The wind blows from the South Sea

Chapter 60 Building a New Port

This big deal with the Spanish has visibly improved the standardization of the Nanyang Company's equipment and training. All soldiers belonging to the escort have put on Spanish-style armor, including helmets and breastplates.

The lower body is still in blue-gray coarse cloth trousers, leggings and wide-mouthed black cloth shoes, which looks powerful and neat.

Of course

Under normal training conditions, the Nanyang Company's escort team will not be equipped with armor. The equipment is usually kept in the old camp and will not be worn during holidays.

This is done to avoid causing panic among civilians.

Only when it is their turn to escort the southbound mules and horses once a month, the team members will dress up in armor and escort the caravan all the way south.

This time, the Spanish businessmen brought 1600 pairs of Spanish armors, all of which were used by the army for unknown years. You can see the marks of knives, guns and even bullet marks.

But this did not hinder its use. The Spanish businessmen also brought 2200 legal 1777 rifles, which were the ninth year of the Republic flintlocks.

These firearms were not produced in 1777, as the firearms nameplate indicates, but were produced in 1806 during the heyday of Napoleon. They are also one of the military legacies of the Napoleonic Empire.

at that age

Relying on the 9th Year of the Republic flintlock muskets and fearless fighting spirit, millions of French troops followed Emperor Napoleon to defeat invincible opponents throughout Europe, creating legendary stories one after another.

Although these flintlock smoothbore muskets have a history of more than 50 years, they still perform well on the shooting range and are strong and durable.

This is attributed to its excellent quality and the characteristics of a smoothbore rifle, which does not suffer from the rifling being worn away after long-term use.

As early as 1789, Monfort, then a second-class captain of the French artillery, fired four 1777-style rifles 10000 times each and found that they could still fire normally.

十六年后，已经成为上校蒙福尔取出其中的第2、3号步枪再次测试，2号步枪在射击4443次后因为操作失误而炸膛，3号步枪在射击12281次后仍然状态良好。

This example shows that the Republic Nine Years Type flintlock rifle has experienced vicissitudes of time, and its reliability is still worthy of trust.

Feng Guohui arranged for a caravan of mules and horses to go south, bringing sufficient armor and flintlock rifle equipment to the men stationed in Yanwang City, Bromo Town and Tianjia Town.

This time he got 2200 legal 240th-year Republic of China flintlock muskets. Feng Guohui simply changed all the soldiers, eliminated all the more than no-name muskets, collected them and locked them in the arsenal.

In addition to the cavalry, everyone has a flintlock musket.

A total of more than 1400 flintlock muskets have been distributed, and another 500 newly recruited recruits have recently walked to the Landa Mountain Mine for training.

there

Newcomers will undergo a three-month comprehensive military training, from formation to military discipline, from fighting to the use of firearms, there will be a radical change.

After the closed training session ends, Republic Type 9 flintlock rifles will be uniformly distributed.

Thus

The Nanyang Company will become an armed force with complete French equipment. The only thing missing is the artillery team. Due to the lack of artillery instructors, it cannot be built yet.

None of Feng Guohui and his men were proficient in artillery operations, and no one had ever used such a powerful weapon, so they could only put it aside for the time being.

After entering February 1859

The mule and horse caravan going south followed Feng Guohui's order and forcibly assigned the strong indigenous men of the Yusuf tribe to labor, and escorted them to Surabaya City in groups of three to two hundred people.

At this point, the construction project of the pier has officially begun.

By late February, more than a thousand indigenous laborers had gathered at the wharf construction site outside Surabaya. Under the leadership of some Chinese craftsmen, they started working enthusiastically.

It was already the end of the rainy season. It had just rained in the early morning. After the sun came out, the sun shone brightly and quickly dried the water marks on the stones.

When Feng Guohui came to the construction site, the scene in front of him was very different from two months ago. There was a busy construction scene everywhere.

The originally lush forest had been cut down, and the cut branches and leaves were piled into high hills. Rows of big trees were piled neatly into stacks.

The low hills along the coast originally looked like a bald man with his head shaved. The shrubs were cleared away, and the roots of the trees were dug out and dried in the sun, then dragged under the rocks to light a raging fire.

The strong flames were constantly scorching the rocks, causing them to crackle and crack. After pouring large buckets of cold water on them, large chunks of rock continued to collapse.

The low hilltop facing the coast was darkened by thick smoke. Large pieces of peeled rock were taken from here, forming a vertical rock wall about 10 meters above the ground.

If the large stones taken from the rock are too large, they will be split with hammers or iron drills, and then transported to the seawall construction site by oxcart, where they will be built piece by piece.

The seawall construction was dug underground 2.5 meters deep and 2 meters wide. The bottom layer was tamped with stone powder and gravel, bamboo cages were placed, and large rocks were pushed down, and then blended into one with mixed ash to achieve the solid effect of concrete.

The bamboo cage woven with iron wire acts as a steel bar inside, and after condensation, it integrates the rock masonry embankment.

The so-called mixed ash is a mixture of soil ash and cement in a ratio of 2:1.

This is the effect obtained through experiments. When soil ash and cement are mixed in different proportions, the coagulation strength will not be reduced much if 2:1 is used.

The ash is mainly made of volcanic ash, shell powder ground into powder after burning, stones, lime and boiled glutinous rice water. The effect of masonry is also very good.

The only disadvantage is that the condensation is too slow. Under conditions such as Surabaya with sufficient light, it takes more than ten days to condense to the highest intensity.

After adding the cement, it takes three days.

Feng Guohui led his men to inspect the construction site. A large area of ​​land on the dock here has been leveled, and a small part has been covered with volcanic ash, stone powder and gravel.

Old oxen were used to drag stone rollers weighing hundreds of kilograms and crush them repeatedly to form a flat and hardened square.

The next step is to pave it with stone slabs taken from the mountain to form a solid and durable dock square.

More than 400 meters of the underlying foundation of the planned embankment, which is more than a thousand meters long, has been built. This part is backfilled with soil, leaving only the calf-high stone embankment exposed.

The rest is still being poured into the foundation. It will take more than two months for these foundations to be fully formed.

stand on the shore

You can see two rows of large logs extending into the sea, about 6 meters wide and 70 meters long. They are all straight logs with a diameter of 50 centimeters, with one end sharpened and buried in the beach.

It is more than 70 meters away from the sea defense embankment and is the farthest sea line during low tide.

Each piece of wood is more than 4 meters deep into the beach, and they are closely connected with each other using a mortise and tenon structure. The top surface is paved with one-foot-thick wooden boards to form a long wooden trestle.

At the front end of the trestle

There are more than a dozen wooden beams under construction. These wooden beams are sharpened at one end and inserted into the sea water. Several ropes are tied to the wooden beams to prevent them from toppling over.

There is a simple workbench on the top of the wood, which can only accommodate 6 indigenous coolies standing on it. They need to work together to lift a hammer weighing more than 300 pounds and smash the wood into the sea again and again. The head of the hammer is a stone roller with a hole in the middle. A thick iron rod is passed through the hole to prevent the stone roller from slipping and injuring people.

The lower end of this thick iron rod is in the shape of a flat sleeve as wide as a pot lid, which fits right on the top of the wood. When the hammer head fell down, it also hit the iron object.

During the construction, there was a loud "bang bang" sound that could be heard on the sea.

According to the water depth detected by paddling a small sampan before, the trestle must be built at least 85 to 100 meters further forward to reach the 10-meter water depth of shallow tide.

This water depth can accommodate cargo ships of six to seven thousand tons to enter and unload smoothly without worrying about the tide receding and running aground.

Feng Guohui is quite satisfied with the progress of the terminal's construction, but the amount of cement used is staggering. Most of the 210 tons of cement brought by Spanish businessmen have been used.

Fortunately, Feng Guohui subsequently ordered 500 tons of cement, which will be delivered by the Hu family's cargo ship in 1 to 2 weeks at the latest, without delaying the progress of the project.

The person responsible for the construction of the wharf was an old Chinese craftsman named Zheng Daan. He had never built a wharf before, but he had built many cities and wealthy residences and had extremely rich experience.

"Old Antou, if I build a fort on the mountain in the future, where is the best place to build the warehouse on the shore?" Feng Guohui asked as he walked.

Zheng Da'an is an old craftsman who has experienced the Changmao Rebellion for several years. If the war had not affected him and he really couldn't survive the displacement, he would not have dragged his family to Nanyang to find a way to survive.

When Feng Guohui said this, Zheng Daan knew what he meant.

After thinking for a moment, Zheng Daan replied;

"My boss, I guess you may be worried about the spread of the war, so you want to find a stable place.

Forgive me for speaking frankly.

If there are such concerns, then it would be better to build the warehouse in Surabaya City.

The city is far away from here, and no ghost cannon can hit it. Isn't it the best of both worlds? "

Feng Guohui nodded and said;

"You are right, Old Antou. Some goods of low value can be stored at the dock. After all, it is more convenient to load and unload here, and it is your own land.

Ready-made coolies can build a house, and it doesn't cost much anyway, so why bother looking for something far away? "

After Zheng Daan heard this, he pointed his hand forward without hesitation and said;

"If that's the case, I think it's better to build it behind a few hills, as the place is big enough.

After clearing out the mountainous area, the space freed up was enough to build four or five rows of warehouses. It could store more goods, and it was also close to the dock.

Facing the coast, there are several hills that are fifty or sixty meters high. Even if the foreign sailing ships sail into the bay, it will be extremely difficult for the artillery fire to reach them.

A row of solid stone walls is built on the side, and three-meter-wide loess is transported and tamped from the back to form a fortress-type defense facility that is integrated with the hill in front.

Thus

Unless the enemy captures the hillock, the defenders can rely on the hillock to shoot with muskets from a high position, and the enemy will be beaten no matter how hard they come. "

"Hahaha, it's true that every old man in the family is like a treasure. What Lao Antou said really touched my heart." Feng Guohui was very happy after hearing this, patted Lao Antou's strong arm with his hand, and ordered road;

"That's a good idea. I'll reward Lao An with 50 silver coins. The next step is to follow your suggestion to clear away all the weeds and shrubs in that mountain valley and prepare to build a warehouse. Can we still allocate manpower?"

"Thanks to my boss for the reward, we now have enough manpower, but the construction period will be longer. A lot more bricks will be used, so I'm afraid the current brick kiln is not enough." Zheng Da'an replied with clasped fists, a happy look on his face. And passed away.

Feng Guohui waved his hand grandly and said, "If the brick kilns are not enough, then build two more and report the expenses as soon as possible. Has the sawmill been debugged?"

"The adjustment has been completed, boss. Come and take a look." Feng Da'an quickly guided from the front.

The sawmill is a central building built on the coast. It is made of tall logs. Except for the top of the head, which is made of a mixture of mud and straw, the rest of the building is leaky from all sides.

The main thing to guard against is one that doesn’t leak from the rain but lets the wind blow everywhere.

Two of the four steam engines ordered from the Spaniards are placed here. The power output is geared to the large and small gears, and the small gears are connected through a belt to drive the circular saw to rotate at high speed.

The steam engine was whirring in the carpentry room. On the large carpentry bench, the big trees were easily broken into wooden boards and strips with circular saws, and then loaded into trucks and transported away.

Both carpentry benches were in busy operation, and the harsh sound of sawing wood reverberated into one. The workers beside the carpenter bench were all covered with sawdust and were extremely busy.

Since the advent of the steam engine, the efficiency of lumber mills has increased rapidly, and they can provide large quantities of boards, squares, and lumber of various specifications required for building houses, which has become another means for the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce to make profits.

With these timbers, the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce built a timber sales shop on an open space on Collie Street, specializing in selling timber of various specifications.

For a time, business was booming.

In Surabaya, the main material for building houses is wood, and the demand is huge.

Among them, the most labor-intensive part is sawing the big tree into planks and wooden cubes, commonly known as "cutting".

In the past, cutting materials was done by manual sawing, and two strong laborers worked hard for a whole day. If the tree was 6 to 7 meters long, they could only cut five or six boards until it died.

This sawing of wood is a standard manual labor and technical work. It must be sawed according to the ink bullet line, otherwise the board will be sawed crooked, thick or thin, and it will be troublesome, and you will have to use a carpenter's plane to straighten it.

In so many shanty towns in West Surabaya, there are gaps between many wooden boards as big as a finger, wide enough to fit a fist in. This is the result of the wooden boards being put together haphazardly.

Because the boards need to be straightened after sawing them off, the carpenter usually takes a hand saw and cuts along the ink lines.

A board has to be sawed on both sides and then straightened with a carpenter's plane, which is too labor-intensive.

This wood shop opened by the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce sells sawn wooden boards, wooden cubes, and wooden strips. Although the price is higher, not surprisingly, it is still widely welcomed.

After buying these wooden boards, my family invited a few relatives and friends to help, and it only took a dozen days to build a beautiful and neat wooden house. How much trouble was saved?

The expensive price of buying wood is saved through labor, so it is still quite cost-effective when you consider it.

Who wouldn’t like a new wooden house that looks beautiful and decent, and provides enough privacy?

Seeing how popular the timber shop was, Feng Guohui simply opened another sawmill in the south of the city, and the other two steam engines were put into that sawmill.

Because the south of the city is close to a large forest, it is convenient to collect materials and transport raw materials.

(End of this chapter)