Rise of the 1630s South America

Several major items of survival: basic necessities of life.

Jin Kela is not in a good mood.The reason is that the committee "extremely neglects agricultural work", and the people depend on food for the first time. Instead of finding a way to solve the food problem first, they will engage in bricks and cement for a while, and sit back and eat.In his view, this is all because the committee is full of "contractors, bureaucrats" and other people who "do not understand science".In another month, the soybean planting season in South America will begin. The 200 bags of northeast soybeans in the cargo hold are well preserved and can be sown as seeds.The land here is so fertile, it is completely uncultivated virgin land, and the harvest in the coming year must be good.

Until noon yesterday, he was still ambitious and ready to do a big job.Burning wasteland, reclaiming land, digging ditches, explaining the characteristics of soybeans to his subordinates, and training agricultural knowledge, he was extremely busy.

It's a pity that all this came to an abrupt end at noon on October 10th.Ma Ganzu, an "idleman" and "bureaucrat", took away most of the manpower from him on the pretext of mining limestone.The limestone kiln and cement kiln have not been seen yet, so limestone was mined first.This made him almost turn his nose out of anger.

"It's all shit!" Jin Kela spat hard on the ground, and continued to dig the field awkwardly with an iron pick, "I don't even know how to make a farm tool, and I don't understand science at all."

"Captain, these acres of land have been watered, can we sow seeds?" Zheng Bin, a high school student with pimples on his face, ran over and asked with his face up.

Zheng Bin is a solid guy, he can do whatever he asks him to do, and Jin Kela still likes him more.

"Well, it's ok. The acre on the left grows leeks, which is the bag of black seeds. Don't take it wrong. The acre on the right that is sprinkled with lime grows amaranth, and amaranth likes alkaline soil. Grandma's lime is still useful. Jin Kela muttered, "sprinkle plant ash on the two acres of land. Remember, water the leeks every two days, and don't water the amaranth. When my acre of land is tidy, you can bring the green vegetable seeds. , we also planted it."

"Hey, Lao Jin, it's quite a thing to do farm work." A young man wearing black-rimmed glasses laughed and walked forward pushing a bicycle, "Agricultural University is not in vain."

"Go, go!" Jin Kela said angrily, "Why did you come all the way here, Languo? To build a biogas tank for me?"

"How is it possible?" the glasses man Lan Guo smiled wryly, "I'm here to give you a fence. There are many trees that are not suitable for processing into boards by the logging team. Commissioner Liu asked me to pull them over for you and circle the seedling fields first. These Vegetable seeds are very important to us, and they are non-renewable resources in a short period of time. To put it bluntly, they are more important than people, and they must be taken care of carefully. No, I brought someone to build a fence for you. Your place It’s too far away from the cargo ship, Wang Qinian will bring people in tonight, and he will be responsible for the safety in the future.”

"Commissioner Liu still understands science." Jin Kela praised, and then asked, "When will the biogas digester be repaired? Farmyard manure will be needed for farming in the future."

"There is no material." Lan Guo spread his hands, "Although the committee has some cement and bricks in hand, Shao Shude was still yelling in the morning that there are not enough bricks to repair the chimney, how could they be distributed to other places. So you Ah, rest assured and wait until the brick kiln fires the first batch of bricks."

"It won't be my turn to burn a few more batches of bricks." Jin Kela was a little discouraged, "housing, toilets, canteens, bathhouses, office buildings, aqueducts, reservoirs, cement kilns, lime kilns, and even fences, which ones should not be used? Bricks and cement, wait until the year of the monkey."

The man with glasses sneered. He didn’t tell Jin Kela that not all the bricks and cement in the committee’s hands were given to Shao Shude to repair the kiln. Duncan, who had worked in the waterworks for many years, was presiding over the construction of a Set of simple water purification facilities.

At present, the main domestic water of the crossing people comes from several small streams on the north bank of the river, and the small streams converge in a low-lying land to form a large wetland.The wetland is about 500 meters away from the river bank. The water quality is very good, and the water volume is quite considerable. However, the distance is a bit far, and it is not convenient to get water, and it is not very hygienic.Therefore, Duncan took the initiative to propose to the committee a plan to dig aqueducts and build water purification facilities, which was quickly approved by the committee.

The committee not only transferred most of the construction team to him, but also transferred a batch of precious cement and building materials.After a day of hard work yesterday, a sedimentation tank with a length of 25 meters, a width of 5 meters and a depth of 4 meters has been dug. Today, the excavation of the filter tank and the storage tank began.

The source of water intake is naturally a wetland stream, and the stream water is introduced into the sedimentation tank through a diversion channel with a length of about 100 meters.Since the groundwater level here is generally high, this canal is temporarily made of mud, and will be replaced by bricks when conditions improve.The water inlet and outlet of the sedimentation tank are blocked by wooden boards. After the slow-flowing stream water enters the sedimentation tank, the sediment and other substances in the water will naturally settle under the action of gravity, and then enter the filter tank through the water outlet.

The filter tank is divided into two layers, one layer is covered with coarse sand at the bottom, which is used to filter larger suspended particles; the bottom layer is covered with fine sand, which is used to filter fine particles.The filtered water is stored in the reservoir, which is an open structure covered with wooden boards to prevent dust from falling and evaporating.

This kind of purification method is actually extremely primitive and crude. First, the water source lacks a coagulation process, and it lacks a disinfection process when it finally comes out. However, in the current situation of lack of alum and chlorine gas, this is the only way to go. .

All three pools are of reinforced concrete construction, and the project consumed a considerable amount of steel and cement on hand by the Commission.But it was about the health of the people across time, so no one said anything.

Compared with the "luxury" materials used in water purification facilities, the construction of public toilets, another livelihood project, is not satisfactory.The simple toilet built on the north bank of the river is really "simple" to the extreme. It is basically a hole dug in the ground, and then a few wooden boards are placed on it, and some reeds and thatch are laid on the top. The men and women are also separated by wooden boards. .There are no anti-leakage measures. Fortunately, it is far away from the drinking water source, so the problem is not big. The health department regularly uses lime for disinfection.After the official toilet is built, what awaits this simple temporary toilet will be the fate of being landfilled.

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Shao Shude has some headaches now, he has tried his best to save bricks when repairing the kiln, but now he finds that there are still not enough bricks left to build the chimney.There is no other way but to make a masonry mixed structure. If one piece of brick can be saved, it is a piece of cake.

In his original plan, the height of the chimney of this small brick kiln was 20 meters. The height of 20 meters can ensure that there is a sufficient pressure difference between the upper and lower chimneys to facilitate the discharge of exhaust gas.Looking at it now, this plan is very unrealistic. It seems that repairing it for about ten meters will be enough.

Now his staff has soared to 30 people, except for the 10 people who repair the chimney, the rest of them are "playing with mud" to make bricks.In the morning, the construction team sent several people to build some adobe sheds for him to dry in the shade, and brought some raincloths and thatch.The adobe cannot be exposed to rain or sun, so it must be placed in a shed to dry naturally, and it is best to cover it with some thatch and rain cloth, just in case.

The size of the adobe is 240×115×53mm (length×width×height).After taking back the clay, carefully remove the sundries inside, and then grind the mature soil.After the mellow soil is mixed with water, it is formed in a wooden mold, and then piled up in a shed to dry in the shade.Each adobe is ventilated at a certain distance, so that the moisture in the adobe is more easily balanced.

After half a month of drying in the shade, the bricks can be fired in the kiln.The small earthen kiln built by Shao Shude can burn more than 12000 bricks at a time, and the annual output is 3 million bricks based on 140 days of firing.In fact, the production capacity cannot be so high. Due to various factors, if the kiln can produce 100 million bricks per year, Shao Shude will wake up from his dreams.

As for building houses for the cross-travelers, a three-room bungalow costs about 2 yuan in bricks, and the annual production capacity is enough to build fifty houses.Moreover, there are many places where bricks are used nowadays, and it is impossible to build houses for all the cross-travelers. Of course, a house with three rooms is indeed too extravagant, and the committee is unlikely to approve it.

"It seems that continuing to build more kilns and expanding production capacity is the right way." Shao Shude sighed, "I hope the good weather these days can continue, so that I can also fire the first batch of bricks as soon as possible."

The progress of the logging team today was indeed extremely slow. Many people had blisters on their hands, and they were grimacing in pain when they swung their axes.Coupled with the faint movement in the woods, and the heart-piercing barking of the wolf and green dog, everyone's spirits were highly tense.Peng Zhicheng suspected that the Indians were spying on the time travelers, but he didn't dare to search deeply, so he had to observe carefully and strengthen his vigilance.Fortunately, this forest is relatively sparse, as long as you keep your eyes open, you don't have to worry about anything.

A pontoon bridge was built between the two banks of the river with tall logs, and the large rows of logs were firmly tied together with strong vines soaked in oil, so that a dozen or twenty people could walk without any problem.Xiao Mingli and Liu Dafa carried a piece of wood and staggered to the other side.In the wood processing factory, several two-knife carpenters and a group of "apprentices" are processing the boards in full swing. Basically, as soon as the boards are processed, they are immediately taken away by the workers who are waiting to build simple wooden houses.

Most of the day passed, and the number of simple wooden houses in the residential area increased to fifteen.The wooden houses are arranged in a close line, because it can save the timber of a wall.A tall lookout post was erected behind the side of the wooden house, and a young man in a blue uniform of the "Beiyang New Army" was looking around with a telescope.A similar lookout post is being built on the south bank of the river, between the brick kilns and the lumberyard.

Smoke billowed from the canteen not far away, and Xiao Bailang and a group of part-time fishermen at the upper reaches of the river were returning with a large amount of catch talking and laughing loudly.Looking at this scene, Xiao Mingli felt a sense of tranquility, and the exhaustion all over his body seemed to melt away in an instant.