Chapter 272: Technology Is Productivity

"Everything's here." Xiao Gui pulled a piece of paper from inside his jacket and handed it over—a detailed manifest. Chang Shide flipped through it, dazzled by the contents: from boilers and steam engines to cement, bricks, and tiles, to thermometers, pH test strips, and laboratory vessels. Many things he hadn't even thought to request were on the list—they'd thought of everything more thoroughly than he had.

"This ship is newly built, isn't it? It's well-suited for transporting large items. I was worried about how to get the steam engine and boiler here."

"Haha, this is Manager Wen's latest design," Xiao Gui laughed. "A shallow-draft, wide-beam, flat-deck coastal barge, he calls it. Manager Wen originally planned to make all-wood cargo containers—this was supposed to be a rudimentary container ship. But then he ran the numbers and realized that making containers out of wood was impractical—both heavy and flimsy. The containers didn't work out, but the ship was already built, so they just finished it."

"Didn't Lingao have a bunch of shipping containers stockpiled?"

"Director Ma treats them like treasures. He won't approve even when the Metallurgy Department wants to dismantle them for steel. He even gave special instructions for rust-proofing."

As they spoke, Wen Xiu came to report that the labor gang was organized. Because this shipment included a steam engine and boiler, the labor requirements were enormous. The entire able-bodied male population of the South China Farm had been mobilized, and over two hundred more workers were hired from the surrounding area. They formed a massive labor force, carrying countless poles, ropes, rollers, and other equipment. What Wen Tong worried about most were the boiler and steam engine—the main structures of these two pieces of equipment had to be moved as single units.

"Start unloading."

A group of workers in blue short jackets, short hair, and rattan helmets descended from the ship. Their strange attire caused a stir among the onlookers. These workers wore green canvas packs and unloaded iron pipes, heavy plates, and sacks of fittings. On the stone wharf, they quickly assembled a gantry from these materials, then rigged pulleys and chains. Under their direction, the laborers moved in. Some lined up to pull the chains; others grabbed the guy ropes attached to the large cargo. One person climbed onto the platform, holding red and green signal flags. To the rhythmic blowing of whistles and waving of flags, over a hundred laborers and workers began pulling. The massive object on deck was slowly, shakily hoisted up. Under the direction of work chants, a group of laborers rotated the crane platform. The cargo, following the boom, slowly traversed the air over the dock and descended onto prepared rollers. The watching crowd let out a gasp of wonder.

Transporting the sugar factory equipment to the South China Sugar Factory was a formidable task. Hai'an Port was only about ten kilometers from South Gate Pond outside Xuwen County town where the factory was located, but the roads were hilly and uneven, full of potholes. Under normal conditions, they could barely accommodate ox carts. Ordinary materials could be carried on shoulders or by cart. Large equipment could only be slowly pushed forward on rollers—the hardship was easy to imagine. To ease passage, one team was assigned to go ahead to clear the road, level the ground, and fill in potholes. It took four full days on the road to transport the heavy equipment over those ten-plus kilometers. The people who had come with the ship also quietly made their way to the factory and moved into the compound prepared for them.

The steam engine shipped this time was the Mozi Model 2. Though it hadn't increased in horsepower, it was more efficient in steam utilization than the Model 1. The Industrial Committee was quite satisfied with the Mozi Model 2's performance and had finalized it for batch production. This unit was production number one.

Besides this equipment, the most remarkable items were numerous long rectangular crates marked "Fragile" and "Handle with Care." They had been carried by hand, not by cart. Opening the crates, the interior was packed tight with straw rope and dried seaweed. Layer by layer they opened them, and Wen Tong and Chang Shide couldn't help but praise Lingao's industrial departments.

Inside the crates were glass and ceramic pipes of various diameters—to be used in areas with special requirements, replacing cast iron pipes prone to rusting.

"This is incredible..." Wen Tong was nearly speechless.

"It's nothing—practice makes perfect. Besides, these pipes weren't made just for you. The chemical plant needs them even more. This batch is just a trial run."

The future power plant for the sugar factory was situated by the river for convenient water access. In addition to major ground leveling for equipment installation, Mei Lin organized the construction of a reservoir specifically for treating boiler water. Bricklayers were recruited to build a towering chimney the likes of which they'd never seen before. The structure was so massive that summoning all the local masons proved insufficient. Chang Shide also bought out the entire stock of bricks and tiles from the local kilns. The county's only brick kiln was now working overtime to supply the construction site.

The three-roller juice press that Wen Tong had specifically requested arrived without a hitch. With the help of the vast reference library, designing and manufacturing this machine hadn't taken much effort. The Machinery Factory's only complaint was that the rollers consumed too much steel. Wen Tong looked it over—the machine didn't seem any worse than the old-style equipment he'd seen.

"However, the strength of many internal components is problematic, so service life is hard to predict," Xiao Gui said. Some key connectors, gears, and the like, though manufactured locally, had poor durability due to material constraints.

"No problem—we brought plenty of spare parts this time." Chen Tianxiong wasn't concerned. "Just swap them out when they break. First time making something, quality issues are inevitable."

Besides the juice press, there were also rotary cutters and crushers specifically for shredding and tearing open sugarcane. Crushed cane had a much higher juice extraction rate than the traditional method of feeding whole cane directly into the rollers.

A month later, the sugar factory's buildings and equipment installation were finally complete. The boiler fired up successfully on the first try, and the steam engine began running. For the first time, the sky above Xuwen billowed with the rolling black smoke of modern industry. This semi-mechanized sugar factory, the only one of its kind in this era, finally began mass production. Its daily crushing capacity was seventy tons of sugarcane. It had workshops for cane cutting, crushing, and sugar boiling. Except for the sugar-boiling workshop, which continued using old-fashioned manual methods, all others used machinery. The sugar-boiling workshop used no fire at all—it heated directly with steam from the boiler.

The towering chimney and steel cane crushers of the South China Factory amazed locals. When they heard that the factory continued to offer toll processing, many cane farmers brought their sugarcane from far and wide just to see with their own eyes how this new-style factory operated. After bundles of sugarcane were delivered by ox cart to the factory at South Gate, they first underwent mechanical processing: the cane was leveled and cut by cane knives, then shredded by the crusher. The crusher was quite technical—since the sugar content was stored in the "cane pith," it shredded only along the direction of the fiber to avoid breaking open the pith cells, which would cause juice loss.

After crushing, the sugarcane was carried by hand in baskets to the feed port of the press. The three-roller press achieved a 70% extraction rate in one pass. In a typical modern sugar factory, multiple three-roller or multi-roller machines were used for continuous pressing—some required fifteen rollers to complete. Extraction rates reached up to 90%.

The transmigrators didn't have such mechanical conditions, so they used a repeated pressing method. After the first pressing, they didn't discard the bagasse but piled it aside. After all the fresh cane was pressed, they ran the bagasse through a second time. Though this consumed considerable labor, the additional returns were significant.

After pressing, the sugarcane juice was sent to an iron heater, where it was heated with high-temperature steam as it flowed. Then it passed through a cement-lined liming tank, where lime was added for clarification. Finally, through ceramic and glass pipes, it was conveyed to settling tanks where the precipitated impurities settled out. The clarified juice then entered boiling pots to continue heating with steam. The method for removing molasses still used the wa liu technique, but on a much larger scale—over thirty wa liu molds were lined up in the sugar-boiling workshop.

For the boiling and liming processes, with the support of thermometers, pH test strips, and other experimental equipment from Lingao, Wen Tong formulated corresponding production specifications after numerous trials. The sugar-boiling masters had originally been dismissive of his methods—they had all followed their masters for years, mastering this craft through long practical experience, and even then only to an average degree. They were skeptical, prepared to watch the boss make a fool of himself.

But the boss, relying on glass tubes, paper strips, and various mysterious jars, not only produced sugar, but every batch came out without a single flaw, and even the yields were almost identical! For the masters, this was a devastating blow to their confidence—not even the most skilled boiler in the county or the entire prefecture could achieve this!

Seeing the mixture of fear and reverence in the sugar-boiling masters' eyes, Wen Tong felt both proud and somewhat melancholy: Why had traditional craftsmanship always been so empirical? Had no one ever thought to explore the underlying principles and establish standards?

Implementing this system greatly reduced waste. Wen Tong used it to establish stricter waste-rate control assessment criteria—since all production factors were controllable, the only variable producing above-standard waste was workers' lack of diligence. From that day on, those who had been called "masters" in the sugar-boiling workshop became simply "workers."

This entire production process was countless times more efficient than a traditional rustic sugar mill. The spectacle of large-scale, semi-mechanized production left everyone in the area, gentry and commoners alike, utterly astonished.

But amazement was secondary. When cane farmers discovered that having the factory process their sugarcane yielded a quarter more sugar than an ordinary rustic mill—and the factory continued to maintain the low processing fee of only three-tenths of the output—the farmers of Xuwen went wild. From near and far, ox carts and boats brought sugarcane. Long queues formed at the factory gate. Some farmers even had to wait two or three days for their turn, but their enthusiasm never waned. Eventually, whole boatloads of sugarcane were shipped from Haikang, landing at Hai'an before being loaded onto ox carts and sent to the South China Factory. Because of the overwhelming crowds, disorder threatened. Liao Dahua had no choice but to summon runners from the yamen to maintain order. The chimney billowing black smoke and the steel rollers rumbling as they devoured massive quantities of sugarcane clearly left a deep impression on the deputy magistrate as well—though his fear of the machinery far exceeded his curiosity, and he always kept his distance.

When Wen Tong reviewed the numbers from the first day, he knew the profits far exceeded projections. Especially in toll processing—a considerable portion of the additional cane juice extracted went straight into the South China Sugar Factory's pocket. That profit was essentially obtained at zero cost. Not to mention that the leftover molasses and bagasse were all theirs to keep. Farmers had no use for these byproducts, but the South China Sugar Factory could utilize them all.

If the equipment were better—upgraded to a twelve-roller machine combined with the diffusion method—a 97% extraction rate wouldn't be a dream. The profit potential here was truly significant.

Wen Tong even began to question whether it was still necessary to maintain the other four rustic sugar mills. It seemed that, driven by profit, ordinary people wouldn't be deterred by distance or difficult roads. At the very least, the rustic mill in Xuwen could be shut down, keeping only the one in Haikang.

Mei Lin and the others who had come to assist were beaming with joy. Seeing the sugar factory flourishing, everyone felt genuinely happy—this was another growth point for foreign trade. When the entire equipment system was running, problems naturally arose. Once there was a pipe rupture and leak at a boiler connection; several times, gears and connectors in the juice press were damaged, briefly affecting production. But under Chen Tianxiong and Xiao Gui's emergency repairs, things quickly returned to normal. Xiao Gui also had another task: training several qualified boiler workers for the sugar factory—operating a boiler was serious business. The slightest carelessness could harm others and oneself, not to mention this boiler was a local copy.

Chen Tianxiong was in no hurry. Though he also had the task of training maintenance technicians, his assignment was long-term. He wouldn't be leaving for a while and had plenty of time to train apprentices. Wen Tong suggested waiting until the sugar factory's primary school opened, then selecting apprentices from among the older children of thirteen or fourteen based on their academic performance.

However, Chen Tianxiong's behavior caught Chang Shide's attention. Besides making three regular daily rounds to inspect the machinery, he frequently chatted with the Special Reconnaissance Team members in the courtyard and sometimes changed into local clothing and went out with the Qiwei escorts as guides. Clearly, Chen Tianxiong was more than just a machinery maintainer—in all likelihood, he was also an intelligence operative.

(End of Chapter)