves pressed their fingerprints on the roster one by one with a blank face, and then received a few thin sheets of colorful paper.None of them knew what these exquisite papers were for. Some licked them with their tongues, thinking they would be sweet;

"Crack, crack!" A whip whipped over.

"Hand over everything." The vicious Spaniard brandished his whip, forcing the slaves to hand over the hard-earned money they just got.

When the slaves saw the whip, they immediately squatted on the ground with their heads in their hands, and some of them were clever enough to avoid it.And the banknotes in these people's hands were confiscated by the Spaniards one by one.

"Manager, will you still send it next month?" the accountant asked helplessly.

"Continue to pay, but starting from next month, the wages of each worker cannot be the same, there must be differences. And the wages are paid in small notes, the more paper the better." Zhu Cihong said while observing the slaves their reaction.

Although most of the slaves handed over the money to the Spaniards, there were still two or three slaves who secretly hid a piece or two of money. It seems that some people still thought about rebelling.

Van Laogen's railway was built, and it was built on the left bank of the canal channel.Unlike what was imagined, this railway did not fully undertake the task of earth and stone transportation, but only the transportation system in it.What really plays a big role in excavation is the belt conveyor.

When the ten belt conveyors arrived in Panama, the whole project was on track and accelerated.The mechanical principle of the belt conveyor is not difficult, but the difficult thing is the material of the belt. Only Daming has developed rubber in depth, and the Spaniards have occupied South America for hundreds of years, and they have never thought of developing this technology.

"What's that thing? Why is it soft, long, and thicker than cowhide?" The Spaniard was amazed at Daming's new thing.

"It's called eucommia glue, and only Daming has it." The workers of Daming spoke in unison.

"That thing is expensive?" The Spaniard's eyes glowed with gold.

"It's not expensive. It's everywhere on every mountain in Ming Dynasty." Ming people replied.

"It's so disappointing." The Spaniard suddenly lost interest.

Is rubber expensive?For the current Daming, it is really not expensive.Because the rubber plantations in Nanyang have been successfully planted and are about to face a bumper harvest.At the same time, many breakthroughs have been made in the research and development of rubber materials, which are short of full application.

"Did you Daming people research the steam-generating machine?" a Spaniard asked.

"How is it possible, that thing was first invented by the British. As early as a thousand years ago, the Greeks had it. I saw it in the Bible." Another Spaniard rushed to answer.

Don't think that only Orientals like to put gold on their faces, in fact, Europeans are exactly the same.In the face of new things, they are now unwilling to admit that they are behind.

Mingren looked at the Spaniard's boring chat, smiled and walked away automatically.He was sure that these Spaniards were a group of country bumpkins, and they had no idea how far the application of steam engines in Daming had reached.

However, the use of a large number of machinery by the Ming Dynasty on the Panama construction site has already attracted the attention of the governor of New Spain, but what they are concerned about is not the power of this new machine, because the British have given them a copy of the blueprint for such a thing, and the Spaniards I think this thing is useless, it is better to buy it directly from the British.

What the Spaniards are concerned about is when the Panama Canal can be completed ahead of schedule.

"However, the main ship lock has not yet started, and the construction period cannot be calculated for the time being." The new Panamanian consul is reporting to the governor.

"You go and inform those damn Ming people to let them repair the ship locks. As for the waterway, as long as the ship can pass, it is acceptable to submerge more areas. In addition, urge the Ming people to loan gold, the more the better "The governor was smoking a new Cuban cigar, with his feet up on the desk, gesticulating leisurely.

Chapter 752: Gold and Tungsten

It's time for the monthly paycheck again.

This time, Zhu Cihong increased the original three distribution points to 15 on the grounds of delaying working hours.For a while, the entire canal construction site was full of laughter, because almost all the laborers could stop work at the same time and take a break.

"Mingren, your efficiency is too low, and this delay is all your money."

"Hahaha" A group of Spaniards got together and laughed at Zhu Cihong and his party who were passing by in an extremely arrogant manner.

The two guards beside Zhu Cihong were about to go up to teach them a lesson, but they were stopped by the prince.

"Don't do it, just pretend you don't understand."

Turning around, Zhu Cihong nodded towards the other party with a smile on his face. It was obvious that the other party thought that these celebrities could not understand Spanish at all.This is a small detail, but the more estranged you are, the more you can relax the other party's vigilance.

"Gentlemen, look at those pig-like Mings trying to communicate with slaves without our Spanish translators?!"

"Hahaha" the Spaniard's ridicule became louder and louder.

In the distance, a few Ming people did try to communicate with the slaves, but it is a fact that the two sides do not understand the language, and they gestured to each other, but they couldn't figure out why.

"Send your people out, keep an eye on the key slaves, and don't let the Spaniards see them." Zhu Cihong glanced in the direction of the Spaniards, and ordered his subordinates.

Soon, several Ming people quickly put on some dirty dark gray work clothes, and disappeared among the laborers.

The payment of wages was very slow. The Ming people not only required these slaves to mark their names on the roster, but also required them to check the amount on the spot, and the banknotes were all zero bills, which was quite inconvenient to count.Not to mention the illiterate slaves.So, the Spaniards discovered something that was enough to make them laugh: the Ming people were actually teaching the slaves to learn the simple mathematics of the decimal system.