Chapter 40: The Beast Head and Dragon Head Make Their Move

  Guo Yu and Huang Wenjing enjoyed a warm time together, and it was very late when Guo Yu sent Huang Wenjing back home.

  By 1915, Guo Yu led a group of people in charge to the camp to inspect the construction progress. Qian Wenxing, who was in charge of the construction task, reported: "Director, the land has been basically leveled, but there is a lot of steel and cement now, however, the sand and stone materials can only be used for half a month, we need to find a way to get them ourselves. I have organized people to dig sea sand, and also organized people to quarry stone from that mountain, all these are already in progress."

  "How's the excavation going now?"

  "Because we don't have professional tools, the excavation speed is very slow. Building this small camp can still meet our needs for now, but in the future when building our base and roads, the quantity will be huge and it won't be enough."

  "I'll go back and think of a way to get professional sand-digging and stone-quarrying equipment, it should be ready in a few days." Guo Yu said as he continued to lead the people to inspect the construction site.

  Looking at the bustling construction site, excavators and bulldozers are busy working there, piece by piece of land is being leveled, it feels very fulfilling.

  Guo Yu suddenly thought that while building the camp, he also had to build a port. The current Ma Chen Port could only accommodate small boats, and he wanted to develop it into a large port that could handle cargo ships of tens of thousands of tons, so he had to develop them simultaneously.

  The water depth at the mouth of Ma Chen Harbour is not enough, if you dig it yourself, it's not very realistic, so you can only park the large cargo ship in the bay and then use a ferry to transport the goods ashore.

  However, the current facilities at the port are too simple and must have large-scale cargo terminals, warehouses and transportation, as well as loading and unloading machinery. All of these need to be built, and all require re-planning the land use of the port of Mawan.

  "Mingda, how many people are at the port now? What was their reaction after we arrived?" Guo Yu handed over to Liu Mingda, preparing to take action against the original residents of the port.

  "The meeting was held, according to statistics, there were 3,104 people in the port, including 572 Chinese, and others were Malays, Indonesians, etc. These people are still relatively calm now, without making trouble, mainly because they were intimidated by our armed forces."

  Guo Yu thought for a moment and said: "The land here is all mine, including the port of Ma Chen. You issue an order saying that we will set up a company. If these people join the company, they can stay behind and work in the company later. If they don't join the company, then they can only leave Ma Chen and leave my private territory."

  Kuo Yu thought that for his future development in Southeast Asia, he would need a large number of people to work for him. His future farms, plantations, factories, docks and mines would all require a lot of labor. He planned to have the Chinese take charge of the farms, factories, plantations and docks, while leaving the most arduous and dangerous mining work to these indigenous people, making use of them to the fullest extent possible.

  Now the most important thing is to build factories for sand and stone extraction, he plans to buy several large sand dredgers to extract sand at sea, purchase stone processing equipment, and extract stones on nearby mountains, all of which require a lot of manpower, and these locals can be put to use.

  He also instructed Li Siwen: "Organize manpower to search for iron ore and coal mines. We will need them to establish a steel enterprise in the future. I have a rough location map here, hurry up and organize people to go and find it."

  After arranging everything, Guo Yu returned to modern times. He wanted to buy sand and stone equipment as soon as possible. Since the equipment was urgently needed and not difficult to purchase, he did not ask Huang Jiaqiang for help and contacted them directly.

  After searching online, I found that there are many types of sand dredgers, including those for river sand and sea sand. On Alibaba, I found both custom-made and second-hand ones, making it very convenient to buy one. I contacted a sea sand ship owner who had three ships, but due to recent crackdowns by the marine police, he was fined heavily and now faces even stricter regulations, so he decided to sell them off. Each ship costs 3.5 million yuan, but Guo Yu didn't hesitate and paid 10 million yuan upfront, then took possession of the ships immediately.

  These three dredgers are all 2,000-ton dredgers, and it takes about two to three hours to fill a ship. The speed is very fast, enough for construction use.

  The quarry equipment is a bit complicated, including the feeding system, crushing and screening, sand making and washing, transmission system and so on. Adding some tools like drilling machines, pneumatic picks and other small items, it's almost complete. However, don't even think about explosives, as they are strictly controlled domestically and too much trouble to purchase. It can be resolved in 1915, and the whole set costs around 2 million yuan.

  This set of equipment has an annual output of 400,000 cubic meters, which is no problem, and can meet the current construction needs on the island.

  These things were enough for himself to use in 1915, spent five days, packed the goods and brought them to Ma Zhen, together with the installation instructions, gave them to Qian Wenxing, that's it. As for the quarry without electricity, there was no way, only mechanical power could be used temporarily, although the oil money was a bit expensive, but there was no way, before the power plant was built, they had to make do.

  The modern auction is about to begin, and Guo Yu still has an important task at hand. He rushes back to the present day to prepare for the auction. Just thinking about it makes him a little excited - bringing Chinese antiques home from a European art auction, what a meaningful thing to do!

  These days' propaganda has made the situation of Longtou's auction appear on the internet and newspapers, with some praising it and others scolding it, but Huafu Auction House's reputation has indeed gone out.

  On Saturday, July 6th, with fine weather and a temperature that was not low, the atmosphere at the Huafu Auction House was even more heated.

  Today's Huafu auction at the Hilton Hotel Convention Center attracted tycoons from many countries including Hong Kong, the US, Europe, Arab nations and China.

  The auction started at 10 o'clock in the morning.

  Guo Yu stood on the auction stage in a Western suit, with Zhang Chong standing beside him in formal attire.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, I am Guo Yu, the chairman of Huafu Auction House, and next to me is Zhang Chong, the president of Huafu Auction House. Today, we are here to host a pre-auction warm-up sale, which is only for our special guest family. You can consider this as an appetizer before the main auction. Please have the service staff bring up the items." Guo Yu spoke fluently on stage.

  Two waitresses pushed a small cart, on which was covered with a red cloth cover, and the people below felt very curious, having never attended such an auction, only for one customer's auction, interesting.

  Guo Yu lifted the red cover, revealing the object underneath. The crowd below gasped in surprise as they saw a bronze dragon head. How did it end up here?

  "Over a hundred years ago, it was looted away from him, he was heartbroken, and wandered alone for a century. Today, he is finally coming home. Please welcome the sole bidder of this piece today, Mr. Wang Xudong, Director of the Palace Museum."

  Among the applause of the crowd, a man in his 60s stood up on the auction stage.