Alien Arms Empire

 Chapter 115 115 Secret Factory

"Mr. Roger!" Youlin opened Roger's door and called softly, "Your lunch."

 The little girl was carrying a wooden plate with some mushy food on it.

 Potatoes and vegetable leaves are mixed together, and some dried fish are added. It doesn’t look so delicious, but it is nutritionally balanced.

Roger took the tray from the little girl's hand and asked casually: "Have you memorized everything taught in school? I heard that you have started to learn equations."

You Lin showed a sweet smile and replied to Roger: "Mr. Roger, I am the class monitor. If I don't get full marks in any of the courses, I will be laughed at by those little devils."

"Ha!" Roger nodded with satisfaction, and then continued to ask: "According to the arrangements made before Tang Mo left, are all the tasks that will be carried out after Beiling's victory carried out?"

The little girl nodded immediately: "Everything has already started. Large areas of logging are being cut in the Vicious Forest. However, the cold winter is coming soon, and it seems that the work will be forced to stop soon."

This is how it is in this era. Weather is still the main enemy of human actions. No one can take the risk of carrying out large-scale operations when winter comes. This is a law of nature.

 Tang Mo's current situation, or the current situation of Datang Group, can be described in some words: rich and squandering money.

This is almost a syndrome called "sudden wealth", which is basically a series of crazy revenge consumption triggered by a sudden windfall.

From the moment Tang Mo was sure that Beiling had won the war, Tang Mo took out the last remaining assets in his hand and squandered them.

Specific squandering projects include: He ordered to find a flat piece of land inside the vicious forest, cut and reclaim it, and plan to build a hidden secret factory.

The reason why he chose this location is that he has more and more technologies at his disposal and the scale of the factory is getting larger and larger. He really needs to expand a new factory area to maintain development.

Another main reason that supports him and allows him to choose his factory in a shabby place like the Vicious Forest is because Tang Mo is planning to build the world's first railway here. .

With tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of gold coins in his hand, Tang Mo naturally wanted to spend all the money. Since he wanted to spend it, he had to buy enough things.

Steel is the most strategic resource that he can secure and purchase in the short term. Bunas and Beiling both happen to be short of coal, so Tang Mo naturally chose the option of building a railway.

 First of all, the cooperation with Count Fischerot was very pleasant, and it seemed that Fischerot was also a good partner for long-term cooperation—so Tang Mo was ready to deepen the relationship between the two parties to facilitate future trade.

Henceforth, the construction of the first railway in human history, which started from Bunas Port, passed through the Vicious Forest, and eventually connected to Wolf City in Beiling, was put on the construction agenda.

However, building a railway is not easy. Along the way, you need to survey the terrain, confirm the geological structure, and choose the most cost-effective route... all of which take time.

Therefore, a more reliable short-term plan was proposed: first select a site to build a new factory in the vicious forest, and then connect the old and new factories with railways.

This plan is more reliable and cheaper, and the railway is within the land that Tangmo has purchased, so safety and confidentiality are guaranteed to a certain extent.

The distance has been shortened by more than half, which ensures that the construction difficulty and price of the railway are within an affordable range. In fact, Tangmo has indeed shortened the transportation distance between Tangmo and Beiling.

  The new factory area is closer to Beiling, so goods from Beiling can be unloaded at the new factory area, which also greatly saves transportation time and transportation costs, and saves time for both parties.

 So before Tang Mo left Bunas, he drew up some plans in advance, including a development plan that would be implemented immediately once his side won the war.

 Tang Mo’s railway development plan is one of them.

 When talking about railways, we have to mention the issue of track width. This is actually not a simple multiple-choice question. Broad gauge and narrow gauge actually have their own advantages and disadvantages, and it does not necessarily mean that wide gauge is better than narrow gauge.

 Narrow gauge has obvious advantages in turning radius, and trains using narrow gauge have a smaller turning radius.

You must know that narrow-gauge railways are obviously more economical in terms of materials and are more suitable for Tangmo, who is financially strapped in the early stages of development. In addition, narrow-gauge railways also have obvious cost advantages in building railway bridges and drilling tunnels in the later stages.

 But with so many advantages of narrow gauge, why do some countries still choose broad gauge? Because the advantages of wide gauge in terms of transportation capacity are more obvious, wider rails can of course bring wider carriages. In terms of civil transportation, wider train carriages also have more obvious advantages in riding comfort. From this aspect, it can be seen that broad gauge actually has greater advantages in vast plains, frozen soil, and straight roads. On these terrains, the advantage of broad gauge’s strong transport capacity is infinitely expanded, and its turning radius is large, bridges The disadvantage of tunnels being more expensive is almost overshadowed.

But when Tang Mo built the railway, he naturally hoped that his railway standards could be used forever, so this set of standards must take into account other terrains as much as possible.

In other words, Tang Mo had to consider issues such as bridges and tunnels as much as possible, so it was impossible for him to build a two-meter wide track by himself to show his "foresight."

Tang Mo needs to consider these advantages and disadvantages, so for Tang Mo, it is not wise to blindly choose broad gauge. The most important point is that the cost of building this first railway in mankind must be kept within a reasonable range. .

After all, although he is rich now, he is not at the point where he can squander it at will. Under these conditions, it is obviously too crazy to blindly build a high-cost broad-gauge railway.

Hence, Tang Mo prefers to choose the standard rail width—the rail width used by Huaxia! At least, this vast land with a width of more than 9.6 million square kilometers has shown strong adaptability to many terrains such as mountains and rivers, plateaus and basins!

When it comes to infrastructure construction, if you can’t make a decision, you should naturally ask the infrastructure geek! After all, any ideas that have been tested by infrastructure enthusiasts can be used directly...

 So, in another world, the first railway track is not a narrow gauge, but a standard width track. Its experience comes from a distant ancient country that does not exist in the other world...

In addition to starting to build a new factory and clearing a dedicated railway, Tang Mo’s third expansion plan is to build his own dedicated private port on the other side of Bunas!

 After all, he is now a businessman with a fleet, so it is natural for him to start maritime transport trade.

In addition, he did not want to be restricted by the narrow port size of Bunas when purchasing overseas steel, oil and other materials in the future, so he decided to build a port in advance to facilitate future expansion or connection.

Since then, a brand new port has also begun to be built. This time the construction is different from the construction of previous ports.

 First of all, Tang Mo began to use cement on a large scale to build his new port to ensure the stability of his port.

It has to be said that Bunas is a natural port, with deep water and no freezing. There is even a small highland not far away where a fort can be built. The only reason that restricts its development is that there is a large port that was developed first in the south.

The Kingdom of Leyte does not pay much attention to sea trade, so after comparing port construction, the purchase volume of Bunas itself cannot increase, so naturally there will be no trade volume. Sea-going ships do not come here often, so the scale cannot increase. .

 This is a vicious cycle, and the emergence of Tang Mo, in a sense, breaks this trade cycle.

There are so many things he needs, and the total amount is huge - in the past, a country could not consume much steel, but Tang Mo is now planning to lay it directly on the ground.

 Datang Group’s purchase list includes bristles, leather, steel, brass, lime, gunpowder, and various chemical agents.

 The reason why we do not purchase grain is because Beiling stockpiled a lot of grain last year and can still supply Bunas recently. But if Tang Mo's factory continues to develop, it will be a matter of time before he purchases grain, meat and horses.

To facilitate future development, Tang Mo even asked businessmen to bring him soil samples and seeds from various places. In addition, he also purchased books from various countries at high prices, including novels, travel notes and poetry collections.

In the territory purchased by Tang Mo, the hard-working workers also carried out farming. Although it was destined to be of little profit, it made the place look more lively.

 In short, Tang Mo has not returned to Bunas yet, and in the month since he left, Bunas' development has not fallen behind at all.

Matthews and Parker managed the factory and had expanded the entire factory area to places that were previously unimaginable.

At present, Datang Group has more than a dozen factories and dozens of steam engines, and half of the factories have electrical equipment.

What’s even more interesting is that after the steam engine was put into production, another problem that plagued Datang Group was unexpectedly solved—heating!

The thermal insulation performance of those factory buildings that were "makeshift" built to rush work is actually very problematic. According to previous estimates, these factories will not be able to continue to be used after the arrival of winter.

But now, after Matthews, Roger and others followed Tang Mo's drawings and developed equipment for pipe production and processing, the cooling wastewater of the steam engine has a place to be used.

Hot water flows through these pipes, making the entire factory as hot as a huge furnace. After temporarily thickening some of the surrounding walls, these factories can continue to be used in the winter without any problems.

 (End of this chapter)