On September 20, 1647, Ma Jia, director of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau, who had just finished the Lantern Festival on the east bank, inspected the five settlements under his jurisdiction: Tieling, Chengshan, Hejin, Meiluo, and Baiqiya. These five settlements were scattered over a vast area of tens of thousands of square kilometers, and Ma Jia, his secretary, his entourage, and his guards first rode in a carriage, and then simply rode directly on horseback, and arrived at the last destination of the inspection, the Baiqi Cliff Fort, on October 10.

The settlement of Baiqi Cliff Fort has been established for almost two years, and at first there were only a few hundred local military households from the Baiqi Cliff Thousand Households in the eastern part of the Ming Dynasty, and now the population has reached about 2,000 after several replenishments, of which about 40% are Ming people, almost all of whom are men. The remaining half of the population is all from the three regions of Greece, Bulgaria and Moldavia, and the majority (about 80%) are women.

The agricultural conditions of Baiqi Cliff Fort are very ordinary, because it was originally a barren meadow, and even after clearing the reclaimed farmland, there are still a large number of grass seeds left, and the wheat and wheat seedlings in the field are overly competitive, and the yield is slightly inferior to that in the north. Another is that, similar to the entire eastern south, although precipitation is abundant here (1000 mm of rainfall per year), there is still a lack of large surface runoff, and the rainwater that falls cannot be used. When the rainfall is low, not only is it difficult to water the ground, but it is also a little inconvenient for people and animals to drink water.

There is only one solution to this problem, that is, to organize a large number of people to build small reservoirs in the countryside, and at the same time dig irrigation canals, preferably to the west to the Heihe (Neihe Luohe) basin, and use a first-class steam water lifting station to divert the abundant water resources of the Heihe River to the side of Baiqiya to irrigate the nearby farmland.

Organizing peasants to build water conservancy facilities is a major project. This little labor force of the Hundred Feet Cliff Fort alone will definitely not work. And the township government has just recently organized 500 adult men to go to La Plata to do their labor. This labor force is even more scarce. Although it is now the slack season of late winter and early spring. But for the peasants of the new settlements under the rule of the East Bank Republic, they will always have a lot to do. For example, to open up wasteland, to dig rivers and canals, to build bridges and pave roads, to train in the military, and so on, in short, you don't want to be idle for a moment.

"A considerable part of the local labor force has been transferred to the battlefield of La Plata to serve as military men, and the remaining labor force has also been tied to the construction site of the Northwest Railroad. The deadlines set by the authorities were tight, and now even women and children were mobilized to the construction site. When I went to the village yesterday to investigate, the whole village was only a few hounds roaming around, except for a few patrolling militiamen, as if it had been so desolate from the beginning. Contin, the secretary of the vest, had a notebook under his arm. He was also carrying a leather bag in his hand, and introduced it to the vest as he walked.

The Northwest Railway he said had just been repaired dozens of kilometers from the Canyon Fort to the Baiqi Cliff Fort a few days ago, and the roaring train could finally pull a large number of heavy materials and equipment directly at this time -- and in fact, just yesterday, a train dragging 8 carriages (including a coal water car) brought a lot of construction equipment, 40 tons of wheat, and a large amount of daily necessities to the Baiqi Yabao Railway Station at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour. From now on, it will be much easier for the wagon to transport supplies in the direction of Fort Merlot, and they can rest and wait comfortably at Fort Merlot, and then transport the supplies by train back to Merlot, at least two-thirds of the journey compared to a year ago.

"Trains are really a big tool for developing the hinterland." "There are no trains." With those heavy freight wagons alone, it is torture to pull these steel, tools, food, and even people hundreds of kilometers away. The cost of transportation can fly to the sky. And more importantly, because the front-line battlefield has absorbed too many young and middle-aged laborers, the vast rural areas with relatively abundant labor resources are now tightened, and the accumulation of a large number of materials is evidenced by the unmanned transportation. But fortunately, we still have trains to help, and now the trains (8 carriages) from the Lower Yihe Fort, 6 cars carrying goods and 1 carrying, one train every three days, can easily transport dozens of tons of materials to the designated destination. Well, the Southern Vehicle Factory in Meilin County has to increase its productivity, and now there is only this locomotive on the side of Xiayihe Fort, which is completely insufficient. With the strength of the parts we are producing now, the frequency of sending a train every three days is still too high, and once the locomotive is damaged, there is no spare replacement, and it is better to apply for one more from the superior. ”

When Ma Jia said this, a train in the distance slowly entered the station with black smoke. It was a standard train with 8 cars, carrying 30 tons of flour, 20 tons of coal, 10 tons of cement and a large number of people.

"This is a group of Spanish prisoners brought over by the Ministry of the Interior." Seeing that the horse armor was silent looking at the train, Contin immediately explained in a low voice: "We captured a large number of Spaniards, Guaranis, gauchos, and Crandi prisoners in the war of La Plata, and the total number even reached more than three thousand. These captives have been assigned to various mines and construction sites for forced labor, and we have divided 200 of them. The Guarani who are currently getting off the train are among them, and they will be under the watchful eye of the police to participate in the construction of the Hundred-foot Cliff-Merlot railway line. ”

It was the first time that a captive had been allowed to take a train to the labor camp, but it also meant that the Guarani would never return alive, after all, the people on the east coast were reluctant to let the Europeans know about the existence of the train - although the Europeans of the Old World had now heard some gossip about the train, just as they had heard about the legend of the steam engine.

"The railroad needs to be repaired, but the cable telegraph, one of the most important by-products of the railway, seems to be out of play in the short term." With his hands in his fur coat pockets, he looked at the empty fields in the distance, and said with a little sorrow: "You also know that the people of the Natural Science Research Institute have been studying cable telegraphs for several years, but they have limited information in the past few years, and the manpower has often been transferred to other things, so far they have not come up with any practical designs. ”

In fact, Ma Jia's words are polite, the Institute of Natural Sciences currently has the Institute of Chemistry, the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Mechanical Power, the Institute of Mathematics, the Institute of Metallurgy and other units, among which the Institute of Chemistry has the highest investment every year, and the Institute of Physics is unsurprisingly ranked last. Although the Department of Electricity under the jurisdiction of the Institute of Physics ranks very high in the Institute of Physics, the investment of the entire Institute of Physics is limited, so it cannot be compared with popular scientific research institutions such as the Coal Chemical Department of the Institute of Chemistry. This has nothing to do with the issue of capability, but only with the country's strategic choice, after all, with the physique of the people on the east coast, it is absolutely impossible to develop in an all-round way.

Therefore, in such a situation, the three or five technicians of the electrical department of the Institute of Physics have only made some simple electrical instruments and made some primitive batteries at the same time. They basically start with the simplest when they do these things, because each of them has five or six students, so they have to start with simple electrical principles and verify them one by one.

After six years of elementary education, they are now enrolled in the country's only high school, the High School Affiliated to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where they are assigned to tutors for more in-depth learning.

After a few years of studying and doing practical work, this group of students has done a lot of practical work under the guidance of their mentors, and they have a relatively rich knowledge of electrical concepts and simple theories such as Coulomb's law. After that, they went one step further and made some simple electrical measuring instruments out of rudimentary materials, and they also came up with a few simple volt batteries.

However, volt batteries, which are simple early batteries (the voltage drops with time), are not destined to satisfy everyone's appetite. From 1646 onwards, the study of storage batteries (rechargeable and reusable batteries) began to take advantage of limited conditions. The principle of the battery is naturally the well-known lead-acid battery, because the mentors of course know that the battery design using lead as electrode and sulfuric acid as electrolyte is more reliable than others, so everyone started to tackle key problems according to this design as a template. However, at present, due to the limitations of materials and other aspects, qualified lead-acid batteries have not yet been produced, and once a breakthrough is made in this area, it is believed that it will be a huge breakthrough for the development of electricity and possible telegraph industry on the east coast in the future.

"I don't know when this war will end, and now a large number of strong men in the six coastal counties of the country have been transferred, and there is a shortage of people everywhere in agricultural production, transportation, mining and logging, and construction sites, and it is impossible to continue like this." Ma Jia habitually lit a pipe for himself, and then said: "Take the most important key project of the country in the past two years, the Tieling Special Steel Base, for example, the heavy freight carriages used to transport materials to us have been reduced by 20%. We are still a key project, and we have become like this, and you can imagine what else it looks like. The only way to alleviate this situation is to speed up the construction of railways and roads, which requires a lot of manpower, but this does not seem to be a problem for us. There are so many people of Cranti and Guarani in La Plata, why don't they take them captive to build the railway? Every day it is said that there is a shortage of manpower, why not take advantage of the ongoing war to find a way to get more Guarani people to come over and overhaul the railway? Hundred feet cliff to Merlot, Merlot to Hejin, Hejin to Chengshan, Chengshan to Tieling, this railway mileage is long! Grandma is a bear, I will report to the above, the construction of the railway must be accelerated, this is the best way to break the shackles that bind us! (To be continued......)