The moon shone on the ravine like day. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info The ground was covered with a thin layer of frost, and the dead grass rose and fell in the wind. Although the deadly white snow has not yet fallen in winter, the grassland at this time has been covered by winter snow, and the weather has quickly cooled down, and the weather of minus ten or even twenty degrees has become accustomed to it.

On the side of the improvised road built in the meadow, there is a row of improvised horse sheds. Zhao Deliang, who was wearing a thick leather jacket, with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets, stood by the Yanmar carriage and shrunk his head, looking at the rows of low dimples opposite, at his waist, the handles of two revolvers could be vaguely seen, and the shadow of the brim of the dogskin hat he wore on his head covered his eyes, but those eyes were staring at the rows of wooden houses by the nests, and the lights in the wooden houses penetrated out the window, which was the engineering command post, and the platform that would also come, which was the shrewdness of the Shenku Railway Company, combining the engineering construction yard with the station, Thus reducing engineering costs.

In fact, the Shen-Ku railway as China's first commercial railway, from the very beginning, its construction can be described as "calculating", in order to save money, the railway is a narrow-gauge railway, of course, this narrow-gauge railway is only a temporary expediency, in the future will eventually change to the quasi-gauge railway, but now there is only "because of the simplicity", and even in addition to the use of meter gauge gauge, it uses 9 kilograms per yard of light rail laying, which is a kind of light railway track used in mining areas, forest areas, Naturally, its capacity is far less than that of the quasi-gauge railway, which uses 38 kg gauge.

The 9 kg light rail plus the sandy soil foundation, and even the sleepers are softer pine, in short, in order to reduce costs. Railroad companies can be said to do everything. Of course. Although it uses a one-meter narrow gauge. However, it did not prevent it from building the roadbed into a quasi-gauge roadbed, and even the roads and bridges were formulated according to the standard roads and bridges, which was an agreement with the Northeast Railway Company to ensure that the railway could be converted into a quasi-gauge railway at any time in the future.

However, this series of simplifications, while reducing the cost of road construction, also brought a corresponding result -- the railway construction project was extremely fast, but only three months after the start of construction, nearly 200 kilometers of roadbed construction was completed, and even dozens of kilometers were paved along with the tracks. More surprised by the railway between Shenyang at least Xinmin. It has even been put into operation.

Although the outside world has different evaluations of this simple railway, it does not prevent this railway from extending to the prairie little by little, and eventually the roaring steam locomotive will bring unprecedented changes to the grassland. More importantly, of course, the railway will allow the three eastern provinces to reach directly into Mongolia, into this previously untouched land.

In the lighted engineering headquarters, dozens of main persons in charge of the construction site were crowded around Xu Tieshan. They are arguing, sighing, pondering, calculating...... The words labor, materials, planning, production, etc., are ultimately revolving around the word "cold protection".

"Cold-proof" is a cold word. Xu Tieshan's heart only made his entire brow wrinkle. The weather is getting colder and colder, and I finally raised half of the money for road construction, but now that it is good, the weather on the grassland has changed. Although he was a layman when it came to railways, he knew how much harm the cold would bring to road construction workers working in the open air! If you don't solve the problem of cold protection, everything is in vain.

To solve this problem, in fact, it is not difficult, it is nothing more than two ways, one is to issue coats to workers, this has been issued, or authentic sheepskin coats, not to mention the wind, but also warm, although the heavy coats, so that the workers are not flexible enough to work, but it is better than freezing to death, and the company is going to lose money. And then there's heating, where does the fuel come from? This is the real problem, because the railway has just been built in Xinmin, and only the roadbed has been built for hundreds of miles from Xinmin to Zhangwu, which means that if coal is transported, it will have to be transported by horse-drawn carriage, which is too expensive. As for chopping wood? I don't even want to think about it, in the grassland, the most lacking thing is wood, and even according to the requirements of the Governor's Palace, the forest along the way is not allowed to be cut arbitrarily, and it is only possible to cut it without obtaining a permit, and as for the riverbank wetland forest, it is even more forbidden to cut down.

He looked at his pocket watch, it was already two o'clock, but the presiding officer of the meeting, the man known to everyone as the commander-in-chief, was still speaking in his Cantonese accent in the workshop.

At 2:25 a.m., coughing, yawning, bench ratting, and scrambled speech could be heard in the room. People came out of the sheds one after another. These young people, who are of all different ages and are extremely young, have all made their faces yellow and thin due to the tense life of the construction site day and night. Some have hoarse voices, some have bloodshot eyes, some are preoccupied, and some frown furrowed...... As soon as everyone left the room, they all looked at the sky and rubbed their feet against the icy snow on the ground, as if hoping that the snow on the ground was just an illusion caused by the moonlight. But the frozen ice and snow reminded them of the fact that the weather was getting colder and colder.

Finally, the commander-in-chief came out, also a very young man.

Zhang Zili is a thin young man, when he first saw him, Xu Tieshan even had an illusion that he would not be blown away by the wind on the grassland, but then, he found out how wrong he was, this alumnus of his Tongwen School, although he was not tall and thin, but his will was extremely tenacious, and he was extremely serious in his work. So much so that Xu Tieshan had the idea of digging people, he is an engineer of the Northeast Railway Company, and he may be able to work on the Shenku Railway.

He wears a fox fur hat in his left hand, a bearskin coat, and leather boots near his knees. In short, if this dress is left in Dalian or Shenyang, it will be a rich gentry in the city. In fact, Zhang Zili, as a Cantonese person, has no ability to resist this kind of winter, he can only let himself wear a little thicker, he can be thicker, but this cannot change his responsibility.

As the highest person in charge of the construction site, he commands hundreds of large and small units and nearly 10,000 employees. And how can their problems be solved? Maybe he could stay in a warm room, but what about the laborers on the railroad? Questions like these have always bothered him.

"General manager, there are two ways now. Either we'll stop working. Or send all the workers out. Spread the track to Xinmin here day and night......"

Zhang Zili's words made Xu Tieshan think for a while, and then took a hard breath, wanting to say something, but he didn't open his mouth.

"As long as the railroad is built, the coal can be brought in, and the project can be carried out in the winter, otherwise. This month, not to mention anything else, more than 100,000 wages will be paid in vain, and besides, there is no coal for heating, this winter, I don't know how many people will freeze to death! ”

Xu Tieshan silently took out a cigarette, stuffed her hands in her trouser pockets, tilted her shoulders, and walked on the solid ice and snow. Just thinking quietly.

"1120 sleepers per kilometer, these tens of kilometers. That's tens of thousands of sleepers, and then there's the railroad tracks......"

When Zhang Zili said these numbers, he looked at Xu Tieshan and added:

"If everything goes well, these tens of kilometers of track can be paved in ten days at most, even if there are some deviations, it is acceptable......"

"Rails and sleepers are all ...... in Xinmin Hall"

This is the reason why Xu Tieshan will hesitate, the raw materials for laying the track are more than 100 miles away, how to solve this problem?

With his eyes staring straight ahead, Xu Tieshan said again:

"You can't rely on people's backs!"

Human back? It's not that it can't be done, it's just that it's too inefficient.

"Of course, it's in a horse-drawn carriage, and you can transport as much as you can......"

Shrugging his shoulders, Zhang Zili looked at the stone on the ground, the steel that had just been unloaded, the cement and the sleepers, which were transported by horse-drawn cart before the snow fell, and after the snow fell, it was naturally suspended.

"I calculated, the materials transported, according to the standard to repair, only enough to repair 15 kilometers of roads, enough rails, but not enough sleepers, I wondered if I could lower the standard a little more, put the sleepers a little thinner, and then fold off the tracks laid in the material factory for him, so that almost three kilometers more can be repaired......

Zhang Zili's proposal made Xu Tieshan's brows frown again. He squinted at the stockyard in the distance, where there was more than a kilometer of newly completed tracks. In the future, it can be used as a station line, but now, it has to be dismantled.

"Anyway, there is no heavy goods in winter, and when it is spring, I will make up all the sleepers that should be patched......"

Zhang Zili's mind still pretended to be in the venue; If it weren't for the problems involved in rework, he would not have taken the initiative to find Xu Tieshan as the commander-in-chief, but after all, it involves rework and the corresponding increase in investment.

"If coal is transported by horse-drawn cart, it is estimated that the increased expenditure will be tens of thousands of yuan......

In fact, Zhang Zili also knows the difficulty of the general manager, unlike other railways in Northeast China, this Shenzhou-Kukou railway is completely built with commercial funds, there are thousands of business directors, and not enough money has been raised yet, any increase in additional costs may lead to speculation from the outside world, thus affecting the preparation of funds for the railway.

Especially those rich people in Shanxi, how could they watch tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver just float away, why the company can let them pay out the money, in addition to the concession, the most important thing is probably financial transparency, clearly see every penny of silver.

Xu Tieshan looked ahead without saying a word, and finally nodded and said.

"Okay, I see, let's do it!"

Finally he looked at the sky again and said:

"It's not cold yet, and when the white snow on the grassland blows, it's really cold! If it drops by more than ten degrees, it will be really terrible! Okay, I'll think of other ways, Commander Zhang, you just need to find a way to complete the railway as soon as possible! ”

As promised in the past, Xu Tieshan did not make Zhang Zili have any difficulties, and then the two discussed the topic of construction period and other aspects, chatting in the ice and snow for nearly half an hour, he walked towards the horse shed, he also had to return to Xinmin overnight, the winter construction is more to prepare for the spring, and for him, he also needs to use this winter to prepare for the road construction in the pass.

He also has to go to Shanxi again to persuade those rich people to come up with more silver, so to speak, his time is tighter than anyone else, and he can't wait to use one day as two days.

As he walked towards the stable, he could see from a distance the horseman chatting with a soldier leading a horse under the lantern by the stable, and the reason why he could recognize the man as a soldier was because of the Russian-style ear protector on his head, which even the Russian army did not use.

But now this kind of hat from the Russians, but has already become the standard winter hat of the Northeast Army, because of its warmth, not only to the welcome of the army, but also by the workers, on this construction site, you can see this kind of hat everywhere, but the hat used by the laborers, cheaper, it is made of cotton, and the army is made of lambskin, for this kind of sheepskin hat, Xu Tieshan is no stranger, because its raw material sheepskin, is now supplied by the trading house.

Soldiers were always seen on railway construction sites, not to protect the construction of the railway, but to master the construction skills of the light railway so that it could be built in wartime. This may be the difference between the Northeast and the mainland, the army and the company are interconnected, they are always learning from each other, just like in the land of the Northeast, you can see the army participating in the construction of the project everywhere, and those engineering units are directly involved in the construction skills of the project manager. As for the companies, they are naturally happy to use these "cheap" laborers - simply by paying relatively cheap construction subsidies and providing food.

When he approached, the soldier with the horse had already ridden away, he just glanced in the direction where the soldier had gone, and then sighed again, the soldiers who appeared on the railroad were not only technicians, but also some military intelligence personnel, and they were also taking advantage of this rare opportunity to carry out staff trips on the grass.

However, as the general manager, Xu Tieshan chose to ignore all this, after all, the railway needs the support of the army, and more importantly, he also supports the expansion of the Northeast in Mongolia, if possible, he even hopes that the Northeast can expand to the Guannai, after all, everyone knows that the world has changed.

When Xu Tieshan got into the carriage and the carriage drove slowly, Xu Tieshan, who was keeping warm with his hand on the stove, silently thought about a few things that needed to be dealt with after returning to Shenyang.

Thinking of this, Xu Tieshan looked out of the car window again, thinking that tomorrow would be New Year's Day, and muttered silently on his lips.

"This year has gone by so fast......" (To be continued.) )