Chapter 529: The first section of railway in Beihai Town
On April 2, 1791, just as Deng Fei and the others achieved their initial victory in Batavia, Beihai Town ushered in an unprecedented event. The construction of the first railway line from Beihai Town to Heilongjiang City, which had been under construction for more than a year, The first phase of the project is about to be officially opened to traffic.
Starting from March 30, travelers from all over Beihai Town who had no important matters at hand came to Khabarovsk one after another to prepare for the opening ceremony.
On April 1st, Shen Xuan came with her one-year-old Momo under the protection of half the guard battalion of Zhao Xin. Accompanying her were A Miao, Miss Wu who served as bodyguards, and Chen Er. Ah, there are even Wang Zhenyi, Tang Xiao and others who have just recovered from a serious illness.
Shen Xuan has also noticed this. Although her man is not always merciful wherever he goes, he is no worse than a playboy. What she is most afraid of right now is that one day Zhao Xin will go to Beihai Town again. A Rakshasa woman with blond hair and blue eyes would become even more chaotic.
In addition, Wang Zhong, Duan Yucai, Liu Taigong, Hong Liangji, Jiao Xun, Huang Chengji and others also put aside what they were doing and came with Yu Deli, Lao You and others. As their escort, They are veteran boxers Wu Zhong, Chai Rugui, Gao Liugeng, Li Qingwen and others.
As for the masses, ahem, the common people are busy with spring plowing and have no time to pay attention to any "trains". After all, these days, they have to guard fifty acres of land and have no worries about food and clothing. The hot bed with their wives and children is the pinnacle of their lives. They have nothing to do but wander around. ah!
The entire line is 208.7 kilometers long, starting from Khabarovsk Station, 24.3 kilometers northwest of Khabarovsk Town, and ending at Chimuni Town, located at the intersection of Aktala Mountain and Buleya Mountain in the Lesser Khingan Mountains.
"Qimuni Town" is a new village and town that originated from the railway. It is located in the lowland plain of the Qimuni River, the left tributary of Heilongjiang. This place originally had no name, and the surrounding hundreds of miles were called " "Chimuniwoji" belongs to the residence of the Qilerhezhe people.
In this time and space, the forests in Jilin and Heilongjiang are lush, blocking out the sky and the sun. The large swamp areas formed by fallen leaves accumulating in the forests for many years, resulting in sluggish water flow, are called "Woji" by the Hezhe people.
During the early survey process, Sima Jianghan from the island country and his students discovered a high-quality coal mine on the left bank of the Chimuni River, 257 kilometers away from the Heilongjiang River. After Lin Ziping and others confirmed that it was correct, they reported it The "Beihai Town Railway Construction Committee" later decided to set up a station here.
Since the survey team only discovered this coal mine on the nearly 600-kilometer stretch from Boli to Hailanpao, the status of Chimuni Town becomes even more important. After all, the trains in Beihai Town need to burn coal, and Boli Town’s trains need to burn coal, and Boli Town’s trains need to burn coal. The steel plant there requires a lot of coal.
If Beihai Town wants to fully develop the vast and sparsely populated Outer Northeast and Eastern Siberia, without railways, everything will be out of reach, let alone the timely mobilization of troops. Only railways can secure tens of millions of square kilometers of land. Locked tightly, thousands of poor farmers in the pass were transported to various settlements centered on the railway station, and this land was truly included in the territory of China.
Zhao Xin once heard an interesting story when he was in Baibai'er City (Irkutsk), which illustrates the vastness of Siberia and the difficulty of trekking. Of course, this may also be fabricated by someone.
It is said that in the mid-eighteenth century, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna of Tsarist Russia invited six virgins from the Kamchatka Peninsula to have an audience in St. Petersburg. These chaste girls, escorted by Tsarist Russian officials, had just arrived in Irkutsk. , were already pregnant with the children of the Guardsmen. By the time these people traveled more than 10,000 kilometers and arrived in St. Petersburg, the women were already pregnant with the younger siblings of their first-born children.
In fact, the horse-drawn railway has been in use within the jurisdiction of Beihai Town for several years, from the gold mine in Solenji Island to the Beishenzhou coal mine in Ezo, and then to the Hisikaku mining area. The longest one is the North Quanzhou coal mine. It was almost 1.5 kilometers long, and the three carriages could pull eight tons of coal at a time. They used Mongolian horses captured in previous battles with the Qing army.
It is extremely difficult to build a railway from Khabarovsk to the west. Although the stones for making road ballast can be mined from the mountains eighty miles away, the areas the railway passes through are all swamps in the tundra zone; what is frozen hard in winter can only be solved by thawing in spring. into the mud pond.
What makes the Railway Construction Committee laugh and cry the most is that despite the vast coniferous forests in the Khabarovsk area, which is extremely rich in wood resources, most of them are not strong enough and have poor durability. Although they can be made into paper, they are useless for making sleepers. If they are cut down and not dried thoroughly. The wood used to make sleepers would break down within a year or two, so suitable wood had to be transported from the forest farm on the north bank of Xingkai Lake, 300 kilometers away.
To cut down trees, the roots must be removed, the roadbed must be dug three meters underground, and then backfilled with gravel or even cement, the roadbed and cuttings must be built, and drainage canals must be built. At the same time, road construction workers must build a A road that runs parallel to the railway line and can accommodate four large carriages traveling parallel to each other.
Beginning in June 1789, more than 20,000 island workers organized by the Tokugawa Shogunate's Hokkaido began to be busy on this land. Their main tasks were logging, digging and quarrying.
The whole project was very arduous, but Beihai Town did not treat these island farmers and criminals poorly with food, clothing and housing. In the summer, most of the workers camped and lived in tents. In the winter, they could only repair bridges, build stations and other auxiliary work. In engineering projects, half the number of people working there are reduced. In winter, workers all live in underground houses that can accommodate 10 to 20 people.
From April to September, workers generally have to work from 6:30 in the morning to 7:30 in the evening, 13 hours a day, with only two hours of rest during lunch time, which is exhausting; even in the cold winter due to Low temperatures and heavy snow hampered construction, and these people had to work seven or eight hours a day.
The workers in the island country work six days a week and also take breaks during holidays in Beihai Town. Although the food is not exquisite, it is no problem to keep them satisfied. The workers’ meals are deducted from their salaries. Some of the ingredients come from Beihai Town, and some Most of them are the catches and prey purchased from the Hezhe people. In these years, the fish in Heilongjiang and surrounding tributaries are as numerous as the stars in the sky. The Qiler Hezhe people have only relied on providing catches to the railway construction site in the past two years. The monthly income is enough to support a family.
Breakfast for the workers is usually steamed buns with porridge and homemade pickles from Beihai Town. Lunch is also steamed buns, and occasionally brown rice, with river fish stewed in a large iron pot. Every few days, there will also be a pot of wild boar or wild boar stew. It is roe deer meat, often served with bean sprouts, radish or beet leaves. Dinner is noodles with leftover fish soup or broth from lunch, and each person will also get a piece of butter or lard.
Because workers from different villages or towns are provided with food by women from the same village or town, the quality of the food varies greatly. Those with poor cooking skills often cause complaints and even riots, but generally speaking, it is still good.
Adequate.
The "Beihai Town Railway Construction Committee" provides good treatment to workers from these island countries. For example, the salary of skilled lumberjacks and quarryers is 30 Beihai silver dollars per month, and the salary of unskilled excavators is 10 Beihai silver dollars per month.
Even though the shogunate and the feudal clans that provided the labor wanted to take half of it away, the proletarian refugees in Kanto still took over.
Now, if you can come to Beihai Town to build the railway, you have to pay at least 10 taels to the feudal government office just for the trust relationship. In addition, you have to pay 10 taels to Beihai Town to buy the ship ticket. The poor farmers have no choice but to borrow usury. The shogunate paid these two
In 2006, the business of exporting labor was able to make a lot of money from top to bottom, which greatly alleviated the economic crisis caused by the forced reduction of interest rates.
Since it is building a railway, there are inevitable dangers. Although the "Railway Construction Committee" and Zhao Xin himself have tried their best to provide a variety of advanced tools and equipment, the construction conditions are sometimes unimaginably difficult.
For example, when constructing in the swamp section, you often have to work in waist-deep mire, which must be drained first and then the silt can be dug out. During the hotter months, mosquitoes and small bites are the most common threats and can cause infections.
The source of the disease. Last summer, a cholera outbreak broke out among more than 200 workers from Morioka Domain. Although the medical team from Beihai Town quickly set out from Fuldan City after hearing the news, the workers were already dead when they arrived.
tens of.
The most dangerous project is bridge repair, especially in winter. Workers must work on scaffolding above the river or on the surrounding embankments. The so-called safety protection equipment is only tied with a rope. Some people even find it troublesome not to tie a rope.
As they work, their body temperature will unknowingly drop to a point that makes them numb. As a result, if they slip, their frozen fingers will be unable to grasp any support in time, and those who are not tied with ropes will fall.
According to calculations by the Financial Department of the Railway Construction Committee, basically for every 500,000 Beihai silver dollars spent on construction, one worker will die. As for tunnel excavation, the mortality rate is even higher. Deaths and injuries caused by landslides are 100,000 for every 500,000 Beihai silver dollars spent on construction.
Wanbei Haiyuan requires 3 to 4 people.
In fact, the most complex railway project in the entire railway project is the bridge across the tributaries of the Heilongjiang River. From Khabarovsk to Chimuni Town, going east from Heilongjiang City, you need to pass through the Hala River, the Kultur River, and the Zhuhai River.
There are six rivers of different widths, including the Spring River, the Kulu River, the Sulu River, and the Bizhan River.
The design of the steel bridge on the larger river was all designed by Zhao Xin in another time and space after obtaining the surveying and mapping data. From this, Pereira, as the chief engineer, also gained a lot and learned a lot from the drawings.
Advanced bridge engineering technology.
Once the design requirements have been met, the bridge piers built in the river must be extremely strong to withstand the pressure of the railway in spring. You must know that those winding creeks that originally had a small amount of water will suddenly burst after a rain in spring.
It turns into a fierce torrent, carrying melted snow water and ice floes and rushing out of the mountains, with the potential to destroy all obstacles.
After all bridges are completed, they must be tested for compression resistance and bending in sequence. Trucks loaded with heavy objects must be driven to the middle of each bridge and stayed for two hours. Only if there are no problems can they be accepted. This is precisely because As such, the railway from Heilongjiang City to Kubutlin is estimated to be open to traffic next year at the earliest.
Although various difficulties were encountered during the first railway construction, it also laid the foundation for future railway construction to Eastern Siberia and Shanhaiguan. Zhao Liang believes that starting from next year, we can start building the railway from Heilongjiang City to Yaksa .
On the night when Shen Xuan and his party arrived, Zhao Xin walked out of a small courtyard in the military camp in Khabarovsk with his hands behind his back, as if he had just inspected the barracks. Outside the courtyard, Chai Rugui, Gao Liugeng and Li Qingwen led a platoon of men. Have been waiting for a long time.
The reason why Zhao Xin chose this time to come back was to avoid causing confusion. But even so, Chai Rugui and the others were shocked when they thought that it only took three days for King Zhao, who was thousands of miles away, to send a telegram and show up. , not even daring to take a breath, for fear of offending the immortal by behaving inappropriately. Zhao Xin saw Chai Rugui and the others' nervous expressions through the light at the entrance of the courtyard, and found it funny.
After Shen Xuan and his party arrived in Boli, they were arranged to live in a courtyard outside the military camp. Because so many people came at once, the mayor of Boli Town could not arrange too many accommodations, so Wang Zhenyi, Tang Xiao and the others also Lived in the same place with Shen Xuan.
At this time, several women had just finished dinner and did not disperse even after taking away the bowls and chopsticks. They all listened attentively to Wang Zhenyi's talk about last year's field survey. As for Zhao Xin's son, he was running around in the house with his little legs. A Miao opened her hands and followed nervously to protect her, fearing that the other party might bump her.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! There was a soft creak in the courtyard, and the heavy wooden door was opened from the inside. Zhao Xin, who walked in, strode towards the main room without waiting for the guard who opened the door to speak. Go. He had been traveling all day, tossing back and forth, and was already so hungry that his heart was pressed against his back. So when he pushed the door open and entered the house regardless, Wang Zhenyi's words suddenly stopped, and everyone's eyes immediately changed from surprise to There was a surprise. Except for Shen Xuan and A Miao, everyone else stood up quickly and saluted Zhao Xin with red faces.
(⊙o⊙), Zhao Xin looked at the room full of warblers and swallows, and thought to himself, I’ll kill them, why are they all here?!
Early the next morning, Zhao Xin's family of three, A Miao and others crossed the Ussuri River by official boat, and then took a carriage to the newly completed Khabarovsk Railway Station.
When the carriage passed the bustling crowds on both sides of the road and passed through a forest, Shen Xuan and A Miao, who were sitting in the carriage, turned their heads and looked out the window. They couldn't help shouting "Wow", and suddenly the people who were dozing in the carriage were Zhao Xin was woken up.
As it is the starting station of the first railway in Beihai Town, the train station in Khabarovsk was designed exquisitely by Pereira. The whole building combines Chinese style and Western European Gothic retro sentiment. Facing north and south, the whole building Not only does the station look like a huge beige stone castle, the blue glazed tiles on the roof and Chinese-style floor-to-ceiling glass windows are also unique. The only thing that has not yet been completed is the five-meter-high clock tower on the east side of the station. Pereira’s suggestion is We invited some watchmakers from Macau, but they couldn't do this thing.
At this time, the square in front of the train station was already full of horse-drawn carriages and cars, all of which were vehicles of the traveling public and other related parties who had arrived in advance. Railway police and soldiers of the Northern Navy on patrol could be seen everywhere in the open space.
There is a separation between high-level people and ordinary people.
Zhao Xin took his wife, children and A Miao out of the carriage, picked up his son who was about to jump up, smiled and greeted Chen Qingsong, Zhao Liang, Yu Deli, Lao You and Wang Zhong who came out to greet him.
, walked into the station together.
Without saying anything, everyone went straight to the platform first. When they arrived at the heavily guarded platform, several steam train enthusiasts from Zhongzhongli had already gathered there in advance and were commenting in front of the train.
"As soon as it starts up, I have to go up and have a look."
"Okay! Let's go together."
"Forget it, the cab isn't that comfortable and it will kill you when burning coal!"
"The six of us are all going to stay in the cab. Where do you want the driver and the stoker to go? Why don't you go sit on the pile of coals in the back and blow some air?"
A few people were talking when they saw Zhao Xin and others coming, so they stopped talking and came over to say hello and tease the rich second generation of Zhao Xin's family.
Whether it was Wang Zhong, Duan Yucai, Liu Taigong and Hong Liangji, or Shen Xuan, A Miao, Wang Zhenyi, Tang Xiao and others, at this time they saw the 20-meter-long man with a hooded appearance parked on the railway track.
They were all surprised by the "monster" standing on a huge black iron plate with steam rising from the top, and the expressions on their faces were colorful.