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Free Web Novel,Novel online - All in hlnovel.com -> Historic -> Xiao Ge Lao Chapter 645 The Stone from Another Mountain
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- With a river embankment of sixty-two miles long, plus grate embankments every other mile, the daily stone requirements are extremely terrifying.
Fortunately, Xishan is dominated by limestone, so mining is very difficult. Stones can be obtained in large quantities using the traditional method of burning water with fire.
In order to ensure the supply of stone, the county sent another 10,000 men to Xishan to help the seven or eight thousand refugees hired by Jiangnan Company to quarry stone.
Seventeen or eight thousand people, working from dawn to dusk, could dig out nearly 200,000 stones, enough to build embankments in Kunshan.
How to transport so many stones to the embankment? Instead, it has become a bottleneck that limits the progress of the project.
It is far from enough to rely solely on dozens of large ships supported by the county, Wu Ji, Liu Yuanwai and others.
Fortunately, Kunshan is a water town, and almost half of the households have boats, so they can still rely on quantity.
As soon as the county issued a notice calling for private ships to transport stones, people enthusiastically signed up, and more than 6,000 ships signed up in one day.
Xiong Dianshi, who was responsible for organizing the transportation, conducted another screening and eliminated ships with less than one material. In the end, only half of the ships were requisitioned.
"Material" is the unit used by this dynasty to measure the volume of ships, which is approximately equal to the displacement of 666 kilograms.
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????: ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????:????????? Basically a sampan boat, which can¡¯t transport many stones, and is just a waste of manpower. It would be better to pool the manpower and operate a larger ship together to achieve the economic benefits.
The men all went to do hard work, and things like rocking boats and transporting rocks could only be left to women, children and the elderly.
Although the outbound trip is an empty boat, the return trip is along the current and does not require much effort. But the round trip of nearly 300 miles by water takes almost two days, which can be called an arduous journey.
Xiong Dianshi divided 3,000 large and small ships into two shifts, one on a single day and one on even days. This can reduce the pressure of loading and unloading on Xishan and the embankment, ease the congestion on the river, and make the efficiency higher.
The boat owned by the Li Hua family was the dowry of the Liang family, and it was just the right size.
She didn¡¯t want to let others operate her boat, so she took Miwa out of the boat with her.
??~~
As the morning sun rises, thousands of golden lights shine on the Loujiang River.
The Loujiang River starts from Loumen in Suzhou City, runs straight east through Kunshan, and ends at Taicang where it enters the sea.
Since the Song Dynasty, this canal connecting the two most affluent cities in Suzhou has been busy with boats and thousands of sails racing across it.
Yushan Town, adjacent to the canal, also prospered because of the river and became the most prosperous and wealthy place in Kunshan. Even the county seat was moved from the Wusong River.
From the county seat to Suzhou or even to Taihu Lake, it takes half the time to go from Loujiang to Wusongjiang Province.
Not only was the distance saved by fifty miles, but also because the water in the Loujiang River was slow and the Wusong River was fast, it was much faster to sail against the current on the Loujiang River.
Therefore, Kunshan¡¯s stone transport fleet naturally has to take the Loujiang River and enter Taihu Lake to go to Xishan. On the way back, go down the Wusong River until you reach the embankment.
This circular route goes around and over again, transporting stones from Xishan back to Kunshan.
Miwa and her mother-in-law took turns rowing, barely falling behind. We arrived in Suzhou at noon, gritted our teeth and kept working hard, rowing along the Xitang River into Taihu Lake.
The whole man was so tired that he lay on the stern of the boat and didn't want to move.
"Let's have a rest and have something to eat." Liang held the oar and followed the river all the way to Xishan. There was no need to row the boat again.
With smoke coming out of her throat, Miwa turned over and lay down on the deck, raising her head to drink a handful of lake water.
But his mother stopped him.
"I forgot again, you are not allowed to drink raw water!" Mrs. Liang handed the bamboo tube to her son, which contained boiled water for the morning.
"Oh." Miwa responded, thinking why there were bugs in such a clean lake.
But he was sensible and didn¡¯t want to make his mother angry, so he just sat in the cabin, taking cold drinks and eating the rice stuffed with lotus leaves that he made in the morning.
The day before the transportation team departs, people leaving the ship have to go to the dock to get a red ticket and two days of food rations. Liang made rice dumplings just to make it easier to bring rice.
The couple brought a total of four rice dumplings, and Miwa ate two of them in one go. She licked her lips with unfinished content and looked away from the remaining two rice dumplings.
"Mother, you eat while I paddle."
Mrs. Liang handed the oar to her son and sat on the deck, rubbing her arms and watching the long fleet of ships scattered on Taihu Lake like a string of beads.
This gave her an unprecedented sense of participation, and she truly felt that she was contributing to the cause of the county.
"Miwa, maybe next year, we won't have to flee."
"Mom, the embankment being built now can only be used in Kunbei." Miwa said with a smile.
"Big boss"The north embankment can be repaired in a month, so why don't we leave the south side alone? Liang said confidently, "I heard from Aunt Zhou that day that she has a nephew's cousin's brother-in-law who is on errands in the county." Someone secretly told her that the county has scheduled a three-phase project, and the next phase will solve our Kunnan problem. "
"That's great!" Miwa danced excitedly: "Then I can transport stones every day."
"Stay steady." The boat was not big, and it was shaking, and the water in Liang's hand spilled out.
"Hey, hey." Miwa quickly stabilized the oar, scratched her head and said with a smile, "I'm so happy, I don't want to be a beggar, it's embarrassing."
"You." Ms. Liang stood up pretending to be angry, handed the remaining rice dumpling to her son and said, "Mom is full, you can eat."
"Yeah." Miwa was a child after all, so she ate it happily.
??~~
While talking, Xishan Island arrived.
The two women saw three tall chimneys standing in the northeast corner of Xishan Island, all of which were billowing thick smoke.
They were already used to this, so Liang hurriedly swung the oar and walked far away from here to avoid being troubled by the patrol team on the lake.
"Hey, there are a lot of boats patrolling today."
But that¡¯s how people are, the more defensive you are, the more curious they become. Miwa stood on tiptoes, stretched her neck and looked over.
¡°The island has been fenced off, and you can still see houses being built inside.¡±
"What are you looking at?" Ms. Liang stepped up her rowing. "Have you forgotten that Commander A said you can't get close and don't pry?"
"But I heard that cement comes from there" Miwa stared at the chimney gradually going away without blinking, until the mountains blocked his sight.
The fleet sailed twenty miles southwest along Xishan Island and arrived at the Shigongshan quarry at the southern end of the island.
At this time, the sun has been blocked by the mountains, and under the large shadow, the balls of fire are particularly eye-catching.
It was countless shirtless civilians setting up firewood piles and burning stones.
This is a mountain-opening method that has been used since the Qin and Han Dynasties. It uses the principle of thermal expansion and contraction of rocks.
After the fire is poured with water quickly, the rock will crack and digging will become as easy as cutting tofu. This is especially true of limestone.
This method sounds simple, but in fact it has a high technical content. First, experienced quarrymen must observe the texture and joints of the rocks, just like a cook doing a job with a cow, and select the most vulnerable parts. Then a small fire stove was built with stones, commonly known as the "Fire Dragon Stove", and the flame was directed to the focus of the stone wall.
The firepower penetrates into the rocks, and the rocks gradually crack. Finally, the sound of firecrackers will be emitted, and stone chips will fall one after another. Miners can judge the temperature of the fire based on this.
As soon as the heat arrived, people were immediately ordered to pour cold water on it. The hot rocks suddenly shrank when exposed to cold, and cracks soon appeared. Miners can use chisels, hammers, shovels and other tools to hammer along the cracks in the rocks, and can easily dismember huge rocks. Then use a big truck to pull it to the dock at the foot of the mountain for shipment.
Miwa and his wife arrived a little late. The fleet waiting to be loaded was sent two miles ahead, so they could only stay in Xishan for one night today.
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