Chapter 626: Asphalt, a big plan for road construction!
The military camps are lined up, and the sound of the training of the legionnaires is shocking. The dirt school grounds are well trampled. The patrol teams that come and go trample the dirt roads. But the stubborn weeds in early spring have already begun to sprout on the pedestrian dirt roads.
.
The daughters of the Silver Crow Tribe were arranged to rest in the Tree Snake City. They had never seen tens of thousands of warriors, nor had they seen a forest of spears and long bows. They were all shocked and frightened for a moment.
After the Huastec envoy left, another envoy from the expedition fleet came, bringing a message from the fleet and two bamboo baskets containing clay pots.
"Your Majesty, these are two new minerals discovered by Vice Captain Puap in the Crow City area! The local Huastec people call them 'black mud', 'black stone' or 'black oil'. Kingdom Fleet
The damaged ships were filled with these black stones and oil. They are waterproof and leak-proof, and the repaired ships are even better than before!"
After Puap was exiled to Haikou, it was through the discovery of the Shenshan Iron Mine with Black Wolf that he got a chance to recover. Then, he participated in the kingdom's expedition and brought back various ores and struvite with the old militiamen.
, thereby being rewarded.
In Puap's heart, "His Majesty likes strange stones the most, especially those he has never seen before." He knows His Highness's preferences and will explore strange stones and minerals wherever he goes. This time, in Crow
After the city was discovered, he specially sent his Prepecha warriors to bring back these two jars of novel minerals.
"Huh? This smell..."
The guard took the two clay pots and inspected them carefully for a while before handing them to His Highness. One of the clay pots contained dark oil, while the other contained oily stones. When the clay pots were opened, the familiar
The pungent smell came to him, and Shulot immediately had memories instinctively.
"Is this?... oil and asphalt? Yes, Puap is interested!"
Shulot raised his eyebrows and sighed in admiration. He was a little surprised, but it was not unexpected.
In later generations, Mexico was the seventh largest oil producer in the world. There was so much oil on the Gulf Coast and the oil fields on the US-Mexico border that it could emerge directly from the ground. Unfortunately, although there is so much oil
, but if you want to carry out crude oil fractionation and refining, you don’t know how long it will take.
"Oil...oil!...The black gold that will be cherished by all countries in later generations is really of little significance to the current alliance. The burning efficiency of crude oil is too low, and the smoke is too poisonous to be used as fuel...The most I can do is try.
It is used to make fire oil in war. But in front of gunpowder, this has no advantage at all."
Shulot pondered for a moment and whispered an order. The guard took away the can of flammable crude oil. Then, he looked at the other can of asphalt again.
"Natural asphalt. Half and half oilstone."
Xiulote stretched out his finger and carefully applied some natural asphalt oil. Feeling the viscosity of this natural adhesive, he nodded with satisfaction. Then, he picked up a small asphalt stone and placed it in the palm of his hand.
. His eyes flashed, looking at this hard, brittle, insoluble, and poisonous stone, a strong thought gradually arose from the bottom of his heart, almost ready to come out.
"...Are there many such black oils and black stones in Crow City?"
"Your Majesty, there are several lower valleys around Crow City that produce such oil and stone. And Huastek craftsmen said that there are hundreds of miles of land to the north and south of Crow City, along the coast.
There are also many such valleys scattered on the river. Shipwrights from various tribes use these to repair ships."
The messenger lowered his head to report back, and Xiulote nodded and pondered. The underground along this coast must contain extremely rich oil. And asphalt has always been a "sibling" associated with oil.
"Natural asphalt is a natural road construction material! Asphalt oil can replace cement as the adhesive of the road surface, while asphalt stone can be crushed to replace the fine sand and gravel layer. More importantly, in the rainforest with lush plants,
Only this kind of asphalt pavement can inhibit the growth of vegetation and maintain it for a long time!"
Looking at the clay pot in front of him, the light in Shulot's eyes became brighter and brighter.
"Building roads"! This is a big plan that has always been in his mind and has been kept for a long time. What he hopes to build is not a simple dirt road, but a Roman stone road like Qin Chi Road, which can connect the north and south of the world.
The imperial artery connecting various city-states!
However, Central America is located in the tropics, with two common terrains: plateaus and lowlands. The rich plateau areas of the Alliance have annual precipitation of more than 1000mm, while in the coastal lowlands of the Alliance, the precipitation is more than 2000mm! Moreover, such intensity of rainfall
, mostly concentrated in the rainy season in summer. It is hot and rainy, and shrubs and weeds on the plateau can sprout in large areas in just a few days. The rainforest in the lowlands is even more terrifying. The roots of the trees extend rapidly, causing damage to the dirt roads.
Unimaginably fast!
Therefore, to build roads in tropical Central America, you must have suitable road construction materials, and the cost is extremely high.
"Refer to the construction process of Roman roads, and then simplify it appropriately according to the current technical level. Well, it requires at least three layers, two layers of roadbed and one layer of road surface!"
Shulot lowered his head, looked at the ground under his feet, and thought about the road construction plan he had conceived for a long time, his heart surging.
"First, we need to excavate the soil until we reach the hard soil layer. This depth, with the current tools and manpower, can only reach about one meter. Then, the bottom layer of the roadbed is 20-30 centimeters thick gravel.
Used to smooth the road surface and prevent water accumulation."
"The second layer of the roadbed is a filling body of more than 60 centimeters, large and small stones, gravel and clay. It is necessary to first lay out large stones the size of pumpkins, then fill in medium stones the size of a human head, and small stones the size of cobblestones, and finally fill them with fine
Gravel and clay. In this step, oily asphalt will also be added as a binder to replace cement. Or dried and crushed stone asphalt will be added as a substitute for filling small stones. As for the last layer of pavement..."
Shulot paused for a moment, thinking in silence, unable to make up his mind for a moment.
The Romans had enough manpower and production tools to directly cut giant stone slabs and use them to lay seamless roads. The Qin Dynasty also had enough technology and manpower to fry the soil, mix it with salt and alkali, and then compact it with countless manual labor, so that the construction continued.
The Chidao of later generations. And the alliance's current technology and productivity are indeed incomparable to the two.
"If the production of asphalt is sufficient, the highways in the Mesoamerican Empire should still be mainly made of asphalt and gravel! And for future convenience, it must be built at least four meters long for two carriages to run parallel, and drainage ditches must be excavated on both sides.
canal."
Thinking of this, Shulot looked towards the distant east. In the mighty Caribbean Sea, there was a large island full of black wealth, which provided a huge amount of asphalt for road construction to the dynasty of later generations. Then, he looked towards
To the southwest, in the mountains of Colima, there are volcanoes that are still actively erupting, as well as volcanic ash left behind after tens of thousands of years of eruptions. They were the raw materials for making Roman cement.
Shulot muttered to himself, an imperial artery two thousand miles from east to west was taking shape in his mind. It would take tens of thousands of manpower, many ships' materials, many years, and supreme power to connect the world!