Chapter 82: Cement

Wang Luobin had purchased a complete small-scale cement production system using the shaft-kiln method, but the equipment demanded vast quantities of coal—and the transmigrators had none.

The other raw materials proved easier to source locally. Clay from the brick kiln's pit had low sand content and a reddish tint indicating high iron—ideal for cement production. For limestone, though the shell and oyster lime from Bopu contained insufficient calcium carbonate, chalk deposits had been discovered near the clay pit. Gypsum remained elusive, but its absence would not prove critical.

After careful deliberation, Wang Luobin abandoned the idea of installing the complete equipment with its demanding temperature and material specifications. Instead, he would improvise with a substitute cement to meet their immediate construction needs. This alternative went by the name "artificial pozzolanic cement"—certain rural areas had produced it in the past. The process required neither complex equipment nor elaborate procedures. In essence, one simply crushed fired bricks, tiles, or pottery into fine powder, or directly calcined lime and clay together in a kiln. The calcination temperature needed only to reach six to eight hundred degrees Celsius, far below the fourteen hundred and fifty required for Portland cement. Performance roughly matched the ancient Roman pozzolanic cements. The Yunnan-Vietnam Railway had been built using this method, and during the Anti-Japanese War, it served extensively for infrastructure construction throughout the southwestern rear areas.

Wang Luobin knew this material existed, but whether it actually worked remained to be seen. He ordered fired red bricks brought from the brick works for experimentation. Laborers broke the bricks into small pieces by hand, and grinding was attempted using human- and horse-drawn stone rollers salvaged from Bairren Rapids quarry. After an hour of effort, the results proved dismal: a mere ten kilograms ground.

Once sieved, Wang Luobin mixed the powder with lime, added water, and stirred until uniform. Under the Building Group's eager scrutiny, the mixture was applied to lay a wall. Everyone watched with anticipation, hoping to witness whether this legendary substitute truly performed as promised.

When the mortar dried, the fired-clay cement proved entirely serviceable. It could not compare with genuine Portland cement, of course, but it functioned admirably as a bonding agent—capable even of producing concrete for applications with modest strength requirements.

The discovery electrified everyone present. Even Zhao Wu, the bricklayer who had been smashing bricks, could not contain his excitement. He had worked as a mason for over a decade, and throughout his career, walls had always been laid using yellow earth mixed with lime and water. The most sophisticated technique he knew involved adding glutinous rice juice to the mortar. Yet these strangers had created a bonding agent that firmly secured bricks simply by crushing brick powder! The concept lay beyond anything he had imagined. Are they truly pirates? He committed the technique to memory. Having learned this secret, he found himself almost grateful for his capture.

Cement represented the transmigrators' first genuinely modern industrial product—though admittedly still falling short of proper standards. But for their construction ambitions, this marked a crucial milestone. Cement was the foundational material of modern building.

The grinding efficiency, however, remained woefully inadequate. At the current rate, twenty-four hours of continuous grinding produced only two hundred and forty kilograms—a negligible output.

The Machinery Group studied the problem and manufactured a simple automatic grinder. Using two stone rollers from Bairren Rapids quarry, they constructed an electric double-roller assembly connected by a through-shaft to a vertical shaft fitted with bearings to minimize rotational resistance. A swinging frame with a flywheel drove a bevel gear via chain, rotating the stone rollers in continuous motion.

Feeding material and sieving still required manual labor—not merely inefficient but prone to causing silicosis, that nearly incurable occupational plague. Though the workers were captured natives, their labor nonetheless constituted transmigrator wealth. Zhan Wuya and several Machinery Group members addressed the problem by adding a wooden wheel to the bevel gear, using a belt to drive a grain-winnowing fan-sieve. Material fed through a hopper atop the vertical shaft, and ground powder flowed automatically down a ramp into the fan-sieve, where wind separated coarse particles from fine. The coarse material returned via conveyor hopper for re-grinding. This hybrid contraption of iron, wood, and stone could process nearly a ton of brick material daily.

With cement production underway, constructing the Hoffmann kiln required one more essential component: refractory bricks. These were among modern industry's fundamental building blocks—without them, not just Hoffmann kilns and cement kilns but any future blast furnaces would remain impossible dreams. Fortunately, Lingao provided suitable materials locally. The transmigrators discovered deposits of aluminum oxide and silicon oxide near the brick kiln, enabling straightforward production of refractory bricks.

Armed with refractory bricks and cement, building the Hoffmann kiln proved child's play for the Building Group. Within days, the kiln's brick-red chimney spewed thick black smoke skyward for the first time.

"Damn, that's beautiful," someone murmured.

The transmigrators' eyes held expressions of intoxication. What they had once despised—symbols of backwardness and pollution—now appeared to them as objects of profound beauty. Wang Luobin, watching the smoke curl upward, found he understood something that had puzzled him before: why the Great Leader had shown no regard for Beijing's ancient city walls, readily ordering their demolition, yet proclaimed that "Beijing's chimneys should be as dense as forests." Ancient walls had been utterly familiar to Chinese of that era; scarce modern industry represented the true measure of national progress.

Now this Hoffmann kiln's brick-red chimney stood proudly amid the Wenlan River's green mountains and crystalline waters. For the transmigrators, there was no sense of incongruity—it proclaimed the formal beginning of their industrial age.

Before firing could commence, the Hoffmann kiln required a warming period. The Building Group departed for Bopu to construct a lumber drying kiln there. With proper drying facilities, the Lumber Team could continuously supply qualified lumber products to the Bairren Fortress construction site—replacing the current crop of unevenly dried, warp-prone makeshift lumber emerging from crude earthen kilns. Wang Luobin did not accompany them; Luo Duo could locate the necessary specifications for drying-kiln dimensions and materials. Such facilities had never crossed Wang Luobin's path during his time in Guangxi.

Watching the construction crew climb aboard farm trucks bound for Bopu, a thought struck him. He immediately called Mei Wan. "Discuss with the Lumber Team—build a wood distillation kiln as well."

"Distillation kiln?" Mei Wan was unfamiliar with the term.

"A charcoal-burning kiln. Inform Luo Duo later—he'll understand. Study the matter first and determine when production can begin."

Without coal, charcoal would have to serve as their substitute fuel. Wood distillation produced not merely charcoal but also wood tar—a chemical feedstock comprising complex compounds that yielded numerous useful substances. And charcoal's heating value rivaled that of coal.

The Cafeteria Office's food truck arrived bearing meals for the brick-factory workers. Wu De had by now taught them to queue through liberal application of beatings. Queuing represented fundamental social order—a method by which everyone could access resources with rough equality. Why Chinese people had such aversion to queuing seemed unrelated to individual character; perhaps it stemmed largely from long-term resource scarcity. Those who obeyed the rules lost out. Over time, nobody developed any fondness for orderly lines, instead rushing forward when opportunity presented itself, shoving others behind them. Wu De reflected that there was some truth to this theory.

Even now, with each team's captain maintaining discipline, the line remained somewhat chaotic. Everyone hoped to reach the front. Only transmigrator intimidation barely preserved queue discipline.

Wu De was satisfied with his laborers' output. Throughout the construction period, he appeared to merely stroll about, observing casually. Most workers proved diligent—not from self-discipline but from competition among the five captains. None wished their team to appear inadequate before Wu De. "Collaborators are worse than invaders," the saying went, and these five captains indeed proved zealous in driving the work forward. But diligence alone was insufficient. Wu De understood that the laborers' efforts still stemmed purely from fear. Willing, voluntary exertion required different stimulation entirely.

Wu De decided to begin with food. After each prisoner received a bowl of gruel, he had someone bring forward a basket. This oddly-shaped Machinery Group creation reeked of dried seafood—the Cafeteria Office's unsuccessful attempt at salted fish.

"Today, Wang Tian's team worked best and produced the most." Wu De announced from atop a dirt mound. "Their entire team receives one extra salted fish each."

The bonus made many eyes bulge. Since their capture, two meals of gruel daily had sustained them—most could endure that much, having lived half-starved from birth. But without even pickled radish to accompany it, drinking plain gruel meant frequent urination, and without salt, their bodies grew weak after merely two days.

"Wang Tian commanded well—he receives two." This reward set Wang Tian's face aglow with excitement. The other four captains tasted something sour. The extra fish was trivial; the loss of face stung far worse. Each was already calculating which slackers to punish severely that night—killing the chicken to frighten the monkeys.

(End of Chapter)