As people walked out of the train station, what Sun Xu saw was a huge square. People were coming and going in the train station square.
There is an elderly gentleman wearing brocade, a round-brimmed hat, traditional mille-feuille cloth shoes, holding a cane, and a pair of reading glasses. Behind the gentleman is a young entourage wearing business attire and carrying luggage. .
There was a middle-aged man wearing new business attire, a small-brimmed hat, leather shoes, a watch in his hand, a long and wide cashmere coat, and a black suitcase in his hand. Just know he is a decent business person.
There is also a husband wearing a cotton-padded jacket, carrying two big gift bags, followed by a young woman holding a little girl. The little girl wearing a Zanxin embroidered cotton-padded jacket and a knitted red hat seems a little afraid of the people around her. There are a lot of people going there, but their big eyes can’t help but look here and there, and their little dimples will appear when they see something interesting.
There are also many young people like Sun Xu. Most of them are alone with their luggage. They are dressed in ordinary or even shabby clothes. They look out of place in this huge and prosperous city. You can tell at a glance that they are from the countryside. A bumpkin from his hometown who came to the big city to work and seek a better life.
Sun Xu stood in the train square, looking at the people coming and going around, and couldn't help but feel a little excited and expectant in his heart.
Just at the train station, he could deeply feel the prosperity of Songjiang!
Only a place like this can give young people with nothing like them ample opportunities!
With excitement and expectation, Sun Xu put the cloth bag on his shoulders and walked out of the square with the flow of people.
After exiting the square, there is an extremely wide road ahead. This road is wider than the widest road at the county government gate in Sun Xu's hometown. It is at least dozens of meters wide and can accommodate many people. The carriages passed at the same time.
The road paved on the road is not the gravel road or cinder road that is common in many places, nor is it the cement road that has emerged in recent years, but a cinder mixed asphalt gravel road. This asphalt road has a smooth and solid surface with a high center. The sides are low for easy drainage.
However, this kind of asphalt road is expensive and currently cannot be seen in many places. It can only be seen in some big cities. Currently, the only cities that use asphalt road on a large scale are Jinling City and Songjiang!
After all, there are not many natural asphalt reserves in the Dachu Empire, and the cost of mining is high. The natural asphalt currently used in the empire to build roads is basically imported from the Americas. Although the import price is not high, the cost of transoceanic transportation is high. ah.
Because at present, the cost of asphalt roads in the Dachu Empire is still relatively high, and only some places with relatively wealthy local finances will build asphalt roads on a large scale.
High-standard urban roads in most cities are often laid by waterways... After all, the raw materials for cement are easy to obtain and the processing costs are not high. In the contemporary Dachu Empire, cement is already a very mature and mass-produced building material. Material.
It was used in special buildings and the national defense industry in the early days, and later began to be used in the construction of water conservancy facilities, civil buildings, bridge construction, etc. For example, the piers of many bridges are basically cast with cement and steel bars.
Nowadays, the output has been further increased and the cost has been further reduced, and it is widely used in road construction.
Of course, even cement roads cannot be built on a large scale everywhere. The cost of this thing is lower than that of high-standard asphalt roads, but it is also quite expensive.
At present, most of the urban roads in the Dachu Empire still use gravel roads or cinder roads.
In northern cities, there is a large amount of coal for heating, and cinder production is huge and easy to obtain. Therefore, cinder roads are more mainstream, while gravel roads are more common in the south.
This is still talking about urban roads. If it is suburban or rural roads, the situation is even worse. Dirt roads are still the mainstream.
On the other hand, some important traffic roads, such as official roads that have a lot of business travel and are important to the economic development of a certain place, are in relatively better condition and will be paved with cinders or gravel.
In the 35th year of Chengshun's reign, the Chu Empire was far from comparable to later generations in terms of road construction. However, high-standard roads such as asphalt roads can already be seen in a handful of economically developed large cities.
This was the first time for Sun Xu to see this kind of asphalt road... Just seeing such a flat and wide asphalt road, with no end visible in the distance, he was inevitably shocked again!
With shock, he followed the signs to the public carriage waiting platform by the roadside. The platform had multiple surfaces with wooden boards depicting the route information of numerous public carriages.
Sun Xu is no stranger to public carriages. Although the small county in his hometown is remote and poor, there are still public carriages, but there are only a few public carriages in the whole county!
And here, he saw more than thirty public carriage routes alone.
Songjiang North Station, as the largest railway station in the empire, has a large number of passengers coming and going every day. If you want to smoothly collect and distribute the passengers, a huge public carriage is indispensable.
Sun Xu also saw a row of taxis waiting for passengers on the roadside on the other side of the train station. At a glance, he saw at least a hundred four-wheeled or two-wheeled carriages of various types queuing up to pick up passengers.
Seeing the passengers boarding those taxis, Sun Xu was also a little envious...but he would definitely be reluctant to sit in the taxis.
Sun Xu withdrew his gaze and continued to search through a large area of public carriage routes.
Although Sun Xu's education is not very high, he has attended junior high school at least. He has no problem at all in reading and literacy. Naturally, there is no problem in checking public carriage information.
Sun Xu dropped out of school when he was in the second grade of junior high school. He dropped out not because he was too stupid to study, but simply because his family couldn't afford it!
In his second year of junior high school, his younger brother, who was one year younger than him, also entered junior high school. Although his younger brother's academic performance was already very good at that time, he still failed to get a scholarship.
It was not easy for the family to provide for two junior high school students at their own expense. In the spring of that year, Sun Xu's mother fell ill, and the medical expenses were very high. As a result, Sun Shoemaker could hardly provide for her even if she was making shoes all day long. Continued.
Although Sun Xu's own academic performance was acceptable, it was far inferior to that of his younger brother. Therefore, as the elder brother, Sun Xu dropped out of school in the second half of the second semester of junior high school.
He couldn't watch his father make shoes, his hands were blistered and bleeding, and he had to grit his teeth and continue working. He couldn't watch his seriously ill mother die because she couldn't bear to see the disease, and he couldn't watch his reading talent far exceed his. My younger brother, who was expected to receive a scholarship, dropped out of school.
At that time, he was only sixteen years old, but as the eldest son, he took the initiative to drop out of school and work.
He remembered that his father did not say anything after hearing this. He just picked up his pipe and smoked on the stone pillar at the door for a long time!
My mother, who was seriously ill and in poor health, was crying while muttering that it was all my fault!
His younger brother complained that he would no longer study and would go to work in a big city to support his brother's education.
Sometimes Sun Xu would be envious when he saw that his junior high school classmates had successfully graduated from junior high school and found decent office jobs. Some of them were even lucky enough to go to high school or technical secondary school. Sometimes he would also think about what would happen if he If I could continue studying, would my destiny be different and better?
However, he does not regret his choice back then!
That is what he should do as the son of man and the eldest brother!
Sun Xu, who has attended half of junior high school, has an acceptable level of education, and he actually read and studied a lot during his apprenticeship years... After all, when he was an apprentice, he was learning to repair machinery.
Although experience is very important when repairing machinery, various theoretical knowledge is also indispensable, so I also read a lot of professional books on various science subjects.
Only in this way can he graduate and become a mechanical repairman within a few years. He can basically repair some common textile equipment, and he can also repair some other common mechanical equipment. However, although he has theoretical knowledge, practice Yes, but I still have less experience.
Of course, the lack of experience is also because there is not much mechanical repair business in his hometown...most of the time it is done by the old craftsmen, so he can only do it, and at most he is responsible for dealing with some common minor problems alone.
——
After checking the public carriage route information bulletin board for a long time, I finally decided on the public carriage route I wanted to take.
In fact, Fa Xiao had already told him in advance in the letter which bus number he would take, where he would get off, and which bus number he would transfer to.
It's just that Sun Xu has to confirm the address in person.
After finding the scheduled public carriage, he went to the platform of public carriage No. 7 and waited.
After waiting for about two-quarters of an hour, he finally saw a public carriage slowly approaching with a huge "seven" number plate on the front of the carriage.
This is a public four-wheeled carriage pulled by two horses, with upper and lower floors. The overall frame is an iron frame. There are springs at the connection between the wheels and the frame, and the wheels are also wrapped in rubber.
In front of the carriage sat a coachman wearing a thick waterproof wide-brimmed hat, black leather gloves, a cotton jacket, long leather boots, and a waterproof cloak.
After Sun Xu confirmed the number plate of the public carriage again, he quickly picked up his luggage bag and stepped forward quickly. Before getting on the bus, he asked the coachman: "Are you going to the Pacific Department Store?"
Pacific Department Store, that is a large department store in Songjiang City, sells some high-end products, and even the clerks wear good professional attire... Of course, Sun Xu is not going to Pacific Department Store, Instead, you have to transfer at the public carriage platform of Pacific Department Store.
The public carriage in the train station cannot directly reach the place where Fa Xiao lives, and it requires a transfer in the middle.
After receiving confirmation from the driver of the public carriage, Sun Xu got on the carriage with his luggage bag.
At this time, there were already passengers on the carriage who had boarded the carriage before him, and more people were boarding behind him.
Sun Xu did not squeeze in the lower carriage, there were too many people... but went up the small wooden ladder to the second floor of the carriage.
The public carriage transportation in Songjiang City is very stressful. Because of the large number of passengers, many public carriages will be full, especially during rush hours... How to successfully squeeze into a public carriage has become a required course for many office workers!
The riding experience in this crowded public carriage is naturally not good. In order to avoid crowding, many passengers earlier simply sat on the top of the carriage!
In order to relieve the transportation pressure, but also because some passengers like to ride on the top of the carriage... even in the winter.
Songjiang's public carriage transportation company simply modified the public carriages on some busy routes, reinforced the tops of the carriages, added fences, and set up seats, directly turning the single-decker public carriages into double-decker carriages. .
This has greatly increased the carrying capacity, and has also been well received by many passengers!
After Sun Xu got on the second floor, he sat down directly on the seat in front.
At this time, there were not many people on the second level of the carriage, and there were only two passengers in business attire at the back... But this situation did not last long... Soon many people came up one after another, filling most of the seats. .
After waiting for a while, the coachman in front saw that all the passengers had boarded the car. He gently waved the reins in his hand and urged the two strong Fengzhou horses in front to move forward slowly.
Even though the public carriage itself was not light, and it carried at least twenty passengers, making the whole carriage extremely heavy, the two Toyoshu horses in front could still pull it.
This is naturally not because the Toyoshu horses are so powerful... it is simply because this is a four-wheeled carriage. The weight of the vehicle itself and the passengers are borne by the wheels, and it is still walking on a flat asphalt road.
The artillery requires a lot of horses to pull the cannon. The gun crew of a 115mm smoothbore field gun requires more than 20 horses. An artillery of more than one ton usually requires six horses to pull it.
But that's because artillery marches daily, but there is no asphalt road. Most of them are dirt roads or even fields.
At the same time, the artillery march does not just cover a short distance. It has to cover more than 20 kilometers in one day. The horses need to be rotated and rested, not to mention carrying too much weight.
So even in theory, one or two horses can pull more than a ton of artillery forward on a flat road... But in reality, no army will do this, let alone one or two horses, even four horses are not enough. Six horses are the minimum requirement, and an additional six horses will be prepared for rotation!
That’s why the artillery force uses so many horses.
However, in daily life, you will never see more than 20 horses used just to pull more than one ton of goods. The most common four-wheeled carriage carrying one ton usually only uses two horses for short distances, and only four horses for long distances. Just a horse.
The same goes for public carriages. There is no need to consider complex terrain, let alone long-distance transportation, because after running for a while, the public carriages will change horses at their stops.
In this case, two horses are enough, and with fewer horses pulling, driving is more convenient and safer.
(End of chapter)
