Chapter 223: Five-Year Plan (Part 1)
Across the Wenlan River in the industrial district, chimneys belched thick smoke. As industry developed, the chimneys had multiplied, spewing black plumes into the blue sky—heralds of the transmigrators' industrial progress.
But this industrialization remained very rudimentary, Ma Qianzhu thought.
After D-Day, they had fought battles, constructed, and conducted diplomacy simultaneously, finally gaining a foothold. The Executive Committee's insistence from the start on providing transmigrators with a good living environment had been mocked as "tourism" before the crossing. But over these months, their ability to persevere in this unfamiliar environment without any major emotional upheavals was entirely thanks to their high standard of living. Never mind anything else—Ma Qianzhu himself felt that if he had had to live in a tent after a day's work at the Executive Committee, drink foul-smelling water, relieve himself in the bushes, bathe in the river, while outside a pack of vicious natives waved swords and spears ready to lop off their heads, he would most likely have suffered a mental breakdown too.
The so-called back-to-nature wilderness survival merely catered to petit-bourgeois cultural needs—showing off their full sets of professional gear after dinner, expressing appropriate indignation at industrial civilization to demonstrate their love of pristine nature... But if you made them live three days in a place without flush toilets or hot showers, they would soil themselves while wailing...
But the transmigrator collective's industrial civilization was too fragile. All the modern goods they enjoyed, all the machines and weapons that terrified local natives and were revered as supernatural—all were built on the foundation of items brought from another timeline. As time passed, they were gradually losing these reserves. Wen Desi had made it clear at one Executive Committee meeting: the transmigrator regime's thriving situation was an illusion, because the reality was: "We are slowly bleeding."
What was being lost was precisely the lifeblood of modern industrial civilization. Those scrapped parts, burned gasoline, diminishing vehicle and motorcycle hours, mechanical lifespans, aging rubber and plastic components... Every time Ma Qianzhu saw the Planning Committee's reports, he felt a sense of urgency.
If they could not build at least a self-sufficient system before this equipment's lifespan ran out, the transmigrators' goal of controlling East Asia within one generation and colonizing Australia would completely collapse.
The key issue was that even those among them with the deepest understanding of industrial systems could not know exactly which material, once depleted, would bottleneck the transmigrator collective's industrial upgrade. Therefore, the industrialization process had to be launched while various materials and equipment were still plentiful.
Modern industrial systems—the transmigrators' greatest killer app—how should they be planned?
He pondered for a while, then took out a leather-bound notebook from his "Holy Ship" brand white wood desk drawer. This was a collection of his thoughts and plans on how to build an industrial system.
What the transmigrators had to do was rebuild a complete industrial system. In his view, this system must:
Occupy as little space as possible, be as concentrated as possible. The fewer main industrial zones, the better. But pure mining and ore-processing sites need not be so limited.
Provide everything a 19th-century industrial society could manufacture, from machine guns to condoms to automobiles. Not necessarily identical, of course—just similar in performance and operating principles.
Be self-sufficient, able to sustain itself, update equipment, and maintain operations without importing any parts or knowledge from outside. Able to develop, continuously increase in scale and precision, even change direction. For example, several generations later, transitioning from fossil fuels to nuclear fusion.
There should be a large seaport or major inland river port for logistics. Connected to mining sites worldwide, a Three Gorges-level water conservancy hub balancing irrigation, flood control, and clean energy. A processing and R&D center. An agricultural zone with sufficient surplus and high development.
Next to the logistics center would be a petrochemical industrial zone. Considering the water-power hub and main iron ore locations, the gravity-irrigation zone and processing center would be determined, especially for the metal smelting industry. Moreover, since they could arrange the whole world, pipeline transport should be maximized. Coal railway transport should be minimized, solved through coal slurry pipelines or pithead power stations.
If terrain were not a constraint, ideally you would place multiple ring zones in a cross pattern on a plain. Research, residential, production, entertainment, and raw materials would be separated into several small cross-ring zones connected by industrial categories' raw material and product needs (environmental protection considered as well). Residential, entertainment, and research-education zones would stand in a tripod at the center of the large ring. Raw materials would connect via underground pipelines and heavy freight railways (like the Datong-Qinhuangdao line). Personnel transport would use elevated light rail. Industrial and production zones should ideally be adjacent to a 10,000-ton-class deep-water ice-free port connected to the open sea and railway hub. At sufficient distance from the city, several Xiaolangdi-level hydropower stations would be distributed pointwise, also handling flood control, agricultural irrigation, and urban water supply (backup desalination plants must also be considered). The research zone could have several small experimental reactors installed as appropriate.
When he saw the word "reactor," Ma Qianzhu realized how distant and idealized his thinking had become. Though there was a senior technician from CNNC 405 Company among the transmigrators, this was something not to be hoped for within two or three generations—assuming they could pass their knowledge, experience, and ideas to the next generation...
In the Executive Committee Building's conference room, a meeting on the next development plan was underway. This was an expanded Executive Committee meeting. Attendees included not only the executives but also the main leaders of subordinate departments.
The meeting's theme was future development planning. These department heads, mostly promoted in the recent organizational restructuring, were all confident and eager to fully deploy their considerable expertise. Every department had submitted its own construction proposal.
"Our top priority is completing the Bairren Rapids Hydroelectric Station Phase Two," said Chang Kaishen, General Manager and Chief Engineer of Lingao Electric Power Company.
"The reason this project has been delayed for so long is largely our labor shortage. Now that we have so much labor, and cement, brick, stone, and bamboo-reinforced concrete supplies are ample, we should complete it as soon as possible."
"Can safety be guaranteed using bamboo-reinforced concrete for a dam?"
"The Japanese used bamboo-reinforced concrete for water conservancy facilities during World War II. According to their experience, bamboo concrete is actually more reliable for this than for building prefabs," said Mei Wan. "If we are going to question reliability, our current small vertical kiln cement itself is not up to standard."
"It is just somewhat less structurally strong with a shorter lifespan. Besides, the 20th-century Bairren Rapids hydroelectric station's overflow dam was mainly dressed stone—we can follow that model. If push comes to shove, a turf-and-earth dam would work too."
Zhan Wuya nodded repeatedly: "I agree with rapidly expanding power facilities. At current power supply levels, the machinery department's operating rate is too low." Many machine tools in the machinery plant still had not been unpacked—Hainan's humidity was high, and once opened, maintenance was burdensome. The transmigrators also lacked sufficient grease.
"The Chemical Department shares this view!" said Ji Situi. "If not for the power shortage, our crude electrolytic cells could have started operating long ago. Caustic soda, bleaching powder—we could mass-produce them right away. These things are tremendously useful."
"Can transmission and distribution problems be solved?" Ma Qianzhu asked.
"They can," Chang Kaishen said confidently. "We have a complete set of equipment. We can build a Bairren-Bopu 110-kilovolt line—that will reduce transmission losses. Since the Executive Committee has designated both banks of the Wenlan River as the main base, let us concentrate the equipment from the original timeline here. I believe we will be able to mass-produce simple transmission and distribution equipment in the future."
"If we decide to build Bairren Hydroelectric Phase Two, it is not merely a power station issue—it should be undertaken as part of a comprehensive Wenlan River Basin management project," Ma Qianzhu said.
He then spread out his concept diagram. This was a fairly complex project: besides expanding Bairren Hydroelectric Station, it also involved building a water gate downstream at Bopu, reinforcing embankments, and dredging the river channel—all to regulate the Wenlan River's water level and ensure sufficient volume even during dry seasons.
"Ensuring the Wenlan River's water level has two main benefits," Ma Qianzhu said.
First, it would benefit inland navigation. Though the Wenlan River was Lingao's largest river, the huge variation in water levels between rainy and dry seasons meant inland shipping was limited to small rowboats. During the driest periods, some stretches exposed large riverbed stones—though the river did not dry up, boat transport was impossible. With a water gate at Bopu, the river's water level could be maintained at a basic depth.
Ma Qianzhu was deeply interested in canals. In his spare time, he had made extensive canal plans, the most ambitious being his cherished Songliao Canal-Luanhai Canal-Grand Canal inland shipping line. Of course, until the transmigrators conquered all of China, this plan could only remain in his notebook. But canalizing the Wenlan River was feasible.
Second, it would benefit water storage regulation, aiding industrial and agricultural production. Currently, the Wenlan River's irrigation benefits were far from fully realized. The large fields along the river basically had no channels—irrigation relied on human power and water wheels, with extremely low efficiency. The modern agriculture and industry the transmigrators were about to promote would consume large quantities of water. With a water gate, dry-season industrial and agricultural water needs would be guaranteed.
Everyone at the meeting was moved by the beautiful vision Ma Qianzhu painted. Wu Nanhai saw a network of irrigation channels; Wen Desi saw barge fleets on the canal; Zhan Wuya saw countless water wheels and power stations; Xiao Zishan saw transmigrator families boating on the river during weekends...
(End of Chapter)