After the canonization ceremony, Wang Gui was about to return to Beijing. Also leaving Dali with him were Lu Huiqing, Wang Shao and other Chen Ke's friends from the same year. More than half of the year's vacation has passed, and his family is still looking forward to it.
The situation in Dali has stabilized, and it's time to go back and take a look.
However, the elders are all from the south, so they did not go north to Yazhou and return to Beijing. Instead, they headed east, planning to take a boat down the river in Dongchuan and part ways at Guangnan West Road.
When they arrived in Dongchuan, Chen Ke naturally wanted to show his kindness as a landlord and hosted them for two days. He originally said that he would take them to the Dianchi Lake, but after seeing the Dongchuan City rising from the ground, everyone was shocked.
I didn't bother to see Dianchi Lake, so I took Chen Ke and asked him to take him around the new city.
In fact, Dongchuan City has only just begun to take shape, but looking at the majestic city wall built against the mountains and surrounded by water on three sides, you can tell that this will be a fortress that is easy to defend and difficult to attack. But this fortress is by no means made in heaven. In fact, it was originally here
Only one side is close to the water, the other side is close to the mountains, and the other two sides are flat and flat.
But the 40,000 soldiers under Chen Ke and the 50,000 civilians recruited locally spent all day and night taking earth to burn kilns and build the city. They dug out a 'moat lake' that was several times wider than the moat. Now the workers
The lake bottom is still being deepened and the lake surface is widened. When the rivers are connected next year and the lake is filled with water, it will immediately become a small Erhai Lake.
Spending so much money and effort to dig out this moat lake is naturally not only needed for city defense. In fact, this place is also the intersection of eastern Yunnan and central Yunnan, the southern gate to and from the Dongchuan Mountains, and the waterway.
The only access to Guangdong and Guangxi from the southwest. Once Dongchuan City is built, it will be an artificial harbor with excellent conditions.
In the future, Dongchuan City can not only rely on the terrain of facing mountains on one side and water on three sides to defend itself from attacks from all sides, but also take advantage of convenient water and land transportation to rapidly develop industry and commerce... Not only industry and mining, this place is likely to become Dali.
New business center.
Standing on the top of the mountain, listening to Chen Ke's passionate instructions, the courage to turn the vast sea into mulberry fields deeply shocked everyone. Song Duanping was even more shocked than the others because he came more than a month ago.
After passing here, I realized that at that time it was just a large construction site filled with materials and digging foundations everywhere. Unexpectedly, in just over a month, the prototype of a majestic city was taken shape.
"How on earth did you do it?" He asked the question that everyone wanted to know.
"The secret lies in those kilns." Chen Ke said with a smile: "Do you still remember the cement I once developed in Bianjing City?"
"Cement? Remember." Everyone nodded and smiled: "It was in that haunted house. It seemed to have settled down."
"Am I the kind of person who starts at the beginning but ends at the end?" Chen Ke said with a smile: "Originally, I wanted to pound out the cement and rebuild Bianjing City after the flood receded. But who knows it is easier said than done. It has been a long time coming.
The results did not make any contribution to the people of Bianjing." After a pause, he said: "But the research did not stop, I asked him to continue tinkering. It was not until this year that the results were achieved. Later, when I went south, I assigned the partner in charge of cement production
, brought it to Dali."
While they were talking, Chen Ke took them to the skate park at the foot of the mountain. They saw workers using wooden boards and nailing them to make hollow models as needed. Bamboo bars and occasionally steel bars were placed in the hollow parts of the models.
Another group of workers poured bags of gray flour into a huge flat-bottomed bucket, added sand, gravel and water, and then used shovels to stir evenly. After mixing, the workers hung the flat-bottomed bucket on an iron hook.
Go up. Turn the pulley, and the pulley will lift the heavy iron bucket, send it to the top of each mold, open the valve and pour it in.
Chen Ke took them to the finished product area and saw the workers knocking off the wooden boards, and square boards as hard and rough as stones appeared in front of everyone.
Wang Shao drew out his saber and chopped hard on a piece of wood. He heard a clang and sparks flew everywhere. The tiger's mouth was numb from the movement. Wang Shao showed the blade to everyone, and saw that the Dali specialty sword had been curled. And that
Only a shallow knife mark was left on the board.
"How is it possible?" Everyone was shocked. They saw with their own eyes that it was just a mixture of water and ash. When it was poured into a mold like making tofu, it turned out to be a material that was harder than stone.
"How can this cement be so effective?" Wang Shao's mind was spinning too fast. He immediately thought that if this thing could be applied to the northwest battlefield, wouldn't it be possible to build copper and iron walls? But he immediately thought: "
It must be very expensive, right?”
"On the contrary, it couldn't be cheaper." Chen Ke said with a smile, "Just follow me to the kiln and have a look."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He led everyone to the dusty and smoky kiln. This kind of place is generally not popular for scholar-bureaucrats who like to be clean. But at this moment, in the eyes of Wang Shao and others, it is better than
The romance of Dali is even more charming.
The workers all knew Chen Ke, so they all put down their work and stood up to say hello to him.
"Keep busy, just pretend we don't exist." Chen Ke waved his hand and asked with a smile: "Where did the money go?"
"I'm busy over there." The manager immediately nodded and said, "Call my boss over here."
"You brought Qian Sheng's second son here." Song Duanping said with a smile: "That's right. Didn't the Qian family open a kiln and burn charcoal?"
"Well, Qian Sheng's eldest son Qian Lai is running his ancestral business in Shuzhong. The second brother Qian Jin doesn't want to wait for death, so he went to Bianjing to find his father." Chen Ke said with a smile: "Qian Sheng just stuffed him
I just happened to have this project in hand, so I gave it to him...don't tell me, it's really the right material."
After a while, Qian Jin ran over. He was only in his early twenties, but he had been in the kiln for a long time, and his face was dusty and his original face could not be seen. When he saw Chen Ke and Song Duanping, he grinned, revealing two rows of white teeth.
He said: "Uncle Chen, Uncle Song, you are here too." Although they are similar in age, Chen Ke and Qian Sheng are old friends, and Xiao Qian can only be the next generation.
"Uncle Song and the others are curious and want to see how cement is made." Chen Ke smiled and ordered, "Introduce it to them."
"Don't we need to keep it secret?" Wang Shao asked alertly as he saw the chaos all around and the busy workers, not only Han people but also many ethnic minorities.
"This is not a secret, and we can't keep it." Qian Jin said with a naive smile: "Of course, we also have some secret recipes that we don't share, but that doesn't matter." He led them to a kiln where fuel was being filled and said:
"This is a common lime kiln, with only slight improvements." Pointing to the three large piles of earth and rocks of different colors on the ground, he said: "The black ones are coal, produced in the mountainous area eighty miles away, along the Nanpan River.
Transported here. The white ones are limestone, which is everywhere in the nearby mountains. The red and yellow ones are clay, which are everywhere on the ground."
The so-called charcoal is coal, the main fuel for the residents of Bianjing, and everyone naturally knows it. The other two are also seen every day, and there is nothing surprising: "Can cement be made with only these three items?"
"Actually, it's the latter two. Coal is used as fuel for burning kilns." Qian Jin introduced: "Like burning lime, the limestone is crushed, mixed with clay, ground into raw materials, and then fed into the kiln for calcination and maturity.
Then grind the clinker into fine pieces to get bags of lime."
Everyone knew that there must be some unique secret recipe, but they were already shocked by how cheap and easy the cement was.
"This will be subversive." Even Zeng Bu, who has always been calm, said excitedly: "From now on, the architecture of the Song Dynasty will say goodbye to civil engineering, and the cost of our city walls, river engineering and other projects will also be greatly reduced, and we can also
Complete the work quickly with higher quality! This is definitely an invention that will benefit the Song Dynasty!"
"Why don't you donate the cement to the court?" Lu Huiqing said with shining eyes: "It is definitely a miracle!"
"You just think about meritorious service." Wang Shao spat: "Zhong Fang must have his reasons for doing this."
"It makes no sense. Cement was invented just for the Song Dynasty." Chen Ke said with a smile: "It is simple and easy to learn, and the raw materials are available everywhere. There is no need to keep it to yourself. It would be better if everyone in the country learned it."
In fact, he accepted the lessons of history - there were so many inventions and creations in the Song Dynasty and even in the past dynasties, which should have benefited China, but due to various serious confidentiality measures, they disappeared in the long river of history every time the dynasty changed.
An invention must be widely used in order to exert its maximum effect. How can it be kept as a secret?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After sending Wang Shao and the others away, Song Duanping and Zeng Bu stayed to help him complete the grand blueprint.
Chen Ke was suffering from lack of skills, so he was overjoyed to receive their help. After the two became a little familiar with the situation, he and Shen Kuo embarked on a reconnaissance of the North and South Panjiang River and the Hongshui River. As for the construction of Dongchuan City, Su Song
As the technical director, Zeng Bu is the financial director. With these two people at the helm and supervising, there is no need to worry.
The reason why it is so urgent is because if you want to gain a foothold in Dali and make Yunnan Copper truly play its role, you must repair the waterway of the 'Nanpan River-Hongshui River'! Otherwise, not only will Yunnan Copper be difficult to transport, but Dongchuan City's
Material supply will also become a big problem... Conservative estimates suggest that the population of Dongchuan City will reach 200,000 in a short period of time. Relying solely on local supplies in Dali will not only be stretched, but also restricted by others. There are still two months, which is suitable for water conservancy projects.
The dry season for the project is coming soon. If you miss it, you will have to wait for a whole year. So you must race against time!
