With a crisp "bang", a behemoth with a wingspan of 2.5 meters was planted from the sky. Mo Ming handed over the well-made musket decorated with precious stones, ivory and other ornaments to his retinue, and then went to inspect his prey with great interest.

It is a huge Andean vulture, with a wingspan of 2.5 meters and a full 1.2 meters from beak to tail, which usually feeds on natural death of protocamels, and sometimes some cougars eat leftover cattle and sheep carcasses. The one that Mo Ming shot was that he and some of the young officers of the road escort were on a trip -- by the way, hunting a cougar that often attacked the cattle and sheep of the residents -- and they encountered this vulture, which was gnawing on the dead black bull, and was shot by Mo Ming.

It is worth mentioning that Mo Ming hit this vulture with a shot at a long distance, not because of his marksmanship or good luck, but because he used a tyrant-level toy - a well-made rifled gun, and even its special metal bullets are hand-polished, and its high precision fully reflects the exquisite craftsmanship of the craftsmen.

This gun has been passed down among the European aristocracy for more than a hundred years, and Louis XIV's father used this rifled gun when hunting, and its copper bullets are hand-made by craftsmen, and the barrel is also drawn by experienced craftsmen, and the cost - mainly the cost of bullets - is extremely high, so it is also popular only among the nobility (when hunting, you can show that you are "good" in marksmanship).

As for the inferior rifled guns, such as those that used mini rounds, they were banned because of strong opposition from the Army. At present, only a dozen or so are secretly manufactured by the Northern Arsenal, plus some ammunition. They were personally escorted to Sakhalin by an officer of the gendarmerie. Secretly used by carefully selected "hunters". to evaluate performance. Every gun and every bullet has a number, and the gendarmerie supervises the whole process to prevent any bullet from circulating to the outside world, because once this extremely easy imitation technology is leaked (in fact, Europeans can guess eight or nine as long as they pick up a bullet) out, it will be a catastrophe for the East Coast Army, which currently uses artillery as the main mode of combat.

Because at that time, rifles will surpass artillery in terms of accuracy and range, and soldiers will no longer have to line up in dense formations to suffer from the ravages of artillery, and the method of warfare will have undergone a revolutionary change. It is undoubtedly difficult for the East Coast Army, which mainly relies on a large number of high-precision, high-range, and lightweight artillery, to accept it. Therefore, after three years of arguing with the Academy of Natural Sciences and two military enterprises, they finally agreed to make some in small batches and send them to the Far East battlefield to evaluate their performance.

"Xiao Xu, the prey is also sent to you, hehe." Mo Ming only glanced at the vulture and lost interest, and then said to Xu Xiangdong, who was following closely behind him.

Xu Xiangdong was wearing a dark blue army uniform, with a saber hanging from his waist and a short-barreled horse pistol in his hand. Several soldiers of the road escort team also followed in a hurry. Ready to go and fight, the father of this young man, who had just turned 21, was Major Xu Yu, one of the founders of the cavalry. Graduated from the cavalry department of Dingyuan Military Academy, he has been training militia in Sand Castle for three years, and was just appointed by Mo Ming as a squadron leader of the road protection team of the Southern Railway Company last month.

And his son Xu Yu is also a long-sleeved dancer, the eldest son Xu Xiangdong was sent to serve in the paramilitary organization of the road protection team of the Southern Railway Company, and the younger son was sent to the Corps Fort to study; The two daughters are now married, one is ready to marry a young officer he is optimistic about in the cavalry system, and the other is married to the son of Yu Lian, the deputy director of the academic affairs office of the navigation school and the first naval talent to take refuge in the east coast, which not only covers the old turf cavalry system, but also further extends the relationship to the navy.

It is said that everyone has passed through a full 22 years and three months so far, and most of their children have reached adulthood, so the marriage problems of the children have gradually surfaced in front of everyone. In this matter, the army and navy systems have moved in a surprisingly consistent manner through the actions of the officers, and they have married a large number of talents from their own time and space, and there are many examples of sons marrying the daughters of old subordinates, and daughters marrying new young officers, which seem to reflect a certain value orientation of them; The civil officials who crossed the country were much more conservative in comparison, and they mostly intermarried within themselves, even if some of them married with talents in their own time and space, they did not account for the majority, which was in stark contrast to the military system.

"President, it's not early, and if you don't set off, you won't have time to get to Fort Midway before sunset." Liu Jianguo glanced at Xu Xiangdong enviously, and then said to Mo Ming in an inquiring tone. Liu Jianguo is currently a technician in the engineering department of the Southern Railway Company, and as the eldest son of Liu Ang, the leader of the South African pioneer team, he has just gotten married a while ago, and his wife is the daughter of Leonid, the commander of the South African cavalry company, a beautiful woman of Ukrainian descent.

"Let's go, then." Mo Ming nodded, then gave a few instructions to the secretary, and then took the lead in setting off. There are still more than ten kilometers from here to Fort Midway, and you can get there almost before sunset. The Fort of Midway in Liu Jianguo's mouth is a settlement that has just been established for a short time, with a population of only seven or eight hundred, developed from a storage place for railway equipment and building materials, located near the small village of Elzurdo, west of the later Bellavista, just in the middle of the sand castle and the green mud valley, hence the name Fort Midway.

Mo Ming and the others arrived at five or six o'clock in the afternoon, when the workers at the railway construction site outside the city had not yet returned, and inside the wall made of logs and rammed earth, the one or two hundred Qing prisoners who remained behind were cooking and cleaning. At this moment, seeing Mo Ming, the president of the Southern Railway Company, and others arrived, a former Qing army leader rushed out of the gate of the village, and then looked at everyone with flattering eyes.

Mo Ming ignored him, and after handing the horsewhip to the secretary behind him, he said very casually: "Your engineering department should hurry up, now there are more than 100 kilometers of intermittent railway between Fort Midway and Zixinbao that have not been repaired, which has greatly affected the transportation efficiency of the Southern Cone Railway." It seems that after I go back, I will hold a meeting of relevant people, and last time the Minister of your engineering department told me that it will not be completed before the end of this year, and it will be delayed until next year. Hehe, it's been four years and five months since the Southern Cone Railway was built, and I have to wait for more than a year, which is simply unusual. ”

Liu Jianguo laughed when he heard this, not knowing what to say. Minister Qian is his top boss, usually take good care of him, but because of the slow progress of the road construction process made the company's president dissatisfied with it, it seems that if you have the opportunity, you have to have a good chat with the minister, let him think of a way, be sure to connect the whole line of this railway within this year, otherwise President Mo is angry and afraid that it will be unsafe, who will reason with him when the time comes?

Located at the confluence of the Hindnam River and its tributaries, Midway Fort is a rare oasis in Southern Patagonia with abundant water and vegetation. Although the Southern Railway Company set up a settlement here for the purpose of facilitating train stops, adding water and coal, and repairing and maintaining, it was also impressed by the relatively good agricultural conditions here, so the combination of the two factors finally contributed to the establishment of this settlement.

The railway station outside the city has been built, but the expected railway bridge across the tributaries of the Hungnam River is just beginning, and it is waiting for an engineering team from the local Ministry of Transport to assist in the construction of the railway bridge, which is the only one who has mastered the technology to build the railway bridge. Immediately adjacent to the train station is a huge storage area with large quantities of railroad tracks, building materials, coal, and a few other things; To the west of the warehouse, next to the river, there is an artificial reservoir under construction, which will be the future source of water for the settlement's life and agricultural irrigation, and the workers who will repair the reservoir are still fighting, and it seems that they will not return to eat and rest until after dark.

There is also a small telegraph mailroom inside the train station. The cable telegraph has also been in practice on the attached land of the Southern Railway for a long time, and it can be said that it has been a complete success, and the next step is to officially put it into commercial operation. According to the staff of the newly established Ministry of Communications of the Southern Railway Company reported to Mo Ming, the erection of the cable telegraph will be completed in the first half of this year (1653), the equipment will be in place and debugged within two months, and the training of the sending and receiving personnel is also in full swing, and it is expected that before the end of August in the second half of the year, the cable telegraph system along the Southern Cone Railway can be officially put into commercial operation. Once the cable telegraph is successfully put into commercial operation in the Southern Cone, it will be followed by a full-scale operation in the local area, which is extremely important for improving the communication efficiency of the whole country on the east coast, and the social rhythm will also be greatly accelerated, and its significance cannot be underestimated.

"The Xingnan Highway is open, the cable telegraph is about to be opened, and the railway is also a matter of time and time......" Mo Ming looked at the last touch of sunset on the distant horizon and muttered: "The development of the Southern Railway, from now on, will be a thousand miles a day." Two modern wharves in the ports of Hungnan and Araukan, the second phase of the beech fort logging base, the establishment of a woolen textile mill, the establishment of the Shanhoubao seal refinery, the preparation of the Pacific shipyard, the expansion of the Montenegrin coal mine, the advancement of the Salmon Islands fishery farming program, the exploration of the Lesco coal mine and the establishment of the island ranch, as well as the preparation of a flour mill in the port of Khinnam, and the order for eight 50-horsepower industrial windmills...... Hehe, as more and more people are sent by the Pacific Route, give me another five years, and the appearance of the Southern Rail Annexes will become unrecognizable. With such a large territory, such a large population, such a large industry, and such rich resources, the foundation of 6-8 counties has been laid! Hmph, if it were someone else, would he be able to do what I did? (To be continued......)