1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 60 Saltworks Commune
In the first three days after moving into the salt farm, the members of the Crossroads organization cut bamboo and wood on the nearby hillside, and built a row of temporary residences on the site of the original salt farm village.As for the brick house, I may have to wait for a while, because it requires a large amount of power supply, and the joint brick making machine will not be officially put into operation until the completion of the hydropower station, and the output bricks must also be given priority to supply the camps and workshops near the No. [-] base. , it will be at least several months before the saltworks commune's turn.Fortunately, these Mingren members are also used to the hardships. Today, they no longer worry about food and clothing, and they are already very satisfied. It doesn't matter if they live in a simple way. Within two years, everyone will be guaranteed to live in brick houses, which is a good day that I never dreamed of in the past.

Considering that the living conditions on the side of the salt farm would be relatively difficult, the Executive Committee arranged for the Ministry of Construction to build a set of prefabricated houses here for a few of the people who were stationed here. Spring water, so that solar water heaters can also be used.There are a total of four Chuan Congregations stationed here, one is in charge of technology, one is in charge of civil affairs management, and two people from the military and police department are in charge of public security and defense.If only based on the per capita level, their living conditions have far exceeded that of the base camp.It's just that the distance from the base camp is a little farther, and there are mountains and seas in the middle. The WIFI signal can't be counted on, and even PHS can't be used. Usually, only a military radio station can be used for communication.

The Ministry of Agriculture sent people to instruct the members to reclaim more than ten acres of land near the station, plant some vegetables and fruits, and arrange for the members to plant some tea trees on the mountain in the future.The food consumed by the Salt Works Commune will all be operated from Daben.It is not easy to reclaim such a small amount of land, but the salt content of the soil in this place is too high, and it is impossible to grow crops on a large scale.

Anxi is 26 years old this year. Before the crossing, he worked as a civil engineering technician of the geological drilling brigade under the Sichuan Salt Administration Bureau. After participating in the crossing, he was naturally absorbed into the Ministry of Construction.He used to deal with well salt, and had almost nothing to do with sea salt salt farms. But after the establishment of the Salt Farm Commune, he was temporarily designated by the Executive Committee as a technical guidance expert of the commune management committee, and transferred from the hydropower station site to the Salt Farm Commune. Will be fully responsible for the technical guidance and production planning arrangement of the salt field.

The Executive Committee originally decided that the Ministry of Industry should send someone to be responsible for the technology, but it was also a secret. It was only when the matter came to an end that no one in the Ministry of Industry had ever engaged in industrial salt production. Ning Qi checked the personnel files and finally found out Anxi, a talent who has been hiding in the Ministry of Construction.There is no way to drive the ducks to the shelves. Who made Anxi the only one among the more than 400 people in the cross-travel team who came from such a professional place as the Sichuan Salt Industry School?
Anxi actually felt full of grievances. He was a person majoring in civil engineering, and his organizational relationship was still in the Ministry of Construction. Because Mao is now changing careers to engage in salt production, not everyone who graduated from the salt industry school knows salt production technology!Speaking of which, Anxi had a lot of plans before crossing. With his professional knowledge of civil engineering, there will definitely be endless projects in the empire under the executive committee in the future, and he will be able to do one. A large multinational foreman, all wealth, beauty, and prestige are indispensable!
But now Anxi has been sent to the front line of salt farm production by the executive committee. Looking at the stone salt troughs all over the valley, he can only sigh heavily.In fact, salt making is not bad. Although I was not a salt making major in school, I have taken a few professional courses. Now I temporarily call up relevant information in the big database to make up for it. The basic principles and technological processes of seawater salt making are generally still know.But what kind of production organization structure the commune system is, Anxi has no idea at all.In the era before time-travel, the commune had been changed to a township before Anxi was born. His understanding of the commune was actually not much better than those of the commune members who had just moved in.Fortunately, most of these wise people know the power of the Transmigration Congregation. After careful screening, there is nothing thorny, and it doesn't take much to direct them.The only problem was the language. The few transmigrators could only communicate with these members in the half-proficient Hainanese Mandarin and spoofing.

In addition, because the executive committee announced the work arrangements of Anxi and others on the forum, Anxi soon got the nickname "coach"-even though he was not fat at all.Now those young people who are familiar with Anxi will change their name to "Coach Anxi" with a smile when they see him, and some will even shout "Coach, I also want to learn how to make salt", which makes these members who don't know why Follow the coach to call out.Anxi planned to teach these arrogant guys a lesson several times, but in the end he could only "hehehe" perfunctory - after all, he also knew that his body of 1.7 meters and a hundred catties was difficult to compete with those shoulders of the military and police department. The thick-waisted guy plays real PK.

Because the modernization of the salt field has not yet begun, Anxi can only let the members work according to the ancient method of drying salt.Three days ago, they had begun to guide the tide water into the salt field through the tidal channel, allowing the seawater to fully soak the soil in the salt field.In the past few days, the members used multi-tooth nail rakes to rake the salt mud several times from different directions in the dried salt field to make the salt mud softer and absorb more seawater.Then, seawater is introduced from the ditches around the salt field over and over again, and this process is repeated many times to ensure that the sea salt components absorbed in the salt mud have reached a saturated state.

Now Anxi is instructing the members to collect the dried salt mud and put it in a filter tank next to the salt field.The bottom of the filter pool is paved with thin bamboo sticks or straw mats, which are used as filters.The members stirred the salt mud in the filter tank, and then stepped in to make sure that the brine with high salt content passed through the filter screen, and then flowed from the water outlet at the bottom into the adjacent brine storage tank.This process went on for three full hours, until Anxi confirmed that the salt mud in the filter was basically dry, and the exhausted members got his approval and stopped to rest.

At this time, the concentration of brine in the brine storage tank must be tested once to determine whether the next process can be carried out.The Ministry of Chemical Industry has quite a few acid-base test strips available, but in terms of the demand for salt farms, their reserves of test strips are obviously not enough. If brine samples are collected and sent to the base camp for testing, the timeliness is too low.Anxi has an easier way to detect this. He plucked a leaf from the bushes by the pool.This shrub is called yellow croaker, Anxi pinch off the leaves, and throw the small stem of the leaves into the brine pool.Seeing that the leaf stem did not sink into the water, but floated on the water, Anxi nodded with satisfaction.If the leaf stem sinks directly, it means that the concentration of brine is not large enough, and these brines must be dried again until the concentration reaches the standard.

"Carry the water!" Anxi waved his hand, and the members who had almost rested stood up one after another and began to pick up wooden buckets to draw water from the pool.

The next step is for the members to use wooden barrels to pick the brine out of the pool and pour it into the shallow stone salt troughs scattered throughout the valley.The large area of ​​these salt troughs is more than ten feet, and the small ones are the size of a washbasin, but no more than half an inch deep.After the brine is placed in the salt tank for a day or two to dry, large white particles of sea salt will crystallize.If it is to be refined again, the sea salt will be melted again, and the brine will be vacuum evaporated, but this is not only the production task of the Salt Farm Commune, but will be transferred to the production process of the Ministry of Chemical Industry - in the vacuum evaporation Most of the concentrated solutions produced in the process will be used as chemical products or semi-finished products, and only a small amount will be sold on the market as refined table salt.

This kind of manual labored brine method has been going on for hundreds of years. Constrained by the technological level of this era, it is difficult to make major improvements in the craftsmanship, which is obviously not the production level expected by the Executive Committee.After Anxi's theoretical knowledge and practical operations in the past few days, Anxi also has a clear understanding of the efficiency shortcomings in the production links of salt farms, such as tide absorption, brine production, crystallization, and salt collection. However, it is necessary to improve the existing To achieve the highest production efficiency, it is not enough to rely on the salt field's own efforts, it must have the full cooperation of other departments.

At present, the production link that is easier to improve should be crystallization. Those large and small salt troughs are too obstructive in Anxi's view. In the future, large and uniform salt drying ponds and crystallization ponds should be the symbols of the salt field.But to build these pools on a large scale, the Ministry of Industry must first provide enough cement.As far as Anxi knows, the cement kiln of the Ministry of Industry is still in the trial production stage, and no one can say when it will be officially put into operation.

What Anxi did not know was that the cement kiln of the Ministry of Industry had now encountered major technical problems, and several heads of the executive committee who knew industrial technology were holding an emergency on-site meeting near the cement kiln.

Previously, the mining department successfully found limestone and gypsum mines in the Tiandu River Valley according to the information prepared in advance, which made the Executive Committee once believed that the production of cement was only a matter of time.However, when the cement kiln was completed and started its trial operation, the relevant personnel in charge discovered that there were major loopholes that had been overlooked.

The common Portland cement in later generations, the calcium silicate in it is calcined and melted by calcium oxide and silicon dioxide at high temperature, while the calcium oxide is calcined from limestone. Calcium oxide requires a large amount of anthracite or coke, which can point to the acupoints of the Executive Committee - not to mention anthracite, even if only ordinary bituminous coal is needed, the Executive Committee does not have much available now.

(End of this chapter)