Chapter 1037 A Brand New Year
With the arrival of spring, people everywhere have also started the heavy spring ploughing work. However, unlike previous years, many people in the north this year have used rice transplanters, which are new agricultural tools comparable to dry land plows, greatly reducing the labor intensity of transplanting rice.
In the past ten years since the Han tribe planted rice, people can finally stand and plant the rice seedlings in the ground, and no longer have to bend over. This is a huge progress.
Compared with rice fields in various places, the mechanized farming experimental fields in Liuyang County are obviously more advanced. Not only do they not have to bend over, they can even cultivate more land while sitting.
Twenty tractors and sixty drivers are now all working in three shifts, sowing in the fields day and night. Except for eating, going to the toilet, and adding water and coal to the tractors, they are working all the time.
The extra original vehicle of the verification model has now become a nanny car, using the tractor to pull a truck of coal and water, specifically for the twenty vehicles to provide fuel supply.
Such work intensity is naturally very high, but it does not need to be maintained for too long, because it only takes less than four days to cultivate all 20,000 acres of corn, and no matter how tired they are, they can take a holiday after these few days.
In Xingang County, the research institutes and workers had already finished their vacation in mid-April and returned to work.
The task that Luo Chong gave them was also very simple, which was to develop and finalize the harvester in the shortest time, and then start mass production to prepare for the harvest of corn in the first quarter.
However, since the first generation of corn harvesters did not have the threshing function, another corn thresher had to be developed, and it was best to be portable, otherwise it would take up too many resources.
According to this requirement, the Power Research Institute also proposed a targeted design plan. They planned to use a plunger pump as a mechanical power source to manufacture a corn thresher. When using it, they only need to get a tractor to provide the original power, and connect the hydraulic pipeline directly to the thresher to make it work, so that it would no longer occupy other steam engines.
However, Luo Chong did not agree with this plan. The corn thresher is different from the tractor. The tractor cannot be quickly and comprehensively popularized in the Han tribe, but the corn thresher is different. This thing can be used in the granaries of all counties in the Han tribe. However, they do not have hydraulic power. How can you let them use it?
Therefore, Luo Chong's plan was to get an air compressor to provide power. There are well houses and steam engines in various places. When the time comes, an air compressor will be directly attached to them, and then they can all use the thresher.
However, the thresher is not the most important thing. Now we still have to give priority to the harvester. Harvest the corn first. As for threshing, put the corn cobs into the warehouse first. It doesn't matter when to thresh. Anyway, it won't break down.
Therefore, under Luo Chong's urging and guidance, the research and development of the harvester progressed very quickly. Work resumed in late April of the first year, and the finished product was produced in mid-January of the second year. This is also thanks to the previous research. The project was about to produce results. If it weren't for the order of tractors in time for the New Year, the harvester would have been produced long ago.
After receiving the news, Luo Chong went to inspect the samples in person. After several days of testing, the corn harvester was officially finalized and a production task of ten units was announced.
As for why only ten units were produced, it was because too many were not needed. This was different from sowing. Sowing needed to be done in a hurry. If the farming season was missed, it might not be possible to plant. However, harvesting was different.
Due to the temporary lack of fertilizer, although there were 60,000 mu of mechanized farmland, only 20,000 mu were actually used. The fallow planting mode was adopted. The corn for the next season would be planted in another field. Therefore, there was no rush to harvest the corn on this field. Ten harvesters could harvest slowly. However, even if they were slow, they would definitely finish the work in eight or nine days. There was no need to put so much pressure on the research institute. It would be better to finalize the excavators and rollers as soon as possible. These machines were also needed for various projects in the south.
At the same time, in the far north, Qubing also brought the main force back to the river valley camp controlled by the Han tribe. He wanted to send soldiers to guard the slaves on board and send them back as soon as possible. Luo Chong urged him to ask for slaves more than once. Now the Han tribe has many projects that need labor. Although these people have no skills, it is also very good to get them back to move bricks.
In order to prevent the large number of slaves from making trouble on the ship, Qubing also asked the crew to handcuff all the slaves to the railings and handles in the cabin, handcuffing each person with one hand to prevent them from running around, leaving one hand free so that they can eat by themselves.
Of course, there will definitely not be much food. If you eat less, you will not have the energy to make trouble, and it will also reduce the number of bowel movements, which is convenient for the crew to manage.
In addition, Qubing also specially recruited a thousand militiamen to each ship to escort these captives. After sending them over, they still have to follow the ship back.
When the people in the north heard that they were going to recruit 1,000 militiamen to go south to the Han tribe, they were all very excited. Everyone signed up enthusiastically and rushed to get on the ship, even though they knew that it would take three or four months to go back and forth and the journey would not be easy, but they just wanted to go and see.
These survivors who were recruited by Youye from all over the place, although they knew that they now belonged to the Han tribe, which was also a super powerful tribe with a very advanced civilization, had joined the Han tribe for three or four years. In addition to seeing the sailboats coming from the south and the army brought by Qubing, they didn't know what the real Han tribe looked like, so everyone wanted to go and see.
In the end, although there were many people who wanted to go, there was limited space on the ship after all. Besides, if you bring one more person to the south, you have to prepare more food. Qubing certainly wouldn't send so many people to travel. What he wanted was soldiers to escort the prisoners, so in the end he selected 1,000 of the smartest and most capable guys to follow the fleet south.
The huge fleet of ships escorting prisoners from the north sailed down the river. You Fu in Hanyang County was not idle either. As soon as spring came, You Fu asked for permission to explore the south again, but his task this time was more complicated. The goal of the Han tribe this year was to build two more cities in the middle and lower reaches of the Liuyang River. One was a land and water transfer terminal near the bank of the Liuyang River. This was also the starting point of the railway in the middle and lower reaches. It was responsible for transporting heavy equipment ashore from here, and it could also be used to continuously transport various minerals in the middle and lower reaches to the north and south.
In addition, this railway would pass through the molybdenum mine, and then go all the way east to the city near the coal mine, and include the surrounding coal mines along the railway. At the same time, the Baiwu tribe further east would also be attracted, preferably placed in this city. This was actually very easy to do. The old method was to use various materials to induce them to work for the Han tribe. In the name of building cities, they would definitely be assimilated in the long-term exchanges with the Han tribe.
Two new cities, a coal mine and a molybdenum mine, plus the surrounding water conservancy facilities and farmland reclamation, as well as two railway bridges on the tributaries of the Liuyang River, plus a railway with a total length of about 150 kilometers, this is the first phase of the southern industrial construction project planned by Luo Chong.
After completing this first phase of the project, enough people will be relocated there, and then they will advance to the southeast and use a railway of more than 400 kilometers to open up traffic with the Tang tribe.
Building a city is certainly not easy. To build a city in an uninhabited place, a lot of preparation work is required first. The first thing is to make a specific plan, where the city is built, where is the farmland, where to cut wood, where to get soil to burn bricks and tiles, and the place where the soil is collected should also be combined with an irrigation system or a water conservancy system.
To be more specific, You Fu actually has three tasks this time. The first is the planning of building a city. This time it is not as simple as finding an approximate range, but to directly insert markers and draw lines to determine the specific location of the city.
The second task is to build a series of factories, brick and tile factories, wood processing factories, blacksmith shops, etc., to build various tools needed for city construction, etc. In addition, there must be a temporary ranch, or a carriage and horse shop. Building a city will definitely require a lot of transportation, so carriages and horses are also indispensable.
The third task is to hire labor, whether it is small tribes around or slightly larger clan tribes like the Baiwu tribe, all those who can be recruited must be recruited.
In order to achieve these goals, the scale of the team led by You Fu this time has also become much larger. In addition to the previous group of 200 people who followed him for field reconnaissance, there are also thousands of carpenters, kiln workers, masons, blacksmiths and other craftsmen, and a group of 2,000 railway workers, all of whom have just completed the laying of railways in Dongxin County and then transferred there. This group of people were prisoners of war of the Xin tribe captured by the Han tribe in the Kaiyuan War, but now they have obtained Han tribe household registration and become full-time railway workers.
A team of more than 3,000 people, plus various tools and equipment, and food for the team building the city in advance, took 15 large and small sailboats to transport all these people to the south.
Luo Chong had already thought of the names of the two new cities in the south. The one near the middle and lower reaches of the Liuyang River, which is the starting point of the middle section of the railway, was named "Chengkang County" by Luo Chong, and the new city near the coal mine and the Baiwu tribe's residence was named "Qian'an County" by Luo Chong.
The names of Chengkang County and Qi'an County are taken from the meaning of "connecting the past and the future". The eight counties of Hanyang are the northern part of the Han tribe, and the eight counties of the Tang tribe in the south, Tuohai County and the capital, plus the six counties of Qiongzhou and the three counties of Honghu in the grassland, all belong to the southern area. However,
the north and south ends of the Han tribe are far apart, like the head and tail of a dragon, and the middle is a vacuum area of the Han tribe's sphere of influence, with neither civilians nor military garrisons. This is obviously problematic.
Now, the establishment of two new counties, Chengkang and Qi'an, in the middle and lower reaches of the Liuyang River is equivalent to adding a waist to the dragon, filling the power gap between the north and south of the Han tribe, and also playing a role of connecting the upper and lower levels, strengthening the Han tribe's rule over the territory.
Another meaning is also connecting the upper and lower levels. These two cities not only strengthened the Han tribe's rule over the central region, but also played a role of connecting the upper and lower levels for the industrial transformation of the Han tribe.
Whether the Han tribe can develop heavy-duty railways and real heavy industries all start from these two cities. Therefore, in terms of industrial layout, these two cities can also be called "connecting the upper and lower levels".
The fleet heading south from the north and the ships heading south from Liuyang County set off almost at the same time, but You Fu was the first to lead people to the shore of Chengkang County, not only because this section of the voyage was shorter, but also because the ships they took were all flying fish speedboats, which were much faster than the three-masted ships escorting prisoners of war in the north.
However, this also made it more convenient for the Han tribe to build Chengkang County. The workers who came ashore could start building factories immediately. They first built a wood processing plant to provide a large number of sleepers and house building materials for the construction team, and installed the steam equipment in place, and they could start work immediately.
The subsequent railway laying can also be transported from Weishan County in a steady stream of rails. The fastest one-way journey takes only five days and nights. Such a transportation speed is already very fast in this era.
With sleepers and rails, the railway can be laid first. As for the required ballast and gravel, you can wait until you find a suitable quarry in the local area before making plans.
Because those ballast and gravel are not necessary for the railway. It only plays a role in buffering, shock absorbing and pressure dissipation. In fact, it is to reduce some vibrations when the train is running. But for the railway, which is currently mainly used for freight rather than passenger transportation, it is dispensable. Now there is no ballast, but it can run first, and it is the same when there are stones in the future.
The team that went ashore was divided into two groups. One group gathered by the river and first found a river section with a wide surface of about two kilometers. Then they chose a deep place to build a dock to dock the heavy-loaded sailing ships with a deep draft to prevent the ships from running aground.
The one thousand craftsmen and two thousand railway workers basically stayed at the dock.
The dock in Chengkang County is still very large, because it is not just a dock, but also an inland river port, and also a large railway station. Moreover, it is also a heavy-load dock that mainly transports mineral goods. Its carrying capacity and scale will be very large.
Fortunately, the Han tribe has already had experience in this regard. Whether it is Liuyang County, Weishan County, or Dongxin County, they are all about this scale, but it is more appropriate to be like the dock in Weishan County, because there is also a large railway station there, and the goods transported are also ore, iron ingots, steel bars and cement, and even heavy equipment such as trains and rails, which is very meaningful for reference.
The craftsmen who were sent here also referred to the successful experience of Weishan County and Dongxin County, and then based on the local terrain, they improved some problems found in the previous operation of the dock + train station model, and designed the Chengkang County Water and Land Transportation Distribution Center.
(End of this chapter)
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