Chapter 234: Supporting Facilities

"It's not very useful, is it? Just for transporting people? Efficiency isn't that high. This car holds, what, ten people at most?" Wen Desi wasn't very satisfied.

"It can serve as an armed patrol car!" Wei Aiwen said, "Install armor on all four sides, mount a machine gun on top or something—"

"Wait until we lay the tracks to Bopu first."

"Here we have hardened roads as a foundation, but to extend to Bopu, we'll need sleepers and lay tracks properly."

"Just lay them then! It's all standard 1435mm gauge anyway, so there's no waste from redundant construction."

"Let's hold off on that for now; even if we wanted to, we don't have that much steel. There's still one or two kilometers of track to be laid inside the Bopu factory area—metallurgy and heavy chemicals can't do without heavy lifting." Ma Qianzhu shook his head. He knew very well that the inventory of pig iron, wrought iron, and steel was less than 20 tons as of yesterday, barely enough to cope with general industrial production. The pig iron shipped from Guangdong wouldn't arrive for another week. With no iron ore in hand, he felt panic in his heart. Always relying on maritime imports—now he understood better than anyone why the Japanese were so hell-bent on occupying Northeast China back then, trying to hold onto "Manchukuo" even when they were being beaten to a pulp.

Iron ore and blast furnaces—these two were the foundation of industry. Next, the Long-Range Reconnaissance Team needs to conduct specific prospecting, Ma Qianzhu thought.

"We also have modification kits for self-propulsion for this type." Seeing the leaders weren't very interested in the manpower car, Li Chiqi hurriedly directed people to assemble the equipment. Two foldable iron masts were installed on the flatbed. After entering the track, the masts were erected, and sails were hoisted simultaneously—the sails were hard, facilitating extension and retraction. Using wind propulsion assisted by cycling after raising the sails, the efficiency was naturally much higher than pure pedaling.

The advantage of using hard sails was high wind efficiency and very easy hoisting, requiring no rigging or manipulation, making them very practical for flatcars.

"This is still a preliminary design. We've invited professionals studying fluid dynamics to conduct tests to obtain the optimal sail shape. We also want to try if soft sails might be more efficient."

"You don't need to try soft sails to know they won't work." Wen Desi knew the pros and cons of hard vs. soft sails by heart. "You can't even handle the rigging issues; do you expect these four people to operate rigging too?"

"I hadn't thought of that."

"Lingao's wind resources are quite rich, but using it to drive flatcars is still not very reliable. Do you have a more reliable power system?"

"Yes, this is diesel-powered. The experimental model uses a Changchai single-cylinder engine; it works quite well for towing flatcars." Li Chiqi pointed to one at the far end. A Changchai single-cylinder engine was mounted transversely at the rear of the flatbed, with a simple gearbox, control lever, and brake, as well as a hanger—according to Li Chiqi, it was for hanging a lantern—light bulbs were currently "Class I Industrial Materials" and products that couldn't be manufactured in the short term.

"If steam engines could be miniaturized, we could also install steam engines; we just need to increase the frame strength a bit. Current materials are still a bit lacking."

"Then you'd have to hitch a coal-water tender. Might as well just build a small train," Wen Desi said with a smile—deep down, he was also a railway enthusiast.

"What do the leaders think of these vehicles? Should we add more models?"

"The models are enough for now; just grasp the details better." Wen Desi pointed out, "For example, this pedal-powered one doesn't even have handrails around the four seats. Also, the diesel engine and gearbox are exposed without any protection. These are detail issues; you need to consider more from an ergonomics perspective—forget it, better find a professional to help take a look."

"That would be great," Li Chiqi said. "President Wen, I heard the Executive Committee plans to hire craftsmen from Europe?"

"There is such a plan." Wen Desi paused. "What kind of workers do you need?"

"Yes, yes, preferably find me a wheelwright. Or getting one from Guangdong would work too." Li Chiqi had been troubled by this for a long time. Wood wheel-making was a profound craft, and obviously, no one in Lingao was good at it. The wheels of the captured wheelbarrows were very roughly made, not even perfectly round. Li Chiqi and the others were making wheels themselves now. Although the quality was decent, probably due to incorrect techniques, it took several days to make one wheel, and the yield was quite poor. Many of the vehicles they produced now used rubber wheelbarrow wheels brought from the other timeline.

"Alright, I'll remember this," Wen Desi said.

"That's best. With enough wheels, I can spam a sea of horse-drawn carriages." Li Chiqi said excitedly, showing them the 1:2 models of several new carriages he had recently built.

The models Li Chiqi made were all very mature freight wagons from the 18th and 19th centuries in history. There was the famous Scots cart, which had a long and large box but was itself very light, pullable by a single horse. This two-wheeled cart could carry up to 1 ton in short-distance transport.

There was also a four-wheeled freight wagon, drawn by two horses, capable of carrying 3-4 tons of cargo. The model Li Chiqi built was a Lincoln-style box wagon. It had a deep rectangular body with sideboards sloping outward. This wagon's structure was very simple, suitable for imitation.

"Now that several main roads are undergoing surface hardening, once completed, transporting supplies with large four-wheeled wagons will be so convenient! A qualitative leap in transportation history!"

Four-wheeled carriages were one of the transmigrators' "super artifacts." But neither Wen Desi nor Ma Qianzhu had much interest in four-wheeled carriages—to spam a sea of carriages on Hainan Island, they first had to spam a sea of horses. Without horses, nothing could be discussed.

In their view, rather than messing with carriages, it was more practical to make more lightweight and easy-to-use wheelbarrows—people were much easier to find than horses on Hainan Island, and they ate simpler food than horses.

"You'd better develop more wheelbarrows." It was Mei Wan who spoke the truth as soon as he opened his mouth. "Where are the horses for you to pull carts now! The workers on construction sites are all carrying loads with shoulder poles; efficiency is too low!"

"Yes, yes, I didn't think of that—"

"Alright, it's getting late. Let's go look at the water supply project." Ma Qianzhu unceremoniously interrupted Li Chiqi's subsequent presentation of the "Tachanka machine-gun cart" design model—though Du Wen really wanted to keep listening.

The next key supporting project was the large-scale water supply system. The underground collection pipe system originally adopted could only satisfy the daily living water needs—mainly drinking water—of Bairen City residents. It appeared inadequate for future large-scale industrial water use.

The scale of water supply for large-scale industry was far greater than domestic use. Wenlan River water was fine for watering vegetable gardens or flushing toilets directly, but it was unqualified for industrial use. Therefore, a large water plant had to be established.

The transmigrators already had simple large-scale water treatment facilities at Bopu: using sedimentation tanks and sand filter pools to purify water quality for factory and general living use. This method was very simple. Build one or several waterproof brick and stone pools, place a 60-90 cm layer of sand inside, with gravel at the very bottom. The bottom of the pool was a drainage system built with gaps between bricks and stones to collect filtered clear water. After filling the pool with preliminarily settled river water, it flowed through the sand layer at a very slow speed, with solid matter in the water mainly retained on the sand surface. This pool was simple and easy to execute, but the downside was that the filtration speed was pitifully slow. To supply enough water, the pool area had to be increased. Every so often, the contaminated surface sand had to be cleaned, which was very labor-intensive. In the past, Bopu's water demand was small, so this problem wasn't prominent. But large-scale application was unacceptable for the transmigrators, who were not rich in land or labor.

The difference in this new system from traditional filter pools was that water was delivered from the bottom of the sand layer. Simultaneously, a stirrer was installed at the top of the sand layer, constantly stirring the sand to assist the upward-flowing water in washing. The filtration speed was greatly accelerated—of course, the filtration effect couldn't compare with slow sand filter pools. Fortunately, the purpose of the mechanical filtration system was purity, not drinkability. It was very applicable for the transmigrators.

"Is this water only for industrial use?" Wu De asked.

"Except for not being drinkable, it can handle general domestic use," Tian Jiujiu introduced. As a water supply and drainage major, he was finally working in his field.

"Then doesn't that mean we still have to build a new tap water plant later?"

"No need," Tian Jiujiu said. "Actually, just adding some basic chemical treatment measures is enough, like adding alum—"

"Right, I remember now. In the past, when there was no tap water, we'd put alum in the water vat after carrying water back; stirring it made it very clean."

"Once the chemical industry is up, we can also add bleaching powder, or disinfect with chlorine gas."

"Damn it," Wu De scratched his scalp. "In the past, I dreamed of drinking pure natural water and got annoyed smelling chlorine. Now, not smelling chlorine actually makes me uneasy."

"Where do we find chlorine gas?"

"Once the chemical plant's electrolytic salt tank starts, I'm afraid there will be nowhere to use the chlorine. Just pipe it directly into the water—"

"You want everyone to drink dilute hydrochloric acid? You have to use hypochlorite!"

Everyone laughed.

There was one set of this system in both the Bopu Industrial Zone and the Bairen Industrial Zone to meet their respective industrial water needs. Tian Jiujiu set up a steam pumping station at both the Bairen Power Station and Bopu. To improve efficiency and reduce the frequency of sand changing in the filter pools, the river water, once pumped up, would first settle in a sedimentation tank for one or two days to let various larger solid matters precipitate, while identifiable floating debris was scooped out by manpower.

The water processed by the rapid sand filter pool was stored in a water storage tank. The transmigrators used a simple pressure device: a steam pump continuously pumped water into a high-level water tower, utilizing the tower's gravity to supply water to the factories.

The construction and use of the new water supply system were credited to the better material foundation provided by the transmigrators' mechanical and metallurgical industries: it was precisely the ability to mass-produce boilers, steam engines, and cast various small and medium-caliber cast-iron water pipes and valves that made these basic industrial supporting facilities possible.

(End of Chapter)