In order to save time, the expedition team was divided into two groups again. [No pop-up novel website] Wang Luobin personally led one team to Tiandu to inspect the mine, and Chen Haiyang was in charge of the other team to build Yulin Fort locally.
Finding Tian Du is much easier than finding Shi Lu. Just go up the Tiandu River to find Huangniling. The famous Tiandu Iron Mine is located on this mountain ridge.
The expedition team took a rowing boat and continued up the narrow bay. On both sides of the coast were rolling mountains, covered with dense vegetation. Some people had been here before in another time and space, trying hard to search for familiar scenery.
"We should be heading along the route of G224." Wang Luobin looked at the map and said, "Maybe we only need to walk 2 kilometers to get there."
At noon on April 20th, the Tiandu expedition team successfully found the mouth of the Tiandu River. Judging from the map, it was not far from Da'an. In the past, it was only a few kilometers away from Tiandu Town in later generations. However, Tiandu Town itself is not the location of the Tiandu Iron Mine. The iron mine is still about 2 to 3 kilometers away from the town.
The expedition team abandoned the ship and landed here, and went up the river. The valley was surrounded by dense virgin tropical rainforest. It was difficult to see the environment in the distance. After walking for less than 2 kilometers, a river valley appeared in front of them. There were several nearby Village. Wang Luobin stopped. After looking at the map and compass for a long time, I announced that this was Tian Du Town.
"Tiandu Iron Mine still has a few kilometers to go, everyone, come on."
Following Wang Luobin's encouragement, the group continued to go up the river. The road along the river was very difficult to walk. There are many kinds of snakes, insects, leeches, and all kinds of flying insects here. Fortunately, everyone is equipped with a full set of tropical equipment as required, including mosquito nets, hats, and tropical training clothes that cover the whole body, especially at the openings of the clothes. The sight of leech traps, especially when walking near certain wetlands, and the rows of dry leeches clinging to the branches and leaves, makes one feel goosebumps as they collectively “stand up to greet” people when they come.
"Check your cuffs and trousers!" Liu Zheng instructed.
After passing the river valley, Wang Luobin asked everyone to take a rest and shake off the leeches on their clothes and equipment. Check again to see if there is a winning bid. Fortunately, the defensive measures were in place. Although the leeches worked hard, the best result was just to get their heads into the outer layer of the canvas. However, seeing the messy leech corpses all over the ground, Wang Luobin also felt that opening a field might not be that simple.
“I don’t know if large-scale pesticide spraying will work.”
"There is no need for pesticides." Liu Zheng observed the twisting and dying bugs. "Changing the ecological environment here can kill it. It is too humid here. If we fill in the swamp area, it will disappear naturally."
After walking less than 1 kilometer ahead, there is an open river valley in front of us, surrounded by mountains on all sides. This should be the location of Tiandu Village. The famous Tiandu Iron Mine should be located in Huangniling to the southeast.
The problem is that the vegetation here is too dense. No matter how you look at it, you can't tell which mountains are covered with yellow soil. Although the mining area of this field is five or six square kilometers, the diameter of the mines opened in later generations is only three hundred meters. It's a bit difficult to find this place.
"In addition to being close to the port, the difficulty of opening here is no less than that of Shilu." Wang Luobin said, "It requires removing a large amount of vegetation, and the amount of work is huge."
"It would be great if a railway could be built so that machinery and manpower could be brought in."
"The problem is that there is no manpower." Wang Luobin sat on a big rock. "Back when the Japanese mined the fields, they had to fill them with human lives in exchange for ore. What we lack most now is human lives -"
"What's so difficult about this? All the slave slaves captured in the future will be mined." Liu Zheng's nationalist sentiment burst out, "There are still Malay natives in Southeast Asia, let's just start a slave trade! Use them as consumables! "
"This is all in the future. Who will we use to fill it now? It's difficult to handle." Wang Luobin stared at this desolate virgin land. The members of the expedition team were spreading out in all directions, measuring the mine site with instruments and tapping rock samples. There are also people surveying and mapping the terrain here.
In the afternoon, based on later data, the expedition team had roughly detected the location of Chutiandu Mine, dug an exploration trench, and excavated a one-ton sample of ore according to Wang Luobin's instructions.
"Dig so much? Are you guys going to carry it back? Do you expect to make steel on just this ton of iron ore?"
"If you want to send it back for testing, the steel plant does not have such a small furnace." Wang Luobin felt that even one ton was missing - more than 60% of this kind of iron ore can be directly used in the open-hearth furnace to make steel. Two tests are needed.
"Okay. But what I'm saying is that we have to ask everyone to carry out the ore together. Otherwise, all the members of our expedition team will be exhausted."
At that moment, the entire expedition team started digging for ore sweating profusely. Fortunately, one ton of ore was not too much. It was enough for more than ten people to dig for an hour.
After collecting the sample ore, the expedition team completely covered the exploration trench of the mine with soil - this resource cannot be known to the locals for the time being.
Tiandu Iron Mine is also an iron ore with extremely high iron content. During the Guangxu Period, a local gentry used only a small square furnace and a dozen workers to smelt raw iron bricks in batches and supply them to the market. He made a huge profit for a while. rich. Wang Luobin did not want such a thing to happen in advance at this time.
"Everyone, have a good rest tonight. We will go to Damao tomorrow."
"Where is the big grass?" Liu Zheng's head was covered with sweat and dirt. He wanted to take a bath in the water but was afraid of encountering leeches. He was feeling unhappy and expected to go back to the beach tomorrow to take a good bath. Suddenly, he heard something for no reason. A big thatch popped up.
"It's a manganese mine with reserves of 1 million tons." Wang Luobin said, "This is an important raw material for making special steel."
"Boss, don't you want another ton of samples?"
"One ton is no longer needed." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "You still need 500 kilograms." Everyone glared.
The next day, the expedition team advanced into Inner 6 again. Before leaving, Wang Luobin called the fleet on the radio and asked Chen Haiyang to send someone to transport the ore. At the same time, he paid special attention: "The shipment must be kept secret, especially the locals cannot know what is being shipped."
After arriving at the location said to be the Damao Manganese Mine, the expedition team began to take samples and drill trenches throughout the mining area. This place is much harder to find than the Tiandu Iron Mine. After struggling for five or six days, the expedition team almost turned into groundhogs and turned over the surrounding soil. Chen Haiyang had finished transporting the iron ore and still didn't see the expedition team back, so he quickly sent a group of people over to help dig the trench.
In the end they did find a small amount of manganese ore, but the real vein went ten meters underground. Mining is still quite difficult.
"Wang Gong, I think we can forget about this manganese mine for the time being -" Liu Zheng is no different from Soo Heizi. "The shallowest part is only ten meters, and there is still water coming out from below. If we don't dig a tunnel, I'm afraid it won't work."
Wang Luobin looked at the dark Tantan in front of him. I am afraid that there is no chance of large-scale mining. But digging a tunnel involves a series of supporting projects: pumping water, blowing air, lifting the tunnel, supporting... With all these things involved, even if all the original methods are implemented, it will still be a big project.
"Excavate a sample of tens of kilograms and withdraw it." Wang Luobin looked helpless.
"What do you think this is? Is it a copper mine?" Suddenly someone showed him a piece of ore.
Wang Luobin picked it up and saw that it was a gray stone with a light green, glass-like luster. He weighed it with his hands and scored it with his Swiss Army knife to test the hardness.
“I didn’t expect there to be really good things here!”
"What?!" Several people around him gathered around.
"This is phosphate rock!" Wang Luobin was very excited - one of the artifacts of time travel, the match, needed this thing to be born. From this point of view, phosphate rock is much more useful than manganese ore. He lit a lighter and lit a corner of the ore to burn. The flame glows green.
"That's right, this is phosphate rock!"
Basically everyone knows the role of phosphorus. Even if you don’t know that it is used to make matches, you also know that it is an important farmland fertilizer. Now, phosphate rock has been discovered next to the manganese mine. What was originally thought to be a bit useless has suddenly become extremely valuable.
"Where was it found?"
"It's on that hill." The man who found the ore quickly pointed out the location. Wang Luobin was even more excited than he had found the manganese ore. He hurriedly walked towards the exploration trench.
The trench was drilled on the slope of the hill, driving about four to five meters into the mountain at an angle of about 30 degrees. Wang Luobin did not study geology, but it can be roughly seen that most of the core of the hill is made of phosphate rock. , it also does not constitute a condition for 1u day mining. This made him a little disappointed.
"At least one base can support two mining sites." He comforted himself. However, in the immediate future, it is more realistic to go to Dongsha or Xisha to collect struvite.
Most of the members of the expedition team did not think it was so complicated. They all dug up another 500 kilograms of sample ore with great interest and prepared to take it back to Lingao and hand it over to the chemical industry and metallurgical departments.
When the expedition team returned to Yulingang, one-third of the infrastructure project had just been completed. Yulin has mountains, water, land, wood, and stones. There is almost no shortage of everything. It is really a good place to open a base. This place is different from Changhua Fort. The purpose of Changhua Fort is just to obtain a trading stronghold. Foreshadowing the future mining of stone. This is a large distribution center for the Crossing Group to obtain resources, and it is much larger in scale than Changhua Fort.
Zhang Xingpei from Lingao Construction Company who came with the ship is an expert in wood structure building grazing. He is also one of the many "turtles" in the Chuanchuan Group and has full experience in building houses.
In particular, the consultant is Yu Eshui - this person participated in this tour purely for the purpose of having fun. After experiencing the painful seasickness in the first few days, he has now become more energetic and should be considered as the person who recommended himself. The architectural consultant of Yulin Fort - he is obsessed with building survivalist fortresses and has a special interest in logistics and defensive battles.
"It doesn't need to be used to deal with sieges, but it must at least ensure that a small number of people can defend a large amount of goods."
This is the key point that Yu Eshui extracted after listening to Wang Luobin's lengthy list of base requirements.
Zhang Xingpei used to be a fat man. He has lost a lot of weight in recent months, but he still looks like the fat people in the past. He coughed and said:
"How big is the cargo yard required? What kind of goods should be stacked? Does it have to be covered?"
"The goods should be ore, wood, coconuts, etc."
"That means there needs to be a larger storage yard." Zhang Xingpei looked at it for a long time and sketched a simple floor plan on a pad.
The drawn design is just a simple large courtyard, square. There is a bulge fort at each corner. One of them is a residential area with a larger area. It can accommodate about twenty people for long-term living and has a warehouse. Other horn forts also have complete living facilities and can accommodate up to one squad. The gate of the yard is close to the living area, making it easy to guard. The courtyard wall is a wooden wall erected in rows. The bottom is piled with earth and is 6 meters high. The top is all sharpened and cannot be used by pedestrians. It's basically impossible to climb up without a ladder.
The four lobes, including the gate itself, are built of masonry. Roof shingles. A trench was dug outside the fort to bring in water from the nearby river. There is a lot of rain here in summer and autumn, so water is not a problem.
In order to facilitate the loading and unloading of goods, a trestle of more than ten meters will be built in the bay in front of the fort for ships to berth.
"Isn't it a bit thin?" Chen Haiyang was very worried when he saw this design that looked like a medieval fortress.
"The defense is slightly lower, but it is enough. The local wealthy people's villages are not at this level." Yu Gushui said, "The fortification of Anyu City is just a wooden fence wall and a few towers. It can be seen that the largest one here The threat is nothing more than dozens of pirate sailors coming to hang out and rob a few unlucky guys who don't have time to escape."
Even if the enemy does rush into the yard, the only things they can grab are ores and wood, which don't seem to be of much value. If we really want to attack with force, Anyu City is obviously a more valuable target than Yulin Fort.
While everyone was discussing the details, Jiang Qiuyan, the doctor accompanying the team, suddenly asked: "Who are you planning to let stay at Yulin Fort?"
"It's enough to leave eleven or two people for now. Two or three time travelers plus one class of sailors. We can expand the scale in the future according to the situation."
Jiang Qiuyan said: "Mr. Wang, I don't think this will work. How many people are there in the crossing group? Sprinkling pepper noodles everywhere like this is not enough, and too much is a waste of talents. Let's not talk about ourselves, just the navy. Three classes missing.”
"That's right, we have to be stationed here and we have to be stationed there. I always feel that there are not enough troops." Chen Haiyang has long been troubled by the lack of navy troops. Whether it is sailors or sailors, the Maritime Power Department feels that it is stretched thin.
"And have you ever thought about a question? Several travelers were placed alone in this desolate land. Except for themselves, not to mention the indigenous people, there were not even a few living people around. Due to the conditions, the Executive Committee also It is impossible to equip each stronghold with relatively comfortable living facilities. As time goes by, these people will not have a mental breakdown one by one!" Jiang Qiuyan gestured excitedly, making people feel that he was about to have a mental breakdown! ~!
