June 1, 1641, light rain.

Sergeant Hans picked his teeth with a toothpick as he walked out of the gate of the railway station in Zhenyuan Township and headed north. I don't know which guy who was cut by a thousand knives to eat the radish beef stew he ate at noon, and the meat was not rotten at all, so that his already thick teeth were stuffed with shredded meat. I shouldn't have eaten this free working lunch, but should have gone to the city to eat a bowl of hot pepper mutton vermicelli soup, fragrant and spicy, much better than this old cotton-like beef stew.

"Damn, this South African cattle is not as delicious as the La Plata cow, and it is not as good as the hump cow shipped from New China, it is really fucking unpalatable." Sergeant Hans cursed, turned over and mounted a horse tied to an oak tree next to the railway station, inspected the equipment, and rode towards the construction site ahead.

Last year, he and Fabian both retired from the 4th Company of the Army with the rank of sergeant, and Fabian returned to his hometown of Dingyuan Township as the Minister of Armed Forces as he wished. As for himself, the former Sergeant Hans, because he had some old friendship with the "noble" Ouyang Township Chief of Zhenyuan Township, he was assigned to Zhenyuan Township as the Minister of Armed Forces.

To tell the truth, there are only one or two thousand people in Zhenyuan Township, and most of them are herdsmen who raise sheep for a living, and the work of the Minister of Armed Forces is actually very idle. Once a year, you just need to go to the countryside and go to each village to verify the number of militia members in each village with the local militia chief, and then inspect the training status of the militia. At other times, it doesn't matter if you just lie in the office all day and sleep a lot, of course, if you are caught by the discipline police, you will be in trouble, and you may lose your position.

Zhenyuan Township and Ranch Township are the places where the cavalry company recruits soldiers. There were many Cossacks and Tatartan herders in both places. Outstanding riding skills. The monthly cavalry training was Hans's favorite thing to watch. But since the beginning of the year, his only pleasure has been canceled. A large number of herdsmen in the two places were requisitioned, and they had to go to the construction site of the Mianmei Line at a fixed time every month to participate in the construction of the railway together with the workers of the Fourth Bureau of Communications and Construction.

Now the southern section of the Mianmei Line Railway has already been repaired to Zhenyuan Township, and a station has been set up here, and then the road repair team continues to the north, and the length of seven or eight kilometers has been repaired, and the efficiency is still quite good. Hans rode his horse slowly, and the tiny raindrops hitting his face made him feel cold. It's extra pleasant. Next to the road is a straight railway built on a roadbed almost flush with the ground, and the 12.5-meter-long steel rails are connected together by iron connectors, which may have been produced for a short time, and the surface is a little rusty. However, it still looks quite sturdy and durable, and the load-bearing capacity is not at all a level compared to the iron-clad wooden track he had seen in the mine.

Sleepers are fixed at intervals under the rails, which are said to be used to evenly distribute the heavy pressure on the rails throughout the roadbed. Most of these sleepers are hardwoods harvested from the New China region, and a small part are imported from La Plata, and then fumigated and dried, which is very suitable for use as sleepers. However, the Ministry of Communications really takes up too many hardwood resources to build railways. As a result, Ding Canlin, the boss of the South China Sea Transportation Company, who was originally planning to build a large merchant ship, was extremely annoyed, and repeatedly accused the Ministry of Communications in public of ignoring the overall situation. I can't see how tight the country's transport tonnage is at the moment.

There is a large amount of irregular gravel scattered next to the sleepers, called ballast, which is said to be effective in absorbing the noise generated by passing vehicles and also good for drainage.

Hans soon arrived at the construction site, where a large number of disgraced South African labourers were working under the supervision of the Ministry of Home Affairs police. Under the command of the employees of the Fourth Bureau of Communications and Construction, they worked in groups of several people to shout the trumpet rhythmically, ramming the heavy stone in their hands to the ground. Thanks to their efforts, the originally soft mud suddenly became much denser and firmer, and the ground was much smoother. Next to their rammed foundations, black laborers were using sledgehammers to break stones, and after each large stone was broken, someone next to it swept it into a dustpan with a broom, and then dumped it on the foundation where the sleepers had been fixed, and then spread it evenly.

Beneath the foundation, there are a series of dug drainage ditches, and black laborers are cleaning up the water in the ditches under the leadership of the foreman of the Fourth Communications and Construction Bureau, and then bringing in red bricks, sand and cement to build a permanent drainage ditch to prevent leakage. However, the rain has ruined the fruits of their labor, and they have to drain the ditches without stopping, and then quickly level the bottom of the ditches before building them.

Due to its proximity to a small river, the annual rainfall is usually close to 1,000 mm, so the water table is high. In addition, it has been raining since last night, so the water in this section of the ditch is directly below the ankles and not far from the knees. South African labourers wade barefoot through the icy rainwater and scoop up stagnant water from the ditch into a nearby wooden bucket with a wooden spoon. The rain outside is getting heavier and heavier, and many of them are so cold that their lips are blue, and their feet that have been soaked in water for a long time are also soaked white and peeled off in a large area, and many people's feet are soaked and they are limping when they walk.

But the laborers did not dare to be lazy or complain, because the policemen of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, wearing oilcloth ponchos and sabers around their waists, were staring at them coldly. They were also very cold, and the hot breath from the mouths of many people condensed into a white mist in the air, but they seemed to vent their grievances on the South African laborers who were working in front of them, and it seemed that these people caused them to still toss in the wild in this cold and rainy weather.

In the morning, a few South African laborers who were not active in their work or complained were dragged aside by the Ministry of Internal Affairs police, who were acting as overseers, and they were beaten violently, and the screams could be faintly heard hundreds of meters away. Now these unlucky guys with blood stains on their bodies are being thrown aside like rags by these policemen, and I don't know if they are dead. Several military dogs walked around them, sniffing their bodies with their noses from time to time, which made the laborers working on the side feel frightened, and the movements under their hands couldn't help but speed up a little.

Hans threw the reins of his horse to a nearby policeman from the Zhenyuan police station, and then carried a food box and headed straight for a nearby wooden canopy. There were a few people sitting under the canopy, and the leader was Eunuch Wang of the Zhenyuan Branch of the Northwest Reclamation Bank. Since the Government Council issued a document requiring the cadres and workers of Dingyuan Township, Miannong Township, Zhenyuan Township, Meilin Port and other local organs and enterprises adjacent to the railway to take turns to participate in labor at the road construction site, it was not at all strange to see Wang Dajian here.

Eunuch Wang sat proudly on a Taishi chair, and his two subordinates were also beside him. Among them, Zhou Dahe was holding a piece of paper in his hand, as if he was reporting something to him, while another teenager, Anderson, was holding a knife next to him to cut open a coconut shipped from New Huaxia.

"On-site office, Eunuch Wang, it's really dedicated." Hans said with a grin in his German accent, then casually put a wooden food box in his hand on the table, and said: "The mutton vermicelli soup brought from the city, as well as steamed dumplings and roast lamb chops, I came here on horseback, they are all hot, eat them quickly." ”

Anderson, a young man who was cutting coconuts, cheered, snatched the food box directly, opened the lid, and then sniffed at the steaming steamed dumplings, and said intoxicatedly: "My favorite leek fresh meat dumplings, well, there are shrimp and meat residues in it, it's so fragrant." ”

Eunuch Wang slapped Anderson's neck and scolded with a smile: "Rabbit cub, you know how to eat, and your father was ...... back then." Ahem...... The same stinky glitch. After speaking, he smiled at Hans again: "Then I'm welcome, grandma bear, in this leaky place, my whole body is frozen like ice, and the cold wind is swishing into the collar of my coat." It's better to eat a bowl of hot soup to warm up and feel comfortable, Xiao Zhou, let's eat together, otherwise it will all be eaten by Anderson, a bastard boy. After you two have eaten, we're going to dig a gutter, we're only a third of our way through today's task, so don't drag it out until tomorrow. ”

Zhou Dahe answered, brought a wooden pier over and sat down, and then had lunch with Eunuch Wang and Anderson. Sergeant Hans smiled, took a pipe out of his pocket, lit a bag of tobacco from the bag of the eunuch on the table, and leaned against the wooden beams of the canopy, looking fixedly into the distance.

On the southern horizon, a two-horse carriage pulled by two horses slowly approached. The carriage walked smoothly on the tracks, and the flat carriages were placed with heavy steel rails, and the speed was about ten kilometers per hour, neither fast nor slow. The steel flange wheels rub against the rails and make a rumbling noise, making a "clang" sound every time they cross the gap between the two rails. The carriage quickly approached the finish line, and the driver pulled down the brake handbrake, a screeching sound of metal grinding between the steel wheels and the rails. After gliding for some distance, the carriage came to a precise stop on the last rail, showing the driver's skill.

Ahead, on the roadbed, Officer Ronald and Assistant Constable Bogdan directed dozens of South African laborers to unload the heavy steel rails on the wagon. The whole scene looks like it is in full swing, and the more than 80-kilometer railway of the Mianmei Line is extending forward little by little under the hard work of the vast number of cadres and masses along the line, hundreds of workers of the Fourth and Fifth Bureaus of the Communications Construction Bureau, and more than 2,000 South African laborers. (To be continued......)