The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 261 If you want to get rich, build roads first
Wanli stood silently in the oil refinery for more than two hours, and the first pot of oil was finally refined.

Several craftsmen took turns collecting asphalt in iron buckets and began to carry it out.

He silently estimated for a moment, then asked, "Father-in-law, how much material can the Summer Resort produce in a day to build the oil refinery?"

There may not seem to be much in here, but it's not that easy to process.

Yongnianbo Wang Wei estimated, "If you don't count the oil drums, we can probably process about ten sets a day. I'm really not sure how many oil drums are enough, because after they're filled with oil and shipped out, we don't know when they'll be sold and returned."

This pot of oil roughly needs to be filled with fifteen oil barrels. Four hundred pots of oil a day means six thousand oil barrels. Moreover, it takes several days to transport the oil to major cities for sale. No one knows how many days it will take to sell all the oil and then transport it back.

In other words, even if he built two hundred refineries to produce ten thousand oil barrels a day, it would still not be enough.

However, most of the oil they produce is gasoline and diesel packed in kerosene tanks. If the kerosene tanks are brought here, more than 60% of the oil barrels can be saved. One pot of oil only consumes five oil barrels, and four hundred pots will consume two thousand oil barrels.

By this calculation, he can build another 400 oil refineries.

If five hundred oil refineries refine two thousand pots a day, that would be 36,000 taels, or over one million taels a month.

This output is barely enough. After all, it takes time for them to sell the oil.

Wanli thought about it carefully, then said decisively: "Then bring the kerosene cans here and fill them. We will build a workshop for filling kerosene cans directly by the river. After filling, we can pull them to the riverside dock and distribute them directly to the navy soldiers. Each person will take two boxes at first, and the rest will be stored in the warehouse at the dock."

This will save a lot of iron buckets.

Filling the kerosene tank is so easy. Just hold the funnel and pour it in. By the time one pot on this side is not finished, the other pot will definitely be filled.

Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei nodded repeatedly and said, "I understand. Your Majesty is wise."

This is just a small matter.

Wanli thought about it carefully, then pointed at the scalding asphalt and said, "Father-in-law, you can't let them pick on you like this. If they splash on you, your skin will probably get burned.

You have to make a number of flatbed carts like hand harvesters, without the sickles or frames, but they must be made entirely of iron.

With this kind of cart, they don't have to worry about getting burned, and it's much easier to carry oil drums. When it's full, they can just take it away and use another cart to pull an empty drum back."

Yes, using a cart is fast, convenient and saves effort.

Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei could not help but nod his head repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty is wise. I will send a message back by express ship, asking them to do it quickly."

There are no problems in this workshop for the time being.

Next comes the asphalt processing.

To be honest, this thing is quite troublesome to deal with.

Because this stuff is liquid when it's boiling hot, and once it cools down it becomes as hard as wood.

If it is placed in an iron bucket, it cannot be knocked out even if it cools down. It can only be poured out after being heated and melted.

And it's not thorough. Once an iron barrel is filled with asphalt, it can no longer hold anything else but asphalt.

The solution he thought of was to use it directly.

That is, while the asphalt was still hot, they pulled it to the road leading to Yau Tong to repair the road.

At this time, the gravel on both sides of the road leading to Yau Tong had piled up like mountains, and there were not just one but many mountains.

Many craftsmen had gathered around the gravel mountain. They were working in groups of several people, surrounding a piece of thin iron sheet about three feet square.

This thin iron sheet is actually the same iron sheet used to make oil drums, but it is not rolled up.

There were stones piled on the iron sheets.

By the time Wanli and Yongnianbo Wang Wei and his party arrived at the gravel hill closest to the refinery, the boiling hot asphalt had already been pulled over by horse-drawn carts, with each cart carrying more than ten to twenty barrels.

There were already twenty piles of stones next to the gravel mountain.

Everyone seemed to be waiting for their orders.

Fortunately, he had already issued an oral order that no one had to bow when seeing him at work, otherwise I would probably be lying on the ground by now.

Seeing this, Wanli couldn't help but laugh and cry and said, "Hurry up and let them stir it to pave the road. Once the asphalt gets cold, it will be difficult to stir it."

Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei immediately waved his hand and ordered, "Hurry up and pour the asphalt on the gravel pile, mix it evenly, and pave the road."

This is actually very simple. Although there was no cement back then, many people still did things like mixing lime and sand.

The boiling hot asphalt was poured onto the pile of stones, and the craftsmen on both sides began to stir it skillfully with shovels.

After a while, more than a dozen piles of stones were covered with asphalt, and the asphalt began to become sticky and difficult to stir.

Seeing this, Wanli simply gave the order himself: "Alright, pave the road quickly."

Upon hearing this, the craftsmen immediately shoveled up asphalt and poured it onto the road next to them. Soon, an area of ​​more than ten feet in radius was covered with gravel covered with asphalt.

However, it is still very bumpy at this moment, with no sense of the road surface at all.

The next step is to use large iron rollers to repeatedly roll it.

The iron rollers had been prepared long ago. Next to each stone mountain, there was an iron roller about ten feet long and as thick as a waist. Iron chains with rings were installed on both sides of the iron rollers. As long as you pulled them, the iron rollers would slowly flatten the road.

This iron roller has also been tried, with horses pulling it over the loess road, and it becomes as smooth as a mirror. The problem is that it can't be driven directly at this time because there are no barriers on both sides of the gravel. If it is driven this way, the gravel will be scattered to the side of the road.

Seeing this, Wanli slapped his forehead and said, "Hurry up, have them get some planks about a foot wide to block the two sides of the broken stones, and then use iron rollers to move them."

They have plenty of wooden boards.

Yongnianbo Wang Wei waved his hand, and soon a craftsman brought a pile of wooden boards to neatly block the two sides of the broken stones.

Then the horses pulled the iron rollers and chased after them.

Fortunately, the asphalt had not solidified yet, and the asphalt road surface was flattened by repeated rolling of the iron rollers.

However, the shoes and hooves of the horse-drawn craftsmen were covered with asphalt, making them sticky and dirty.

Seeing this, Wanli waved his hand and said, "Hurry up, continue. Mix the gravel and pave the road before the asphalt gets cold. If your shoes are dirty, you can get new ones for free. After you're done with the horse hooves, brush them thoroughly with diesel."

It took more than half an hour to finish the work, as it took more than ten trips to transport seven or eight hundred kilograms of asphalt.

Fortunately, the fire in the furnace will not go out until all the asphalt is produced, otherwise, the asphalt would have cooled and solidified in the boiler long ago.

At this moment, the asphalt of the first piece of road surface has begun to solidify.

Wanli went up there and walked around himself. The road surface was quite firm, almost like walking on wooden boards. There were no footprints, but his shoes were dirty.

That doesn't matter, he has plenty of new shoes.

Moreover, this problem will no longer exist after the road surface is completely solidified.

He looked at the smooth road that was about a mile long and more than ten feet wide, and nodded with satisfaction.

As the saying goes, if you want to get rich, build roads first.

There weren't any heavy carriages those days, so this kind of asphalt road was completely sufficient.

In fact, the northwest is not the area that needs this kind of road the most.

Because it rarely rains here, especially during the Little Ice Age, there were often severe droughts year after year, with thousands of miles of barren land. The road surface would be dry and cracked, and it was impossible for it to be muddy.

This kind of road is particularly needed in places where it rains frequently. Once it rains, the dirt road will be full of mud puddles. Not to mention people walking on it, even horses running on it will get splashed with mud.

He had experienced this before. When the ice and snow melted in the capital, the dirt roads became completely impassable. Your feet would be covered in mud as soon as you walked.

If this kind of road can be paved in places where it rains frequently, it will be more convenient for people to travel and business will become more and more prosperous.

He thought about it carefully again, then nodded slightly and said, "Well, that's good. Just pave it one by one. Don't block the road completely. Wait two days for this one to solidify before passing the carriage."

The road in and out of Yau Tong is very wide, about a mile wide, and it would be no problem to pave ten lanes through it.

The problem is, this road is only two or three miles long.

Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei asked cautiously, "Your Majesty, are all one hundred oil refineries open today?"

Of course, I am still waiting to make money by selling oil.

Wanli nodded without hesitation and said, "Everyone start working."

There is endless asphalt.

Yongnian Earl Wang Wei simply estimated: "This pot of asphalt can probably pave a road about ten feet wide and a mile long. Three pots can almost pave this road to Yau Tong. This road is only about a mile wide, so thirty pots can almost pave it all the way.

Your Majesty, what should we use to store the remaining asphalt? We don’t have so many iron barrels. One pot of asphalt requires 150 to 160 iron barrels, and 100 pots of asphalt require more than 10,000 iron barrels.

The total number of drums we brought in this time is only tens of thousands, which wouldn't even fit in a few hundred pots. And at our refining speed, if we keep refining oil day and night, that would be 400 pots a day."

Asphalt must not be stored in oil drums, as that would be a waste of drums.

So, what to do?

Wanli looked at the barrier beside the road and suddenly had an idea: "Father-in-law, you should have seen a lot of how bricks are made. It's just a wooden frame. You just need to pound clay into it and scrape it.

We can make some wooden frames with grids, roughly the same size as the thin iron plates on the ground, with grids inside that are about the size of bricks. We can put them outside the refinery and pour the asphalt into them as soon as it comes out of the pot.

After two or three hours, it should be almost as hard as clay bricks. At this point, we can remove the wooden frame and set the asphalt bricks aside to cool and solidify, and then just pour them up repeatedly."

Asphalt bricks?
Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei was stunned and asked, "Your Majesty, what are these asphalt bricks used for? Can they be used to build a house?"

Are you kidding? A house built with asphalt bricks will smell weird. How can people live in it?

Moreover, if the weather is too hot, the asphalt bricks will soften due to exposure to the sun and the house will collapse.

Wanli shook his head slightly and said, "These asphalt bricks cannot be used to build houses, so we should use them to pave roads.

The reason we pave the road this way now is because it is close to the oil refinery, so the asphalt will not get cold when it is pulled over. If it is dozens or hundreds of miles away, the asphalt will get cold and lumpy when it is pulled over, and it will be impossible to pour it out.

So, we'll have to use asphalt bricks for paving the road in the future, and we'll have to make special large iron barrels for mixing the asphalt and gravel. The barrels need to have door openings, so we can mix while we burn them. Once mixed, we'll open the door and pour the gravel, which is covered in asphalt, onto the road surface."

There is so much that needs to be done.

Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei slowly nodded and said, "I understand."

(End of this chapter)