In the blink of an eye, the time entered the end of April 1861, nearly two months after the Chinese Empire declared war on Russia.

During this period, Li Yongji almost completely let go of military and internal affairs, and only stayed in Ma'anshan, busy getting acquainted with the new industrial facilities with everyone, and busy improving the new Ma'anshan Heavy Industrial Zone.

Two months was enough time for the new workers to get acquainted with the plant's performance, and the production capacity soon exceeded the 500-tonne-per-day billet mark, half of which was used to produce weapons and other steel farm tools, and the other half was used to make 60 steel rails.

That is to say, with a daily production capacity of 500 tons of steel, half of it is used, and about 2,000 meters of steel can be laid on that day.

It is precisely because of the increase in rail production capacity that Li Yongji officially started the construction of the first railway in New China at the same time as the construction of Ma'anshan Port.

The first railway was named the Maguang Line, that is, the construction of the railway from Ma'anshan to Guangde County. For this railway, Li Yongji laid all the steel rails produced one after another on the railway line of this section of the Maguang line, and first built the Maguang line to prepare for the construction experience. At the same time, after the completion of this line, the energy resources of Ma'anshan and Guangde County can be deployed more efficiently, and preparations will be made for future industrial production and railway construction.

In order to speed up the construction of this railway, Li Yongji made full use of the advantages of more manpower and adopted the method of multi-point operation and sectional construction, that is, paving the road in different sections at the same time.

Although the speed of laying is faster, it is a waste of manpower, and the capacity of the track itself cannot be used, so it is necessary to work in groups.

At the beginning, in order to build the Ma'anshan Heavy Industry Zone and Ma'anshan Port, Li Yongji specially mobilized the Suzhou Construction Corps and the Wuxi Construction Corps to come over, and let the experienced Wuxi Construction Corps be responsible for the construction of the Ma'anshan Industrial Base, and let the Suzhou Construction Corps be responsible for the construction of Ma'anshan Port, as for the Dangtu Construction Corps. It is still the most basic roadbed construction, that is, the construction of railways without railroad tracks.

Needless to say, the Suzhou Construction Corps and the Wuxi Construction Corps, with a total of 300,000 people, can be said to be experienced skilled workers, let these two corps be responsible for the construction of heavy industry and ports, to ensure that there will be no mistakes, and the general person in charge of these two corps is none other than Su Jianhua, the first chief executive of Wuxi at that time and now the minister of construction.

As for the Dangtu Construction Corps, it is located in a key area. The total number of 150,000 people, is a large construction corps, although the history is not as good as the Suzhou construction corps and the Wuxi construction corps, most of them are new, fortunately, the construction of the railway does not require too much technical work, only manpower is enough, all the materials can be done, so how much can be coped.

In order to transport supplies, Li Yongji mobilized a large number of ships to transport daily supplies. There were even two airships dispatched to help transport cement, sand and other materials, which was quite high-tech.

Just because there are many people and there is great power, even if everyone is not skilled. Machinery and equipment are also very scarce, but after the official laying of the rails, the construction speed of the railway is still advancing at a speed of two kilometers a day by using the method of airship hoisting and sectional construction. As a result, there is a waste of manpower and a shortage of rails.

In order to make full use of the manpower of 150,000 people, Li Yongji had to shift most of the steel plant's production capacity to the production rails. The speed of weapons and farm tools was reduced, so much so that the speed of railway construction was suddenly pushed to the 3,000-meter mark a day.

There are about 178 kilometers from the Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant to the Guangde County Industrial Base, and if the construction speed of three kilometers a day is followed, it will only take about two months to build this railway.

In fact, even so, it is impossible to fully utilize the manpower of 150,000 people, but if the number of weapons and agricultural tools is reduced, it is afraid that agricultural production will be affected, so in the end, some people were selected to continue to build roads along the railway line to make full use of human resources.

It should be pointed out here that, except for the Dangtu Construction Corps, which is all used to build railways, the Suzhou Construction Corps and the Wuxi Construction Corps are not all used for construction, and at least half of the people in these two construction corps have actually been converted into industrial workers.

For example, some went into steel mills, some people went into foundries, some people went into cement factories, lumber yards, wood factories, prefabricated parts factories, and so on.

This is because the Suzhou Construction Corps and the Wuxi Construction Corps were originally construction corps composed of urban handicraftsmen, most of whom were coolies and weavers, and those who could really speak of craftsmen, that is, small craftsmen such as masons, carpenters, and blacksmiths.

Most of those who have a skill and are good at craftsmanship have entered the early elite army, and those with particularly superb skills have been regarded as key protection objects by Li Yongji, who have opened technical schools with money and raised these masters as teachers to train new technicians. Only those whose skills are very average, or relatively poor, continue to serve in the construction corps.

After all, Suzhou and Wuxi are also outstanding people, and the literacy rate is relatively high, so the literacy rate of these construction corps troops is still reluctant.

As long as you can read and write, and are willing to study hard, it is no problem to be an ordinary worker.

Li Yongji sometimes feels that he seems to have taken a detour, others are first laying the foundation, first farming and playing industry, and then going out to fight the world, it is better for him to send troops to fight the world first, and then turn back and then develop industry and farming.

Of course, at the beginning, Li Yongji also wanted to farm first, and then go out to push it after the farming was almost done, but the reality was not the same, at least it was not the same as he thought.

At the beginning, Li Yongji himself was too wasteful, he didn't have a perfect plan at all, he was where he went, he did whatever he wanted, and what he thought about the most was how to make money; When he has some money, a little strength, and a little bit of thinking in his brain, he wants to farm with peace of mind, but his plan can't catch up with the changes, and he is tired by his subordinates, so he has to solve all kinds of troubles that are overwhelming.

Sometimes Li Yongji himself feels that how can others do it so easily, so easily, how can they get to their own side, they are busy to death every day, and they still stumble.

Later, Li Yongji figured out that people are different from others, and even if they are people with explosive IQs, it is difficult to do something in reality, let alone in the middle of the nineteenth century, when there was a general lack of talent.

In this country where the people's wisdom is generally not opened, Li Yongji, who lacks people, has a liver pain, even if he is open, it is not bad to be able to get to the point where he is now.

Of course, this is not to say that Li Yongji did not make mistakes in the previous days, on the contrary, he made a lot of mistakes, but Li Yongji's adaptability is not bad, relying on his firm will and golden fingers, he has coped with them one by one.

It should be said that Li Yongji does have many shortcomings, such as doing things without regard for the head and tail, no longevity, and too casual, but he also has advantages, that is, he does things vigorously, does not delay, does not hesitate, and always has to do one thing well before doing another. It is precisely because of his decisive quality that she has resolved one crisis after another.

In any case, under the personal intervention of Li Yongji, with the light of the golden finger and the infusion of a large number of human resources, after more than two months of hard work, the Ma'anshan Industrial Zone finally took a little rudimentary shape, even without the help of the golden finger, it can operate on its own.

In particular, in terms of weapons, the newly opened No. 001 Arsenal in the Ma'anshan Industrial Zone half a month ago, commonly known as the Ma'anshan Arsenal, can already use the existing industrial equipment such as punch lathes to produce the naval version of the Colt revolver, the ultimate improved M1878 Sharps rifle and the original 12-pounder Napoleon gun (that is, the kind commonly used by the great powers), plus the relevant ammunition can also be produced by itself.

Although the production capacity of the new Maanshan Arsenal is not high, for example, the Navy Colt revolver can only produce 20 pieces per day, the Sharps rifle can only produce 30 pieces per day, and as for the 12-pounder Napoleon gun, it takes three days to build one.

But in any case, in the arms sector, it is already considered self-sufficient, at least it seems so.

At this time, Li Yongji finally breathed a sigh of relief, and no longer devoted himself to industrial construction every day, but looked in other directions again.

For example, the Russian Expeditionary Force that I don't know where it has arrived, for example, the Nanjing military parade that is about to begin, for example, the Civil War that is being staged in the United States that changed American history, and even changes world history! (To be continued......)