Two flowers, one on each table.

Now Sun Lao is getting busier and busier, except for coming to the construction site every one or two days to see Hou Xianglin, and then going to see how to train his garrison soldiers, and then going to the workshop and sugar factory to care about Xiao Pingguo Gui Xianning's work, most of the time is spent with Duchess Margaret going around to meet celebrities from all walks of life in Dili City.

These actions of Sun Lao were discussed by the plenary meeting, and the purpose of his various public relations actions in Dili City was to provide a good interpersonal environment for everyone to gain a foothold in Sian An City.

Of course, there are also conditions for fetters of interests to really gain a foothold---- that is, various businesses.

The arrival of the Nicole and the exemplary role of Hou Xianglin's construction site made the brothers of Sin'an Cheng accidentally discover two other promising businesses - steel floating docks and cement.

Just after Hou Xianglin commanded his subordinates to build a wharf more than ten times larger than the port of Dili in one morning, the representative of Degus found Sun Lao, hoping to build a special wharf for Degus, not so big, as long as it can dock directly to the galleon of Galen, as for the cost, everything is easy to say!

Not long after, the mayor of Oecussi also approached Sun Lao and said that he hoped that there would be facilities like Xin'an Wharf in Oecusi, as for Pimont, he had already told Sun Lao that the Dili City Council was willing to pay 50,000 taels of silver to buy a smaller floating wharf, and if you were willing to give us a steel wharf as big as Xin'an, this number could rise by 20 percent......

However, at the beginning, Sun Lao only responded in general terms, saying that we would consider it, because he knew that there was a shortage of raw materials and labor at home, and he did not dare to ask for anything to agree casually, but just sent these situations home and let the people in each industrial group decide for themselves.

Of course, it is good to have business, the Red Mansion has always reacted quickly to the business in the telegram sent back by Sun Lao, and the telegram about the floating dock was only two hours after it was sent, Xiao Fei called back to Xin'an Cheng and said that Holley Quan Zhenhai and they assured that now the cupola furnace has been successfully put into trial operation, and a simple casting production line has been installed in place, so as long as there is enough iron ore, we can make a metal floating dock by pouring.

Huali said that after the arrival of the second batch of Han labor, Lao Wang will be able to replace a part of the labor force for us, in that case, the metallurgical group will formally put forward the plan of the continuous rolling production line in the second half of the year, obviously it is more suitable to use rolled steel plate as a floating wharf steel.

Later, Wang Xue and Boss Luo also said that our riveted shipbuilding sealing technology is simply overkill for the rough work of building floating docks, but in view of its profit margin is higher than that of white sugar glass, we should have no problem building a few floating docks, not to mention that we also need to ......

As for the cement business, it's not too hot!

Hou Xianglin first sold two bags of cement to the Degus family at the price of sugar, so the cement road in the back garden of the Degus family became a popular place for celebrities to visit in Dili City, and then, Pimont was very clever to exchange ten tons of coal for more than a dozen bags of cement, and replaced his uneven bluestone brick floor with a cement floor, which was as smooth as marble bricks! But its price is only one-third of that of a marble floor.

So the wealthy families in Dili City followed suit, but Hou Xianglin did not dare to sell it anymore after discovering that his cement was no longer enough, but he did not expect this move to make the price of cement soar, which made the Degus family and Pimont happy that they bought it early......

Now, there is a basic consensus on the Red Mansion side that the floating dock and cement business may grow into a big business, and given the resource conditions of Xin'an City, it should be possible to build a cement factory there.

On May 31, 1658, the Governor's Palace was completed, and after four months of intermittent construction, a three-story building covering an area of 900 square meters rose on the central axis at the southern end of Xin'an Wharf Square.

According to the comments of everyone, this building, which was completely designed and supervised by Hou Xianglin, is indeed "a combination of Eastern and Western architectural cultures".

In fact, this is a euphemism, Gui Xianning said that this governor's palace is a Western-style stone house, and then wears an oriental hat......

On the day of the move, Zezilia ran up and down the small building like a happy flower butterfly, directing the servants in the manor to move furniture, hang curtains, assign rooms, decorate bedrooms and living rooms with flowers and various ornaments, check the food in the pantry and the pots and pans in the kitchen—because this is her and Hou's home......

And Sun Lao looked at the eaves and roof, and he told Hou Xianglin that this completely Western-style exterior wall and completely Chinese-style roof - very similar to the old laboratory building in the university I was studying in the past, not to mention, really aroused my nostalgia.

In any case, everyone still has to admit that the building is indeed beautiful, but Hou Xianglin also admits that this is mainly due to the building materials.

The granite and volcanic serpentine of Timor are rich in color, and you can see that Hou Xianglin made full use of these colors---- this building from the bottom to the top, the large stone strips are built according to the depth of color, the grooves between the stone strips are filled with white plaster, the protruding window sills are decorated with red marble, and the roof is a Chinese triangle, covered with yellow, red and gray tiles.

However, the locals admired the small cement squares and concrete pavements around the Doge's Palace, and the mahogany floors and the staircases, doors and furniture made of mahogany, rosewood and rosewood were all new and beautiful only to the travelers from the old world, while the locals were familiar with them, after all, they were used to seeing them.

For locals, the building also has a highlight – the glass windows.

Although Mr. Zhao and his family could not produce large pieces of glass at will, small pieces of glass 30 centimeters square could still be taken out with quality and quantity, so in the hands of the skilled craftsmen of Dili City, these small pieces of glass were inlaid in rosewood carved squares, making it the only building on the island with real transparent glass windows.

This really created a small visual sensation in the local area.

Because, even the magnificent Notre-Dame Cathedral in Dili City, although the stained glass windows are colorful, there is no transparency at all, and the Doge's Palace in Pimont still uses shuttered wooden windows.

As Hou Xianglin expected, after the floating steel dock and cement, another new business opportunity appeared - glass windows became the object of the rich in Dili City.

Obviously, this is also for the sake of business demonstration, Hou Xianglin always intends to increase the number of glass windows on the exterior wall as much as possible, if it is not for the load-bearing reasons of the building, he wants to make a "crystal palace" effect of the building, although he later realized the ideal of building a crystal palace, but at present, in the absence of reinforced concrete, he can only achieve the extent that there are 24 glass windows in a three-story building.

For this reason, Hou Xianglin sent a telegram to the Red Mansion this time, asking the family to copy a set of cement plant equipment as soon as possible and transport it to Xin'an City, and put the construction of the Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station on the agenda, the subtext behind this is obvious: the ambitious Hou Xianglin hopes that the family agrees to move the glass factory too, in this way, with power supply, cement and glass manufacturing, this will be the starting point of his building materials construction career, obviously, Hou Xianglin changed his previous plan to take Zezilia back to the Red Mansion, This is to make Sinanseong his business base.

In late May, Lao Ba presided over a special discussion at home to discuss how to increase the output of cement and glass, but in the end, the meeting only decided to try to make a copy of the cement factory and move to Xin'an City by the end of the year.