In early April, the hot and humid rainy season finally left, the island was raining less and less, the annoying rainy days were finally moving away, the dark clouds that often hung over the island began to disperse, the air slowly became drier, and there were fewer mosquitoes on the ground.

Although the sun was shining and the wind was refreshing almost every day in the following days, everyone's mood still could not follow the weather to become comfortable.

The main thing is that I am tired for a while, and everyone knows in their hearts that although they will no longer have to do farm work soon, the dry season has arrived, and the peak period of industrial construction has also come......

As soon as the last acre of sugarcane was planted, the construction of the cement plant was immediately put on the agenda of the General Affairs Coordination Committee.

At the plenary meeting held on the afternoon of April 9, Mr. Sun, on behalf of the General Affairs Coordination Committee, announced that the long-awaited cement plant would officially start construction the next day, and announced three personnel appointments: Hou Xianglin was responsible for the construction of the plant and plant and equipment installation, Chengdong was responsible for the construction of the branch railway, and Cao Limei was responsible for the preparation of raw materials and the excavation of the diversion canal for the cement plant.

The three of them roughly distributed the labor force on the spot, basically high school students and young people followed Cao Limei to dig the aqueduct and prepare materials for the mine, and they were equipped with most of the construction machinery.

People in their twenties and early thirties go to work on railway construction sites, and the 300-meter branch railway is not long, but it is also a relatively tiring job.

As for the rest, they followed Hou Xianglin to level the land in the factory area, drive construction machinery to build dirt roads, build simple factories and assist in the transportation and installation of equipment. These tasks are relatively easy, so they are left to the older "old people" to do them......

Since the wet cement production process used in the micro cement production line provided by Anna to the traverser requires a large amount of water, the site should be as close to the water source as possible, and after several discussions and trade-offs, the three responsible persons finally chose to build the cement plant on a slope less than 500 meters from Lake Imi.

Subsequently, under the leadership of Hou Xianglin, the ground leveling work was done for two days before the construction of the plant began.

Unlike brick and tile factories, houses can now be built with their own bricks and tiles.

However, the cement is still made of old-world materials from the cave, and the beams and roof skeleton are made of bamboo.

Up to now, some of the fast-growing bamboos outside the Red Mansion have grown up, and they can be cut down and utilized.

Of course, these so-called factories are still very simple, but compared with the brick and tile factories, the main plant of the cement plant is slightly improved.

It is a semi-enclosed building with a roof and a half-height fence and can only partially serve some shelter from the elements.

However, considering that cement plants are usually very dusty, the construction of such semi-enclosed factories has at least the advantage of good ventilation.

Ten days later, the complete set of wet cement production equipment was delivered to the installation site by rail and tractor.

The entire installation project of cement production equipment is not very complicated, in fact, it is just a group of people under the command of Mr. Zhao, Hou Xianglin and other professionals, step by step according to the map assembly.

Nowadays, after DIY micro turbine run-of-the-river power stations and small brick and tile production lines, everyone is quite familiar with this kind of work.

This cement production line is worthy of being specially made miniature, whether it is the labor intensity of handling and installation, or the complexity of the process equipment, it is within the scope of everyone's technical level and physical strength, so from the start of construction to the completion of the installation of equipment, the entire cement production line only took ten days to install in place.

In the first two days, the key equipment related to the quality of cement - raw meal mill and ball mill - were installed in place.

Three days later, a small mechanized calcining kiln, less than two stories high, was erected in the middle of the plant.

Then the pulverized coal burner and the feeding and discharging pipes were also installed.

Then everyone gave Hou Xianglin a big hand, watching him assemble all kinds of strange-shaped parts little by little into a half-person-high drum cement mill, and then instructed everyone to install various pipes, and the exit of the cement mill led directly to a metal container like a small grain stack, Hou Xianglin said, it was a bulk cement tank.

Finally, two 60-kilowatt steam engines were installed to power the cement plant and the attached pumps and their pipelines.

According to Hou Xianglin, this production line can be called a typical example of simple and rough cement production, the process is indeed simple and clear at a glance, and many of the vacuuming and noise suppression equipment that had to be installed in the old world because of environmental protection requirements have been completely omitted by Anna.

However, Hou Xianglin's statement immediately aroused everyone's concern about the labor intensity and dust hazards of this production line.

But Hou Xianglin assured everyone in time that usually the dust problem is concentrated in the calcining kiln, but this vertical kiln has been improved by Anna, it belongs to a closed-door smoldering kiln, the exhaust pipe of the vertical kiln leads directly to a large water tank, which is a dust collection device, and the open flame is basically not visible during the calcination process, plus the mechanized feeding and discharging means, the labor intensity and dust are within the tolerable range.

“...... When you start production, you will know, it is not as terrible as you think, please rest assured, of course, you still have to remember to wear a mask when the equipment is working! ”

At this time, Brother Hou confidently assured everyone.

As for the product quality issues that a few people are more concerned about, Hou Xianglin said on the spot that there is no real silicate carbonate mineral cement in the world so far, and we are the first one, as long as it is better than the so-called "Roman cement" mixed with clay and volcanic ash.

"Is that all it takes?"

"Of course, don't forget, this is in the seventeenth century!"

Faced with everyone's doubts, Hou Xianglin replied indifferently.

"Brother Hou, I remember that the Ming Dynasty repaired the city wall, using Sanhe soil, and adding eggs and glutinous rice flour, what about our cement and that?"

At this time, a studious young man in the group of high school students asked a slightly technical question.

"Uh...... Truth be told, maybe, maybe...... It's better than that. ”

At this time, Brother Hou's answer was a little hesitant.

"However, it also depends on the continuous improvement of the quality of our products, especially the level of craftsmanship......"

Teacher Zhao added a sentence next to him.

"Don't worry, I will strive to improve the process after the official production, and try to raise the label as much as possible."

Brother Hou responded with a smile.

Everyone can see that Hou Xianglin is indeed full of confidence on this point.

On April 20, the aqueduct on Cao Limei's side and the branch railway in charge of Chengdong were completed one after another.

By the end of April, the yard in front of the cement plant's calciner was stacked with limestone, gypsum and clay as high as a hill.

The trial production is scheduled for April 29.

It was Saturday, and Mr. Hou Xianglin and Mr. Zhao decided to officially start trial production after carefully inspecting the equipment.

There is no doubt that this is an important day for everyone, and in addition to celebrating and watching the excitement, the main purpose is to understand the labor intensity of cement production.

Therefore, all the crossers, including the two pregnant women, arrived at the production site, but for safety reasons, the pregnant women and underage children could only stand on the railway wagons from a distance to watch the excitement.