Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

Chapter 115 Road and Bridge Construction
"From now on, the third day of March every year will be Martyrs' Day, and everyone will take a day off to commemorate the martyrs!"

The Buddhist treasures also have holidays. Originally, Chen Gu wanted to set it as one day of rest in seven days, but everyone else objected, thinking that too much rest time would be detrimental to production, so in the end it was decided to have two days of rest in a month, on the first and fifteenth day of the month.

Because some people eat vegetarian food and worship gods on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, it is also called the half-month vegetarian worship day, or simply the monthly worship day or the vegetarian worship day.

In addition to holidays for fasting and worshipping the sun, there are also holidays for major festivals such as Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year's Day. Other holidays are only one day long, but the New Year's Day is ten days long. This was specially requested by Chen Gu.

After all, the big cleaning and preparation of New Year's goods before the New Year all take at least two or three days. We also have to visit relatives after the New Year, which also takes two or three days. After a busy year, everyone must have a good rest for a few days.

The most important thing for Fobao now is the oil in the mountains. The large army has been exploring in the mountains non-stop in the past few days.

It took six or seven days to finally explore and clear all the terrain between Fobao and Oil Canyon, and make a simple map.

The straight-line distance between the two places is actually only about 20 kilometers, or 20,000 meters. If there is a straight road, you can go back and forth on horseback in an hour.

Unfortunately, the mountain road was difficult to travel on, and Lao Piao wandered around in the mountains for two days before returning. It also took him a day and a half to walk with Chen Ku.

Lao Sha pointed to the three routes on the map and said, "We have planned three routes in total, most of which overlap. There are a few differences, one of which is whether to go over the mountains or go around the mountains.

Another issue is that you have to cross a river. Should you choose to take a long detour and build a bridge at a suitable place upstream, or should you wade across the river downstream? It's just a small river, so you can wade across it directly. However, if the river is flooded, you won't be able to cross it."

Chen Gu naturally knew about that small river. The last time he and Lao Piao passed by it in the mountains, they camped on the river bank. Because the weather had been sunny for half a month, the small river was about to dry up.

Chen Gu thought for a moment and said, "Let's wade across the river, but we still need to build a bridge. After all, even if we wade across the river, we still need to rest for a while, so why not just build a bridge across!"

"But the river here is more than two meters wide, plus the extensions at both ends, we need to build at least a thirty-five meter long bridge, which will cost a lot of time and money!" Lao Sha said.

“It won’t take much time or money. The bridge I’m talking about isn’t an arch bridge or a bridge made of huge stones. In fact, the water flow in that river is usually not very strong. We just need to lay the stones side by side and leave some gaps to fill them with stone slabs.

This way, not only will the passage be not delayed, but also the water crossing will not be delayed. Unless there is an extreme flood, the passage will not be blocked at ordinary times, and basically there will be no impact. After all, floods only happen a few days a year!" Chen said.

According to the calculation of three zhang, if each stone slab is one foot wide, then thirty stone slabs will be needed to pave the road. A fist-sized gap will be left between the stone slabs, and stone slabs will be used to block the top and allow water to flow through the bottom. That will provide more water than if thirty large pumps were used.

It's just a small river, so even heavy rain shouldn't affect traffic, unless it's an extreme rainstorm. And how many times can there be extreme rainstorms throughout the year?
And thirty stone slabs that are the length of a horse-drawn carriage are nothing to the current Buddhist treasures.

After listening to Chen Gu's explanation, Lao Sha's eyes lit up and he laughed: "Haha, this method is very good, and then we can put a layer of oil residue on it, and even the bumps will be very light!" What Lao Sha called oil residue was actually asphalt. After Chen Gu evaporated the petroleum, he mentioned all kinds of oil and asphalt, but these guys gave it a name they liked.

Anything that can be ignited is called kerosene. Gasoline and kerosene are high-fire oil and low-fire oil respectively. Anti-corrosion oil is simply called knife oil, lubricating oil is called car oil, and the remaining asphalt is called oil residue.

Not to mention, Chen Gu felt that the names they chose were better. He could tell what they were used for and where they should be used at once, so he didn't correct them. Instead, he just followed the crowd and called them that.

“As for crossing the mountain, it is better to build a winding road. Although it is shorter to go directly over the top of the mountain, it is not only hard to go up the mountain, but it is also not easy to go down the mountain. It is also very exhausting for people and vehicles.

We are not afraid of the distance, as long as we can walk steadily!" said Chen Gu.

"But building a winding mountain road is not easy. The slopes in some places are very steep, and it is difficult to widen the road. Even building a road for wheelbarrows to pass is very difficult, let alone building a road for horse-drawn carriages!" said Lao Gao.

"Then use explosives to blow up the mountain. Our explosives don't necessarily have to be used as weapons to kill people. They can also be used to split mountains and rocks. Compared to killing people, perhaps our ancestors who made explosives back then preferred to use explosives to split mountains and rocks!" said Chen Gu.

Unfortunately, wherever there are people, there are disputes. When disputes cannot be reconciled, people resort to force, so war has always been the main theme of history.

There are only two ways to completely avoid war. One is to be so bad that people will feel that stepping on you will dirty their shoes. The other is to be so strong that others will listen to you seriously and recognize your reasons.

"If we use explosives to blast through mountains and build roads, it would be much easier. However, our current explosives reserves seem to be insufficient. We need a lot of explosives to blast through mountains!" said Zhang Haomin.

Chen Gu thought for a moment and said, "Let's ask the village to bring back the explosives for emergency use, and also get me some black oil for distillation."

Zhang Haomin was stunned. The black oil was already being stored in tanks. Originally, they planned to build an oil refinery near the canyon, but now Chen Gu needed to bring it back for distillation. Zhang Haomin's first thought was that there would be another war, so he asked tentatively, "How much do you need?"

"Just pack two gourds, I need some samples for trading with the Han family." Chen Gu told about his encounter with Han Yuanxiao in Jiangjin County, and then said, "We can't just go out without taking in anything, after all, there are so many people to feed.

If we want everyone to live a good life, we have to find a way to make money. My previous plan was to take my brothers out to do a no-cost business, but now that we have something like black oil, we might as well make money through normal transactions.

The Han family has a lot of good stuff, among which the mother-and-child cannon and the chain gun are what we urgently need, but it is difficult to get them with silver. Even if the Han family is willing to sell them, I am afraid that the price they offer is difficult for us to afford. We should have a better chance of getting them by exchanging them for oil."

(End of this chapter)