On May 20, 1651, a group of more than 1,000 immigrants came to Gutingbao (later the town of San Javier in Uruguay, named after the Ming people of Guting Town, who were captured by Shao Shude). They had come by boat and on foot, and because there were many sandbanks and shallows on the Wujiang River in these places, their large ship with a deep draft did not dare to move forward haphazardly before the Ministry of Communications and the Navy had time to systematically submit a report on the hydrological and waterway conditions in this place, so they had to stop near what they thought was a safe channel, and then ordered the Ming immigrants to walk three or four kilometers to reach their final destination.

At present, there are already some buildings such as warehouses, shacks, and guard towers, which were built by hundreds of immigrants from the Huai'an Province of the Ming Dynasty who arrived here in advance, and later the Ministry of Immigration sent them more than 200 Koreans from Jeju Island, and today the third group - and the last group in a short period - more than 1,300 Ming immigrants, so that the official population of this settlement has reached 2,200 people, which is not a small number in the newly built settlements.

Nowadays, the central departments of the East Bank Republic - especially some technical departments - are very keen to test all kinds of new technologies, new ideas, and new ideas in the newly built settlements, and it is more cumbersome and costly to carry out this series of practical activities in the old settlements. For example, Jingjiang Town was engaged in the urban sewer and sewage treatment project a while ago, and then Shipubao is engaged in new reservoirs, large water turbines, hydraulic presses and other projects, and Guting is preparing to launch the urban water supply project.

No doubt. These projects in the new towns in the Wujiang area are not large in scale and low in cost, because they can be carried out together with urban construction, unlike old towns that need to demolish and renovate existing municipal facilities. After all, it's much cheaper to build a new one than to go through the hassle of renovating an existing facility. However, there is no doubt that once the implementation of these projects is successful (and the problems encountered in improving while doing the real thing), then they can be promoted on a large scale in "densely populated" towns such as Dongfang County, Ping'an County, Zhenhai County, and Meilin County, so as to benefit the production and life of the majority of people.

Truth be told, the East Coast's urban water system is still quite old-fashioned – certainly much more advanced than the rest of the world – and they just use natural rivers, lakes, wetlands, and artificially dug reservoirs and reservoirs as sources of water for the city, which are then filtered through sand and gravel. Guò stoneware or cement pipes were sent to the city. Once the water is delivered to the city, residents run over with wooden buckets to fetch water – if you're too lazy to carry water or don't have the time. It doesn't matter, there is a dedicated water delivery person to deliver to your door, provided you pay a small fee.

Simple sanitation processes, outdated water supply methods, this is the current situation in the large cities of the Eastern Republic today. It doesn't seem to be much more advanced than Europe. At least at this time, in the big cities of Europe, the wealthy could also enjoy the spring water from outside the city - it seems that as in China, there were even water delivery workers in Nanjing, Beijing and other cities who brought sweet spring water from outside the city into the city for those who could afford it.

Sadly, even with these seemingly backward water supply methods, on the eastern coast of the country today, only some large cities or towns with natural rivers and lakes can do so, and in the relatively arid grassland or hilly areas where the population has to dig wells – and in many cases even deep wells – for domestic water seems to be quite difficult. In fact, the grassland area on the east coast does not receive a lot of precipitation every year. However, it is mostly evenly distributed in all seasons (less precipitation in summer), and there is a lack of surface runoff on the ground, so most of the rainwater seeps into the ground. So. How to make good use of this precipitation is the key to reversing the water difficulties of people living in inland areas - perhaps by drilling deep wells and then using large pumps to lift the water.

As Gutingbao standing on the bank of the Wujiang River, they naturally do not have to go to great lengths to pump water in the underground sandstone layer, they can directly draw fresh water from the mighty Wujiang River as a source of domestic water. At present, some aqueducts have been dug by the early settlers here. The rest of the work will continue to work after the arrival of these second-phase migrants, such as sedimentation tanks, filtration tanks, and so on. As for the construction of urban areas and the construction of road transportation. It was handed over to the next Kawama slaves who were escorted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs police.

Speaking of which, it must be mentioned that, according to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of the East Bank for many years, the incidence of cholera and typhoid fever in towns with filter ponds in the water supply system is much lower than in towns without filter ponds - farmers in some rural areas prefer to drink raw river water, which is often the cause of the spread of these two diseases and the death of residents. Therefore, under the strict orders of the Executive Committee, from 1648 onwards, the water supply system of the towns and cities must be filtered by a filter basin, and no one should omit this vital facility because of the trouble or the high cost; In rural areas where there is no unified water supply, residents mainly drink water from wells, and the water must be boiled before drinking to reduce the spread of cholera and typhoid. Reducing the case fatality rate among the population, especially children, is always far more important than encouraging births.

The filter tank filters the water conveyed through the sedimentation tank (which presettles the solid particles in the water), and the tank contains layers of filtration system composed of gravel, gravel, sand, natural sponge and charcoal (which the East Coast people believe can reduce the organic matter in the water), and the water leaks at an extremely slow rate into the bottom collection canal and finally into the water distribution pipeline. This filtration system is actually an improvement on the original design of Dongfang County (a county with an urban population of more than 12,000 people and a huge daily water consumption), that is, the sedimentation tank adds the process of sedimentation using chemicals, and the filtration tank adds natural sponge and charcoal filtration, which is generally much better than the much-praised system in the capital.

The planned water distribution pipeline here will be more advanced than that in the capital. First of all, large cast iron pipes (cast iron pipes are less prone to rust than steel pipes) will replace the fragile stoneware pipes, which have high strength, good uniformity and more pressure resistance, and are connected by nest jointing between the two pipes, the metal lead plugs the gaps, and the outer layer of the pipe is coated with a layer of coal tar or paint to prevent corrosion. Of course, in some areas where transportation is difficult or wood is abundant, some people may use wood to make water pipes, but this seems to be an emergency measure, which is more economical and easier to install than cast iron pipes in the short term, but in the long run it is obvious that there will be more failures and more than worth the cost.

Gutingbao is a new settlement, even if the design is more advanced, considering the new population in the future, it is expected that the number of people who need centralized water supply will not be very large, more than 2,000 people will probably reach the sky, so even if the actual water supply system of the settlement adopts a more advanced water supply system (i.e., water supply to households) than the capital, it will not actually cost much money. In fact, it is true that the project has a total of 150,000 yuan of special funds issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs - if it is not enough, the Wujiang District Administration will also support tens of thousands of yuan and some free labor as appropriate - so it is not a problem to build this system, and this obviously has a strong reference significance for the transformation and upgrading of the water supply system in the capital area in the future.

However, some grassroots officials in Wujiang still have some questions about the future of the project. Their doubts are not from the technical aspect, but mainly from the waste of water supply and the safety of some materials. They pointed out that although the current law and order in the Eastern Republic is good, the consciousness of the people should not be overestimated, especially when these people have just come from the Ming Kingdom. They felt that some of the copper fittings installed outside were more likely to be lost during the night, after all, copper often means money in many places.

In addition, they were also confused about the water supply method proposed by the Guting Water Supply Company (newly established), which contracted the actual Yàn project. Because according to the company's plan, the water supply is not carried out all the time of the day, and the water supply company will arrange the water supply according to its own actual situation. As a result, there is some trouble for the end users, who feel that the residents are probably afraid of leaving the taps there because they miss the water supply time, which will obviously cause a waste of water use, which will increase the production burden of the water company.

Faced with this situation, the project leader has to admit that perhaps only the implementation of a charging policy for water use can probably curb this phenomenon. Moreover, it is not possible to charge a fixed fee for each household on a regular basis, and it is better to charge according to the actual amount of water used by each household. But there's another problem, and that's that you need an instrument that can measure someone else's water consumption, such as a flow meter.

In April, the Guting Water Supply Company, which had been built by others, began to offer a national and even European reward for the design of the flowmeter, and the basic requirement was very simple: that is, it could accurately measure the water flow in the pipeline without losing too much head. But until then, regardless of whether the water supply system is charged or free in the future, the work that needs to be done cannot be relaxed, after all, the "old towns" of the eastern coastal region are watching here. They urgently need to revamp their "old" water supply system to improve people's living standards and reduce the incidence of cholera, injuries and other diseases.

On May 25, 1651, along with the arrival of a group of 800 Hejian slaves, there were also three reciprocating large steam piston pumps ordered by the Guting Water Supply Company, which were large water pumps purchased for the purpose of lifting and supplying water, designed and manufactured by the Tielingbao No. 1 Heavy Machinery Factory. When this large pump arrives, it means that the construction of this water supply system has entered the substantive stage. (To be continued)