Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 656 Both War and Development ([-])

The early morning in Canyon Fort in midsummer is relatively cool.At five o'clock in the morning, surrounded by a group of guards and entourages, Peng Zhicheng boarded a train coming from the direction of Xiayihe Town.

This train has been staying in Canyon Fort most of the night, and the workers at Canyon Railway Station started the intense unloading work after the train stopped here at [-] o'clock last night.The compartments of the two wooden trucks are filled with all kinds of materials, such as fuel (coal), building materials, daily necessities, mechanical equipment, etc., which are specially needed for the production and life of the more than [-] local residents of Canyon Fort.

While the stevedores were unloading the train wagons, the repairmen of the mechanic class at the Canyon Railway Station also carried out an emergency inspection of the train.Today, due to the low level of metallurgy and mechanical processing on the east coast, the integrated system of trains, which is a test of the overall strength of the country's industry, is still quite unreliable.

The mechanics replaced some severely worn bearings on the train, and also inspected several gears that were seriously deformed. Finally, the piston and connecting rod of the steam locomotive had not been replaced for a long time, or the quality of the steam locomotive itself was not good when it left the factory. There were obvious cracks on the surface, which made the repairmen in the mechanic class really speechless.If this is broken, the speed of the moving train will drop by half, and there may even be other related problems.

After repairing the train and adding enough coal and water, the workers loaded about [-] tons of wheat into the freight car—this is the grain supplied to the Baichiyabao along the railway.In fact, most of the materials carried by the entire train were grain, plus the [-] tons of wheat from Canyon Castle, the total was [-] tons, and the remaining [-] tons were mobilized from Xiayihe Town.

Among the seven towns in the middle and lower reaches of the Yihe River, only Xiayihe Town, Ningjinbao, and Canyonbao have surplus grain for export. Heyangbao, Danuma Township, and Changshan Iron Mine in the near future all need to import grain from the outside world, and Changshan Iron Mine is a major food importer.

To be honest, the agricultural conditions in the Yihe area are indeed not as good as those in the Yazihu ​​basin, because the soil here is not very fertile, and the population here is not very abundant, and Peng Zhicheng, the leader of the army, is indeed not a good hand in economic construction, so these In the past few years, the Yihe area has barely achieved self-sufficiency in grain, but it has not been able to turn over a grain of grain to the central government for export.

Among them, the grain in Meilin County is slightly surplus after several years of development, but it has also been used to fill the holes in the two new settlements around it.Canyon Fort (3500 people), Ningjinbao (1500 people), and Xiayihe Township (4000 people) had a total of about 4000 mu of registered arable land last year. This agricultural area that has not implemented the three-crop rotation system has a total harvest of We harvested 2300 tons of wheat and 10 tons of soybeans, an increase of 12% and 80% over last year, respectively. The harvest can only be said to be average, neither good nor not too bad; the average yield per mu is 46 jin and [-] jin, roughly the same as last year .

Therefore, we can see that the increase in grain production in this area is mainly due to the increase in income from newly reclaimed land, and the grain yield per unit area has not been increased.In addition, the La Plata War, which is in full swing, has not affected the three places including Xiayihe Town. The farmers in this area have not been transferred to the front line in large numbers, so the food production has been maintained and stable. There are liters.

Excluding the daily consumption of these grains by the local residents, the three places can almost spare about 1800 tons of wheat and the same amount of soybeans for export.For these grains, except for the part that should have been handed over to the national reserve grain depot, the rest will be uniformly purchased by the Yihe Regional Administrative Office through bank acceptance bills to support the nearly [-] workers (including South African laborers) who are building the Northwest Railway. workers and the residents of Baichiya Castle and Merlot Castle).

In addition, several other settlements under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau, such as Hejin Fort, Chengshan Fort, and Tieling Fort, also need food from the Yihe area, otherwise they will not be able to support them at all. After all, these settlements have been established in the past one or two years. , far from being self-sufficient.

Of course, in addition to food consumption, the Northwest Reclamation Bureau also needs to consume a lot of meat and vegetables.It’s okay to say that most of the vegetables can be provided locally, but the Yihe region can’t afford meat—they are still in short supply.To solve this problem, we still have to rely on the support of the six coastal counties, such as Dongfang County in the capital, where the animal husbandry industry is quite well developed, and Xihu County, the granary of the Republic in the North Yazihu ​​area.

Therefore, every once in a while, there will be a large number of boats transporting pigs and cattle at the pier in Xiayihe Town.After these pigs and cattle were unloaded on the wharf, in order to prevent them from losing weight, the Northwest Reclamation Bureau was not even willing to let them walk. The director of the bureau, Vest, specially coordinated with the State Railway Administration for train skins, and transported them by train. To Baichiya Fort about [-] kilometers away.

Some pigs and cattle were slaughtered and eaten on the spot in Baichiya Fort, some were marinated and then transported in the direction of Fort Merlot by heavy freight wagons, and of course a small part continued to be driven to Tieling Fort manually by a cowboy team composed of Gauchos. Residents of this industrial town, where most skilled workers are employed, can also eat fresh meat.

According to incomplete statistics, the daily grain and non-staple food consumption, construction materials and machinery equipment required for factory and town construction, rail supply and building materials required for railway construction, personnel, weapons, daily necessities, etc. in the settlements under the Northwest Reclamation Bureau For miscellaneous things, more than 60 tons of materials need to be transported from Xiayihe Town to Baichiyabao every year.Taking a [-]-ton-carrying steam train back and forth for two days (loading, unloading and maintenance along the way), it can transport about [-] tons of materials in a month, and about [-] tons in a year.

Of course, all of the above are ideal conditions. In fact, it is impossible to achieve such a large transportation volume in reality. This is because the first phase of the Northwest Railway (Xiayihe Town to Baichiyabao section) currently in operation is still a single track, which cannot At the same time, the trains are separated to save time; the second is that the reliability of the current trains is not very high, and they often break down halfway, which obviously wastes a lot of time.

In order to solve this problem and ensure the transportation of all kinds of materials needed for the construction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau, the State Administration of Railways specially prepared two trains at the railway station in Xiayihe Town, and at the same time strengthened scheduling to maximize the efficiency of the existing railway line. Utilization rate; In addition, each of the three train stations in Xiayihe Town, Canyon Fort, and Baichiyabao has a steam locomotive on standby to replace damaged locomotives at any time.

But even so, according to the normal situation, as long as the first phase of the Northwest Railway is not opened for one day, the various materials needed by the Northwest Reclamation Bureau cannot be guaranteed in full, because even if the railway is built, the transportation capacity is still insufficient (see the opening difficulties in land areas).But what is darkly humorous is that the capacity of the inland river transport fleet to transport all kinds of materials from the coastal area to Xiayihe Town is also quite insufficient. It is thankful that half of the [-] tons of materials needed for a year can be transported. Therefore, the National Railway Administration can pat its chest at this time and say that our railway has not delayed the construction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau...

On the locomotive of the train parked in the Canyon Fort Railway Station, the fireman continued to shovel the crushed standard Tacheng clean coal into the furnace. The fire in the furnace burned more and more vigorously, and the pressure of the boiler had almost reached the normal level.The steam engine was constantly swallowing water vapor, thick smoke was billowing from the chimney, and occasionally some sparks escaping from the chimney even ignited the leaves on a dead tree next to the railroad tracks, which caused a burst of confusion among the workers in the train station , while the train driver and the fireman laughed.

At 05:30 in the morning, there was only a long whistle, and the cylinders on both sides of the steam locomotive began to work slowly, and the train gradually increased its speed, heading straight for Baichiyabao, 8 or 1 kilometers away.Peng Zhicheng and others were sitting in the last passenger compartment (there are 2 compartments in total, the first compartment is a tender, the second to seventh compartments are cargo compartments, and the eighth compartment is a passenger compartment). Outside of people, there were only a dozen or so technicians from various walks of life who went on business trips to Baichiya Fort and Fort Merlot.

After the train started, Peng Zhicheng lay on the side of the railing of the convertible carriage, looking at the large flat fields along the railway line and the fleeting cattle and sheep, he couldn't help feeling deeply moved.This is the power of industry. If there is no industrial crown-level killer like the train, it will be extremely difficult for people on the east coast to develop minerals in the inland areas.

But now even with a steam train carrying more than 60 tons of cargo, the development of the not-too-distant Northwest region is still somewhat powerless, which makes people feel a little regretful.Peng Zhicheng knew that he was impatient. Now the people on the east bank are developing the area under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau at a very fast pace. However, due to factors such as manpower shortage and the impact of the war, their pace of developing this area has been slowed down a lot. .

If there hadn't been this war, perhaps the railway has already been opened to traffic at Fort Merlot, and the railway to Fort Hejin is almost half built.Alas, on the one hand, the war has broadened the country's future living space - after all, the opportunity is rare now, and if you want to seize the territory from Spain in the future, you may have to face the common backlash of the entire Catholic world; Bringing great wealth - such as a large number of meat and dairy cows.

Of course, the side effects of the war are also quite obvious, such as the lag in traffic construction.Insufficient transportation capacity not only restricts the development of domestic economy, but also restricts the construction of transportation facilities.War or development is really a painful choice.In any case, since the war has been going on for a year and a half, it is definitely unacceptable for everyone not to have a satisfactory result, but at the same time, traffic construction cannot be left behind.Now that the five-year plan for the next stage has already mentioned the key development of the transportation industry, the start of construction of some new railway projects—such as the double track of the first phase of the Northwest Railway—can be put on the agenda.

(End of this chapter)