Chapter 1285 Steam Excavator
The Shilu Iron Mine is located in an inland mountainous area, and few outsiders visit it. Therefore, there are no local private commercial institutions. The miners and their families rely on state-owned institutions for food, clothing, and housing. For example, there is basically no choice of place to eat. The only choice is to eat in the mine's staff canteen.
The conditions of the miners' canteen are naturally not as good as those in the county town. From a distance, several groups of miners can be seen queuing up in front of a row of tile-roofed houses to get meals. Qiao Zhiya told everyone that there are three canteens in the West Mine, two of which provide food to the mine workers, and the other is located near the family area. However, since they had different identities, they naturally did not have to line up in the open air with the miners. The mine officials immediately took them to the other end of the row of tile-roofed houses. After entering, they found that three banquet tables had been set up inside.
"The conditions in the mountains are limited and time is short, so we can only buy these things. Xiao Xiao Zhang, don't think it's too shabby here for me!" Qiao Zhiya said as he called everyone to sit down.
Although Qiao Zhiya spoke politely, Yu Xiaobao and Zhang Qianzhi, as subordinates, naturally did not dare to show any neglect or contempt. Moreover, although the dining environment in this place was poor, the dishes on the tables could not be labeled as "shabby" at all. Not up there.
Liu Shang considered himself a person who had traveled extensively and seen the world, but when he saw the dishes on the table, there were many ingredients that he couldn't tell what they were. As the saying goes, delicacies from the mountains and the sea are popular. This Shilu is located in an inland mountainous area, so seafood is not the main specialty here. Instead, the various dishes on the table are mainly made from delicacies from the mountains. Most of what I ate in the past few days was seafood, and it finally had a different flavor when I got here.
As a temporary worker like Liu Shang, he could not go to the main table. Although he wanted to hear what Qiao Zhiya and others would talk about during the banquet, he did not dare to be too arrogant on such an occasion, so he could only interact with other people honestly. Several companions and mine companions sat at a table.
In fact, Qiao Zhiya and others did not talk too much about work during the banquet. They only talked with Yu Xiaobao and others about their current situation, as well as some news and personnel changes in Sanya. He has lived in Changhua all year round and has limited channels for receiving information from the outside world. It is rare for people to come from Sanya, so he naturally wants to take this opportunity to learn more about the developments in Sanya. Who has been promoted and who has been transferred? Although these personnel changes are not directly related to him, as one of Haihan's senior officials, these are all developments that he must pay attention to.
Although the banquet was very sumptuous, because Qiao Zhiya needed to set an example while still at work, he did not serve drinks and could only serve tea instead of wine. The atmosphere during the banquet was not very lively from beginning to end. However, Yu Xiaobao and others also have missions, so naturally they don't care too much about such details. After lunch, it was Qiao Zhiya who led them to see the East Mine, which was a hill away.
The journey to the East Mine was several miles long, and it was uphill all the way. It was still a bit tiring to walk there on foot, so Qiao Zhiya had people prepare pack horses in advance, and everyone rode there together. Liu Shang could ride a horse, but for the sake of his business image, he still tried his best to look clumsy. He got on the horse with the help of others, and carefully pulled the reins to avoid losing control of the horse.
After everyone marched for a while, they noticed that the environment here in the East Mine was different. There was a nearly three-foot-high gatehouse on the road leading to the front. There were Haihan soldiers with loaded guns and ammunition on duty above and below the gatehouse. Although there are no walls on both sides of the gatehouse, there are tall barbed wire fences that extend infinitely to both sides. Liu Shang saw a similar gatehouse in the distance, which was used for small trains pulling ore. It was also guarded by soldiers. Then he remembered that Qiao Zhiya had said before that all the prisoners in the East Mine were working as miners. It’s no wonder that this area was cordoned off with barbed wire.
After a major turmoil occurred in this place a few years ago, the Executive Committee realized that there were many security loopholes here, and invested heavily in the military and police departments to further strengthen defense measures. There are more than just one layer of iron nets like this. In fact, the daily life and work of prisoners are carried out under the strict supervision of layers of barbed wire and guards to ensure that no hard labor prisoners in local prisons will escape from here. Delusion.
After entering the prison area surrounded by barbed wire, everyone quickly saw a place on the hillside surrounded by high walls. The warden in charge of receiving them, Yu Zhen, said that the high wall was where the prisoners were imprisoned. Imprisoned.
Yuzhen was a police officer in Yacheng in his early years. Later, he joined Haihan as a policeman. Then because he was more skilled in the business, he was transferred to Shilu to manage the hard labor camp. When there was a riot in the Shilu Mine, Yushui was already in charge here. However, the riot was not his command's fault, and he was able to remedy the situation in a timely manner, preventing the situation from worsening too much. He could barely make up for it. The Executive Committee and the Police Department believed that he was familiar with the situation here and had always been loyal to Haihan, so they retained his position.
Aftershock knew he was lucky, and in the following years he worked hard to run the Shiludong Mine like an iron barrel. Anyway, the funds and related materials allocated by the superiors are very abundant, and Aftershock has tried its best to improve the defense measures here. Although prison escapes by prisoners have not been completely banned in recent years, there has been no successful escape case, and those who escaped the farthest were captured before they even reached the outermost wire gateway card. As the warden here, Yu Zhen's report cards in recent years can indeed be used to show off his merits in front of his superiors.
Yu Xiaobao and others are not very interested in the prison ecology here. In the eyes of the Executive Committee, most of the prisoners here are just cheap labor. Life and death are not important. Do not exceed the loss ratio set by the superiors. That’s it. As long as the mine can operate stably and maintain sufficient output, the Executive Committee will not care whether the prisoners here are fed and clothed. Therefore, during the local tour, no inspection inside the prison was arranged. Of course, this is a good thing for Aftershock. Although there is no shady place in the prison, there will always be a lot of inconvenience for these dignitaries to enter. Just the security guard has to be arranged for a long time. By not arranging the visit, he could save a lot of trouble.
Compared to the prison, Yu Xiaobao is more concerned about the production status of the mine, especially the steam excavator he asked Qiao Zhiya about earlier. This is not his personal intention, but to learn about the prototype machine on behalf of the executive committee. trial status.
Haihan's top management has always attached great importance to the development and application of steam-powered machinery. This is not just because some of the time-travelers have steampunk plots in their hearts, but it is the only way for Haihan to enter an industrialized society. Only when steam engines are put into use on a large scale in the production of all walks of life, the social productivity brought by it will allow Haihan to grow faster. Steam engines have been widely used in mines, but the development process of steam-powered excavators, which are relatively expensive and have complicated manufacturing processes, has been relatively slow. Therefore, this has become one of the industrial projects that the Executive Committee has focused on in the near future. one. After riding horses on the hillside for a while, everyone finally arrived at the edge of the East Mine. Or because it was mined earlier here and had more labor, the size of the pit mouth of the East Mine is about one-third larger than the West Mine we saw before, and the depth from the pit mouth to the bottom is also greater. . Although there were thousands of people working inside and outside the mine, and teams of guards patrolling back and forth, everyone's eyes were soon attracted by a big guy at the bottom of the pit.
The shape of this thing is very similar to a train carriage, and the size is about the same. You can see several huge wheels under the carriage, which are much larger than the wheels of the train. It can be imagined that it has a certain degree of mobility. . There was a chimney on the ceiling in the middle of the carriage, and smoke was constantly rising from it. The most eye-catching thing is that there is a cantilever extending upward diagonally at one end of the carriage, crossing with another slightly thinner cantilever. The other end of the thin cantilever is connected to a huge bucket, which is slowly Carry out excavation operations gently from nearby slopes.
Liu Shang wanted to see it more clearly, but looking from the entrance of the pit, it was dozens of feet away and he couldn't clearly see the structure and movement of this thing. Just when I was getting anxious, I heard Qiao Zhiya say: "This place is a bit far away. Let's go down and have a look closer."
Liu Shang felt secretly happy when he heard Qiao Zhiya continue to say: "...But with so many people going down, it is not very convenient to protect them. Just Yu Yu and Xiao Zhang go down with me, and the others can wait above."
Qiao Zhiya's reason was understandable. There were at least a thousand prisoners inside and outside the mine, many of them extremely vicious. If Yu Xiaobao's group of more than a dozen people all went down to the bottom of the pit, at least a hundred people would have to be deployed to protect them for safety. If there are only a few people left, it will be less likely to cause too much commotion. Of course, the deeper reason is the confidentiality system. This steam excavator is still in prototype form, and Haihan does not want the outside world to know that he has such a mining tool. Although the inspection team that came this time were all our own, according to the confidentiality system, only senior officials with a certain level of authority, such as Yu Xiaobao and Zhang Qianzhi, were qualified to observe the operation of the machine up close.
Although Liu Shang was unwilling, he also knew that he was far from qualified enough to speak out on such an occasion. He could only watch Qiao Zhiya and others escorted by a team of guards as they slowly walked into the pit along the passage on the wall. The bottom is gone.
After descending to the bottom of the pit, Yu Xiaobao and Zhang Qianzhi finally saw clearly the structure of this big guy. This main body, which resembles a train carriage, is actually the boiler part and transmission mechanism of the steam engine. Several boiler workers stood at the rear of the carriage, constantly shoveling coal into the boiler furnace to maintain the stability of the power output.
The structure of the front part of the carriage is more complicated. The cylinder transmits power to the front cantilever through gears and connecting rods, and then the fine steel chain drive controls the movements of the front cantilever and bucket. The operation of this excavator requires the cooperation of two people. One person is in the operating position at the front of the carriage and is responsible for the left and right and up and down movements of the cantilever, while the other person is in the operating position on the rear cantilever and is responsible for operating the bucket.
The size of the digging bucket can only be seen if you look closely. The ore excavated each time is at least one or two cubic meters in size, and then it slowly turns to the side and dumps the ore in the bucket into the transport truck next to it. Although this excavator moves relatively slowly, it can basically fill a truck bucket in one dig. The efficiency is naturally not the same as that of manual labor.
However, the noise of the operation of this machine was quite loud. Even though Yu Xiaobao and others were standing a few feet away, they could still feel the ground under their feet shaking slightly. The prisoners working nearby did not need to be driven away at all, and they automatically kept a large distance. It seemed that they did not dare to get too close to the steel monster.
"Currently, this machine can dig 100 to 200 cubic meters of ore every day, depending on the operating conditions." Qiao Zhiya introduced to them: "The mechanical performance is okay, but daily maintenance is troublesome. Generally, it has to stop working for about two days. It takes only one day to perform maintenance, but the durability of some parts is still too poor. In addition, it is troublesome to transport coal and water. You see, we also built a water pipe from the top of the pit just to maintain the operation of the machine. "< br>
The biggest consumption of daily operation of steam engines is coal and fresh water, and both of these things have to be transported from outside the mine, which requires some manpower to maintain material supplies. As for the daily maintenance requirements and consumption, there is no fixed number. However, sufficient spare parts are prepared locally for the parts that are more likely to cause problems. Generally, there is no need to call spare parts from Sanya for replacement.
Based on the trial during this period, the conclusion is that the working efficiency of this excavator is indeed much better than that of manpower, but the frequency of maintenance and repairs has not yet reached the requirements of actual use. In addition, there are many details that can be further improved in terms of operational convenience. Qiao Zhiya has compiled a usage report and will send it back to Fort Victory when the next transport ship returns to Sanya.
Liu Shang stood at the entrance of the mine, watching Qiao Zhiya and others pointing at the excavator nearby, and he couldn't help but feel itchy. He is quite interested in these machines and would like to go inside to see what happens, but this wish probably cannot be realized here.
Qiao Zhiya and others stayed at the bottom of the pit for a long time. People at the entrance of the pit could not move around without permission and could only stay where they were. After waiting for more than an hour, Qiao Zhiya and others came back. Liu Shang originally had hopes that he would visit the excavators in batches next, but Qiao Zhiya announced that today's visit would be over, completely giving up his idea.
(End of chapter)