Chapter 431 - Little Crossroads Plan (Part 2)

The Executive Committee's decision was to focus on the eastern section of the east-west road—specifically the Gaoshan Ridge, or Piye Mountain area. First, the road from the county town to Damei Village would be completed. In the plan, the Piye Mountain area was designated as the Crossing Group's primary livestock-raising base for the future. Taking advantage of the relatively cooler mountain climate, they would open pastures to raise horses, goats, cattle, donkeys, mules, and other livestock. Simultaneously, they would develop mountain economic crop cultivation.

At the same time, they would construct the key project "Grand Library" and various research facilities in the core area of Piye Mountain, storing the Crossing Group's materials and books there.

As for the area west of the Wenlan River, besides the riverside plains, the most valuable was likely the Macao area. As a salt-producing region, salt export port, and future salt chemical industry base, the Bopu-Macao road seemed more important. However, since salt from Macao Peninsula was currently transported in large quantities by sea ship at low cost, Shan Daoqian believed there was no need to open this road for now.

"However, if we do proceed, we might accomplish something that kills two birds with one stone," Shan Daoqian reported to the Executive Committee. "It could prove beneficial for Xiong Buyou's work."

Shan Daoqian's idea was simple: repair the post roads—the official roads.

Lingao's official roads were essentially coastal routes. One originated from the county's East Gate, passing through Guanrong Post, Chaoyang Post, Changchuan Post, and Jiasui Post before entering Chengmai County territory. This was the route to the prefectural capital. The other began at the West Gate, passing through Xinxing Post, Huaiyin Post, and Luoxian Post toward Danzhou.

These two constituted Lingao's main east-west arterial roads, yet few people actually traveled them. Especially the road to Danzhou—in the Ming dynasty, there was virtually no material exchange between Lingao and Danzhou. The only bulk cargo transport was the military provisions Lingao allocated to Danzhou. Every year, over two thousand shi of grain from the autumn tax had to be transported to Danzhou. For safety's sake, they always went by land. As for the road to the prefectural capital, traffic was heavier, but since road conditions along the way were poor, most travelers still chose to go by sea.

Shan Daoqian had conducted field surveys of both official roads. The conditions were terrible—so poor they could only be rated as ungraded roads. At their narrowest, they measured only two meters wide; at their widest, under four. They were merely the most ordinary dirt roads. Not only did they lack facilities such as drainage or roadbeds, but some sections had literally sunk into the earth, becoming trench-like roads averaging one meter below ground level—in some spots, as low as four meters. When it rained, the road even became a stream. Without local guides, Shan Daoqian could not even identify traces of the official road in many sections.

Shan Daoqian was not surprised by this. When he had studied road construction, he had learned some history of Chinese roads and knew that ancient roads often fell into this sunken condition. As the saying went, "A major road traveled for many years becomes a river." Without roadbed or drainage, over time these dirt roads naturally evolved into "road ditches."

This road was ancient even by Ming dynasty standards. It had been built during the Shaoxing period of the Song dynasty. Since then, there had been only patching and repairs, no substantial changes—little wonder someone once remarked that change in ancient life was exceedingly slow.

As for the environment along the road, it could only be described as desolate. The first few stations after leaving the county's West Gate traversed areas with numerous villages and concentrated population. But after passing Jiasui Post, the final ten-plus li to Chengmai was complete wilderness on both sides—hardly any signs of habitation or farmland visible. However, the bridges along the route remained maintained. The posts along the road still housed impoverished post soldiers who scraped by on meager wages, responsible for transmitting documents, maintaining supplies for official travelers, and road upkeep.

"Repairing the official road would certainly please Wu Mingjin, but it does not benefit us greatly," Wen Desi observed, studying the route map. "There's nothing worth developing along the way."

"It would facilitate travel for villages along the route and attract them to the East Gate Market. It could also draw people from neighboring Chengmai and Danzhou to Lingao."

"But this involves the post stations along the way. Negotiations with the county yamen would be required." Wen Desi examined the map. "I don't believe we need to repair the entire route. Just repair the portion from the county's West Gate to Chaoyang Post." Chaoyang Post, on modern Lingao maps, belonged to Bobei Town and lay very close to Macao. Repairing this section would also prove useful later when constructing the road to Macao.

"Wu Mingjin would certainly be pleased. The condition of the county's post road traffic is also a criterion for his performance evaluation."

"As for other sections," said Xi Yazhou, who was responsible for evaluating the military significance of road projects, "I believe poor road conditions are actually acceptable. If we repair them too well and the Ming army comes to attack us by land, they will move too quickly."

Shan Daoqian's Transportation Bureau was tasked with comprehensively hardening the existing roads. He immediately encountered a problem: insufficient hardening materials.

The hardening materials the Crossing Group employed for road construction were primarily coal slag and steel slag. Recently, after discovering that steel slag could be used to manufacture phosphate fertilizer, it had been claimed by the agricultural department. All Shan Daoqian had left was coal slag. In truth, even with steel slag included, it was a drop in the bucket for this massive undertaking.

Not only were hardening materials insufficient, but the road surfaces already treated with coal slag had revealed the problem of inadequate load-bearing capacity. The heavy ox-carts with hardwood wheels caused significant damage to the road surface.

"We need to build the roadbed with crushed stone. With just this compacted dirt roadbed, as more vehicles travel on it, damage will only accelerate."

"We need maintenance. I want to establish a maintenance team with section-by-section responsibility. Use without repair, and any road will break down." Shan Daoqian said this after surveying the road that had been pitted by ox-carts alongside Meilin from the Construction Company.

"A crushed stone road? You might as well request an asphalt road," Meilin replied skeptically. A crushed stone road would certainly be superior to a dirt road with a layer of coal slag, but where would they find so much crushed stone?

Stone, they had in plenty. Since opening Nanbao Town, the supply of general construction stone materials for the Crossing Group came mainly from the Nanbao area. The original Bairen Rapids quarry now primarily produced high-grade building stone. The Nanbao Mining Office chiefly used blasting to mine stone on a large scale, but filling roadbeds required crushed gravel. The stone had to be processed and broken up.

"Do you have any idea how much crushed gravel we need to harden these road surfaces?" Meilin said to Shan Daoqian. "If we continue relying on women breaking stones by hand as we do now, comprehensive road hardening will take until the Year of the Monkey."

"Of course we cannot continue with manual labor. Mass movements can save the day temporarily but not forever. I was thinking of asking the ore processing plant for assistance." Shan Daoqian settled onto a milestone. "The ore processing plant has two crushers. They're more than sufficient for breaking stone."

"Those machines are tremendously busy now. The cement plant, fuel plant, and ceramics plant all need them... They're crushing day and night. Taking on road construction stone materials too might be excessive—and there's no iron ore yet. Once iron ore arrives, they'll be even more strained."

"It would be ideal if we could have one of our own," Shan Daoqian mused. "How about applying to the Planning Commission to have the machine factory build one? Install it at the Nanbao quarry and process the crushed stone directly before shipping it out."

"I doubt it. Have you actually seen a crusher?"

"Exceedingly simple machinery. Just make the simplest single-toggle jaw crusher. What's difficult about that?"

This type of jaw crusher's main component was an eccentric wheel driving a group of connecting rods, which in turn pushed a movable jaw plate to crush stone, breaking large rocks into small ones. The structure was simple enough for a primary school student to understand, and it worked reliably with almost no maintenance required. Though invented in 1858, it was used in cement, ceramics, mining, metallurgy, and other industries through the latter half of the twentieth century.

"That's a steel tiger with a mouthful of steel teeth. Very material-intensive."

Though this type of crusher possessed various advantages, it was crude and bulky—essentially assembled from steel. A single movable jaw plate required over a ton of steel. Whether this major steel consumer could obtain manufacturing approval from the Planning Commission remained uncertain.

Unexpectedly, Ma Qianzhu readily approved it. With ever-increasing infrastructure construction and growing demand for building materials, crushers were needed for cement, lime, and crushed stone alike. The Nanbao Mining Office had also mentioned to the Planning Commission that it would be best to construct an ore processing plant locally to sort and crush the various ores mined on-site, thereby saving transport capacity.

Ma Qianzhu not only approved the crusher but added more—once manufacturing succeeded, three more would be built. All four machines would be deployed at the Nanbao Ore Processing Plant. Additionally, one Mozi Model 1 steam engine would be allocated to power the equipment.

The machine factory, having just finished equipping the forging shop, received word of this major project and was immediately energized. Most people in machinery harbored a kind of "gigantism fetish"—the bigger, the better. When discussing hydraulic presses and forging machines, they spoke as if describing some adult film actress with enviable attributes.

The crusher's main component was the jaw plate, which could be fashioned from low-carbon steel. Through casting cannons, steam engine cylinders, and other large equipment, the metallurgy department had accumulated considerable experience with large castings. The several apprentices Xiao Bailang had trained could now assist in manufacturing molds for large castings. This jaw plate weighed approximately one ton—far from the heaviest casting they had produced.

Soon, the foundry poured the required steel billet. This one-ton mass was loaded onto a sixteen-wheeled heavy-duty rail car and hauled from the foundry all the way to the machine factory's forging shop.

At present, this jaw plate ingot remained in as-cast structure, with relatively large columnar crystals and a loose center. Mechanical strength was limited. Therefore, it had to undergo major plastic deformation through forging and heat treatment to break up the columnar crystals into fine grains, compact the loose structure, and obtain excellent metal structure and mechanical properties.

(End of Chapter)