The demand for irrigation in agricultural societies is huge, and in addition to large rivers such as the Wei River and Huai River, as well as large artificial irrigation facilities such as the Zhengguo Canal, there are also a large number of small ditches for irrigation. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The large Zhengguo Canal needs to be manually dredged, and the irrigation ditches in various counties and villages also need to be dredged, so the manpower is simply insufficient.

With the current level of manpower, it can only ensure that the small river ditches at the county and village level can be cleaned up during the dry season in winter, and for large irrigation facilities such as the Zhengguo Canal, it is really inadequate, and the dredging of the Grand Canal can only pick up the most important sections of the road for cleaning.

Now, the cutter suction dredger has been born, as long as mass production is carried out, it can completely solve the dredging work of these large artificial water conservancy facilities.

In order to facilitate the test, Li An chose the Cao Canal in the west of Chang'an City as the experimental object, because this artificially slotted canal is the closest to the R&D center, and it is easier to transport the cutter suction dredger over, and this canal has been excavated for seven or eight years, and the silt is very thick, which is indeed more suitable for dredging tests.

The cutter suction dredger, which was not very large, was soon transported into the canal and the dredging operation officially began.

With the start of the cutter suction device, the silt at the bottom of the canal is muddy, and the pumping mechanism immediately sucks the silt into the pipeline and discharges the silt to the shore through a long pipe.

There is still a large amount of water in the silt that has just been discharged to the shore, and it flows back into the canal, bringing back a little sediment, but most of the silt is left on the bank, and only a small part of it flows back to the canal.

As always, there are still a lot of onlookers this time, of course, more are boring idlers, after all, dredging machinery does not have much purchase value, even if the nobles have hundreds of thousands of acres of land, there is no need to buy special dredging machinery, when needed, temporarily recruit manpower to dig ditches.

Of course, in addition to these boring idlers, there are many court officials, especially the officials of the Ministry of Industry are the most, dredging machinery for the Ministry of Industry, is a very important equipment, as long as there is dredging machinery, the Ministry of Industry dredging task can be completed more easily.

As a waiter of the Ministry of Works, Guo Xuji heard that Li An had invented the dredging steamboat, so he naturally rode his horse to the west of the city, and he wanted to witness the dredging effect of the cutter suction dredger.

"Guo Shilang, why did you come, the dredging has been started for a long time."

Half an hour after the dredging began, Guo Xuji, a waiter from the Ministry of Works, arrived late and walked to Li An's side out of breath.

"Li Shilang, this is your mistake, the test of such an important dredger, I didn't notify the official in advance, otherwise, the official would have been waiting here a long time ago."

Seeing that Li An thought he was late, Guo Xuji was very angry, of course, it was not Li An who was angry, but the people under his command were too incompetent, and they actually started to test before they got the news, which made him rush to Caoqu in a hurry.

"Haha, the process doesn't matter, Guo Shilang just needs to see the result."

Li An said with a smile, and pointed to the silt that had just been dredged, so that Guo could see the dredging effect of the dredging boat.

"It's really good to have cleaned up so much sludge! How long has it been cleaned up. ”

Guo Xuji's eyes were full of excitement, this kind of dredging artifact was officially something he urgently needed.

"It's been half an hour, and Guo Shilang thinks how much manpower will be needed if these sludges are cleaned up by manpower."

Li Ang did not organize manpower dredging, so it is not easy to estimate.

"About two or three hundred! Li Shilang, this is a good thing! We must build more, it is enough to put 100 ships in Guanzhong, and we must also put more in the Grand Canal. ”

Guo Xuji's expression was very excited, in his opinion, the cutter suction dredger can not only replace two or three hundred manpower, but also has no time and season restrictions.

With manpower dredging, we must choose the dry period, the time to work is very short, and the dredger can work continuously for 365 days a year, so that the actual role of the dredger can be compared to more than 1,000 manpower, 100 dredgers are comparable to 100,000 laborers, and it is more than enough to meet the dredging of such a large project as the Zhengguo Canal in Guanzhong.

"Guo Shilang doesn't need to be too happy, this is just a small dredger, in the future, this official plans to build a large dredger with ten times the efficiency in the shipyard in Luoyang City, the dredging effect is ten times that of this dredger, specially used to dredging the Grand Canal, but, at present, there is a shortage of resources, and it needs to be built slowly, the first batch, first build ten small dredgers, and solve Guo Shilang's urgent need!"

Ang Lee gave Guo Xuji greater hope and proposed the idea of a large dredger, but at the same time, on the grounds of lack of resources, asked Guo to not expect to get all the dredgers he needed at once.

"Haha! Enough, enough, as long as there is this thing, it is better than nothing, just take your time in everything, I'm not in a hurry, really not in a hurry. ”

Guo Xuji smiled from ear to ear, an old face was full of satisfaction, although it can't be achieved overnight, get enough dredgers, but as long as you have this thing, it's better than nothing, and putting it where you need it most can solve your urgent needs.

"Guo Shilang is not in a hurry, this dredger will be delivered to Guo Shilang first, but Guo Shilang must gather people as soon as possible to learn how to use and maintain the dredger."

Li An said.

"Okay, good, this official understands, this official understands."

Getting the first cutter suction dredger, Guo Xuji was overjoyed, felt that he had got a big treasure, and immediately ordered to go down and began to recruit people and horses, ready to learn to operate the dredger.

The small cutter suction dredger developed by Li Angang, due to its small scale, only needs seven or eight people, which is very labor-saving, and much stronger than the silt that directly allows labor to dig the riverbed in the dry season, and Guo Xuji will also prepare the operation of the personnel according to the number of equipment of the dredger.

The composition of the dredger consists of four parts: the main structure, the steam engine power, the steam dredger, and the steam cutter suction equipment.

Among them, the last three parts are core equipment, which are produced in the R&D center, and the main structure is divided into two production areas, one is the shipyard in Luoyang City, and the other is the newly built shipyard near the capital.

In this way, the dredger built can be quickly put into application nearby, so as to solve the silt problem in the Guanzhong area and the Grand Canal.

In order to operate the shipyard near the capital, Ang Lee transferred 1,000 men from the R&D center to build cutter suction dredgers and transport steamships.

Luokou Shipyard already has thousands of manpower, but in order to build a cutter suction dredger, Li An sent more than 500 people from the R&D center to the Luokou Shipyard, not only let them be responsible for building the cutter suction dredger, but also gave them a large number of drawings, let them build a large dredger in the dock in Luokou, and the core equipment required for the large dredger will be built in the R&D center in Beijing and transported to Luoyang City by rail.

Thanks to cultivators and harvesters, these agricultural machines have been produced and sold, and for this reason, many aristocrats have continued to drive out some tenant farmers, so that the manpower of the R&D center is becoming more and more abundant.

In order to develop better in the future, Li An also took into account that the space in the south of the capital is not large enough, so it is necessary to move the manufacturing industry with the most people to a farther location and build several manufacturing bases, but the distance between the manufacturing base and the R&D center is not too far to facilitate guidance and control.

After the surplus of manpower and the great changes brought to the Tang Dynasty by the development of mechanization, the imperial court soon approved the proposal to build several new manufacturing bases on the wasteland near the capital, and immediately began to implement it.

Steam locomotives, various wagons are placed in one base, cultivators, pumps and harvesters are placed in one base, freight steam cars are placed in one base, and some practical gadgets are placed in one base to reduce the pressure on the land in the R&D center.

Many mature manufacturing links will be relocated to the R&D center dozens of miles away, which greatly reduces the land pressure of the R&D center, and at the same time, it also allows the major manufacturing links to have more sufficient land resources, which is also an inevitable choice after the large-scale blowout of various scientific research achievements.

At this time, it has only been three years since Tianbao, and there is no big war with the outside world, let alone a heavy loss, and the surrounding major powers do not dare to provoke the Tang Dynasty easily, which allows the Tang Empire to spare more energy and financial resources to support Li An's research and development work, at the same time, the implementation of the two tax laws has also doubled the income of the treasury, and the railway operation is also quickly recovering the cost of manufacturing and laying railways. All kinds of agricultural machinery were sold to the nobles at twice the cost price.

At this moment, most of the financial resources of the Tang Dynasty were invested in industrial R&D and manufacturing, and the military and bureaucratic system accounted for only a small part of the financial expenditure, which was unimaginable before.

In order to prevent and control the danger, the treasury always maintains enough surplus money, so as not to deal with the crisis of the empire, which will inevitably affect the research and development and manufacturing of some machinery, but everything must be done step by step, the step can not be too big, and the treasury must not be short of funds.

"Li Shilang, General Guo is here."

"General Guo, that General Guo?"

Li An didn't react for a while.

"Li Shilang, it's me! Here I go again. ”

Guo Ziyi strode over and looked at Li An with a smile.

"General Guo, it seems that you are really idle! Nothing to do at the border? ”

Li An finally understood why Guo Ziyi had reached this age, and his official position was still so low, the biggest reason was that he had no chance to perform, as a general, if he didn't fight, there was no way to show many abilities, and besides, promotion was conditional, Lao Guo had neither military merits nor a prominent family background, so promotion was naturally very slow.

Moreover, Ang Lee felt that with his arrival, Guo Dashuai, who would be famous in later generations, was likely to have no future, after all, Lao Guo became famous when he pacified the Anshi Rebellion, but with his arrival, An Lushan still had the courage to launch a rebellion? Even if he really dared to rebel, Li An could kill him in seconds with the power of modern machinery in minutes, and there was no need for Lao Guo to lead the troops in a fierce battle.

"The Turks have been in the midst of infighting, and they don't have the energy to go south, and my Tang soldiers and horses really have nothing to do, but I came this time, first, to escort two thousand solar stoves back, and secondly, to ask Li Shilang for the toughened medicine jade needed for the helmet under the military order of the marshal, I wonder if Li Shilang has any inventory?"

Guo Ziyi did not hide it and told the truth directly.

"Huh! His Majesty is finally willing to equip the army with the sun cooker. ”

Li An smiled, looked at Guo Ziyi, nodded and said, "I have a thousand stocks of the tempered medicine jade mask that General Guo saw last time, and in addition, I have also created a more advanced fully enclosed helmet, whose performance far exceeds the existing helmet of my Tang army." ”

"It's only a thousand stocks, which is a little too little."

Guo Ziyi felt that there was a little less, paused, and asked, "What is a fully enclosed helmet, can I go and see it?" ”

Li An pouted and said: "General Guo, all medicinal jade products are my personal industry, and the cost of manufacturing these tempered masks is also my money, and the imperial court can never compensate for a penny, and give away things for free, you are actually too little?" ”

"Hey, hey, aren't I in a hurry? There are tens of thousands of troops in our Shuo side, and the tempered masks I brought last time were only equipped with a hundred guards under the command of the marshal, and the main army could not be equipped at all, and these thousand masks could not equip many troops, which was urgently needed in the army! ”

Guo Ziyi explained with a smile that he was just blackmailing, but fortunately, Li An's family is rich and he is not afraid of this blackmail, otherwise, he would not have gone bankrupt.

"The fully enclosed helmet is in my workshop, General Guo will come with me!"

Li An is still very generous, although he knew that Guo Ziyi would not give money, he still took Guo Ziyi to pick up the goods.

The so-called fully enclosed helmet is similar to the motorcycle helmet of later generations, of course, it is not the appearance, but the closed performance, which can completely block the wind and sand, so that when the desert is windy and sandy, you can also open your eyes, so as not to affect the combat ability because of the wind and sand.

"General Guo, this is the latest helmet, try it!"

Li Ang picked up a latest-style helmet and handed it to Guo Ziyi.

"Oops! It's a good thing! Sturdier and better to use than previous masks. ”

Guo Ziyi's eyes were very vicious, and he could see at a glance that the helmet in his hand was stronger and easier to use than the original helmet.

"General Guo, this mask can be opened or closed, after closing, it is impermeable, and the wind and sand can't get in, it can be used to prevent wind and sand, and this mask is smaller, stronger, not easy to be broken, much stronger than the previous mask, in addition, the main structure of the helmet is also more light and reasonable, the weight is lighter than the previous one, and it is also more strong, and a mesh cloth strip is added inside, which can better protect the soldier's head when impacted, so that the soldier is unscathed."

Li An introduced seriously.