Chapter 972 Summer Development
But now it's all right. After all the fuss, those handcuffs are for auxiliary soldiers, so Qubing doesn't have any burden.
After Luo Chong explained, he stayed in the military camp of the Shen Ce Guard for two more days, watching Qubing and his men complete the second reorganization, as well as the appointment and removal of officers at all levels, and officially started the second phase of training before rushing back home from the military camp.
In the next period of time, the Shen Ce Guard will have two or three months of training, and then they will start the expedition in early autumn, assembling from here to Weishan County, and then boarding the ship from Weishan County, and going to the camp of the northern survivors by water to meet up with Youye there.
Luo Chong's task is also very tight. He needs to prepare ships for the Shen Ce Guard in these two or three months, as well as the winter equipment for the soldiers, military coats, sweaters, woolen trousers, cotton trousers, leather boots with velvet, gloves, hats, and the most important quilts. These are all necessities for winter combat. It is much colder there than in the eight counties of Hanyang. It is not possible without preparation, especially since there are still many southern soldiers.
In addition, Luo Chong also had to prepare a "factory ship" for them, using a ship to transform into a simple arsenal. He did not expect this ship to produce firearms, but mainly to reload bullets for them.
The pure firearms army fought on logistics, and bullets were not like arrows that could be reused. In addition, the battle site was far away from the Han tribe, so they could only use bullet shells to repeatedly reload ammunition for the front line.
Fortunately, this technology is now very mature in the Han tribe. Qubing can use the equipment to produce bullets himself, and manual reloading of ammunition is even simpler. At that time, some women will be recruited from the local area, and they will be competent for this job after simple training.
So in the next month, Luo Chong began to get busy. First, he went to the shipyard in Liuyang County and asked them to find a three-masted sailing ship in good condition to transform it into a water arsenal, and then began to raise a fleet to go north.
At the same time, another transport fleet was formed to start delivering winter supplies to the northern camps from now on, mainly iron ingots, cotton, cotton cloth and other things. By the way, these ships can also go to the north to explore the way first. After all, the Han tribe rarely goes there and is not very familiar with the waterway.
The ship that Youye had sent to transport asphalt had also arrived at the dock of Liuyang County smoothly. Under Luo Chong's order, most of the natural asphalt on the ship was distributed to the shipyard of Liuyang County, and a small half was distributed to the shipyard in the south. Finally, 100 kilograms were left for the Chemical Research Institute on the island in the center of the lake, so that they could analyze the composition of the natural asphalt and see if they could distill out something.
In the end, the ship that transported asphalt was also left by Luo Chong, who asked them to load a ship of iron ingots and moor them at the dock of Weishan County, ready to lead the fleet when the Shen Ce Guards set out.
In the two major textile counties of Hanyang and Ruyang, the winter uniforms and equipment of the Shen Ce Guards were also being produced continuously. If the two counties produced together, they would definitely be able to be produced in time for their expedition.
After Luo Chong arranged these things, he stayed at home to handle daily government affairs, and then accompanied his wife and children. He also taught Xiaodie the flat button knitting method of knitting sweaters, which was the kind of knitting method for scarves that he had learned from his teacher. As for whether Xiaodie could research other knitting methods, it was unknown.
Anyway, Xiaodie was idle during her confinement, and she also liked this kind of knitting things and was very interested in knitting sweaters, so she studied it in the house every day.
At the same time, the Industrial County Locomotive Manufacturing Plant in Xingang County was also busy.
When the road construction team repaired the railway in the mining area of Xingang County Iron Mine, the locomotive manufacturing plant also produced the third batch of two Endeavour steam locomotives and officially delivered them to the iron ore mining area of Xingang County for use.
On the day of delivery, Dali and Lin Fei specially called Luo Chong to visit. Luo Chong also personally presided over the delivery ceremony and announced that this mining railway was officially put into operation.
With these two trains and a large number of pneumatic hammers in the iron ore area, the mining speed and transportation capacity of the entire iron ore mine have increased by more than ten times.
With the same manpower, the output efficiency of the mine area has increased several times. Before, the steel mill in Xingang County could only put four blast furnaces into operation at the same time. If there were more, the iron ore would not be available. But now that the output of ore has increased, more blast furnaces can be used at the same time. After
reporting to Luo Chong, Luo Chong thought about it for a while and finally decided to start four more blast furnaces, and start eight blast furnaces at the same time. The remaining blast furnaces were used for rotation maintenance.
After all, the current earthen blast furnaces in the Han tribe still have too low technological content and many functions do not meet the standards, so they need to be shut down for maintenance after a period of use. At this time, the blast furnaces that have completed the maintenance can be used, so that the workers will not have to take a holiday, and the steel mill will not reduce production.
The steel output of the Han tribe also doubled instantly because of the investment in this railway and two trains. If it weren't for the lack of manganese steel, the iron output of this steel mill alone would be enough to build a heavy-duty railway.
Unfortunately, heavy-duty railways are not as simple as ordinary steel. They must have manganese steel with better rigidity, strong bending resistance and higher hardness.
In addition, there are tungsten steel and nickel-chromium-molybdenum steel alloy materials. The Han tribe currently has no way to produce them. Nickel-chromium alloy steel is used to make stainless steel, and the role of stainless steel in food and medicine is irreplaceable.
Not to mention the role of tungsten. In addition to being used to make light bulb filaments, the biggest use at this stage is to make gun barrels, improve the heat resistance and service life of gun barrels. If there is really no tungsten steel, molybdenum steel can also be used. Although the performance is worse than that of tungsten steel, it can also meet the standards.
If there are heat-resistant gun barrels made of these two types of steel, the Han tribe can try to make automatic weapons for continuous shooting. It's a pity that in the field of special alloy steel, the Han tribe is now like a baby eating milk. It looks awesome in terms of output, but it's garbage in terms of variety and quality.
This is mainly due to the low level of chemical engineering. Luo Chong does not have a good solution now. He can only let the researchers slowly explore and accumulate over time.
The construction of various places in the Han tribe is proceeding in an orderly manner, but there is also a troublesome problem that has not been solved yet, that is, the water transportation of locomotives and carriages. How to load the train onto the ship is the biggest problem.
If it is modern, with large ships and heavy cranes, it would be fine to directly lift the train onto the ship. It is not a problem at all, but the current Han tribe obviously does not have such conditions, so Lu Guangzhu, the governor of Weishan County who is responsible for this matter, found Luo Chong.
"Chief, we have now transformed a special locomotive carrying ship. The deck and beams inside are reinforced. It can carry four locomotives at a time, but we have encountered a problem now, that is, the unstable docking between the track on the ship and the track on the shore. We can't think of a better way now. Chief, please see if there is any way to solve it."
At the dock of Weishan County, Lu Guangzhu stood there with Luo Chong, pointing at a strange-shaped sailing ship and said to him.
This is a train carrier transformed from a standard three-masted sailing ship of the Han tribe. It is 40 meters long and 12 meters wide, with five decks and five cabins. Originally, the side of the ship should be very high, floating on the water like a building, with nearly three decks above the waterline, but
now the middle position of the ship has been cut off from the top main deck, and the side of the middle position has also been cut off, just flush with the top of the fourth deck, which is equivalent to cutting off a layer in the middle of the ship, but the front and rear ends of the ship have not been moved, so it has become the current ingot-shaped with high ends and low middle.
The four rails are arranged horizontally along the main mast, with two in front of the main mast and two in the back, which means that the ship can carry four locomotives horizontally at a time.
The front of the Endeavour was not very long. The locomotive in front and the tender in the back were less than twelve meters long. With the width of a three-masted sailing ship, it could just fit a locomotive horizontally, and there was still some space in the front and back. There was nothing wrong with this layout, but
Luo Chong couldn't help but ask Lu Guangzhu, "Who was responsible for the modification of this ship? How did he design it? Although a layer of the main deck was cut off, putting four locomotives on it will still cause an unstable center of gravity. With such a heavy object pressing on it, the center of gravity is too high, do you understand? Not to mention that you can't install it now, even if you do, it will easily capsize, do you know?"
Luo Chong said speechlessly, pointing at the modified three-masted sailing ship.
"Well, the shipbuilder said that they have considered this problem. They said that when loading the train, they will first fill the two lower floors with sandbags as ballast, so that the center of gravity can be lowered, and it is unlikely to capsize. However, the load is too heavy and the ship will run slower.
"In addition, they said that using the existing ships for modification, they can only design the layout like this. At first, they also thought about loading it vertically, but that would not load enough and it would be difficult to balance. If the train is installed at one end or both sides, it will easily be overturned. If it is placed in the middle, it will be blocked by the mast on the central axis and cannot be installed at all. That's why they designed it this way."
Lu Guangzhu explained to Luo Chong helplessly. He did not modify the ship himself, and he did not understand shipbuilding. Anyway, Luo Chong was recognized as the smartest person, and it would be right to find the leader if there was any problem.
"Then what is your loading plan? Just stick the ship to the shore and drive the train up? ! "Luo Chong pointed to the end of a railroad track on the shore that stretched toward the lake and asked.
"Yes, but there are obvious problems with this plan now. The boat cannot be stable when floating in the lake. There is also the problem of water level, which is different in every season. Not to mention the season, even the weather will affect the water level. The deck of the boat is sometimes high and sometimes low, but the height of the lake shore is constant, so there is no way to dock.
"In fact, this is not the main point. The impact of seasons and weather is relatively small. The key is the weight of the boat. Because the train is very heavy, each time a train is loaded, it will press the boat down a little. In this way , even if the first train is barely loaded, it will be difficult to load the following trains.
"Also, when the train drives onto the deck, the side that first loads the boat will definitely be pressed down, so the deck of the boat will not be flat, and the train cannot drive on it. Moreover, it is easy for the boat to be squeezed out by the weight of the front of the train." Lu Guangzhu explained their plan again.
"Well, this is all nonsense. You will definitely not be able to load it like this. Let me think about it. There is a problem of water level, and there is also a problem of center of gravity offset and hull tilt. "
Luo Chong thought about the solution quickly in his mind. The water level problem is actually easy to solve. That is to build a dry dock and a gate, one end of which is connected to the lake. When using it, drive the boat in first, or tow it in, then close the gate, and then use a water pump to pump or release water as needed to make it reach the required height.
The remaining center of gravity offset problem can also be solved with some simple and crude methods. First, use a hard connection method to force the two sides of the boat to lock so that it cannot tilt up.
Another thing is the loading method. Don't load one at a time. In this way, the side that is pressed by the train first will definitely sink, and the other side will definitely tilt up.
The correct loading method should be to load both sides together, front and back together, and two trains board the ship from both sides at the same time, so that both sides can be balanced.
As for the problem that the train will sink when it is loaded, it only needs to be loaded while filling water into the dock. Since it is low, just fill it with more water and let it float up.
Thinking of this, Luo Chong already has a complete solution in his mind, but the amount of work is a little larger, but it can still be completed within two months, so he said immediately.
"So, you dig a reservoir on the shore at the end of the dock. This pool is called a dock. The size is based on that of a three-masted sailing ship, about fifty meters long, with some space left in front and back, and 12.4 meters wide, leaving a palm-sized space on one side. Then dig it deeper, build the inner wall of the dock with blue bricks, and install a gate on the water side.
"After it's done, install a steam water pump on the inside corner to add or pump water and adjust the water level.
"Then lay rails on both sides of the dock, and when loading the ship, load both sides at the same time. One person stands on the mast and directs with a flag or a horn, which can solve the problem of synchronous loading and balancing the center of gravity of the ship.
"When the train is finally fully loaded, level the water levels inside and outside, open the gate, and the ship can be sailed out."
Luo Chong said as he gestured the shape of the dock with his hands.
Lu Guangzhu's eyes lit up after hearing this. This method is brilliant, and it uses existing things. Just dig a pond on the shore to solve this problem, and you can also use the size of the dock to limit the swaying of the boat.
Leave 20 centimeters of space on one side, and when the boat comes in, use a few 20-centimeter-thick wooden stakes to insert on both sides of the boat to completely block the boat, so that it can't move even if it wants to. With so many people, why didn't you think of this problem earlier?
(End of this chapter)
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