At the junction of Yizhou and Xuzhou, on the edge of a branch of Yishui,

In front of a new embankment, a group of villagers in local costumes are spontaneously putting out incense tables, worshipping or something, and some people are holding suona and other musical instruments to advocate vigorously.

The thing they were facing from afar was actually an old-fashioned steam engine that was carrying water, and many people habitually called the treasure of the "angry river god".

With the smoke of the boiler, roaring to drive the telescopic lever and the flying wheel, in the thick round cast iron pipe,

Large strands of muddy water are pumped from the rivers where the waterline has fallen heavily during the dry season and poured into some cracked fields.

And in Qizhou, downstream of Jishui,

In the spacious estuary, more than a dozen soot-covered craftsmen and laborers are debugging and repairing a strangely shaped vehicle.

When they were done again, there was a puff of black smoke and noise coming out of the frame of the boat, and the water wheel behind the side of the boat began to spin with a roar, and then drove the hull abruptly forward.

There was a burst of cheers on the shore, and this time the ship had been on the water for three hours, and by the time it was quite awkwardly approached, it was already dark.

Kong Jiji, the chief materials officer in charge of ordnance maintenance, and Shen Yue, the former master craftsman of construction, also couldn't wait to meet them, inquired about various situations and details, and copied several copies of the data of the ship, one of which was sent to Yidu with the blessing of a fast horse overnight.

"Next, it's time to test the night flight......"

Kong Jiji asked with some expectation. "There are also trial ...... for artillery loading and troop transport"

"Don't worry, you have to test all the functions and faults of the machine, and then talk about it......"

Shen Yue waved his hand unhurriedly.

"The immediate priority is to assemble a few more ships for comparison."

"Try to find the most suitable cost ratio and operation process, and then turn it into a simple specification ......"

"The operation of waterwheels and ships requires manpower, and it also takes time to train......"

But in any case, this also means that the possibility and prospect of using water steamers using pot mule machines can be put into use in inland waterways.

Although the overall speed and maneuverability still need to be improved, at least it is much less time-saving and worry-free than the traditional hydro ship driven by human pedaling, which has to go ashore and change people every other stage.

It can carry more at once, sail farther, and only need to replenish coal. According to the on-site demonstration, as long as a dozen people can operate with ease,

If half of the load is used to load coal, it can even go farther, or a longer distance back and forth if there is no replenishment abroad.

Therefore, borrowing it is to further seaworthiness training and running-in in Huaidong. It is then weighed against the various data obtained, which ultimately becomes the basis for scaling up mass production.

In this way, more manpower can be freed up and invested in other aspects along the traditional canal transportation route.

There is also the convenience and bonus of military mobilization and transportation, as the structure changes and the number of operators is reduced, the ship can make more space to carry troops, or slightly modify these spaces to be loaded with artillery and flying firemines.

Such mobile firepower projection bases, which have relatively self-sustaining capabilities and can maneuver over short and medium distances, have thus taken shape. This also means that the logistical supply lines and fire projection support along the river have greatly expanded in distance and range of activities during foreign expeditions.

In the defensive operations of the inner line, there are also more flexible waterway defense lines and fire support nodes.

Of course, this is all a long-term expectation.

Next, Shen Yue had to take a boat overnight and go to Hukou Town, a hundred miles away in Mizhou.

Because, the fifteenth special workshop, the No. 27 Shen type pot and mule (steam) engine, began to put into production.

This time, it was built on the edge of a river near the mouth of the sea, and the refined coal brought from the upstream waterways was piled up on the small wharf.

Through the cart on the wooden iron-clad track, the whole vehicle is filled into the roaring machine furnace, and then becomes the end of the rolling assembly line, driven by the three-rise reciprocating lever, the huge force of crushing and crushing.

And at the other end of the line,

After a simple screening and separation, struvite from the offshore islands and a short trip up from the sea is sent to a roaring machine through the assembly line, where it is forged, crushed, and ground into a finer powder that is easier to extract and process.

Compared with the 7788 offshore islands that have been developed and excavated along the southern coast, the guano sediment layer on these uninhabited desert islands off the coast of Huaidong is thinner, but with the existing production capacity, it is not a problem to mine it for decades.

Therefore, it has become the most convenient source and source of Huaidong chemical industry.

These powders, which are then washed and stirred by running water, are filled with emulsions suspended by particles, and flow into the filter tank along the pipeline for filtration and precipitation separation. Eventually, the nitrate-rich solution is introduced into an open-air evaporation pond and air-dried and condensed into ignition and miscanthus nitrate, which can be used preliminarily.

Then, on this basis, whether it is combined with alum oil to form nitric acid, or used as chloride and calcium carbonate extracted from salts, together with the primary chemical industry of three acids and two alkalis, the reaction medium for mass production.

The remaining dregs and sediments of struvite are scraped off in semi-wet water, and they are the finest fertilizer powder, together with the waste liquid in the flushing tank, which is pulled back by people from nearby tunzhuang and plantations in the vicinity.

Because, after the experimental field test of the agricultural office, the mixed crops, whether soybeans, corn or sorghum, can be irrigated with these waste liquid and sediment, and they can grow extra thick and full.

Under the same land color and dosage, the best growth and most effective ones are root crops such as soybeans, broad beans, peas, black beans and peanuts, as well as alfalfa used by humans and animals

In the lower reaches of Juyeze in Yunzhou and the area of Biyang Mountain in Xuzhou, a new round of personnel and horses gathering and material mobilization are also in the flow of convergence.

The routine outlying sweep offensive in the spring was aimed at purging, uprooting, and destroying, and the northern dynasties took advantage of the stagnation of winter to secretly rush to work and re-establish forts and settlements.

By the way, seeking opportunities to sabotage the other party's spring plowing preparations does not necessarily cause direct damage and losses, as long as there is enough deterrence and harassment, so that the other party cannot rest assured to carry out normal production activities.

As long as the sweep is thorough enough and the harassment lasts long enough, it will be difficult for the other side to obtain food opportunities and supplies from the buffer areas of the front.

This means that any offensive and operation that the Northern Dynasties want to launch against Huaidong will consume more materials and preparation time, as well as greater buffer space and early warning time.

The so-called active defensive strategy of offense and defense.

"The general Qu Duan used a mixed regiment to capture an entire tribe in the lower reaches of Jishui?"

Riding on horseback, I was inspecting the front-line combat readiness, and I couldn't help but be surprised.

"There is such a thing."

Random I saw these with my own eyes, the first batch of so-called captives scattered in the wilderness, and I understood a little,

They are too weak to win, just like their herds of cattle, horses and sheep, and it seems that they will fall to the ground at the slightest touch of the stick.

That crooked appearance is much more vivid than those professional households who touched porcelain in later generations.

In fact, this time the harvest on the northern front is much more than that.

The Lost Faint Division, the Ye Ma Division, and the Hailao Wen Division, which came from Heihe Murowei, were divided into eleven settlements, and there were more than 20,000 men and women combined. According to the practice of growing up on horseback since childhood, and everyone is accustomed to hunting, as long as you can take out a thousand strings and five or six thousand baggage auxiliaries.

However, in the torment of hunger and cold, they only have the strength to barely walk. It's like being obedient out of the pack

But that didn't change my resolve to send them to mines, quarries and salt works as expendables. The so-called weak wolf, that is also a wolf, only after the transformation and elimination of sticks and whips, and the grinding off the original brand and color, can it really be used by Huaidong.

Since they came to the Central Plains with the feudal lord, this corresponding result had long been expected.

And on the steppe, it is not uncommon for losers to make cattle and horses for conquerors in order to survive.

Therefore, these tribes, as a gesture of sincerity and sincerity before surrendering, killed all the original leaders and cronies, and then elected a new representative to negotiate.

However, there was a piece of information that was passed on by them that caught my attention.

But I don't know when it began, the forces of the Northern Dynasties that were mixed with them preached and spread to them that Huaidong was rich and prosperous, that the grain could not be eaten and could only be fed to the livestock, and that there were herds of cattle and sheep and no one to take care of Yunyun, and so on.

So, since you can't beat it, and you can't grab it, it seems to be a logical thing to find a nearby Huaidong beggar in order to survive.

In addition, in the territory of the Northern Dynasties, it was encountered again, and the third time the feudal Hu entered the customs and went south.

However, this time it is mainly the first batch of losers who have been reshuffled again after the spring on the grassland. They poured in from the unguarded border plugs, and further squeezed the living space of those who had entered the customs in the early stage.

Therefore, in Hebei and Hedong, which were under the jurisdiction of the Northern Dynasties, another battle and fighting was once again set off, and a considerable part of the later feudal armies and Hu tribes were accepted and placed under the banner by the Northern Dynasties.

That's not good news.