Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 209 King Wu's Lychees

May of the ninth year of the AD.

An earthquake in southern China caused the banks of Poyang Lake to collapse, and water overflowed for hundreds of miles.

Arctic Martial feels that he sees similar reports every year and has long since become indifferent.

I'm not a kind-hearted person to begin with, and these past few years I've been reading reports about earthquakes, droughts, floods, and plagues all the time.

The number of people who die every year has long been just a number in Arctic Wu.

Bei Jiwu pressed down on the pencil tip and casually made a perfunctory instruction.

[We must carry out disaster relief ourselves, so as not to delay railway construction.]

Beijiwu casually tossed the memorial aside and moved on to the next one.

[A natural disaster has struck, causing an earthquake and landslide. The shore of Poyang Lake has collapsed, and water has overflowed for hundreds of miles. The floods in Jiujiang Prefecture are severe, with three or four out of ten people dead. We implore Your Majesty to provide disaster relief!]

Arctic Wu's annoyed instruction: "Only one township was flooded and two hundred people were affected. How many could die? If you can't even finish this little thing, then don't do anything!"

"Useless trash!" Beiji Wu threw down another report, his mood exceptionally bad. He cursed, "A bunch of sons of bitches, all they do is try to outsmart me! Send someone to kill him!!"

“Yes…” the eunuch beside him answered cautiously.

Beiji Wu's mood improved slightly, and he continued to examine the monthly memorials with a frown.

***
Shanxi Province Wang Qing: The fifth locomotive has successfully entered the field and has been running for one hour. It can reach 165 kilometers per hour without towing any carriages, but it will derail and fly off the track.

The experiment repeatedly resulted in the aircraft flying out of orbit within half an hour.

After pulling 12 carriages, the speed decreased to 50 kilometers per hour, but it was able to run stably for 24 hours. The entire 1000-kilometer journey from Tiezhou Shanhaiguan to Wuzhoukou to Tongzhou to Baoding to Wuzhoukou took only 24 hours, surpassing the former in both performance stability and speed.

After repeated experiments, our sustained speed (a relatively economical and sustainable civilian speed) is 20 kilometers per hour. If transporting military supplies or escorting important personnel, the speed can reach 50 kilometers per hour.

In this process, five talents were mainly selected to enter the progressive system pool.

Che Heng, the designer of Unit 5, participated in the design of the first four vehicles and determined the design concept from the requirements of the first four vehicles and the Emperor at the beginning of construction.

Simply placing the heaviest components, such as the boiler and cylinder, directly above the drive shaft still cannot solve the problems of traction and slippage.

To prevent locomotives from slipping and derailing due to insufficient load or excessive speed, many design improvements were made.

Multiple sets of drive wheels share the power output and locomotive weight, increasing the total adhesive weight.

The linkage design connects all wheels, forcing them to synchronize and ensuring that all moving wheels rotate at the exact same speed, preventing the loss of all power due to slippage of a single wheel pair.

When the adhesion of one wheelset deteriorates, the linkage can transfer power from the other wheelsets to help it regain traction.

This design was a new innovation of Unit 5, completely breaking away from the design concept of traditional horse-drawn carriages.

The design of the vehicle was very successful. During the experiment, we listened to the opinions of locomotive driver Wang Bao and provided systematic training to the driver.

According to Wang Bao's description, when the locomotive slips and is about to derail, the engine speed will suddenly increase, producing a unique sound, and at the same time the locomotive will have a light, floating feeling of losing traction.

By artificially slowing down the speed and reducing the steam supply, the derailment problem in sections prone to derailment can be effectively solved. The dangerous sections in each area are synchronized on the map and in training courses, and the possibility of modifying the railway is considered.

Steam engine designer Li Li believes that locomotives can be accelerated, and that the next generation of locomotives can increase the speed of goods to 70 kilometers per hour according to your requirements.

***
Arctic Wu's mood improved a lot; all that remained for him to reach the road to fruit freedom was the railway a few dozen kilometers to the south.

It has been more than three years since the surrender of the South, and the railway from Luoyang to Anzhou is being laid rapidly. Anzhou was a place used by Annam (Vietnam) and is located in southern Guangxi. It was used to prevent uprisings by the two islands in the southeast and southwest.

The telegraph system is also being tested. Currently, research on this is being conducted in a dedicated area, without contact with the outside world.

Arctic Martial Arts has no intention of making the outside world progress with it, and many things are not reported in the newspapers.

Talented individuals are not cultivated casually; many technologies are reserved only for our own people.

Although this will certainly lead to being surpassed, if there is a technological gap, even if you give a group of people who are still in the Middle Ages an electronic phone, they won't be able to build one.

Arctic Martial Arts University also cannot manufacture mobile phones because they do not understand the technology.

Being able to use a mobile phone doesn't mean you can manufacture one. Nowadays, technologies like steelmaking, iron smelting, and gunpowder are all kept secret.

Firearms are popular because they are too simple to manufacture and don't require much technology.

The technology related to electricity is absolutely classified.

Arctic spies are considering establishing an island dedicated to military and high-tech industry research, while preventing outside spies from entering.

Commercial activity in this area certainly can't be too developed, otherwise there will be spreaders everywhere.

There's no rush at the moment.

Arctic Martial was in a very good mood when he wrote back.

[First, mass production of Unit 5 will be initiated. The more than 10,000 parts required will be manufactured by the Tiezhou Military Factory. The Shan Nong Province and the Tiezhou Engineering Team will each construct the first and second industrial parks in their respective locations, creating 10,000 jobs and providing residency for these individuals. The primary beneficiaries will be relatives of the main personnel involved; women, those with mental disabilities, and disabled persons will be excluded.]

If military-industrial areas are concentrated, women working there are prone to becoming infatuated due to chaotic relationships between men and women.

If I end up with dangerous weapons, it doesn't matter if I die, but what if I destroy the factory and the rest of the people?
Mentally ill people and women cannot work in military factories, but disabled people are the most understandable exceptions. Why would a place that needs efficiency hire disabled people?

I'm bringing this up specifically because there are indeed quite a few disabled people in Wuzhou.

In industrialized regions, there are indeed more disabled people, and these are the costs.

Each family's disabled members should be cared for by themselves; Arctic Martial Arts doesn't care about disabled people, it only cares about its own people.

If someone in the factory becomes disabled, they will be allowed to go home to rest, and their son will be allowed to take over the job and receive wages.

If the child is too young, let the wife take over the job. If the workplace does not allow women to work, then arrange for women to work in a textile factory or kitchen production team where women can work.

There are no benefits or subsidies available at the moment.

Using modern standards is immoral, but in this day and age it is a great act of virtue and kindness.

After all, jobs are hard to find. If someone makes a mistake and delays production, the fact that his wife and children can take over and receive wages, without being fined, evicted, or having their house taken back, is already an exceptionally kind act.

Whether they are disabled or mentally ill and not registered in the public household, Arctic Martial doesn't care about their lives or deaths.

To expedite the completion of the railway and fruit routes in the south, Beijiwu once again used his power and casually wrote down orders.

[The Luo'an Railway must be operational within one month of the deadline! The section chief responsible for any issues will be held fully accountable!]

There's only one month left in the Arctic lychee season; after June, this year's lychees won't be fresh.

(End of this chapter)