On September 20, 1647, Ma Va, the director of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau, who had just passed the Lantern Festival in the East Coast, patrolled the five settlements of Tieling, Chengshan, Hejin, Meilo, and Baichiya... These five settlements were scattered in a vast area of ​​tens of thousands of square kilometers. Ma Va, secretary, entourage, guards and others first rode their horses, but later they simply rode directly, and arrived at the last destination of the inspection on October 10, the day of the inspection, Baichiya Castle.

The settlement of Baichiya Fort has been established for almost two years. At first, there were only hundreds of military households from Baichiya Qianhu House in Shandong, Daming. Now the population has been replenished several times and has reached about 2,000, of which about 40%, and almost all are men. The remaining half of the population comes from Greece, Bulgaria, and Moldavia, and most (about 80%) are women.

The agricultural conditions of Baichiya Castle are very ordinary, because they were originally deserted meadows, and even though the farmlands were cleared, there were still a large number of grass seedlings left, resulting in excessive competition in the wheat seedlings in the field, and the yield was slightly worse than that in the north. Another thing is that it is similar to the entire eastern coast and south. Although there is abundant precipitation (annual rainfall of 1,000 mm), there is still a lack of large surface runoff, and the falling rainwater cannot be used. By the season of less rainfall, not only will it be difficult to water the ground, but it is also inconvenient for people and animals to drink water.

There is only one solution to this problem, that is, organize a large number of people to build small rural reservoirs and dig irrigation canals at the same time. It is best to dig westward to the Heihe (Neihe Luohe) basin, and use a step-by-step steam water extraction station to divert Heihe's abundant water resources to Baiqi Cliff to irrigate nearby farmland.

Organizing farmers to build water conservancy facilities is a major project. It is definitely not possible to rely on the labor force of Baichiya Fort alone. Moreover, the township government has just organized 500 adult men to go to La Plata to serve labor. This labor force is even more lacking. Although it is the slack season in late winter and early spring, for the farmers in the new settlements under the Eastern Republic, they will always have endless things to do. For example, opening up wastelands, digging rivers and canals, building bridges and roads, etc., you can't even think about being idle for a moment.

"A considerable part of the local labor force has been transferred to the battlefield of La Plata to serve as military servants, and the remaining labor force has been bound to the construction site of the Northwest Railway. The construction period stipulated by the superiors is relatively tight, and now even women and children are mobilized to the construction site. When I went to the village for investigation yesterday, except for a few patrol militiamen, the entire village was only a few hunting dogs running around, as if it had been so desolate from the beginning." The secretary of the vest, Kang Tan, was holding a notebook under his armpit. He was carrying a leather bag in his hand, and he introduced to the vest while walking.

The Northwest Railway he mentioned had just built dozens of kilometers of Canyon Fort to Baiqiya Fort a few days ago, and the whistling train finally pulled a large amount of heavy supplies and equipment directly over. In fact, the same was true. Yesterday, a train dragged 8 cars (including a coal-water truck) brought a lot of construction equipment, 40 tons of wheat and a large amount of daily necessities to Baiqiya Fort Railway Station at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour. From now on, the carriage convoy that transported supplies to Merlot will be much easier. They can rest and wait comfortably in Baiqiya Fort, and then transport the supplies transported by the train back to Merlot, saving at least two-thirds of the distance compared to a year ago.

"Train is indeed a powerful tool for developing inland areas." Ma Vest said applaudingly, "There is no train. It is a torture to pull these steel, tools, grain and even personnel hundreds of kilometers away by heavy freight carriages. The transportation cost can fly to the sky. What's more important is that since the frontline battlefield absorbed too much young and middle-aged labor force, the vast rural areas with relatively abundant labor resources are now tight, and a large amount of materials accumulated is a proof of this unmanned transportation. But fortunately, we still have it.

The train is helpful. Now the train departs from Xiayihebao (8 carriages), 6 cargo, 1 cargo, and 1 cargo. One train is sent every three days, and dozens of tons of supplies can be easily transported to the designated destination. Well, the Southern Vehicle Factory in Meilin County has to increase its production efforts. Now this locomotive is only available in Xiayihebao, which is not enough. With the strength of the parts we are producing now, the frequency of dispatching one train in three days is still too high. Once the locomotive is damaged, there will be no backup replacement. It is better to apply for one more from the superior."

When Ma Qi said this, a train was slowly entering the station with black smoke in the distance. This was a standard train with 8 cars, with a total of 30 tons of flour, 20 tons of coal, 10 tons of cement and a large number of people.

"This is a group of Spanish prisoners escorted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs." Seeing the vest looking at the train without saying a word, Kantan immediately explained in a low voice: "We captured a large number of Spanish, Guarani, Gocho and Crandi prisoners in the La Plata War, and the total number has even reached more than 3,000. These prisoners have been assigned to various mining areas and forced labor on construction sites. We have also divided 200 people here. The Guarani people who are getting off the train are the ones who will participate in the construction of the Baiqi Cliff - Melo under the guard of the police."

It was the first time on the East Coast that the prisoners took the train to participate in labor reform, but this was destined that these Guarani people would never be able to go back alive. After all, the East Coast people were not willing to let Europeans know about the existence of such a magical artifact - although the Europeans on the Old Continent have now vaguely heard some gossip about trains, just as they heard about the legend of steam engines.

"The railway needs to be well repaired, but as the most important by-product of the railway, the wired telegraph will seem to be out of reach in the short term." The vests put their hands in the outer pocket of the fur coat, looking at the empty fields in the distance, and said a little sadly: "You also know that people from the Natural Science Institute were studying wired telegraphs several years ago, but their gains have been limited in the past few years, and their staff have been often drawn to do other things. So far, they have not come up with any practical designs."

In fact, Ma Qi is very kind to say. The Institute of Natural Sciences currently has the Institute of Chemistry, Institute of Physics, Institute of Mechanical Power, Institute of Mathematics, Institute of Metallics and other units. Among them, the Institute of Chemistry has the highest investment every year, and the Institute of Physics ranked last. Although the Electrical Department under the Institute of Physics is very high in the Institute of Physics, the investment received by the entire Institute of Physics is limited, so neither the technical strength nor the financial strength can be compared with popular scientific research institutions like the Institute of Chemical Coal and Chemical Engineering. This has nothing to do with the issue of ability, but only related to national strategic choices. After all, with the physique of the East Coast, it is impossible to develop comprehensively.

Therefore, in this case, the three or five technicians from the Institute of Electrical Sciences of the Institute of Physics have only made some simple electrical instruments and made some original batteries. When they were doing these things, they basically started from the simplest ones, because each of them brought five or six students, so they had to teach and verify them one by one from the simple electrical principles.

These students are high school students who signed confidential contracts - they are amazing top students on the East Coast. After six years of basic education, they are now entering the only high school in the country - the Middle School affiliated to the Institute of Natural Sciences - and are assigned to the mentors to learn more in-depth knowledge.

After several years of studying and doing experiments, this group of students has done a lot of experiments under the leadership of their tutors, and has richer knowledge of electrical concepts and simple theoretical knowledge such as Coulomb's Law. After that, they went further and made some simple electrical measuring instruments with simple materials, and also created several simple volt batteries.

However, a simple early battery such as volt batteries (voltage will decrease with the use time) is destined to not satisfy everyone's appetite. Since 1646, we have used limited conditions to study batteries (can be charged, reusable batteries). The principle of the battery is naturally the famous lead-acid battery, because the instructors of course know that using lead as electrodes and sulfuric acid as electrolyte is more reliable than others, so we started the research and development of this design as a template. However, due to the current limitation of materials and other reasons, a qualified lead-acid battery has not been produced. Once a breakthrough is made in this area, I believe that it will definitely be a huge breakthrough for the electrical and possible future development of the telegraph industry in the East Coast.

"I don't know when this war will end. Now a large number of strong men in the six coastal counties in China have been transferred. There are shortages of people everywhere in agricultural production, transportation, mining and logging, and construction sites. It is not possible to continue like this." Ma Vest habitually lit a pipe for himself, and then said: "Teeling Special Steel Base, the country's most important project in the past two years, was used to reduce the heavy freight carriages that transported us materials by 20%. We are still key projects, and we all look like this. What other looks can be imagined. The only way to alleviate this situation is to speed up the railway.
Chapter completed!