Chapter 184 Visiting the Industrial Area
The land road from Base No. 1 to the inland Tiandu Industrial Zone also suffered some damage in this storm. Although the Ministry of Construction has dug drainage ditches across the road at certain distances in accordance with the standards of rural roads during construction and covered them with bluestone slabs, due to the heavy rain in the past few days, the drainage ditches in many places have been damaged. It was still washed away by the rainwater flowing down from the mountains, and pond-like rainwater accumulation appeared in some low-lying areas.
Schneider arranged a special means of transportation for Lin Nai - an ox cart. Although the speed was relatively slow, it also saved the trouble of walking in the mud. Li Nai noticed that in places along the way that had been washed away by rain, workers were already repairing the roads under the command of the Haihan people. Even in some areas where construction could not be done temporarily due to too much water, springboards were set up in the puddles. So that the oxcarts transporting goods can pass through. In addition to marveling at the speed of post-disaster response of the Haihan people, Li Nai also noticed the importance that the Haihan people attached to keeping traffic flowing smoothly.
Due to the delay on the road, it took nearly four hours to arrive after a journey of more than ten miles. However, after getting off the bus, Li Nai did not feel much fatigue, but seemed extremely excited. The first building he saw after getting off the car was a fortress similar to Base No. 1, except that the wall seemed not as strong and tall as Base No. 1. But judging from the width of the walls extending left and right on both sides of the gate, its area should not be smaller than Base No. 1.
This is naturally the No. 2 base of the central hub of Tiandu Industrial Zone. Although it was not designed from the beginning to be a military fortress, it still has certain defensive capabilities through continuous improvement and construction. In addition to the barracks that can accommodate 300 people, the rest of the base are almost all various warehouses used to store various equipment, raw materials and produced goods required for industry.
Although the defensive capabilities are not as good as those of Base 1, most of the buildings here are relatively solid due to their functions. Each warehouse has a complete drainage system outside. Therefore, Base 2 is in this continuous battle. No major damage was suffered in the heavy rain on that day. After having a quick bite, Schneider took Li Nai out of the base and began to visit the industrial area.
The first unit Schneider arranged for Li Nai to visit was the test workshop of the Ministry of Industry, which mainly uses existing processes to develop various new products and prepare some industrial and chemical raw materials that are temporarily unable to be mass-produced, such as artillery flame tubes. Potassium chlorate used, etc. Products such as glass stationery, soap, and matches were first developed here, and subsequent in-depth product development will continue here.
Under Schneider's instruction, the technicians showed Li Nai several chemical reactions with exaggerated effects such as glass etching, which made Li Nai marvel. Although I don't quite understand what Schneider meant by "chemistry", in Li Nai's opinion, this kind of thing should be quite close to the legendary magic, and the Haihan people who have mastered the "chemistry" technology are simply unfathomable. Test.
The second unit visited is the building materials production base. In addition to several small cement kilns for firing cement, there is also a row of brick kilns. Although the combined brick-making machine they brought worked well and made bricks very quickly, it still could not meet the demand for infrastructure projects that were now popping up everywhere. Therefore, the Ministry of Construction issued a report and built several more brick kilns here. But Li Nai obviously lacked interest in this thing, and the place was very dusty. Li Nai covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and turned around to indicate to Schneider that he could leave.
The third visiting unit was not able to enter at all. Outside the production workshop of the chemical industry entrance there was a big sign saying "No idlers allowed in the production center", and there were soldiers from the militia standing guard, so the two of them were rejected outside the factory. The military and police department undoubtedly trained these sentries extremely well. They only recognized the pass but not the person. They did not give in even when faced with Schneider, the "Chief Haihan".
After hearing the news, Qiao Zhiya came out of the factory and explained to them why it was now closed to the outside world: "We are conducting a large-scale trial production of sulfuric acid these days. The factory is quite dangerous, so no idlers can be allowed in."
Qiao Zhiya felt that what he said was a bit of a joke, and he smiled apologetically: "Of course I'm not referring to you, but this is really not the right time. Besides, there's nothing to see in our factory. It's all filled with large and small iron cans and pipes. It's nothing. What a visual impact! Why don’t you go and see the iron smelting? I heard that they reopened the furnace yesterday.”
After saying goodbye to Qiao Zhiya, Li Nai's curiosity aroused again: "Mr. Shi, what is this sulfuric acid?"
Anyone else might not know how to answer Li Nai's question, but Schneider was somewhat knowledgeable and immediately answered: "Sulfuric acid is green vitriol oil."
Li Nai suddenly said: "I see. But isn't this green vitriol oil just an elixir used by Taoist priests to make elixirs?" "Alchemy?" Schneider was stunned for a moment, and then laughed: "No, we don't have elixirs. For us, sulfuric acid is more useful than alchemy.”
"Mr. Shi, can you elaborate?" Li Nai asked reluctantly.
This time Schneider was stumped. Although he was considered knowledgeable, chemical engineering knowledge was not his major after all. It would be good if he could distinguish three acids and two bases, but how many specific applications could he tell? Schneider had an idea and said: "There are too many specific functions, some of which I can't elaborate on, but the glass etching you just saw, the solution used to corrode glass, is made of sulfuric acid."
< br>
In fact, not only inorganic acids such as hydrofluoric acid for etching glass need to be processed with sulfuric acid, sulfuric acid plays an irreplaceable role in many aspects such as coking, electroplating, tanning, pigments, rubber, papermaking, paint, and military technology. . The three-acid-two-alkali project has always been the focus of the Executive Committee, and a large number of complete sets of equipment were brought during the time travel. However, due to the actual conditions of this time and space, the production line has not been built.
Li Nai didn't understand chemistry at all, so he naturally couldn't guess the twists and turns in Schneider's mind. At the moment, he just nodded in vague understanding, which was regarded as approval of Schneider's answer.
Many production units involved in the military industry have confidentiality principles, and the executive committee cannot let Li Nai see them. Schneider thought about it and it seemed that the only smelting workshop recommended by Qiao Zhiya could be visited. Now that smelting and cannon casting have been separated into two different workshops, there is no need to worry about leaks.
Li Nai also visited many iron smelting workshops in Foshan in his early years and thought he had some knowledge in this area. However, he was still greatly shocked when he saw the huge iron smelting blast furnace in the factory. Although it was far away, based on the comparison of the figures of the workers in front of the furnace, he could still tell that the size of this blast furnace was at least several times larger than the iron-making furnaces he had seen before.
Liu Xingli, the person in charge of the smelting workshop, enthusiastically introduced the current production situation to them: "At present, our blast furnace mainly uses coke to make iron. It takes about 700 kilograms of coke to make every kilogram of pig iron, and the production efficiency is still relatively low. , but after we solve the problem of coke supply, we will soon be able to increase production. Our goal before the end of this year is to produce more than 15 tons of iron per day.”
During this period, Li Nai dealt with the Haihan people every day, and gradually became familiar with the weights and measures they used. Fifteen Haihan tons is roughly equivalent to 30,000 kilograms. This kind of output in Foshan is enough to scare a lot of old blacksmiths. . But perhaps because there were so many incredible miracles seen on the Haihan territory during this period, Li Nai was not particularly surprised by this number. He was just thinking that the raw materials for the iron boats on the seaside, the iron farm tools used by workers, and the blunderbuss and Hongyi cannons equipped by the Haihan militia that he had seen here these days probably came from the iron smelting here. Blast furnace.
The temperature in the smelting plant was so high that the two of them felt like they were sweating profusely after not staying here for too long. At Liu Xingli's suggestion, they visited the mineral processing workshop next to it. Here Li Nai finally saw the legendary mechanism with the power of a thousand people-three steam-powered ore crushers.
The reason why there are three machines is to carry out crushing operations according to different sizes of ores. The largest ore will be sent to the jaw crusher first to crush it to a size that the next machine can operate. After the continuous operation of the three crushers, the original large chunks of ore have become a size that can be directly sent into the crusher. The size of an iron-making blast furnace.
The boiler emitting white smoke, the giant flywheel that slowly and firmly rotated, the crank connecting rod that moved back and forth, and the crackling sound of the ore in the machine being continuously crushed, gave Li Nai a very intuitive understanding of the power of steam machinery. Great power. When those huge ores turned into slag and poured out of the discharge port, Li Nai took a deep breath - these ore crushing tasks that originally took a lot of manpower to complete, the Haihan people relied on these weird The automaton did it in just a few moments!
Li Nai has much more knowledge than Shuizhai's general manager Luo Shengdongguang. Although he doesn't understand how this machine works, he can already think of more uses for this thing - it can be used for blacksmithing by connecting a crane to it. , it can be used to grind rice and flour even with a millstone. Any work that requires a lot of manpower can be replaced by this mechanism! If there were enough such mechanisms and they were large enough, it might not be a problem to use them to move mountains and reclaim seas. With such technology in hand, it is no wonder that the Haihan people were able to create such a huge situation in Victory Port with only a few hundred people.
(End of chapter)