There were more buildings than anticipated.
Four wind power plants, a hydroelectric power plant located within the mountain, and a large photovoltaic power plant at the foot of the mountain. Such a multitude of power plants were intended to supply energy to the mining operations. Six shale mines and two small miscellaneous mines were spread across the entire mountainside.
A military base was situated at the foot of the mountain, not far from a tunnel that traversed the dark river, connecting one end of the mountain to the other.
Five kilometers from the military base lay a residential area, similar in structure to the town, capable of housing approximately 1,000 people.
Just as Jiang Ye finished reviewing the development plan, another message arrived from Xu Yan.
Xu Yan: If all goes smoothly, these mines, once established, can generate a profit of fifty million daily. Based on the proven reserves, they can be developed continuously for at least five years.
Jiang Ye: That’s quite substantial!
Xu Yan: The power plants require workers to maintain and clean the machinery daily. The mining equipment in the mines needs both workers and robots to operate. This combination of power plants and mines, including shift rotations, will require at least five hundred employees. This means the residential area at the foot of the mountain must accommodate at least five hundred people.
Jiang Ye: A town can’t be entirely composed of workers; there must also be people for catering, selling daily necessities, and clothing. That would require at least eight hundred people. Then, we need to house some of the soldiers stationed at the nearby military base, bringing the total to a thousand.
Xu Yan: Then let’s plan for a town of a thousand people. The entire development of this mountain will cost 3.5 billion.
Jiang Ye scratched his head. This was far too expensive; he couldn't afford it for now!
Xu Yan: We discussed cooperation earlier. So, my proposal is: you contribute one billion, and our Termite Real Estate contributes twenty-five billion. Upon completion, you will receive two-fifths of the daily mining profits, and we will receive three-fifths.
Jiang Ye hesitated.
He still wanted the larger share, but the cost pressure was immense. Developing his own territory and letting Termite Real Estate profit more, was he giving up too much?
After a brief deliberation, he relented and sent Xu Yan an "OK" emoji.
The reason he agreed was his feeling that the settlement area beneath the mountain could grow and prosper within the next five years. At that point, mining revenue would only be a small portion, a minor profit. Letting Xu Yan have a bit of an advantage would foster cooperative friendship.
Furthermore, once the tunnel was completed, they would need to continue exploring the continent ahead, opening up new development points. He needed to reserve sufficient funds for the next phase of development, rather than exhausting them all on this mine.
Xu Yan: Then I'll start the construction. You still need a couple of days to gather the money, right? Give it to me once you have it.
Jiang Ye: No problem. I'm still short a few hundred million, but I'll have it within a week.
In the following days, Jiang Ye was primarily occupied with screening new immigrants and having Isabel pick them up via spaceship. Construction near the mine proceeded rapidly. The residential area was established first, with the initial batch of 900 immigrants moving in. Subsequently, the military base was completed.
As soon as Jiang Ye gathered one billion, he transferred it to Xu Yan.
His personal account balance was nearly zero, but thankfully, the mines and power plants had been invested in.
The construction period was very short, only four days, demonstrating the usual high efficiency.
On a Saturday morning, Jiang Ye traveled to the mine with Xu Yan's spaceship to inspect the mines and power plants.
The photovoltaic power plant was situated on a desolate plain. Tens of thousands of solar panels, each the size of a door, formed a large circle. Workers were already on duty, using brooms to clean the dust off the solar panels. There was no vegetation nearby, and the wind kicked up sand and dust. If not cleaned for two days, yellow dust would coat the solar panels.
Jiang Ye watched the workers diligently sweeping and thought, "Is this the most advanced power plant requiring the most basic maintenance method?"
"Must they really be cleaned with brooms?" Jiang Ye asked Xu Yan if there were other ways to remove the dust.
"Yes, there are dust-cleaning robots, costing one hundred thousand each. The entire photovoltaic power plant would need 300 robots. Or electrostatic dust collectors, costing ten thousand each, requiring over ten thousand units. Xu Yan smiled. "But with brooms, the monthly salary is only one hundred thousand."
Jiang Ye understood. It wasn't that more advanced methods didn't exist, but brooms were cheaper.
The wind power plants were located on the mountainside, with hundreds of giant white turbines rotating in the high mountain winds. Each turbine blade was ninety meters long, a truly spectacular sight.
The hydroelectric power plant was inside the mountain rock. Its power generation was very small, specifically designed to supply energy to the tunnel.
The tunnel had already been excavated. It was a circular, long tunnel, ten meters in diameter, with a spacious, whistling wind. The entire tunnel wall was lined with ring-shaped blue lights. There were gravity sensors at both ends. Once a person or vehicle entered the tunnel, all the lights would illuminate, filling the tunnel with a transparent blue glow. The electricity for the lights came from the hydroelectric power plant within the mountain.
The mines were even more impressive. Each mine had been expanded to the size of two or three football fields. Hundreds of human miners and over six hundred robotic miners were working simultaneously. Nearly a thousand automatic and semi-automatic mining machines were constantly excavating, with tons of shale being unearthed every second and piled up like mountains, awaiting unified sale in the evening.
Standing at the edge of the mine, Jiang Ye couldn't help but recall his own days of digging with a shovel. It had been so arduous.
The small ore piles he had opened earlier could hardly be called ore veins. After a week of hard work with a shovel and pickaxe, the amount of ore he unearthed was less than what a small mining machine could excavate in half an hour today.
Times had changed, truly changed.
On the evening the mines began operations, Jiang Ye received his first share of the mining profits.
Exactly 20.1 million.
Adding other miscellaneous income, his total passive income for the day officially surpassed the seventy million mark, reaching a staggering 70,165,000 yuan.
Jiang Ye had never dreamed that he would one day earn seventy million in a single day.
With daily earnings of seventy million, would daily earnings of one hundred million be far behind?
Jiang Ye set a small goal for himself: to earn one hundred million daily first.
Before going to sleep, he checked the rankings.
The growth was astonishing:
[Jiang Ye Autonomous Region / Development Index 3200 / Rank 9829]
The development index had jumped by four hundred points, and his rank had advanced by over a hundred places.
Jiang Ye was very satisfied. It seemed his development strategy was correct: expand to new territories, develop wherever there was value, gather people, money, and facilities, and focus on piling up infrastructure.
After all, he still had the genes of an infrastructure maniac flowing in his veins. He was too familiar with this development model.
To distinguish between the two existing settlements, Jiang Ye officially changed their names.
The previous large town of ten thousand people was designated as [Binhai City].
The newly built settlement was named [Shale Town].
Jiang Ye preferred practical and easy-to-remember names over flashy ones. Binhai City was a city by the sea with ten thousand inhabitants, and Shale Town was a small town born from the development of shale.
Among them, the 14 small towns within Binhai City were unified and merged.
After the merger, only five districts remained: East District, West District, South District, North District, and Central District.
The police station was relocated to the Central District, and many shops also quickly moved there.
When Shale Town's population grew in the future, it would also have the opportunity to be upgraded to a city, with its own districts.
Jiang Ye felt that Shale City was only a matter of time. On Earth in the past, many places were desolate and gradually developed into prosperous large cities due to mining operations, such as Daqing and Karamay, which developed from oil extraction, and Denver and San Francisco, which grew from gold panning.