"The command from the superior is very clear, that is, to advance from you to the mountains and set up a new settlement to undertake the large number of immigrants to the east." Petrov lit a pipe and said slowly.

"In the mountains? Where is the mountains? The mountains are full of Guarani people! If I want to change to me, I will definitely not go." The captain of the Ming production team from Henan shook his head and said, "The children have been fighting with those Guarani barbarians for two years. Although the damage is very small, they are all tired. Now they want their wife and children to rest on the bed."

"Our village is not the first batch." Petrov spit out a milky smoke ring and said, "I heard that Dafengbao came first. The Communications Construction Bureau has sent people to fight and stand in front. Now there are about a thousand South African workers coming up along the river to build settlements."

"It turns out that we are going up the Kamakuang River. From here to the mountains, there are forests everywhere, so people can walk on both sides of the river." The captain of the production team said: "But have we visited that river? Although the river channel is quite wide, only slightly larger boats can be used during the flood season, and only small flatbeds of more than ten tons can be used on a daily basis. Moreover, many places in the river channel are silted seriously. If someone is sent to clean the dredging, the project will be large."

“No matter how large the project is, it is easier than building a road or railway on an undeveloped forest grassland,” Petrov said. “And, I heard that a dredger came from the south a while ago and dredging the river channel was very efficient.”

In fact, as Petrov said, the modern special ship factory started construction of a newly designed dredger from the second half of last year, not long after the construction of a 1,150-ton steamer sailboat. The dredger was made of New China Red Sandalwood, and it was fat and large. It was 42 meters long, 11 meters wide, and the draft was 1.6 meters. A 2 cubic meter grab was used to dig silt, pebbles, etc. at the bottom of the water.

The principle is to install a rotatable steam boom above the bow deck - which is similar to the steam boom used on the dock. When digging silt, the iron grab that is connected to the pulley at the top of the boom is lowered through a hinge. The grab sinks to the bottom of the water due to its own gravity to grab the soil. At this time, the workers on the boat will start the steam winch, pull the hinge fixed to the grab, close the grab, and then lift it out of the water.

After the grab is lifted out of the water by a steam winch, the workers who operate the steam boom will turn the steam boom into the mud cabin (or accompanying mud barge) in the ship's section, dump the silt in, and then turn it back to the excavation site for the next dredging work. This kind of boat has shallow draft, high efficiency and strong adaptability. It can dig more than 40 cubic meters of silt (about 120 tons) per hour, and can work continuously for 24 hours (if the machine does not fail), and its efficiency is comparable to 2,500-3,000 river diggers.

In order to prevent accidents in the ship during work, it is mainly because the ship capsizes. Both sides of the ship are specially built into slopes, and pressurized iron is loaded inside to reduce the center of gravity of the ship and try to limit the rolling range of the ship to within 5 degrees. In this regard, the people of the East Coast have learned a lesson.

Before this dredger, Hyundai Factory had built a dredger. However, the center of gravity of the ship was too high and there was no anti-roll design. When the grab was dug on one side of the ship, swelling and strong winds came at the same time, and the ship capsized. The Ministry of Transport later spent a huge price to salvage the ship. But in the end, the ship was dismantled, and the losses were heavy. Therefore, when designing the new ship this time, Hyundai Factory technicians attached great importance to the safe swaying performance of the ship. In addition to the above measures, four 500-kilogram positioning anchors were installed on each of the four corners of the ship to further stabilize the hull.

The ship uses a 62.8-horsepower Popeye series steam engine as power, with a single propeller propulsion and a speed of 3 knots. It has now entered Dafengbao, at the entrance of the Kamakuang River, and began dredging operations. Wei Hua, the director of the modern factory and Zhang Xiao, chief engineer, also accompanied several officials from the Ministry of Transport to watch the dredging ship, but of course they did not sit on the dredging ship named "Qingtang Jun 1" - they did not want to be a chicken because the ship capsized, but sat on the 1,200-ton immigration special ship "Rocket" that had just been completed.

In the second half of last year, after recruiting a new group of personnel, Hyundai Factory expanded a new ship and started construction of a third special immigration ship. It had just completed the construction a while ago, and then pulled it out with the dredger to the lake for trial sailing. Now the three ships of the factory are basically full. Except for one ship being steamed for a major warship, the other two ships are currently launching a new 1,150-ton steam engine sailboat, which will be completed by the end of May, and then join the sequence of Hei Shui temporary dispatch fleet to transport immigrants to the East.

"The dredging speed is still very slow." Wei Hua looked at the grab of "Qingtang Jun No. 1" tightly closed and slowly lifted out of the water under the action of the hinge, and said to Zhang Xiao standing beside him: "I remember that modern dredgers, with the same volume, can dig 120-150 cubic meters of silt per hour, which is much faster than this."

"Boss, you don't look at how powerful the diesel engines used in later ships are." Zhang Xiao said helplessly, "It's already good that we can use this volume of cylinder to make such a high output steam engine. There is really not much room for improvement. Unless the safety standards are lowered, or the steel mill simply solves the material problems of the cylinder wall for us. Otherwise, this Popeye steam engine will be like this. Just use it. I see that the Tangjun is not bad. It can dig forty or fifty cubic meters of silt per hour. If it runs well, fifty or sixty is not impossible. This can support the workload of thousands of people."

With a muffled "bang", a ball of silt fell into the mud cabin behind the bow of the ship. There were still a few small fish in the mud jumping unwillingly. After unloading the mud, the dredging boom turned to its original operating position under the drive of the steam engine. Then, the grabber slowly fell into the river with its own weight and grabbed the mud again.

"The volume of the grab bucket and mud grab is 2 cubic meters, the volume of the stone grab is 1.5 cubic meters, the working radius is 9 meters, the maximum digging depth is 20 meters, and the crew is 15 people, which can withstand the surges with a height of not more than 1 meter." Zhang Xiao continued to explain next to him. He didn't know how many times he read these data when he was designed. At this time, he naturally took it easy: "A boat can almost clear the sailing of the river from Dafengbao to the new settlement planned to be established in the upstream in three to four months.

Road. This downstream channel is already wide and deep, but the workload is not large. After dredging, the water depth in this section of the lower reaches of the Kamakuang River can basically reach more than 3 meters. There is no problem with sailing during the flood season. Even during the dry season, if it is a 72-ton inland river flat-bottom transport ship that is currently preparing to be used in large quantities, the problem of walking on the central channel should not be great. In short, this dredger has helped us develop inland areas."

Zhang Xiao’s words are not nonsense. According to the plan to develop inland areas formulated by the Executive Committee, after the arrival of new immigrants, they will develop and advance inland areas from north to south. The Yazi Lake basin in the north is mainly to develop hilly areas to the west, while the south is mainly to cross the Xiling and advance towards the Negro River. To expand to the inland areas, it is naturally the most convenient to set up settlements along the river, one is because it is convenient to obtain water and irrigate, and the other is because there is a river to transport supplies and supplies.

There are many rivers in China that need to be dredged and widened, such as the Kamakuang River in front of you, the Xiaoxi River in the south; the Ping'an River, the Yakui River and the Coal River in the north; the two lakes canals connecting the two large lakes; the Meilin River in the port of Melin Lake, the Chuyi River near Melin Castle; the Dayu River, known as the golden waterway, and the Yi River, which is of great significance to the people on the east bank. These rivers carry a certain amount of silt and sand in the river water from the upstream, which gradually raises the riverbed, which is very unfavorable to the ship. Therefore, regular dredging is very important.

However, with the current embarrassing human resources of the East Coast Republic of China, this is very unrealistic. Under such circumstances, dredgers came into being. The working efficiency of this kind of ship is comparable to that of thousands of river workers. When digging silt, there is no need to wait until the winter dry season is set up in the upstream rivers and dams can be worked at any time. Moreover, the draft is extremely shallow, and even some streams can be opened as long as the width is enough. It is definitely a river channel and a sharp tool for the people of the East Coast. It has immeasurable significance for domestic shipping and flood control.

"Sure enough, technology is the primary productive force, especially for us, this is good at all." A bureaucrat from the Ministry of Transport said with relief after watching for a long time: "I originally wanted to recruit laborers from South Africa to clean up the dredging, but now with the Qingtang Army, I don't think this is necessary. Since this is the case, I think the ships transporting materials to the upstream stronghold can be replaced with larger 72-ton, which is twice as efficient as 35-ton."
Chapter completed!