Chapter 1127: Fire and Water, the Method of Breaking the Mountain and Splitting the Rocks
Everything was ready, and the construction of Tunnel No. 1 started soon. Because the gunpowder needed had not yet been delivered, the fire and water method was used for the time being to break the rocks and dig.
The modified excavator drove up first, with its long mechanical arm raised high. The alloy steel air hammer in the front was accurately pressed against the white line drawn on the stone wall. When the operator in the cab saw the air hammer aiming at the target, he immediately stepped on an air brake switch under his feet.
The high-pressure air from the air compressor quickly poured into the air hammer, and a burst of explosions immediately sounded in front.
The air hammer made of alloy steel kept hitting the rock at a frequency of five or six times per second. For a while, the stone wall was splashed with broken stones, and small stones were constantly knocked down. In just ten seconds, a small pit as big as a washbasin was chiseled out of the stone wall in front of them.
Seeing this scene, everyone present immediately gained confidence.
We knew before that this thing could be used to drill rocks, but no one had ever seen the real effect. Now that we have witnessed this scene with our own eyes and seen the efficiency of this rock drill, everyone immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
It seems that digging a tunnel is not that difficult? !
Seeing that it was effective, the driver pushed the handle again, controlling the mechanical arm to extend forward. After the mechanical arm was firmly pressed, he stepped on the airlock switch again. There was another noise of "thump, thump, thump", and the pit that had just been drilled went another 20 centimeters deeper. The efficiency was so fast that it was simply terrifying.
At this moment, the driver suddenly stuck his head out of the window and shouted to Yang Xin outside.
"Chief Engineer Yang, how deep do we need to dig?"
Yang Xin said without hesitation, "It should be at least half a meter. Isn't the pick on your air hammer 80 centimeters long? Then just push the air hammer in and you're done. Then move on to the next point until you have dug out the whole circle."
"Okay, just watch!"
The driver agreed and started to operate the rock drill again. He kept pushing and pulling the hydraulic handle to control the position of the vehicle and the height of the mechanical arm. He controlled the air brake switch of the air hammer with his feet. He stepped on it from time to time, and the broken stones from the stone wall would splash.
In this way, one person and one car started working from dawn in the morning and worked until noon. They just dug out half of the white line outside the tunnel.
The driver of the rock drill went to have a meal and rest, while You Fu ordered the others to take advantage of the driver's lunch break, put on the rattan construction site safety helmet, run to the bottom of the stone wall to clean up the broken stones that were dug out, load them with a small cart, and then find a place to pile them up.
These gravels are also useful and cannot be discarded at will.
For example, when consolidating the tunnel in the later stage, reinforced concrete is needed for pouring. A lot of gravels are needed in the concrete. If the construction site cannot provide them, they have to be transported from far away.
But now they are no longer needed. The small pieces of stones chiseled out of the tunnel can be broken into smaller pieces and used to mix concrete. The larger ones can be sold as stone materials and sold to the people as building materials.
For example, carving them into stone tables and stone benches like those in the park, or carving them into small stone lions at the doorstep, or even making them into production tools such as millstones and stone rollers, are all good choices, better than throwing them away directly.
After lunch and a break for an hour, the driver started working again. This time, he dug out a gap of 80 centimeters deep in the whole circle of white lines, even the straight line on the horizon.
But this is not the end. According to Yang Xin's request, before dark today, a large hole must be dug in the middle of the cross section of the tunnel on the stone wall, preferably as big as a door.
This is not a difficult task. According to the efficiency of the rock drill, it will take at most 20 minutes.
The driver continued to insist. Although his job was not tiring, he was highly nervous and was already fatigued. After all, he needed to observe and operate the machine constantly. How could he not spend energy?
There was another burst of thumping sounds. At the moment when the afterglow of the sun completely disappeared into the mountain ridge, a cave about the size of a doorway and about two meters deep was dug out. The driver, who was tired all day, could finally rest.
But the driver rested, but others could not.
During the day, the driver was the only one working. Some of the others were assigned to build the camp of the engineering team, some drove sheep to graze, and some were sent to clear the roads in the mountains and cut some firewood. Another group of people went to transform the water source.
They found a stream formed by mountain springs in the mountains, and then dug a pond on the side of the camp, and then dug a ditch to divert the stream water. Not only did they solve the problem of daily drinking water, but they also solved the problem of water sources needed on the construction site.
A water pump was installed on the construction site, and the other end of the rubber water pipe was placed in the pond, so that the construction site could get inexhaustible water.
In the evening, after dinner, when the driver was resting, You Fu and Yang Xin came to the construction site again with calcium carbide lamps and several craftsmen who could build walls.
They pushed some loess and stone bricks with a cart, and then used a water pump to divert water, mixed mud on the spot, and then used the stones and bricks they picked up to build a wall to block the small cave dug out in the evening.
But it was not completely blocked. They also left two openings on the wall, one for observation and one for ventilation, and turned this small cave into something similar to a porcelain kiln.
After the brick wall was built, You Fu and Yang Xin made arrangements again, "Now is the time to quickly bring the firewood collected during the day, and then send people to guard here at night and take turns burning firewood.
"We need to burn this cave like a kiln, so that when the morning comes tomorrow, we can tear open the wall and use a water pump to spray water into it. The rocks will explode immediately after being stimulated by the fire and water. "
At present, there is no gunpowder in the engineering team, so we can only do this first and see the effect.
In fact, this method of digging mountains is indeed feasible. It is not that Luo Chong himself thinks it is feasible, but there is indeed a precedent in history.
As early as the pre-Qin period, to be precise, before Qin unified the six kingdoms, the then King of Qin asked his capable ministers to go to Sichuan to build water conservancy projects, which is the famous Dujiangyan project.
Sichuan at that time was not like it is now. The Chengdu Plain suffered from severe droughts for many years and was very short of water, while other places were flooded frequently. At that time, our ancestors used this method of burning water to open mountains and crack rocks, change river courses, build dams to divert water, and divert water into the Chengdu Plain. They dug out a Dujiangyan. Since then, the Chengdu Plain has become a land of fish and rice, a land of abundance.
With such a successful case in front of them, how could the Han tribe, which had a more advanced level of science and technology, fail?
(End of this chapter)
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