The white catamaran clipper splits the waves and gallops at high speed over the Taiwan Strait, leaving two white trails behind it, and the white seagulls soar and chase behind the boat, occasionally plunging into the water. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Wang Yu, who was dressed in a big red python robe, stood at the bow of the boat, looking at the sea in the distance, and only felt proud in his heart.

Next to Wang Yu stood a young man dressed in a white scribe and Confucian costume, this person was about twenty-two or three years old, with thick eyebrows, big eyes, and white skin, although he was wearing a Hanfu Confucian costume, but he had short hair two inches long, which looked like the short hair style of later generations. Most of these hairstyles are people who came out of the original Qing court, and after cutting off the braids, they began to grow their hair, and the hair has not grown to a certain length, and it needs to be trimmed at any time, otherwise it will be ugly and uncomfortable.

However, there are many people who find short hair comfortable, it is not hot in summer, and it is easy to wash their hair, so they simply keep their hair short, cut their hair frequently, and wear a scribe's hat on top of their head, which looks personable.

This young man's name is Li Guangdi, and he came to join the army after the Ming army captured Quanzhou.

When Li Guangdi first came to join the army, because he was too young, he was arranged to be a small diner in Wang Yuyou's staff group, copying some documents every day.

Later, Wang Yuyou found that Li Guangdi was talented, and he was not a sour Confucian who only knew how to read eight shares, but a really talented young man, so he recommended this person to Wang Xinyu.

When Wang Xinyu heard Li Guangdi's name, he was taken aback at first, and then gave him an official position of supervising the imperial history of the seventh grade.

At the age of 22, Li Guangdi became a seven-rank official, and he was an extremely important imperial historian, an official position that was in fact specially assessed for the impeachment of civilian officials, and was also Wang Xinyu's chief of staff. The position of the procuratorate is very important, and the promotion is very fast, don't look at it as just a seven-rank official, it will not take a few years to be promoted. Moreover, Lee Kwang-di is indeed very talented, and for him, meritorious promotion is not a problem at all.

However, at this time, Li Guangdi was still too young and had little experience, and he needed to be trained to grow. Wang Xinyu took him to Dongfan this time to build a rail road on Dongfan Island, which is actually a railway, and to build a large hydro industrial zone in Alishan District.

Although the amount of water in the upper reaches of the Turbidity River is large, the water flow is too rapid, and there are many shoals and reefs, which are not conducive to shipping.

The railway leads from the upper reaches of Muddy Water Creek and connects to the gun factory in Anping City.

In order to save costs, instead of standard gauges, the railway used 600 mm narrow gauges, on which small rail cars were driven, and four or five carriages could be pulled by a single horse.

The track is still a thin layer of iron wrapped on the wooden track, which can reduce the cost, of course, the weight will not be too large, and when there is a steam locomotive in the future, it will be replaced with all iron rails.

On Dongfan Island, Zhang Kuibiao led a team of recruited local indigenous soldiers to carefully inspect a cottage that had just been destroyed by them. It was a local cannibalistic cottage, and if these uncivilized barbarians remained in the mountains, it would be a serious threat to the factories and railroads that were to be built.

So Zhang Kuibiao took the army composed of local acquaintances to exterminate cannibals.

Compared with the Han people, the cooked fan on Dongfan Island hates cannibalism more, because the cannibal life fan treats them as food, and every day there are cooked fans who go into the mountains to hunt are taken away by the cannibal life fan, roasted and eaten. Although the Han people destroyed the Potbelly Kingdom created by the locals four years ago, it was in the era of King Yanping, and now Dongfan Island has been replaced by the Qiongzhou Army, and they are quite familiar with the local area.

As early as the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, there were already many Han people who came to Dongfan Island in order to avoid the invasion of the Mengyuan army.

The Han people who arrived, at first they farmed and fished on the seaside, and they had a good relationship with the local acquaintances. Later, however, due to the rise of pirates and pirates, the Han villages along the coast were looted, and the Han people who survived had to stay away from the sea and go into the mountains to live with the locals. This phenomenon was not until Yan Siqi settled in Dongfan, Zheng Zhilong developed Dongfan, and the local Han people were no longer harassed by pirates.

Then came the arrival of the Dutch, and then Zheng Chenggong's landing on the island.

In the northern part of Dongfan Island, that is, near Taipei in later times, there was also a Spanish stronghold, but that stronghold was too small, and there was no garrison, but it was used to replenish water and food for passing cargo ships.

Because Zheng Chenggong sent Liu Guoxuan to destroy the Potbelly Kingdom four years ago, and also killed many local natives, the natives did not like the Han people. But everything changed when the Qiongzhou army arrived, bartering goods with the locals, helping them build sturdy houses that could be used to resist cannibalism, and selling them weapons.

For example, Shula is a local native, in his eyes, there are many sika deer in the mountains and forests, and one acre of land can produce five or six thousand catties of taro, which are all worthless things. The salt, ironware, ceramics, gold and silver jewelry of the Han people are the most precious things in the world.

Shula often brought taro, dried venison, deer antler velvet, deer skins, leopard skins, shiitake mushrooms and other goods to the Han Chinese to exchange salt, ironware, ceramics, gold and silver jewelry with the local Han people.

Later, the familiar people learned to grow rice, and planting rice to exchange with the Han people, or simply planting land for the Han people, is also a way to obtain good things.

After the arrival of the Qiongzhou army, they also helped Shufan build houses, build walled walls and strong fortresses, and the Han people had a magical magic: a powdery thing, after adding water, and then waiting for drying, it became as hard as stone! The kind of house built by the Han people can block the attack of cannibals.

Shula and his people were armed with bows and arrows provided by the Han Chinese, which were actually the weakest hunting bows, but with iron arrows, much stronger than their own earthen bows and arrows. The cooks hid inside the sturdy houses and shot arrows outside, causing the cannibals who came to attack to bleed a river.

Zhang Kuibiao, who knew the local indigenous language, was a former soldier of the Zheng Family Army, and because of his age, according to Wang Xinyu's request, he retired from active duty and became a local guard officer.

Zhang Kuibiao married Shula's sister and gave birth to a daughter, named Zhang Huimei.

On Dongfan Island, the local order was maintained by veterans of the Zheng Jiajun and the Qiongzhou Army, and a guard team similar to the nature of white service was formed.

At that time, the white servants of the government, that is, the auxiliary police equivalent to later generations, were not paid. But the guards on Dongfan Island can receive a salary. There is no such thing as the mainland government, but imitates the West and sets up patrol houses, and the government has patrol and arrest units specially used to maintain social order, as well as armed escort units that can cooperate with patrol operations when necessary. Therefore, the escort force on Dongfan Island is not an auxiliary police force in the nature of white service, but an armed force in the nature of the armed police.

The weapons used by the convoy are all old weapons that have been eliminated from the original army, such as knives and cards, arquebuses, and some weak bows and arrows.

Shura joined the white service of the patrol room, which is actually an auxiliary policeman. The locals can join the white service, they can get a salary, and what they have to do is mainly deal with cannibals, but also deal with some disobedient cooks.

In order to build the Alishan Railway and the Alishan Water Power Plant, it is necessary to be familiar with the local terrain to lead the way, and the patrol house can send armed police forces to exterminate the local cannibals.

This is a cannibal tribe on the way through which the railway line must pass, as early as a few days ago, Shura took several warriors of his own tribe to reconnoiter the situation here, there are more than 300 people in this cottage, including more than 80 young people who can fight, and the weapons used are simple bone bows and arrows, stone spears.

When the offensive was launched, all the "armed police" and "auxiliary police" put on armor, carried muskets, bows and arrows, and sharp spears, and attacked the cannibal tribe.

When the battle began, it was a one-sided slaughter, and the cannibals' stone spears and bone bows and arrows could not penetrate the armor of the patrolmen, even if it was only the cheapest paper armor, and it was not something they could wear.

The muskets and bows and arrows in the patrolmen can harvest the lives of cannibals from a distance.

After the cannibals killed and wounded more than 40 people, the remaining 40 or so young men all knelt down and surrendered.

But those red-eyed "auxiliary police" did not stop, they were eaten by cannibals in the past, but now they have the opportunity to keep it, Shula They killed cannibals without mercy.

As a result, this cannibalistic tribe was wiped out, whether it was young men who had surrendered, or women and children, old and weak, they were slaughtered by the "auxiliary police".

Originally, Zhang Kuibiao also wanted to catch some cannibals and send them to the mine as slaves, but they were all killed by Shufan. Since they are all killed, let's kill them, anyway, it is not a pity for these barbarians who feed on human flesh to die, even if their women and children, the old and weak, must have eaten the meat of the local cooked fan and Han people, and they deserve to die.

The armed forces of the patrol room, composed of patrol arrests, "armed police" and "auxiliary police", followed Song Yingxing and their exploration team, walking on both sides of the muddy water stream.

Along the way, the cannibal tribes along the way were all wiped out by the patrol house, and even the cannibal tribe within ten miles on both sides of the Turbid Water Creek was all wiped out by the patrol house. However, in the later battles, the "auxiliary police" composed of familiar fans did not have such ruthless killers, and they were told by the patrol room to keep some prisoners as slaves.

Regardless of his age of seventy-eight, the elderly Song Yingxing led a group of young men to survey the terrain in the mountains and choose a route for the upcoming Alishan railway line.

"Lord Song, there is no road ahead, and you can't go around, unless you build a bridge to go to the other side of the creek, and then walk along the bank." A young man from the survey team said to Song Yingxing.

Song Yingxing raised his head, looked at the mountain that reached the river, then looked at the turbulent stream, and then at the treacherous terrain on the opposite bank, shook his head and said: "Build a bridge to go to the other bank, the road is not easy to walk." It would be better to dig in this mountain and dig a tunnel through which the railway can pass. ”

In this way, the plan for the world's first railway tunnel was formed in Song Yingxing's mind.

After more than half a year of investigation, Song Yingxing basically chose the route. This railway line, named Alishan Small Railway, leads from the Dongfan Gun Factory and reaches the middle reaches of the Turbidity River, which is about 50 kilometers long, and there are five tunnels and 39 bridges built on the way, which is a very huge project in those years.

It is different from the Alishan small railway in later generations, and the later Alishan small railway is to transport timber and go deep into the depths of Alishan. Now this railway only needs to reach the middle reaches of the Turbid Water Creek, so the difficulty of the project is much smaller, if more than 10,000 coolies are used to construct it, it can be completed in about a year.

The construction of the railway will start at the same time as the Dongfan Hydro Industrial Zone.

Wang Xinyu set foot on Dongfan Island again and came to the middle reaches of the Turbid Water Creek, and the factory location selected by Song Yingxing.

"Dashuai, there are plenty of water resources here, but they are all wasted! Xia Guan thought that by building a large-scale factory here, we would no longer need to make sulfur and xiao acid by hand! Song Yingxing pointed to the muddy water stream, stroked his beard and said, "It's a pity, I'm afraid that Xiaguan won't see the day when the factory will be completed!" ”

Song Yingxing discovered by chance that lead will not be corroded by liu acid and xiao acid! So he came up with a solution: to replace glass with lead to produce liuic acid!

After the method of using lead to replace glass to make sulfur suan was proposed, Wang Xinyu immediately agreed to this proposal, isn't that the lead chamber reaction method of later generations? Then it is possible to produce liuan acid industrially!

At present, the Ming army's demand for sulfur suan is too great, and just relying on Song Yingxing and his two sons to produce it by hand, it is simply not enough to meet the needs of the army, nor can it raise the weapons of the Ming army to a higher level. The little bit of liu acid produced can't even be satisfied with the weapons used by the special combat team.

However, if the lead chamber reaction method is used to produce sulfur suan, it involves the production of large lead plates, as well as the flow, condensation, and extraction of acid in the reaction tower, which is impossible to complete without large machinery.

This necessitated a larger forging plant to produce the large lead plates used to make the reactors.

The first thing that Wang Xinyu thought of was to build a large-scale forging factory.

The forge can start with large lead plates, and when all the lead plates used to build the Liu's acid plant are finished, the forge will be able to use it to forge high-quality gun steel!

As for the all-lead valves, liu acid pumping machines and other mechanical equipment in the sulfur suan plant, they were designed by Xu Zhengming and Dai Cang, and after these equipment, it can be used to produce liu acid on a large scale.

Valves and pumping equipment are driven by water power. All reactors and pipelines are made of lead, which requires a large amount of lead to be consumed.

Lead ore is abundant, especially in Guangdong. After the Ming army took Guangdong, it was able to obtain a large amount of lead ore. The lead ore is smelted locally in Guangdong, and then it is smelted into lead blocks and then transported to Dongfan for reprocessing. (To be continued.) )