248: Chapter 248 Looking forward to the train opening!

Zhao Fusu currently had far too many projects that required funding.

He couldn't produce thirteen billion, but he never planned on paying for it all himself.

By distributing the profits to the nobility while keeping management rights of the railway firmly in his own hands, he could control the railway and use the profits to bind the major noble houses to his ship.

Specifically for the nobility of the Six Lands, once Great Qin formed a community of shared interests with them, they would not only be unable to oppose Great Qin but would instead have to protect Great Qin's interests to ensure their own continued profits.

A railway totaling one thousand kilometers in length could not be built from start to finish in one go.

Zhao Fusu decided to carry out construction on the railway in sections.

He would first train construction and supervision personnel who knew how to build railways, then have the construction workers perform the work while the supervisors oversaw it.

Under the direction of the supervisors, the workers would carry out the construction.

Supervisors were responsible for quality control, monitoring the concrete pouring process, checking if the rebar binding and formwork setup met requirements, and preventing quality issues such as honeycombing, pockmarks, or exposed rebar.

After the individual sections were completed, the railway would be connected.

Railway construction was a complex and systematic project.

Zhao Fusu sent people to conduct detailed surveys along the railway route.

The main work involved surveying natural conditions such as topography, landforms, geology, and hydrology along the route, as well as local transportation.

The first section to be surveyed was the stretch from Yangshan Mountain to the Qinglan Grassland.

A straight line is the shortest distance between two points, but construction conditions were poor; this was a typical desert dune landscape with crisscrossing gullies, uneven terrain, sparse sea buckthorn growth, and very few inhabitants.

Such land was barren and couldn't grow crops, nor could it even serve as pasture.

Therefore, the Qinglan Tribe mainly grazed their livestock in the water-and-grass-rich Qinglan Grassland.

Zhao Fusu planned the railway along relatively flat riverbanks to reduce the difficulty of laying the tracks.

After all, he didn't have tunnel boring machines to punch directly through large mountains.

He could only take detours along riverbanks and the edges of mountains.

If they encountered small hills, they could excavate tunnels.

The drill-and-blast method was the most common technique; by controlling blasting parameters, effective excavation of the tunnel's surrounding rock could be achieved while minimizing disturbance to the surrounding area.

After the tunnel was excavated, primary support was promptly installed to stabilize the surrounding rock. Primary support generally included rock bolts, steel mesh, shotcrete, and steel arches; through these measures, they would collectively bear the pressure of the surrounding rock and prevent the tunnel from collapsing.

Once the primary support was stable, the secondary lining construction would proceed. The secondary lining used cast-in-place concrete to provide a permanent load-bearing structure for the tunnel while also serving waterproofing and decorative purposes.

Then it was just a matter of doing the waterproofing and drainage work.

After the railway route was finalized, material preparations for construction began.

The Shangjun Steel Mill had already been built and could produce five hundred tons of steel a day!

Molten steel was poured into rail molds, and after being made into sections of rail, they were transported to the construction site.

Large quantities of cement and sand were also transported to the site.

Zhao Fusu took the railway construction blueprints and began reviewing them.

He wanted to build a section of railway first to train the construction personnel before dispatching them to the Qinglan Grassland.

At that time, they would advance from both ends simultaneously and then join in the middle.

Before construction, the site needed to be prepared, with temporary production and living facilities built to create good conditions for construction, alongside resolving issues like water access, road access, and site leveling.

Subgrade engineering construction included embankment filling, cutting excavation, and subgrade auxiliary works.

Embankment filling involved base treatment—clearing surface turf, tree roots, and humus—and compacting the base. Then, fill materials were selected and transported according to design requirements, using layered filling and layered compaction methods with equipment like road rollers to ensure the embankment's density and stability.

Cutting excavation involved choosing appropriate methods like transverse, longitudinal, or mixed excavation based on the depth and geological conditions. During excavation, slope stability had to be monitored, with timely protection and drainage treatments to prevent slope collapse.

Subgrade auxiliary works included slope protection and drainage facilities like ditches, intercepting drains, and French drains, as well as retaining structures like retaining walls and anti-slide piles.

These auxiliary works played a vital role in ensuring the stability and durability of the subgrade.

Track engineering construction included ballast bed construction, rail laying, and turnout installation.

After the main structures like the subgrade, bridges, and tunnels were completed, the ballast bed construction would proceed.

Zhao Fusu utilized a ballasted track bed.

A ballasted track consists of two parallel steel rails fixed onto sleepers, which sit on a bed of track ballast made of small crushed stones.

When laying railway in winter, small gaps are usually left between rail sections to accommodate the expansion of the rails in summer.

After building a few kilometers of railway, Zhao Fusu trained a group of construction personnel.

They would head to the Qinglan Grassland to build the railway.

The construction personnel building the railway in the Qinglan Grassland attracted many Xiongnu nomadic onlookers.

Some nomads even joined the construction ranks to earn money.

"Lord Lu."

Jin Tu, Qing Ying, and other chieftains curiously watched the rising railway and asked, "What is being built here?"

"A railway."

Lu Jia said, "Do you see those iron rails? Our carriages will travel on top of them in the future."

Qing Ying frowned slightly and said, "According to your meaning, Lord Lu, you mean warhorses will pull carriages along those iron rails?"

"No, no."

Lu Jia said, "It's a train!"

"A type of vehicle that relies on boiling water to generate power."

"This is a means of transportation invented by His Majesty the Head of State."

"Uh!"

For people with little worldly knowledge like Jin Tu and Qing Ying, they really had no way to link a kettle used for boiling water with a vehicle.

"When the train starts running later, you will understand."

"Oh, oh!"

Chieftains like Qing Ying, Chi Yan, Lie Yun, and Ling Yu were all incredibly curious about what this train actually looked like.

Once the train entered service, they definitely had to come and see it.

It wasn't just them who were curious; the Xiongnu nomads in the Qinglan Base were all curious as well.

They were all waiting for the train to start running.

...

After leaving Xianyang, Xiang Liang, Xiang Yu, Fan Zeng, and their party headed south all the way to Fangling in the Chu Region.

The water vapor in Fangling was very thick, a vast expanse of white where visibility was only about a hundred meters.

The humidity was heavy, and the icy mist seeped into the skin and body, feeling just like taking a cold bath; the perceived temperature was several degrees lower than the actual weather temperature.

Xiang Liang, Fan Zeng, and Xiang Yu did not feel it getting warmer; on the contrary, they felt it had become colder.