open sea

Chapter 1084 Okay
Zhao Shizhen paused. After being asked by Chen Mu to extinguish his pipe, he seemed to organize his words in his mind.

After clearing his throat, he said: "Commander, everyone, please listen to the next sentence."

"Students think that the commander-in-chief said that after a few years, future generations will be driven out of this land, and it will not happen. This is too unfounded to worry about. This is not nonsense from students."

As he spoke, Zhao Shizhen spread his hands on the table, looked around the participants in the hall, and said with a slight smile: "The commander-in-chief said that power is artillery, industry, and banner troops. In short, it is nothing more than gunpowder, people, and steel."

Zhao Shizhen dipped his fingers in the water in the teacup and wrote down a few numbers on the table. After everyone looked up their necks to read, he said: "This year, the saltpeter from Chile and Jincheng arrived in Changsheng, and the Gunpowder Bureau used it to make medicine. In recent years, the inventory of gunpowder in Asia has increased day by day due to the surge of saltpeter, as of last month, the inventory was 140 million catties, and [-]% of the saltpeter is still in stock.”

"According to the Commander-in-Chief's order, this year twelve ships will carry 44 catties of saltpetre back to the imperial court." Zhao Shizhen talked about these data with ease, apparently because he had done a lot of homework on weekdays: "The remaining reserves, within one month, It can also increase gunpowder by nearly 50 catties, while gunpowder consumed by troops and immigrants in various parts of Asia and circulated in the market is only more than [-] catties per month."

"As Shao Shuai builds the fourth saltpeter mine in the desert of Chile, it will mine a steady stream of saltpeter for the empire. Not only do we have no shortage of gunpowder, but we also have a surplus."

Chen Mu nodded slowly. The most indispensable things in the Dongyang Military Mansion are wood, saltpeter, and sulfur. These three things are inexhaustible for them.

It can't be cut or dug, and according to the current production capacity, it can never be finished.

In fact, the iron ore and copper mines in the Great Lakes are almost the same for their current productivity... They can't finish digging, indeed they can't finish digging, but in Chen Mu's view, the biggest problem is that they don't have the will to finish digging at all.

Everyone strives to be a protector of the world's environment, and the concept of sustainable development is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The problem is that in this era, there is no way to ascertain the specific reserves of any mineral deposits, so people look at the mines with iron hats, dig a little here, and bury them. Well, dig a little over there, bury it, and protect the environment carefully.

If Zhang Juzheng was not in power in China, even the weird place of Beiyang Industrial Zone would not exist: who can stand the soaring white smoke from the big chimney and the roaring machines in the factory?
"There is no shortage of people in the Great East. The four counties along the coast of North Asia alone have millions of people registered. Tribes in various places register one after another, and there can be as many as tens of thousands of people at a time. What's more, there is still the Central Military Government in North Asia. With a large amount of land under full control, students estimate that the number of people can exceed 500 million."

"There is no shortage of iron and steel. The annual output of the Ontario Lakeside Iron Works is 720 million catties of wrought iron—so the students don't think so." Zhao Shizhen looked at Chen Mu, cupped his hands and said, "This place needs to be dug into white land. .”

"Do you think this is enough?" Chen Mu shook his head and said, "The people in North Asia don't even have to use iron farming tools, the military government needs to build a [-]-mile long railroad track, and the output of the Lakeside Iron Factory in three years is not enough. It’s only four hundred miles away, not to mention feeding back to the Central Plains, it’s not enough for myself.”

"not to mention……"

Before Chen Mu finished speaking, he saw his brother-in-law Yang Zhaolong raised his hand cautiously and slowly, and when he met Chen Mu's eyes, he reminded: "Brother-in-law, six hundred miles, there is a section of road that is not easy to repair, and the mountain has to be bypassed. Hard repairs will kill people, and it will take two hundred miles more."

Yang Zhaolong had no sense of presence in this meeting. He himself had no bias towards Chen Mu's decision and the suggestions of Li Yuxi, Zhao Shizhen and others. He grew up in Bozhou and did not have the bookish spirit of taking the world as his own responsibility. There is only one mission: to save his own life.

And there is only one specific way to save my life—do whatever my brother-in-law says.

Anyway, he has already lost his ancestral property, Banzhou Xuanweisi, and if he leaves the New World, his brother Ying Long might be hunted down to the ends of the earth, so he must hug his brother-in-law's thigh tightly.

Although he also felt that what Zhao Shizhen said was right, it would be good to leave green water and green mountains for future generations instead of pitted mines, but it was better to listen to his brother-in-law.

Chen Mu nodded when he heard the words, spread his hands and said: "Another two hundred miles, and two more years of production. We have enough manpower. If the cement and rails are sufficient, and the site is the best flat land, we can finish the project in six months. The railway has been laid and put into use.”

"If according to the original estimate, the maximum annual output is 740 million catties, then it will take us five years to repair the 800-mile-long Muhe Railway; The mountain is also resting, and the output is at least halved, and the rough calculation is that the annual output is 12 million catties—this road will take [-] years to repair.”

This is an unimaginably slow progress for Chen Mu. Although the railway they built is long, it is not as steep as the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway built in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. The terrain is flat and there is no need to build tunnels or bridges along the way. There is neither a funding gap nor a manpower shortage.

What's more, their railways are not as high as later generations, and the trains that are going to run on them are not as heavy as later generations after they are perfected.

It turned out that the most missing thing was the rails.

He opened his hands and smiled helplessly: "In all fairness, even if the iron output of 800 million catties is indeed a lot, it is a little more than Guangdong. But in 12 years, the first railroad tracks were rusted!"

Zhao Shizhen is not a fool either, of course he knows that this is inefficient, but one thing is that he doesn’t think it’s so good to have a high output, and the consumption has increased for no reason, he spread his hands and said: “The commander-in-chief has set up furnaces in the lakeside iron factory for forty years, and he needs to prepare more. Forty, can that be counted as expenses? It’s not what Li Yuxi paid, it’s labor costs, tens or even hundreds of workers digging, burning charcoal, and fanning a stove, patrolling the stove, transporting charcoal, transporting ore, selling wine, and cooking , Cargo transporters, and often dozens of people, three to five hundred people will be gathered in one batch."

"If you want them to work for a month, you have to bring your family members, build dormitories for the mine, and even form a village. If the military government can't hand over the mine to the merchants, you have to pay them wages and iron furnaces. The fire resistance and heat insulation cannot continue to produce."

Zhao Shizhen originally wanted to use these words to stop Chen Mu, but he didn't expect that he turned his head happily when he saw Chen Mu: "You've hit the point! That's it!"

"We don't try to maximize production, how do we make these technologies progress? When there are problems, people will think about how to solve them. Otherwise, they will just stand still and not make progress. How long will it take to wait for natural coincidences to make progress? ? Now is the time."

"Our steel gap is bigger than ever. From now on, there will be no situation where steel can be produced but can't be used up. The corresponding technology must be improved!"

"Don't talk too much, it is for the benefit of future generations to have iron mountains to mine, and it is also for future generations to mine iron mountains, Zhaolong!"

In the end, Chen Mu changed the subject, and Yang Zhaolong stood up abruptly and shouted, "Here!"

"First, craftsmen cannot be killed or injured; second, craftsmen can't eat less and wear less; third, you can build the Muhe Railway for three years or five years, no matter how much it costs, I can agree, but two years In the future, I want to see that there are enough rails, which requires the annual output of the Hupan Iron Works to reach 3000 million catties, can you do it?"

Yang Zhaolong blinked, swallowed and said, "Okay, okay?"

(End of this chapter)