Wild North America 1846

Nicaragua Canal Construction Site
The scene of the canal construction site that can't be seen at a glance is extremely grand, and the entire canal construction site is divided into 24 tenders.

From the Punta Gorda River on the Caribbean side, along the Dule River into Lake Nicaragua, and then to the Brito Estuary on the Pacific coast, the total length is about 276 kilometers, which is three times the length of the Panama Canal.

The planned bottom width of the canal channel is 230 meters to 520 meters, and the water depth is 27.6 meters. After the canal is completed, it can pass hundreds of thousands of tons of giant ships.

With Lake Nicaragua as the core of the canal, construction along the natural channel of the San Hussen River on the east side is less difficult.

It is mainly to cut and straighten the existing 198-kilometer San Juan natural river after the channel is blocked and diverted, clear some banks in the middle of the river, blast rocks, widen and deepen a small number of narrow channels, and build rubble slope protection Wait for the project.

Due to the long route, the amount of earth excavated is more than twice that of the Suez Canal, which is the most labor-intensive place.

After more than four years of large-scale construction, the river channel on the east side has taken a rough shape.

Due to the good natural water width and depth, the original twists and turns of the river have become much straighter after construction, and the giant ship can easily enter from Lake Nicaragua and enter the Caribbean Sea along the San Juan River.

On the slopes of the canal site

There are many railway-like sliding rails fixed, and the unpowered dump trucks carrying mud and rocks go up and down, and transport the excavated earth and rocks to the high places on the top of the slope, where they are piled up into small flat-topped earth mountains.

In the future, these small flat-topped hills can be used not only as monitoring posts for the canal company, but also as garrison camps to defend the safety of the Nicaragua Canal.

Originally, tractors were used to pull these unpowered dump trucks. At the top of each track, there was a tractor with a carriage full of sand and gravel. The tractor carriage was pulled by a steel wire rope to pull the dump truck full of mud and rock up from the bottom of the river bed along the rails. .

Just last year
Dozens of electric motors were sent to the construction site of the Nicaragua Canal, and it was safe and good to use them to pull wire ropes, and they were quickly applied on a large scale on the construction site.

A power generating diesel unit can tow five slide rails, greatly improving construction efficiency.

But it is undeniable that the excavation of sediment at the bottom of the canal can only rely on purely human labor.

Day after day of hard work has caused the loss of nearly a quarter of the 10,000+ black slaves. This is the price that must be paid for the grand project of the century, and it doesn’t matter who comes.

According to the current project progress, in two and a half years, the construction of the 198-kilometer San Juan River in the eastern section can be completed and fully navigable.

The biggest difficulty in construction lies on the west side. The west bank of Lake Nicaragua is only 20 kilometers away from the Pacific Ocean, but it is a hilly area. The original Brito River passes through the isthmus. The channel is tortuous and narrow, and the water depth is not enough.

Moreover, there is a 26-meter drop between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Nicaragua, so it is necessary to build a double-line three-level sluice. The scale of the super sluice is rare in the world, and the construction is extremely difficult.

this day

Under the escort of the accompanying officials and many officers and soldiers of the Imperial Guard, Emperor Li Cha personally inspected the sluice construction site and listened to the progress reports of the local engineering personnel.

What is displayed in front of Li Cha now is a magnificent architectural scene. The foundation pit of the 36-meter-deep ship lock has begun to pour the concrete floor, which is like a honeycomb of densely packed steel bars, which makes people feel scalp numb.

The two cement factories located along the Brito River produced 2.7 barrels of cement ahead of schedule and piled them densely around the construction site to make full preparations for the concrete pouring of the bottom slab.

The ship lock uses specially developed special cement, which has high strength, long durability, and the price is quite astonishing, more than three times that of ordinary cement.

With an order to start pouring, 1.15 workers around the ship lock site started at the same time, mixing the piled up hill-like stones, yellow sand, and cement into the mixing tank in proportion.

137 cement mixing barrels lined up in a row started at the same time, and the well-mixed cement was pushed by a worker on a trolley, loaded and transported to the designated location for dumping.

There are dozens of workers around each cement mixing tank, some are responsible for loading sand and gravel, some are responsible for adding water, and some are responsible for adding cement, running continuously like a flowing water medium.

and on the other side

More than 20 small carts have been waiting quietly. Each small cart has two people, one pulling in front, and the other holding the wheelbarrow in the back.

look down from above
Black slave labor pushing carts formed 137 thin lines, pouring concrete down one cart after another, without stopping in between.

Next to each cement mixing bucket, there are engineers responsible for quality records and supervision to ensure that each bucket of cement being mixed meets the requirements and the proportion is appropriate.

The entire pouring will last for two days and two nights, and it is required to complete the pouring at one time without any pause in between. A total of more than 7 cubic meters of concrete will be poured.

The black slave workers who participated in the pouring changed shifts every two hours. They came down to rest for a while, drank some water, ate something, and recharged their energy to prepare for the top.

Looking at this lively and orderly labor scene, Emperor Li Cha was also full of pride at the moment, and said with a smile;

"The on-site construction organization is very good! There is a spirit of changing the world, which shows the extremely high level of the imperial engineering personnel. This is a gratifying thing.

When the selection of the host of the Nicaragua Canal project was first negotiated, many people preferred to invite high-level French engineers because they presided over the construction of the century-old Suez Canal.

from a technical point of view

The Suez Canal is nothing more than a land canal without locks, and French engineers have no experience in building record-breaking double-line three-level locks. Their domestic industrial level lags far behind the Imperial Heavy Industry.

Others can do it, why can't we?
The heavy shipbuilding industry and metallurgical industry of the Tang Empire are among the top in the world, and the engineers have rich experience in building large reservoirs. Is there any reason why this unprecedented and magnificent project cannot be done?

Looking at it now, I made the right decision to overcome all opinions, and the level of the imperial engineering personnel has reached the top level in the world. "

Such a high evaluation made the Chinese engineers in the surrounding circle extremely excited, their faces were full of brilliance like chicken blood, and there was only a smirk left.

Zheng Yuan, the head of the Royal Secretariat, raised his hand and said in congratulations; "I would like to congratulate you all. Your Majesty can be said to be so eloquent. With this magnificent project of the century, the imperial experts in the field of civil engineering have already led the world, and they can be proud."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for your great reputation. Thank you, Your Majesty, Long En. I am ashamed."

Hou Guangde, an academician of the Imperial Academy of Engineering who served as the chief engineer, was dark and thin, with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on his face, and led the crowd to thank him in trepidation.

The academicians of the Academy of Engineering belong to the engineering branch of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Tang Empire, and those who can serve as academicians are senior and high-level experts, and their rich resumes are very convincing.

The Royal Academy of Sciences of the Tang Empire is mainly divided into two branches: the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering. It has a library of the Royal Academy of Sciences, 27 laboratories headed by famous academicians, and 6 research institutes under the Royal Academy of Sciences, which are involved in metallurgy, ships, chemicals, The six key research areas of electrification, basic materials and industrial equipment.

Academician Hou Guangde's greatest wish is to build a civil engineering research institute, bringing together the top civil engineers of the Tang Empire in one place to focus on solving some of the world's cutting-edge architectural problems.

For example, the proposed Golden Gate Bridge across the bay in Chang'an, the imperial capital, the Chang'an, Los Angeles, and Chicago subway projects, super hydropower stations, dams, long-span steel bridges and suspension bridges in frontier fields, etc., to build more large-scale projects to benefit the empire.

Emperor Li Cha could understand the wish of an engineer, he couldn't hide his admiration and said;
"This is not an exaggeration, the Nicaragua Canal will surely occupy a glorious page in the history of world engineering, and its importance cannot be overemphasized.

This proves that human beings have unparalleled creativity and proves the cutting-edge level of civil engineering in the empire.

As long as this century's project is successfully completed, from now on, the outstanding engineers of the Tang Empire will be shrouded in an invisible halo, representing the world's advanced level.

Hou Aiqing, what you are doing now is a great project of great historical significance, which will not only benefit the present, but will also benefit future generations, including many imperial engineers in the future.

Here...is the stage for you to display your outstanding talents. "

Emperor Li Cha waved his hand, his words were extremely provocative.

All the engineering personnel and managers present were flushed as if they had been spat with chicken blood, and their expressions exuded a strange brilliance, and they were so excited that they couldn't help themselves.

Far-sighted
In the distance of the ship lock construction site under intense construction, an isthmus that has been widened and deepened by countless blasts is revealed in front of everyone, extending to the end of sight.

The originally narrow and winding isthmus along the Brito River is mostly rocky, and manual excavation is almost impossible, so a lot of blasting construction is required.

on the river bed
Countless rock protrusions need to be blasted and crushed to ensure that after the river is filled with water, the water depth will be more than 28 meters and cannot hinder the passage of the giant ship.

The narrow isthmus also requires a lot of blasting to widen and straighten it, and thousands of tons of high-explosive gunpowder are consumed every year. This is also an extremely dangerous construction project, and a single carelessness will cause a large number of casualties.

Falling rocks, collapses, overturning, falling from high altitudes, tropical plagues, malaria and other diseases, and backward and dangerous construction environments are the main reasons for the casualties of black slave workers.

It is under such harsh construction conditions that the Nicaragua Canal is even more magnificent and impressive.

As the pouring of the concrete floor progressed, black slave laborers working at the bottom of the ship lock as deep as more than 30 meters continued to appear.

Someone slipped and fell on the huge steel cage, someone's arm was caught in the mixing bucket, and someone fainted halfway...

The vicious black overseer immediately rushed up to greet him with a whip, yelling at him to continue working and not to stop.

These black overseers are all selected from slave labor, and can enjoy higher food and treatment. The senior overseers are even allowed to marry wives and have children, get paid, and can live in the Chinese labor area.

This made the black overseers the most vicious dogs, treating the lowest black slave workers mercilessly, and they were not allowed to stop as long as they were breathing.

They are familiar with the lazy and undisciplined nature of black slave workers, and they are always staring at them like hungry wolves.If you walk slowly or procrastinate, you will be whipped if you go up, and you will be killed on the spot if you dare to resist a little.

It was under the constant urging of the black supervisors that the entire Nicaraguan project could proceed so smoothly.

After a little relaxation, all kinds of foreign work will come one after another, and the project will not be built in another 20 years.

From this point of view, the black overseers have contributed a lot, and of course they are also the group that attracts the hatred of black slave workers the most.

on the construction site
It often happens that black supervisors are killed. Some are stoned to death, some are pushed into a deep pit and fall to death, and some are even strangled to death in the dark. It is indeed a very dangerous job.

In this case
When the murderer cannot be found, they can only let it go and choose another one from the low-level black slave labor.

In order to catch up with the progress of the project, the Canal Company can use more cold-blooded means to squeeze the slave workers by default, drive them away with whips and sticks, and inflict various tortures on disobedient black slave workers. These are all done by these black supervisors.

The canal company itself cannot escape the suspicion of instigation and connivance.

He was originally a colonist, so where did the hypocrisy come from?

Emperor Li Cha's eyes were like torches, and he had a panoramic view of everything that happened on the huge construction site. His vision was much wider than that of ordinary people. Standing on a high place, he could even see clearly the actions of the supervisor who beat the black slave labor more than 10 kilometers away.

But just glanced at it, and then turned to other directions...

Over time

Tired black slave workers made more mistakes in pouring and pouring. Sometimes one fell and even injured several slaves, all of them fell into ground gourds.

A few strong supervisors nearby rushed forward immediately, beat them to the ground with whips and sticks, and could only resist the pain on their bodies and hurried to push the cart.

If you stay for a while longer, you will have to take a few more whips.

This situation seems extremely cruel and inhuman, but if you don't do it...

The few black slave workers who fell would lie there for a long time without getting up, yelling, "This hurts, that hurts..." It would be best to go back and rest.

It was like a plague, watching one by one, and within half a day, the entire construction site had to be stopped, not an exaggeration at all.

So as long as there is still breath left on the construction site, you have to get up and work.

Chief engineer Hou Guangde saw the chaotic situation on the scene, and looked at Director Zheng Yuan as if asking for help, hoping that he could mediate from it.

Now is the critical moment for pouring the bottom slab of the foundation pit, and we cannot stop no matter what.

The pouring has been going on for almost 1 hour and 20 minutes by this time, and there are still 40 minutes before the shift can be changed.

Under the high-intensity labor, the black slave workers were panting and their legs and feet were weak.One in the front pulled and the other pushed in the back. Together, the two pushed the 140-pound wheelbarrow on the narrow ramp.

In the event of an accident

The black overseer will take more severe measures to suppress, and it is not ruled out that armed guards will shoot and kill some troublemakers at close range, and such things are unsightly...

For the sake of His Majesty, I hope he can persuade His Majesty the Emperor to leave.

Director Zheng Yuan obviously understood the meaning in the other party's eyes. After slightly lowering his head, he saw that His Majesty had chatted with the courtiers around him before turning around, so he stepped forward and gave a deep salute and said;
"Qizou Your Majesty, the sun is getting higher and higher on this construction site, and it will take a lot of time to walk up. Why don't we just do it like this today... I respectfully invite you to move to the palace, so that all the accompanying adults can take a break and drink some tea. "

"Oh... This seems to be my negligence. Well, then, according to what you said, drive back to the palace."

"I thank Your Majesty Long En, let's drive!" Zheng Yuan quickly raised his hand, and more than 10 guard officers nearby cleared the way, and a group of entourage surrounded His Majesty and left the high place, heading down the hill...