Chapter 1284 Visiting Shilu Iron Mine
Liu Shang was so heartbroken by Zhang Qianzhi's smile that he didn't know how to respond. Suddenly, several long whistles came from the forest in the distance, and then the locomotive of the train they were riding on also started to beat rhythmically. The whistle answered. A moment later, everyone felt the ground beneath their feet trembling slightly. A train loaded with ores and logs came rushing from the west. It passed the train parked on the branch road and roared towards Changhua Port.
The two trains used the whistle signal as a means of communication to prevent the train from Changhua from having any trouble while traveling and failing to enter the branch road in time to give way to the main track. If the situation is abnormal, the train leaving Shilu will stop in time to eliminate possible hidden dangers ahead. Although the method is simple, the effect is very satisfactory. In the few years since this railway line was opened, although there have been emergencies in which trains fell down due to malfunctions during travel, there has never been an accident when the train deviated from the track on the way. Every morning and once in the evening, the train misses the train midway. This is the same procedure day after day, year after year.
However, after the whistle blew, Liu Shang's embarrassing situation was relieved. After the train coming from the opposite direction passed, someone called everyone to get on the train and set off, allowing Liu Shang to finally get rid of Zhang Qianzhi's "entanglement" naturally.
Along the way, Liu Shang felt that he was well treated in terms of food, accommodation, and transportation. It was Zhang Qianzhi's existence that kept him on pins and needles. He always felt that the other person was like a poisonous snake, silently walking around him, and he might not know when he would be killed. Will suddenly bite him. But the position and environment he was in now, and he couldn't actively avoid the other party's presence, were really uncomfortable.
However, after Zhang Qianzhi returned to the car again, she seemed to have ignored his presence, calmly sat back next to Yu Xiaobao, and continued to chat and laugh with Qiao Zhiya. Liu Shang breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Zhang Qianzhi's attention was no longer on him.
At this time, the train had only reached nearly half of its journey. For the next hour, the train continued to travel through the vast forest. Just by looking at the dense virgin forest outside the car window, Liu Shang could roughly imagine how difficult it was for the Haihan people to build a railway here for trains. The Shilu Iron Mine, which is located deep in the mountains, is said to have a population of several thousand. Supplies and materials are basically maintained by this railway, and only Haihan would have such a seemingly crazy arrangement.
Among Yu Xiaobao's group, many of them, like Liu Shang, came to Shilu for the first time. They were also amazed by the natural scenery along the way. They were able to drive quickly in the virgin forest. Only in the world can you enjoy such adventures by coming to this place. The Sanya Railway was also opened in the forest at the beginning. Now the woods on both sides of the road have been cleared to build various industrial facilities along the railway. The areas farther away have also been opened up into various farms. They have long been invisible. Such natural scenery.
"Ahead is the first cross-river railway bridge built in our country, and currently the only cross-river railway bridge, the Changjiang Bridge." Following Qiao Zhiya's introduction, the train has already sailed onto the Changjiang Bridge quickly. However, the span of this railway bridge is not large. It is only about a hundred meters including the approach bridge. The several bridge piers in the middle are built on the stone beach in the center of the river. The height from the bridge deck to the water is only four or five meters. The construction difficulty is actually not that big. However, in this era, being able to build a bridge capable of carrying railway transportation in such an environment is already considered a feat of bridge engineering.
However, at the speed of the train, it only took a short moment to pass the railway bridge. Before Liu Shang even had time to stand up and look around, he saw the Changjiang River passing under his feet. As for this railway bridge that was occupied by Qiao Zhiya What the railway bridge that was shown off looked like was not even clear at all. Liu Shang sighed secretly and sat back on the chair.
After crossing the railway bridge, the train began to slow down slowly. After traveling for four or five miles, you could see the station ahead from the window. A tall iron frame spans the railway. There are two very eye-catching characters "Shilu" on the frame, indicating that this is the destination of everyone's trip.
After Liu Shang got off the bus, he noticed that the platform here seemed to be larger than that of Changhua Railway Station. The area where ores and logs were stacked took up almost 90% of the entire platform, leaving only a three-foot-wide road. For the few passengers to enter and exit. Outside the platform, you can see a small freight train that is only one-third the size of the train you are riding, transporting cartloads of ore from the distant hillside.
This sight made Liu Shang refresh his concept of steam locomotives again. Only then did he realize that this thing could not only be used for long-distance transportation, but could also be used to improve transportation efficiency even for such short distances. The railway required to be built for this smaller freight train is obviously much narrower, and the rails are also much thinner. The construction cost and construction period will naturally be much shorter than that of this regular railway. Even if Liu Shang regarded Haihan as his opponent in his heart, he had to admire his intelligence in improving production capacity, which was beyond the Ming Dynasty.
After everyone got out of the car, they headed towards the West Mine on the nearby hillside under the leadership of Qiao Zhiya. Although it looked close, it took a long walk to reach the place with a stick of incense.
What appeared in front of everyone was an oval mine pit about one mile long and half a mile wide. A passage more than one foot wide extended downward along the pit wall in a zigzag manner, and was at least a dozen feet deep at the bottom. Hundreds of miners work at various mining points in this large pit, using tools such as hammers, shovels, chisels, shovels, etc. to mine the ore, load it into buckets laid on the walls of the pit, and then transport it from high altitudes outside the pit. A steam winch there rolled a steel cable to pull the ore up from the pit.
Liu Shang understood at a glance from a high place that this ore transportation system was a three-dimensional version of a mini train, except that this small train did not have a front head. Instead, it used a high-altitude steam winch to pull the steel cable to control the body of the ore. Move back and forth on the track. Devices like this are actually found in some mines in the Ming Dynasty, but they generally use animal power or even human power to push the winch to pull the bucket of the ore. The efficiency is definitely not as good as the tireless steam engines like the Haihan people.
"It can be used like this!" Liu Shang suddenly felt a little enlightened. It seemed that any work that required great strength could be done with this steam engine. It was nothing more than outputting the huge force it generated in different ways. That’s all. Of course, this is simple to say, but the specific implementation requires very professional knowledge and skills. At least Liu Shang was unable to design a machine that could operate smoothly and achieve these purposes. This is very frustrating when you think about it. Even if you understand how it works, it is still difficult to imitate it.
There are as many as ten steam winches like this deployed around the mine, each with a hill of coal next to it, a water tanker to replenish water for the boiler, and several operators. The truck bucket keeps going up and down the pit wall, and I don't know how much ore has to be transported from the pit at the end of the day. Liu Shang only looked at it for a moment and knew that the mining efficiency here was hard to catch up with even the Daming Mine.
Liu Shang secretly sighed, knowing that this gap is not limited to this place. The mine is the source of smelting steel. Haihan takes the lead step by step. With the amazing mining speed here, many people in Changhua County must have The smelting workshop will not be idle either. No wonder Haihan spared no effort to transport coal across the sea and built dozens of miles of railways to transport ore out of the mountains, all in order to increase steel production. These links are closely linked, and each link is operating at a high speed and developing continuously. It is no wonder that Haihan has risen rapidly in the South China Sea in just a few years. As for why Haihan needed so much steel, Liu Shang thought he already knew something about it. Haihan promoted the application of steam engines, and his army was equipped with a large number of sharp guns. Legend has it that Haihan also had the secret technique of building giant steel ships, so The amount of steel needed must be astronomical. Only by building a town like Changhua that specializes in smelting can resources be concentrated to produce enough steel.
Although Liu Shang's idea is a bit one-sided, it basically tells the truth. However, Haihan's application of steel is not limited to the manufacture of steam engines and various weapons. In the process of promoting industrialization, there are too many places where steel and other metals need to be used. However, most of these applications are concentrated in Tiandu Industrial Zone and are not open to the outside world. Liu Shang has not been in Sanya for a long time, and with his current status, he naturally has no access to the actual situation in the industrial zone.
Qiao Zhiya gave everyone a general introduction to the production arrangements of the West Mine and the production status this year. Liu Shang was not so sensitive to the concept of numbers. After listening to it, it was difficult to imagine what the level of mining work here was. His attention Already attracted by the noise coming from the other side of the mine.
The sound coming from behind the slope in the distance was louder than the movement of a steam engine. Liu Shang couldn't help but wonder what kind of mechanical monster was hidden there that could make such a loud noise.
His curiosity was quickly satisfied, and Qiao Zhiya took them to the place while introducing the local production conditions. Only then did Liu Shang see the thing making a huge noise. It turned out to be a large machine used to crush ore. After the ore mined from the mine is pulled up through the truck bucket, it is dumped directly into this machine, where the large pieces of ore are pressed into smaller pieces by steel cams to facilitate subsequent loading. After the ore is crushed, it is poured directly from the discharge port into a conveyor trough laid on the hillside, and gravity is used to allow it to naturally slide to the yard at the foot of the mountain, where it is then loaded onto a small train and transported to Shilu Railway Station.
There are only two or three workers operating the steam engine in the entire processing process, and this efficiency is probably better than the work of dozens of people. Liu Shang was not surprised by the use of steam engines, but after understanding the principle and function of this thing, he couldn't help but be impressed by the ingenuity of the Haihan people again. Haihan could always use steam engines in the most appropriate places to replace manpower to perform clumsy work. This has become another reason for Liu Shang's admiration.
"There are four ore crushers like this in the west mine and six in the east mine..." Qiao Zhiya's introduction made Liu Shang secretly swallow. He thought this thing was just one, but he underestimated it greatly. Haihan’s strength. As for Qiao Zhiya's next introduction about how many tons of ore this thing could process per day, Liu Shang had no clear idea of this and automatically ignored it.
Based on what Liu Shang saw during his visit here, the mining efficiency of these thousand miners plus various steam machines operating the mines was at least equivalent to that of three to four thousand people working entirely by hand. The way Haihan operates here is completely beyond ordinary people's imagination. It's no wonder that they are unwilling to open this area to the outside world.
But Liu Shang suddenly thought of a question. Since Haihan is so good at using steam machinery, why not just build a few mining machines to replace the relatively inefficient human mining?
As soon as he thought of this, someone already asked the question for him. Then I heard Yu Xiaobao ask Qiao Zhiya: "I heard that the Ministry of Industry has been developing steam-powered excavators in the past few years. I wonder what the progress is now?"
Qiao Zhiya responded with a smile: "This thing is actually not technically difficult. The Ministry of Industry has produced the drawings a long time ago, but Tian Du's manufacturing progress cannot keep up. The things have been shipped here some time ago and are being assembled and debugged here. It’s been working on for more than half a month, and now it’s been put into trial. I’ll take you to see it later.”
Yu Xiaobao asked with understanding: "Are you trying it out in the mine over there at the hard labor camp?"
Qiao Zhiya nodded and said: "There are still many unstable aspects in new things, and the operators are not particularly skilled. If used here, it will affect the normal mining work. Besides, for safety reasons, it is also tried there. Relatively safe.”
With the technology Haihan has mastered, it is not difficult to design a steam-powered excavator. However, after the prototype is built, it must be tried in the mine, and then improvements and adjustments can be made based on the actual use effect before the final design can be finalized. Mass production version. In order to prevent this thing from injuring others if it was operated incorrectly, Qiao Zhiya decided to put it into operation in the East Mine where hard labor prisoners were used as laborers. Moreover, the local hard labor prisoners are all serious criminals with longer sentences, so there is no need to worry about the secret being leaked in the short term.
Liu Shang was very curious after hearing this conversation and wanted to see how the steam excavator works. However, it was almost noon now, so Qiao Zhiya suggested having lunch first and then visiting the East Mine in the afternoon. Yu Xiaobao and others were not in a hurry to begin with, so they naturally followed the good advice and obeyed Qiao Zhiya's arrangements. So a group of people went back to the foot of the mountain first, accompanied by several cadres from the mine, and went to eat in the employee canteen of a nearby mine.
(End of chapter)