Chapter 231 Shenyang Arsenal

In the months from the end of 1906 to the beginning of 1907, Zhao Dongyun returned to Fengtian and devoted his main focus on the internal area rectification. Militaryly, he filled the three divisions and five brigades, and used limited troops to deploy the three eastern provinces, and reorganized the patrol forces into 12 patrol regiments of nearly 20,000 people. At the same time It also carried out the suppression of a large number of bandits in the eastern three provinces, increasing the actual combat experience for the troops and eliminating local bandits.

In terms of government affairs, he set up a patrol envoy of the three eastern provinces. At the same time, he also established a number of new administrative institutions in accordance with the current situation, thus laying the foundation for the modern military and political administrative institutions of the three eastern provinces. Headed by the inspection envoys of the three eastern three provinces, the army headquarters and the government council of the three eastern three provinces are established side by side by side, and there is a secretariat. When the central and inspection offices serve as judicial supervision, an administrative system composed of military, civilian, central and judicial services has been formed.

Economically, Zhao Dongyun established Fengtian Bank and launched Fengtian Silver Dollar and Fengtian*. At the same time, he also vigorously supported the private financial industry and promoted the modern bank reform of traditional tickets and banks.

In terms of industry and commerce, in addition to continuing to develop the Huludao Industrial Zone, he also organized the Yingkou Industrial Zone and shouted the slogan of building a world-class soybean industrial base. Based on a large number of potatoes in Northeast China, he further developed the soybean processing industry and exported the two main processed products of soybeans: soybean flour and soybean oil to Japan. Ben and Europe exchange extremely valuable foreign exchange income for the three eastern provinces.

In addition to the in-depth development of the soybean industry, Zhao Dongyun will naturally not give up or despise other industries, such as the textile industry. This industry has been a key industrial project supported by the three eastern provinces in the past two years. The Bureau of Industry and Commerce has set two major goals, one is to focus on the development of the silk industry in the Andong region. Although the raw silk industry in the Andong region is not as large as that of Zhejiang and Jiangsu in the south, it is barely enough in the northern region, and raw silk is one of the few products in contemporary China that can export a large number of foreign exchange, so regardless of the scale, after development, you can make as much foreign exchange as you can.

The second is to focus on the development of the cotton textile industry with Huludao Industrial Zone as the core, including a series of cotton textile products such as spinning, weaving and dyeing cloth. However, the cotton industry is under great pressure. They should not only compete with Japanese, British and other foreign fabrics, but also have to compete with southern domestic textile represented by southern Nantong earth cloth. Competition in the weaving industry.

The two major industries, soybean and textile, are the main pillar industries of Zhao Dongyun's current and future Eastern Three Provinces. In addition to these two major industries, there are also papermaking, flour, brewing, mining, machinery, chemical and other industries. However, these are not large and cannot become the economic pillars of the three eastern provinces for the time being.

Today's three eastern provinces are not heavy industrial bases for later generations, but a very typical agricultural economic area. Their main products are actually not steel and coal, but wheat and soybeans, and the development of industry actually mainly depends on these two agricultural products.

Zhao Dongyun doesn't want to get a few super-large steel mills and engage in heavy industry, but the problem is that he has no money to invest. Even if he has money to invest when he takes a step back, who will he sell the cultivated steel?

Any industrial production must be supported by the market. It is impossible to say that Zhao Dongyun opened his mouth and waved his hand to build a large number of factories, and then these factories can produce products to make taxes for him. The products produced by these factories must still have a market.

Take the cloth that people are most familiar with as an example. The cloth produced is not sold. You also have to compete with the cloth of foreign cloth and other domestic merchants.

Besides, domestic steel consumption these days mainly focuses on two aspects, one is railway and the other is military industry. As for other private steel consumption, it is almost negligible, and there is not much military industry. The affiliated steel factory of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, that is, Tangshan Iron and Steel Factory, can fully meet Fuyuan Machinery Factory. The reason why Fuyuan Machinery Factory still needs to import a lot of steel materials is that the materials that need to be imported are high-quality alloy steel, such as gun pipe materials, which cannot be refined in China, including Tangshan Iron and Steel Factory.

In terms of railways needed for railways, there are not many railways built in China. The railways of the Beijing-Han Railway in the south and the Guangdong-Han Railway are all occupied by Hanyang Iron and Steel Factory, while the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway in the north and the two straight-line railways in the three eastern provinces are occupied by Tangshan Iron and Steel Works.

In terms of civilian iron, the situation in Northeast China is relatively good. The Huludao Republic Zone and Yingkou Industrial Zone vigorously developed by Zhao Dongyun require a lot of steel, but these quantities can already be met by Tangshan Iron and Steel Factory.

Tangshan Iron and Steel Factory, which is also the affiliated steel factory of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, has a large investment scale. After several years of investment, Fuyuan Machinery Factory has invested more than 3 million taels of silver. Although the production capacity is not as good as Hanyang Steel Factory, it is also the second largest steel mill in China.

Although the factory is prepared as an affiliated steel factory of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, its steel output is too large, and Fuyuan Machinery Factory can only digest part of it. Most of it is still digested by the rails required by the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway and several railways in the three eastern provinces. To be honest, if there is no Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway and the current standard rail transformation Supported by the two major markets of Feng Railway, the Tangshan Machinery Factory will fall into an embarrassing situation of stopping production as soon as it is completed.

Therefore, when the market is not large and there is already a Tangshan steel factory, Zhao Dongyun can no longer invest millions of silver to build a steel plant and compete with Tangshan steel plants, so at present, the steel industry is not Zhao Dongyun's priority development industry.

Of course, not giving priority to the development of steel does not mean that Zhao Dongyun will not develop other heavy industries, such as the coal industry. Why? Because there is a market for coal to be excavated. Nowadays, industries at home and abroad can be said to be the steam industry. Coal is needed for the operation of trains, coal is needed for the operation of factories, and coal is also needed for the operation of ships. The domestic coal market has been continuously expanding. Even if there are several large coal factories in Tangshan, Zhao Dong Yun still decided to develop coal on a large scale in Fengtian to supply Huludao Industrial Zone and the future Yingkou Industrial Zone.

Its key development is Fushun. During the Russo-Japanese War, Fushun produced a large amount of coal, and its coal was widely used in the Russian army, and the Russian army also stationed a considerable number of troops in Fushun. Because the Japanese army on the front line of Liaoyang has not been able to make a breakthrough, Fushun has always been under the control of the Russian army. After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian army withdrew and the mines in Fushun resumed normal operation, and Zhao Dongyun also set up the Fushun Mining Bureau in Fushun to comprehensively manage coal mine production in the region.

and introduced Beiyang Luanzhou Mining Company, which is one of the two predecessors of the famous Kailuan Coal Mine in history. However, the company is different from history. Historically, the company is officially run, but due to the addition of Fuyuan Company, the company has become a commercial enterprise. It's just that like many commercial enterprises, there is a clause that foreigners are not allowed to participate in shares directly or indirectly. This mining company was mainly founded by the joint venture capital of Tianjin Official Bank and Fuyuan Company sponsored by Zhou Xuexi.

In addition to introducing Luanzhou Mining Company to set up a branch factory in Fushun, Zhao Dongyun also instructed the Mining Department under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to jointly invest with Fuyuan Company and several other businessmen to establish Fushun Coal Mine, and directly annexed several small coal mining companies in Fushun, such as Huaxingli Company hosted by Wang Chengxiao.

Even in order to develop Fushun's coal, Fengtian Railway Company also invested in the construction of a branch railway from Fengtian to Fushun.

If Zhao Dongyun says that there is only limited support for the coal industry, then he can be regarded as full support for the military industry.

Because Zhao Dongyun, like Yuan Shikai in those years, wanted to run an arsenal but had no money. If he wanted to set up an arsenal of the same size as Fuyuan Machine Factory, he had to invest at least three or five million taels of silver in hardware alone to purchase equipment, and the Finance Bureau of the three eastern provinces now even takes 4 million military expenses needed to expand the army. If you don't come out, there is money to build an arsenal, so you have to follow the old way of doing business.

In those years, if Fuyuan Machinery Factory had not been engaged in business and introduced a large amount of northern capital, this arsenal with assets of more than 10 million taels of silver could not have been built by Beiyang or Zhao Dongyun himself.

So he used administrative means to force Fuyuan Machinery Factory to withdraw funds and set up a branch factory in Shenyang. However, the investment in setting up a branch factory is often more than millions. Fuyuan Machinery Factory could not take out so much cash for a while. Zhao Dongyun asked Fengtian Bank to provide them with loan support and set up a line to find a real one. The merchants of power join forces together.

Finally, Fuyuan Machinery Factory accounted for 60% of the shares, and other merchants accounted for 40% of the investment proportion of the shares.

It took a lot of effort to set up the Shenyang Arsenal. At present, it has entered the stage of building factories and installing a small number of equipment, and more equipment has been ordered in the United Kingdom, Germany and even the United States, and can be shipped to China for installation and commissioning in the next few months. It is expected to be able to be produced on a small scale at the beginning of next year. As for achieving the design output, it will happen after the year after next.

In addition to the Shenyang Arsenal being prepared, Zhao Dongyun also set up three repair stations within the army, namely Harbin Repair Institute, Jinzhou Repair Institute and Shenyang Repair Institute. These three repair houses have accepted some old equipment and personnel from some official arsenals and other enterprises in Northeast China before the Qing Dynasty. Naturally, the technology and scale cannot be large, but it is still not a big problem to repair firearms. You can't take them to Fuyuan Machinery Factory to repair them if the rifles are broken.

When Zhao Dongyun developed industry and commerce in the northeast and expanded his army, Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen's troops are now fighting in Liangjiang, Huguang and the Southern Federation.