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Section 5, Section 6 Explosion
A large number of steam engines were used in the development of Sanya, including not only the Mozi Type 1 and Type 2 standard steam engines, but also the latest chapter of the light machine "Suichao Type 1" imitated from the American small steam engine. These machines are widely used as prime movers in various aspects, greatly saving manpower and improving work efficiency. Compared with the state on D-Day, the elders couldn't help but sigh: Although the overall technical level has declined, the scale of application has increased several times.
One result of the widespread use of steam engines was a surge in demand for coal. So much so that the Navy soon had to arrange three transport ships to transport coal.
The best thermal coal is naturally Hongji's anthracite, but the supply of Hongji coal is intermittent. Lingao mainly supplies low-quality lignite and peat from the Nanbao area, as well as lignite shipped from Guangdong. The demand for coal from Sanya's development has caused Lingao's coal reserves to drop sharply. Zhan Wuya has to issue a warning: Even if the production of agricultural fertilizers is stopped and all lignite and peat are diverted to power and chemical industries, the inventory will not last for less than a week. .
The Jiazi Coal Mine, which was mined with great effort, supplies lignite for coking, but everyone is reluctant to burn it - it took a lot of effort to accumulate this little stuff. Coking coal is a very scarce resource in the south.
The Ministry of Commerce issued a notice asking all overseas stations to try to step up coal imports. Within the group, the call for developing Hongji Coal Mine has become louder again. There are people constantly complaining to the Planning Institute about the importance and significance of developing Hongji. Many people in the Senate Standing Committee also held this view. At the State Council meeting, many professionals from the Industrial Energy Commission also expressed concerns about the coal supply situation and demanded stable and reliable coal supply.
"It is indeed necessary to develop Hongji," Wu De said, "but opening a sub-base in the short term will exceed our current capabilities. The fortification pressure of Hongji Coal Mine is greater than that of Sanya, which is equivalent to having to build a new branch in the Northern Dynasty. There is an armed separatist regime under our noses, and it will not work without the deployment of heavy troops and a sufficiently powerful naval detachment."
"According to the report of Bei Kai and others, isn't the Hongji area deserted? Would the Northern Dynasty go to war over such a small place?"
"It's hard to say." Yu Eshui was called in to act as a consultant for the meeting. "Everyone, you all need to know how Vietnam gradually transformed from a county in the Han Dynasty to a dominant country in Southeast Asia." He cleared his throat, "That's you. What's mine is mine, and what's mine is still mine. The successive chiefs of Vietnam spared no effort to occupy surrounding lands, and they maintained a high degree of vigilance against other people's encroachment. Moreover, Vietnam is not a big place, and news spreads much faster than the Ming Dynasty. . As soon as we build a fort locally, it won’t take long for the Northern Dynasty court to know about it. If they know about it, they will definitely attack. "
"If we can collude with the Southern Dynasty, we will have to break up with the Northern Dynasty anyway."
"Of course. The Southern Dynasty will definitely welcome us to risk our lives and consume the Northern Dynasty without thinking about our own safety. The question is," Yu Eshui said, "What can we get from the support of the Southern Dynasty?"
"The Southern Dynasty may not necessarily send troops to support our operations. Even if they do come, everyone may not want to use them."
"Monkey's army is nothing." Dongmen Chuiyu just commented when he was interrupted by Yu Eshui:
"Don't underestimate the Vietnamese and Northern Dynasties armies in the late Ming Dynasty. They were equipped and trained under the guidance of the Portuguese and the Dutch. They were widely equipped with firearms and were quite European-style. They were definitely not the semi-savage armies of the Southeast Asian princes. . And with the continuous civil war in the past few decades, the military’s combat capabilities will not be very bad. We have no problem holding the fort, but to effectively control and exploit it, I’m afraid we won’t be able to do it without investing a lot of power.”
"In this case, the only option is to take a peaceful approach." Wu De said, "I think sending people to Vietnam, first buying the land through commercial channels, setting up a manor and slowly exploiting it. If possible, just use local agents. .”
In the end, it was decided that Leizhou Station would handle the matter in detail - they already had certain commercial and trade relations there. Also established some social relationships. The proposal put forward by Leizhou Station to establish a trading company with Vietnam was also approved at the State Council. Vietnam not only has coal, but also a large amount of rice and wood. These are the materials that the Crossing Group needs most, and they can even be called strategic materials.
Everyone has been coveting this treasure land in Vietnam, but they cannot take action directly due to lack of strength. This boring feeling is like a plump and beautiful woman nearby. You can eat some tofu from time to time, but you can't possess her body.
Panda was carrying a big bag and riding an off-road motorcycle in the wilderness, with a full set of professional-grade bomb disposal protective clothing imported from the United States hanging on the back seat. Although he spent a lot of money to get this set of things, he himself felt that it was of little value - Panda's colleagues in the past said that the only purpose of this thing was to leave a whole corpse for him.
The development of Sanya requires a huge amount of blasting work. Although Zhuo Tianmin is the chief construction commander, he comes from a civil engineering background and basically knows nothing about blasting. Panda served as deputy commander-in-chief, specifically in charge of blasting and military engineering construction.
The personnel available to Panda mainly come from the engineer platoon of the Sanya Dispatch Battalion - this platoon is formed by transferring personnel from the engineer training company. One-third are veterans who have received more than six months of professional engineering training, and the rest are recruits. Assault training on blasting skills for a month.
The other is the graduates of the blasting training course held by the labor team. At that time, some workers were trained for a short period of time. But the quality of these blasters and engineers cannot be compared. For safety reasons, Panda had a mixed staffing after landing. A small number of engineers and demolitioners formed a demolition team. A total of five demolition teams were organized, two of which were dispatched to the Luhuitou Peninsula. Their task was to open a road on the mountain, clear vegetation, and clear a path for the fort on the top of the mountain. A solid platform. The rocks produced by blasting serve as building materials.
In order to supply building materials locally, Zhuo Tianmin and Panda had already discussed that in addition to opening a local brick and tile factory, it would be best to have a quarry. For this reason, Bai Guoshi led a team to explore nearby under the escort of the special reconnaissance team. The quarry cannot be too far away. If it is too far away, it makes no sense to squeeze out the transportation capacity.
However, maintaining the operation of the quarry would require at least one demolition team, leaving only the second team at hand. There is an increasing demand for blasting on construction sites, especially the Yulin-Tiandu roadbed project. Although the roadbed was built along the relatively flat valley section of the Tiandu River, the topography along the way is still quite complex. From time to time you will encounter mounds and boulders, which must be cleared away in time.
If manual cleaning is used, the amount of earthmoving work will be staggering. Everyone knows how hungry the steel sector is for iron ore. Now that the source of coking coal has been solved, more and more coking coal is being stored, just waiting for the rice to be put into the pot to make steel.
Panda had no choice but to dilute the personnel, reduce the number of people in each team and the proportion of engineers among them, and doubled the number of demolition teams. In this way, security becomes a concern. Panda sometimes rides a motorcycle or takes a transport boat to inspect various blasting sites and correct various hidden dangers in a timely manner. If necessary, he personally directs the blasting.
The sea breeze mixed with sand hit his motorcycle helmet, and he felt very nervous. Recently, blasting has been widely used on construction sites to speed up infrastructure construction. The proportion of qualified personnel is relatively small, and the risk of accidents is increasing. In fact, there was an explosion just a few days ago. A traffic boat transporting black powder suddenly exploded in the bay for unknown reasons. All six people on board were missing - needless to say, they were blown to pieces.
Black powder is the only explosive for demolition that they can supply in large quantities now, but its power and stability are not good. No matter how refined it is, the detonation speed of black powder is too slow, and it is not very effective when used as engineering explosives. Not nearly as useful as nitroglycerin.
According to his request, nitroglycerin explosive and a small amount of ammonium nitrate explosive were shipped to him from Lingao. Nitroglycerine is a relatively safe explosive block that is adsorbed with diatomaceous earth and then passivated through a series of treatments. Although the stability is still slightly insufficient, Sanya is in urgent need of high explosives now and does not care about so many.
The Navy recruited volunteers to pilot the ship, and it took almost ten days to arrive on the original seven-day voyage. These precious goods were carefully unloaded and stacked in a dedicated simple warehouse with no sides.
But a problem still arises. Panda has just received news that a construction site has become a squib.
Squibs are the thing that the demolition team is most afraid of encountering. If they are not handled carefully, they will kill people. For this reason, Panda personally kept the detonators to ensure the safety of the fire, and distributed them to the engineers before starting work every day.
Unexpectedly, there was still a problem with the dumb gun. And it was still filled with ammonium nitrate explosive. This ammonium nitrate explosive is slightly safer than nitroglycerin, but the risk factor is still very high.
The blasting site is at 01,400 meters of the Tiandu Yulin roadbed. There is a small mound of mixed earth and rock on the construction route. Shan Daoqian plans to blow it up directly, removing obstacles and obtaining building materials.
"How's it going?" Panda asked the engineer captain at the scene after arriving.
"The fuse was lit, but it didn't explode." The engineer captain gestured, "I checked after 15 minutes: the fuse was burned out, but the detonator didn't explode." As he said that, he took out the rolled explosive bag. , "I took it back."
Panda was relieved after seeing that the detonator had been pulled out, thinking that the safety education was not in vain. He looked at the explosives, which seemed to be damp - probably because the high humidity of the air here affected the sensitivity of the detonation.
The use of explosives is still irregular. Panda thought, accelerated education is indeed prone to trouble. However, this cannot be regarded as a problem for the soldiers. The explosives and firearms provided by the crossing group are not very standardized. Some even pose serious safety risks.
"Keep blasting." Panda said, "Don't use this pack of explosives. Put it away and take it back."
The demolition team continued to work. Panda was a little worried and went to the charging site to see in person. The blastholes were drilled in a very standardized manner, completely following the instructions in the demolition textbook. Several team members were loading the powder, but many workers gathered under the hill to watch the excitement. Panda was shocked when he saw it - this kind of excitement was not good enough, and there was no safe distance at all. When he was about to find someone to drive away the workers, he suddenly heard a scream. When he looked up, his blood vessels almost solidified. When a team member was loading, a roll of 75g standard package of explosives slipped from his hand. Falling straight down.
After it was over, Panda's first impression was that he was going to be blown to pieces. He remembered that ammonium nitrate explosives were used here. This stuff would explode if it encountered a big impact before it was passivated. The explosive package that fell from the mountain would explode immediately.
In an instant, all the explosion scenes from movies, TV and real life flooded into Panda's mind. He made a tiger leap and fell to the ground with great agility. Whether this move can save lives depends on luck - if the explosives fall close, you won't survive lying on the ground.
With a "pop" sound, the explosives fell to the ground. Panda was surprised - it didn't explode. As soon as Panda raised his head, he saw the workers cheering and surrounding him. Panda knew that there were always cheap people in the crowd who liked to mess around, so he jumped up quickly, rushed in front of the people, picked up the explosive pillar, ran a few steps and threw it towards Tian Duhe, and then he fell to the ground with another tiger pounce. The limbs were clasped tightly to the ground, eyes closed and mouth opened.
When Panda was a soldier, he was the second best grenade thrower in the company. In times of crisis, his skills were fully activated. He made a series of moves so cleanly that the explosives fell into the water before even the besieging workers could react. The fire exploded in the river with a flash of light, and tall water columns shot straight into the sky. All the workers watching the excitement were shaken to the ground by the shock wave.
Panda was pushed to the ground like a leaf. He felt tightness in his chest and finally got up. He found his heart beating wildly and his legs shaking. I thought that this time I was lucky enough to finally save my life, otherwise I would have entered Cuigang in advance.
"Are there any casualties? Are there any casualties?" he shouted.
"I'm fine." The demolition team leader stood up tremblingly. Generally speaking, the people in the demolition team performed well. As soon as the explosives fell, everyone fell down instead of rushing over to watch.
As for the workers who were knocked to the ground, several had their skin broken when they were knocked down by the shock wave, some felt chest tightness and discomfort, and many more were frightened - they had never seen such a violent explosion. .
"Everyone, go back to work." Panda said to the demolition team leader, "You should rest for fifteen minutes before starting work. Pay attention to safety."
The demolitionist who accidentally dropped the explosive was caught by the soldiers on guard nearby, and he came down the hillside dejectedly.
Panda stopped the demolition team leader who was about to send the unlucky guy to the headquarters for disposal: "Forget it, he made a mistake, but let him not install the explosives. Do some hard work first, and hold a meeting for safety education in the evening. ",.
