Chapter 996 - Military Dogs

Lingao's water resources were insufficient for the long term, making it unsuitable as a major future industrial and agricultural base. Changhua possessed little arable land, but its freshwater, timber, and industrial mineral resources far exceeded Lingao's. The Changhua River's runoff alone totaled nine hundred million cubic meters, while all of Lingao County managed only seven hundred million. Developable hydropower resources reached forty thousand kilowatts—thirty times more than Lingao. Not to mention the local iron and copper deposits. Even just the cement rock resources held significant industrial potential.

"What? Planning to build irrigation works?" Fang Jinghan greeted Yan Quezhi.

"It's you all," Yan Quezhi seemed quite occupied. "Right now we lack the capacity to develop Changhua—resources must all be diverted to Taiwan. Industry still requires population. Having just resources and technology simply isn't enough."

"Then why did the Planning Bureau rush to send you here?" Fang Jinghan asked curiously.

"First, to train students," Yan Quezhi gestured toward several young students beside him operating Lingao-produced equipment and instruments. "Second, to assess whether we can utilize the Changhua River's water transport capacity—ship navigation is impossible, but floating timber rafts and similar approaches should work. Timber resources here are extremely abundant. Then there's also future ore transport to consider."

Though the Changhua River had limited navigational value, its water volume and hydropower potential both substantially exceeded Lingao's Wenlan River. According to twentieth-century data, the Changhua River's annual runoff was nine hundred million cubic meters, while all of Lingao County's runoff was only seven hundred million. Developable hydropower resources reached forty thousand kilowatts—thirty times more than Lingao. From the perspective of hydropower development, conditions were highly favorable. Unfortunately, no capacity for development existed in the short term.

"That said, water resources are also vital to us. Changhua's mineral resources are extremely abundant; it could certainly become an industrial and mining base in the future, all requiring substantial water resources."

Yan Quezhi's team had been tasked with determining how much water resources and hydropower Changhua actually possessed in the seventeenth century, and what kind of assistance the Changhua River could provide for Hainan's industrialization.

Changhua's agricultural potential was limited. The entire county had only 340,000 mu of arable land, and soil fertility was even poorer. Except for certain advantages in water and heat resources, it was inferior to northern Qiong counties like Lingao in all respects.

"In a few days, could you send someone to take us to Shilu?" Yan Quezhi suddenly asked.

"I can take you myself," Fang Jinghan offered. "But what do you need in Shilu? The geological survey last time should have been quite thorough."

"Still terrain surveying."

Yan Quezhi's additional task was to lead students to Shilu to survey the terrain between Shilu and Changhua Fort, assessing whether it was possible to construct a simple road or railway.

The purpose wasn't to mine local iron ore—with their current industrial capacity and steel production levels, supporting such a large-scale project was simply impossible. The reason the Planning Bureau was eager to understand transport conditions and attempt road construction was because of Shilu's dolomite deposits.

Dolomite served as a flux in modern pig iron smelting, improving pig iron quality and reducing coal consumption. In modern steel production, manufacturing one ton of pig iron required consuming several dozen kilograms of dolomite. After the Maniao Steel Complex went into production, it would need approximately several hundred tons of dolomite annually.

In the old dimension, one kilometer south of Shilu Town, there was a dolomite mine with reserves of 1.25 billion tons at 19-21% grade. Full-scale development was infeasible, but small-scale mining to supply the Maniao Steel Complex for production remained practical. The Planning Bureau and industrial departments had assessed that according to available data, Shilu's dolomite deposits were not deeply buried. Mining could be accomplished through manual labor and simple machinery. If demand wasn't large, intermittent mining was completely feasible.

After mining dolomite came the issue of outward transport. So Wu De was considering building a simple road locally. Setting aside laying groundwork for future Shilu iron ore development, there was also demand for mining limited amounts of associated copper, gold, and other non-ferrous metal ores at Shilu. Road construction would also help extend governance tentacles into Changhua's interior while developing and radiating influence to surrounding areas.

The Planning Bureau also required Kong Lingyang to establish a permanent outpost at Shilu if possible: "The Morning Star flag must fly over Yayuling every day!"—ensuring the presence of government authority locally.

According to intelligence provided by Li people, almost every year some outsider Han people hired Li guides and porters to venture into Li areas, penetrating to Shilu and attempting to mine local copper ore—or with better luck, find gold. Though few succeeded—very few could correctly locate the ore veins—the indiscriminate digging and small-kiln smelting seriously damaged local resources, especially disrupting the survey team's exploration work. This was intolerable to the Planning Bureau. Since Li Haiping's time, people had been caught attempting to illegally mine copper at Yayuling—an endless stream every year. So cracking down on illegal mining was also one of Kong Lingyang's responsibilities.

With roads and stationed outposts, and patrol teams on the roads, control over the areas along the route would be established.

"You don't need to come personally. Just send a few Li people as guides. Haven't you recruited quite a few Li soldiers?" Yan Quezhi said. "A round trip takes several days. You all have work—it's not good to delay that."

"If only Zhen Huan and his group hadn't just enlisted, we could send them directly to Shilu—they're locals. Expert at climbing mountains and drilling through forests. No one could evade them," Mu Min observed.

"Even if he'd served for ten years, no way," Fang Jinghan shook his head. "Locals not serving locally—that's a fundamental principle of army organization."

The Senate was unwilling to have even local security forces like the National Army entirely composed of local people, let alone combat units like those Zhen Huan had joined.

The matter of recruiting Zhen Huan to enlist met with Wei Aiwen's pushback that afternoon. Not that he considered these few new recruits of poor quality—in his view, this was a serious infringement on his authority as General Political Department Director. He often forgot his department was actually the General Staff Political Office.

Mu Min countered that as a member of the recruitment team, she equally possessed the right to decide whom to recruit. The mission document didn't specify which department or which Senator was specifically in charge. In theory, Mu Min didn't require Wei Aiwen's consultation to decide certain matters.

The argument between the two continued until Kong Lingyang appeared again, beaming as he invited the Senators to the kennel to take a look and "guide the dog-raising work."

Mu Min had no interest in dogs, but Wei Aiwen was quite enthusiastic. When the Haitian's reconnaissance team had encountered native ambushes in Taiwan, dogs had played a crucial role. And now ever more internal security tasks required dogs to replace some sentries.

Previously, Kong Lingyang had cooperated with the military during his university days and understood that the patrol range of one trained military dog was essentially equivalent to five soldiers. Well-trained military dogs were excellent assets for mainland combat suppression patrols, chasing routed soldiers, guarding equipment, and deterring mobs.

The newly constructed kennel had been established in an enclosure outside Changhua Fort, raising breeding dogs transferred from Lingao.

Kong Lingyang knew little about dog training. This aspect had always been Yang Baogui's responsibility. But the dog population's rapid expansion at South Sea Farm meant military dog breeding and raising needed to find a new location—it couldn't remain in Lingao where land resources were becoming tight. So Lingao's dog farm had been split into two parts: working dog training stayed in Lingao, while breeding operations moved to Changhua. Yang Baogui planned to move the training base to Changhua as well once he had trained his first batch of naturalized citizen students.

Breeding dogs primarily came from Yang Baogui's Olympic family. Back then, Yang Baogui had selectively brought them to serve as breeding stock for working dogs. Later, dogs brought by several other Senators were added, including the Qian brothers' Labrador from Sanya, which had also been requisitioned as breeding stock.

To rapidly expand the population, Yang Baogui and Kong Lingyang adopted the method of separating puppies from adults immediately after weaning, switching to artificial feeding so the adults could produce another litter as soon as possible. The population thus expanded very quickly.

From native dogs of this dimension, Yang Baogui also selected some with better genes for crossbreeding. Through continuous breeding and gradual culling, a considerable dog population had finally formed. Though only a dozen or so could serve as foundation breeding stock, there were already more than a hundred dogs of suitable age meeting working dog conditions.

Though the first few batches were of average quality, they were at the golden age for training. Once older, they wouldn't be very suitable for training and could only be sent to the Senate canteen to make hot pot. And Yang Baogui alone couldn't keep up. He adopted a simplified training model, subdividing work, reducing each dog's training items, and lowering workload. Training a batch and sending them out, he rapidly distributed working dogs to various departments.

Some dogs, after Yang Baogui's simplified training, had already been allocated to the military, police, and internal affairs departments. Soldiers and police "leading large dogs" on patrol had become a familiar sight in various counties. And at the Sanya mines, military dogs watched over thousands of slave laborers in the mining area.

But though dogs had gained favor from the violence departments, they equally encountered systemic issues. Dogs and horses differed from pigs, chickens, and ducks—meat animals fattened and slaughtered—being kept for long-term use. Once assigned to the military or some agency, questions arose about their supply and specialized handlers—this was still relatively manageable. Horse and dog supply issues could be resolved by departments themselves, but personnel establishment wasn't easy to resolve.

Yang Baogui's establishment was in the Agricultural Committee. Dog training wasn't the Agricultural Committee's main business; he couldn't extract workers from those allocated to the Agricultural Committee to learn his dog training skills. These establishments had to be assigned to the military.

Kong Lingyang had invited Wei Aiwen to visit specifically to persuade Director Wei and these military heads to quickly organize a military dog unit establishment, allocating personnel specifically to learn dog raising and training. Especially finding a few apprentices for Yang Baogui to inherit his dog training expertise—this was something Yang Baogui had repeatedly urged Kong Lingyang to help resolve.

(End of Chapter)