The great hero of the Silk Road, starting from a farm farmer

Chapter 106 What a Grand Pass!
The most troublesome thing to make gypsum slag cement is crushing. The hardness of the cold and brittle granulated slag is still quite high. The stone mill must not be able to grind it finely, so an iron mill must be used to grind it.Before the iron is ground, a crusher is needed to hammer the large particles into fine pieces before grinding.

The hydraulic power of the river next to Shiping Pass is acceptable. Recently, a bunch of water turbine installations have been built one after another, and they are distributed along the rocky beach.The completion of facilities such as hydraulic saws, hydraulic hammers, hydraulic fans, and hydraulic plate presses gave the rocky beach outside the pass an industrial feel.For the cement grinding mill, Song Yingkui originally wanted to build a high-speed water turbine, but after thinking about it, he would have to renovate the canals to increase the water speed.

At that time, even a dam can be built, and a really big project can be carried out.

Before formally making cement, Song Yingkui arranged for people to grind the granulated slag by hand, calcined gypsum and mixed it into lime and slag powder, and first tested the specific ratio.In the gypsum slag cement I read online, slag powder is the main ingredient, and the proportion of gypsum powder and lime is not large, and the proportion of lime is about two-thirds smaller than that of gypsum powder.I made several proportioning schemes, and mixed them with water and put bricks and stones to make them solidify. Let's see which recipe is better.

The test found that slag powder accounts for [-]%, plaster of Paris accounts for [-]%, and lime accounts for [-]%. The performance of the cement formulated in this way is the best.

"Master Yang, do you think the stone mud I prepared can stick the stones firmly?" After building a small wall with the trial-mixed cement and mixed soil, Song Yingkui called Yang Shunan and others to let him They evaluate it.

Yang Shunan first broke it with his hands a few times, and then kicked it with his feet a few times, but the stone wall was still intact.

"This wall is too hard, just like a whole stone. If you use this kind of mud to build a wall, it may be indestructible?" Yang Shunan, who suffered from pain, gave the concrete and stone wall a very high evaluation.

"Indestructible is a bit of an exaggeration, but after the wall is covered with mud and stones, it is almost impossible to break through the wall. In addition, this kind of wall is very effective in waterproofing. In the future, we will pass through the Shiping Pass. The flood cannot be washed away. Now that the trial mixture of stone and mud has come out, starting tomorrow, Master Yang will lead the people to slowly start building the wall. Use as much cement as you have. At the beginning, you will slow down, wait After grinding out more slag powder, the speed will be faster. The beachhead and foundation must be done well in the early stage, otherwise the waterproof effect will be compromised, so there is no need to deliberately rush the construction period.”

The reason I was looking for when I was petitioning was that the earthen wall was not waterproof. This is not aimless. The flood control pressure of Shiping Pass is still quite high. It is really necessary to build a stone wall for waterproofing, otherwise the pass is likely to be washed away by the flood. .

"Don't worry about guarding. With such a sharp weapon, I will definitely lead my brothers to repair the Guancheng. After Shiping Pass, we will be the only serious stone fortress in Xisu Province. I will see who dares to use the fortress wall to repair it. How about us?" When he said this, Yang Shunan looked very excited.Building a fortified gate with your own hands can leave a mark in history. Even if you die in the future, as long as the gate is there, everyone who sees it will think of you. What a sense of accomplishment is this?
A few days ago, Song Yingkui insisted on going his own way to build a wall with raw soil, Yang Shunan felt very uncomfortable, thinking that this would be a stain on his life.Now this worry is gone, and I can be regarded as elated.Who said we were fooling around with raw earth walls?We are just using raw soil to make a foundation first, and what we really want to build is a stone fort, okay?

There is another unexpected benefit of using concrete to build stone walls, the construction efficiency is actually very fast.Originally, Song Yingkui planned to spend two or three months to complete the stone wrapping work of Guanbao. As a result, after the iron mill was completed and the cement output increased, Yang Shunan led people to wrap all the walls of Guanbao in less than a month. .This is still for the sake of construction quality, deliberately slowing down the construction progress. If you are in a hurry, it is estimated that it will be completed in about 20 days.

"Qing'er, take the sentry team and shoot arrows at the wall twenty steps away to test the strength of the stone wall." Didn't Da Zheng use arrows to check whether the city wall is qualified?Song Yingkui wanted to see if arrows could be inserted into the stone wall.

Song Yingqing led fifty crossbowmen and fought at a distance of twenty steps outside the fort, shooting bursts at the fort wall.

After three rounds of arrows, not a single arrow was inserted into the city wall, and all of them were blocked under the city.

After the city wall was covered with stones, the construction work continued. Song Yingkui simply asked Yang Shunan to lead people to build another stone embankment on the side of the rocky beach near the river to prevent floods from damaging the workshop facilities.

"Defense, since we have spare power now, why not just build a wall between Guanbao and the cliff face, so that we can completely defend against incoming enemies?" Yang Shunan, who is addicted to building walls, even wants to simply build another wall. The stone cliffs at the mouth of the Shiping Pass are connected together.

"There is no need for this. Didn't we try artillery a few days ago? If we cast a few more artillery and put them on the wall of the fort, wouldn't we be able to block the incoming enemy from bypassing the pass? Why waste labor on such useless work? After the river embankment project is completed, the soldiers in the garrison should free up their hands and practice their combat skills. The key to city defense is people, and we can't put all our hopes on foreign objects."

The construction of Guanbao has come to an end. In recent days, the income of the workshop has also increased. Song Yingkui is going to make the Shipingguan Garrison regular, and then he will train soldiers for a period of time.The second uncle said that the current situation is not stable, and it is already the end of July. Normally, winter is the time when wars are most likely to occur. Guanli must be prepared to avoid rushing into battle after a real war breaks out and cannot cope.

The artillery has already cast three small ones. During this period, several heavy artillery and vehicle-mounted field guns will be cast.If conditions permit, Song Yingkui would also like to study the rear-mounted cannon to solve the defect that the cannon's reloading speed is too slow.

During this period, I also made four flintlock guns and twenty wingless crossbows. If I can make another thirty wingless crossbows and more than a dozen flintlock guns before winter arrives, Song Yingkui planned the equipment for the soldiers of the garrison. Even if it is complete.

The flintlock was not as reliable as the arquebus, but in numbers this defect was less of a concern.

Thinking about it carefully, there seems to be something missing. It seems that the grenade thrown by the torque catapult is not perfect.Torque catapults are not very convenient to move, and they are not very efficient.It is necessary to find a way to make a projectile equipment that can be easily moved, so that the mine-throwing device can have field combat functions.It is best to improve the ignition device of the grenade and make it a trigger mine.

At the beginning of August, just as Song Yingkui started formal military training and perfected the equipment of the soldiers, Shipingguan came to another group of inspection and acceptance teams.

Different from the last time, this time they were sent directly by the Provincial Governor's Yamen, led by a sixth-rank civil servant, and the specifications were much higher than the group brought by Li Zhiming before.

"What a majestic pass! Who said that the Shiping official garrisoned privately to build the pass and repaired it indiscriminately? I don't think anyone is blind!" Shi Guanqiang's eyes were straightened, and he praised the quality of Guanbao before he entered the pass.

(End of this chapter)