Chapter 64: Road Building (Part 1)

"Commissioner Wang, I suspect the road-building won't be as peaceful as we'd hoped," Mei Wan said, his tone heavy with implication.

"What do you mean?"

"Word has it the reconnaissance squad sent to Lingao this morning came under attack at Bairren Rapids." Mei Wan guided the vehicle around a large boulder as he spoke. The general public knew little about the Sino-American trio's circumstances, assuming they were simply another dispatched recon team.

"Is that so? Where did you hear this? Nothing's appeared in the internal bulletin yet." The situation Guo Yi had reported upon his return remained classified.

"Bodies floated downriver to the shallows where anyone could see them. What exactly is there to keep secret?" Mei Wan shook his head. "New environment, fresh start—can we please leave behind certain braindead habits from before?"

"What's there to fear? A dozen of them ambushed three of ours and still got beaten back. Our men walked away with minor injuries while the enemy lost several." Wang Luobin affected an air of nonchalance, though it fooled no one.

"That's easy to say. A few arrows whistling past your head would make anyone nervous. And workers can't exactly wear stab-proof gear on the construction site—not in this heat."

As they drove, Mei Wan catalogued the endless problems plaguing highway construction. Too few people knew how to operate bulldozers—all those machines sitting idle with only two or three actually running. No proper hard hats—everyone had an '80 helmet, but wearing steel helmets while laboring in the tropical sun was exhausting. He suggested rushing production on a batch of wicker helmets, since they'd found willow groves along the riverbank. Then there was drinking water—currently, daily resupply meant trekking back to the beach. Workers were losing minerals rapidly and needed salt, but the Planning Committee refused to issue it directly, claiming only the cafeteria could requisition supplies. After much pleading, they'd finally agreed to approve salt distribution pending Medical and Health Group authorization.

"And another thing," Mei Wan continued, frustration edging into his voice. "The Construction Engineering Group has only a handful of formally assigned personnel—all technicians. The actual construction workers are green hands transferred in from the basic labor group. No skills? Fine, we can teach them. That's how migrant workers learn the trade anyway. But the problem is they swap people out the very next day, calling it 'equalizing workload.' This isn't a communal canteen—egalitarianism doesn't work on a construction site. Before the first batch is even trained, they send us another group of complete novices. All that churning accomplishes nothing. Look at how many people showed up at the site today—over three hundred? And how much actually got done?"

"That's a fair point," Wang Luobin said thoughtfully. He'd noticed it himself—most of the labor groups dispatched to the road site that day had stood around with nothing to do.

"We need a dedicated engineering team for infrastructure construction with fixed personnel," Mei Wan said. "My requirements aren't extravagant—fifty people would suffice. Heavy labor can still be drawn from the basic pool as needed."

Their discussion of road matters continued until they arrived at the temporary highway construction headquarters. Positioned roughly two kilometers from camp to facilitate on-site coordination, the conditions were spartan—no electricity, just a tent baking under the relentless sun.

Inside, the air was hot and stuffy despite the late hour. Drawing boards and surveying equipment cluttered every available surface, while rolled survey maps lay heaped on a large central table. Mei Wan presented his planning proposal with evident pride.

The proposed route followed the Wenlan River's east bank, which offered more room for development than the western shore. Future expansion could eventually connect with Hongpai, Maniao, and other ports to form an integrated industrial base and port transport system. Even in modern Lingao, the main industrial development zones had been situated on the Wenlan's west bank—a natural precedent to follow.

For seventeenth-century transmigrators, a comprehensive road system represented the very foundation for reconstructing modern society. Modern roads didn't merely facilitate the movement of goods and personnel; they dramatically increased government control over its territory. Though China had been among the first civilizations to establish a national road network, the extent and depth of road coverage had always remained inadequate. Take Hainan as an example: during the Ming Dynasty, only a single official post road circled the island's perimeter. Individual counties lacked any well-developed major thoroughfares—just paths trampled into existence by foot traffic and cattle. Neither official roads nor common paths featured hardened surfaces or proper drainage. The old saying applied equally well to Ming-era Hainan: "No rain, three inches of dust; rain, a coat of mud."

Contemporary Europe fared little better. Before 1600, road conditions across the continent remained abysmal. The sophisticated road-building techniques of the Roman era had been lost to time; potholes were filled with bundles of brush. This weak, easily rotted material was sometimes even used as foundation for new roads. Modern road-building concepts emerged from an Italian engineer named Guido Toglietta, who around 1585 first articulated basic modern principles in a published article: roads must be elevated above the groundwater level; drainage ditches are required on both sides; a solid foundation of gravel must be laid before applying a mixed surface of crushed stone and mortar. Toglietta also noted that while such surfaces required long-term maintenance, they were far cheaper than traditional Roman-style stone roads. From the seventeenth century onward, European road-building technology and administration entered a period of rapid development.

The transmigrators' road planning was naturally ambitious. The proposed highway covered eight kilometers in straight-line distance—between twelve and sixteen kilometers of total route length—built to Class B military road standards, a classification designed for throughput under two hundred vehicles per day. The planned maximum vehicle speed was forty kilometers per hour. Total road-base width: seven meters. Driving lane width: six meters, with two lanes.

"I have a thought," Wang Luobin said slowly. "I might be wrong, but hear me out. Are you investing too much effort in surveying? It seems like you're trying to build a permanent highway in one go. Is that really necessary at this stage? Why not build a simple road first, then gradually improve it over time? The Committee's priority is connecting to Bairren Rapids as quickly as possible. At your current pace, forget D+5—this won't be finished in a month."

Mei Wan glanced at his colleagues. Everyone remained silent. Bing Feng had calculated the rough work volumes; he knew Wang Luobin was right. But only Mei Wan and Zhuo Tianmin possessed any real understanding of road and bridge engineering. With Mei Wan serving as Building Group leader and clearly invested in his proposal, no one wanted to be the one to raise the deadline issue.

Sensing his plan teetering toward rejection, Mei Wan grew anxious. "This road is already somewhat luxurious by our current standards, I admit. But if we're planning ahead, building a solid foundation now will set us up for future expansion and renovation."

"We've only just crossed over. Everything needs rebuilding from scratch," Wang Luobin replied evenly. "What to simplify and what to refine—there's no objective standard. But as the actual engineering leads, you can't insist on professional perfection for every project. That's obviously impossible when neither technology nor materials are fully available. Blindly pursuing perfection under these circumstances is like climbing a tree to catch fish."

Zhuo Tianmin, who had remained silent throughout, suddenly spoke up. "I agree with Commissioner Wang. Road-building can be as complex as you want to make it—factoring in gradient, geological structure, work volume, whether bridges or tunnels are needed, designing detailed construction plans based on thorough surveys. But it can also be simple. Especially when we're only building a temporary dirt road. Just determine the start and end points along with any intermediate locations we absolutely must pass through. Then, based on the terrain, choose a route and build a straightforward dirt road. Given our survey findings, the local terrain isn't complicated. On ground like this, a dirt road doesn't require rigorous surveying to avoid major problems."

Zhuo Tianmin's statement caused Mei Wan's expression to darken visibly. The man was a mechatronics undergraduate who also held registered consultant and builder certifications. He'd maintained a low profile within the group—having signed up late and needing to care for his son—but his professional capability was widely recognized. This had always made Mei Wan somewhat wary of him.

Mei Wan had originally hoped to showcase his talents to the Committee through this project while simultaneously building his reputation among the masses. Earning public favor through high-quality construction seemed a straightforward approach.

But now his vision wasn't being endorsed by Wang Luobin, and Zhuo Tianmin had publicly contradicted him—leaving him tagged with a "lacks big-picture thinking" critique.

Wang Luobin stood, his voice taking on a harder edge. "The beach has hundreds of people along with all our materials and machinery. Everything needs to reach Bairren Rapids as soon as possible. Our current mission is getting there, not deliberating over how to get there. Don't reverse priorities." He moved toward the tent flap. "I'll give complete answers to your requests tonight. But the plan needs revision. By D+6, the convoy MUST reach Bairren Rapids."

After the meeting, a deflated Mei Wan reorganized and revised the plan according to Wang Luobin's requirements. The new road would be a simple dirt-surface highway, suitable only for light traffic under conditions where the road could close on rainy days. Given that this highway wouldn't see heavy use, and the lunar mid-autumn had already passed with Lingao's rainy season behind them, precipitation wouldn't significantly impact driving conditions.

The next day, road construction finally entered proper working mode. Following the directive of "survey, design, and build simultaneously," a temporarily assembled road-building team replaced the noisy, unproductive basic labor groups.

Since they possessed no seventeenth-century Wenlan River hydrological data and couldn't determine historical maximum water levels, they set the route at a margin of ten percent above the twentieth-century once-in-a-century flood standard.

The road-base employed the fill method, well-suited for lowlands in plains and hilly areas. To minimize transport, they decided to primarily use soil excavated from roadside ditches, with borrow pits serving only as supplements.

Construction began by calculating the roadside ditch width based on vehicle dimensions, then measuring outward from the road-base edge stakes to mark the ditch perimeter. Normally, lime lines would be used for marking, or stakes connected by ropes. Mei Wan was reluctant to expend their precious lime supply, opting instead for wood ash.

The soil dug from the ditches came in layers. The shallow layer consisted of paddy soil and other humus-rich material, which the construction crew set aside—road-base construction worked best with clay and sandy soil, both of which were abundant along the route. Since they were building near the river, much of the sandy soil contained pebbles and shells. Filling this directly into the road-base would compromise its overall strength, so Zhuo Tianmin, assigned to oversee soil collection, set up sieves at the excavation sites to screen out stones and shells. The pebbles could serve as construction material; the shells—Mei Wan planned to burn them for lime, though he only knew the process was possible, not how to actually accomplish it.

The screened soil was used to fill the road-base. The entire cross-section was constructed in steps, with clay and sandy soil layered alternately. Every twenty centimeters of fill was rolled twice with a road roller. This continued until the road-base reached one meter in height. Then the excavated ditches on both sides were leveled to ensure proper drainage, and the road-base was essentially complete.

By comparison, the road surface proved more complicated. Dirt surfaces needed to be flat and compact—not loose in dry weather, with minimal dust when vehicles passed. In rain, they needed to drain quickly. None of these engineers had ever done road or bridge work before. Mei Wan stayed up through the night, poring over the textbooks and technical materials he'd brought across time.

(End of Chapter)