The Three Spirit Stones

In the suburbs of Bianjing, a large group of people were busy early in the morning.

They first leveled the three-meter-wide road, fixed it with wooden boards on both sides, added gravel and sand, and then added bags of gray mud powder, mixed it with water and poured it on the road, and then leveled it.

The magical thing is that the next day this place will become as hard as rock.

This is cement, the most important building material in modern society. However, this is the simplest traditional method of making cement, which is to grind limestone and clay into powder, then calcine them into clinker, and grind the clinker with the slag left over from iron smelting to make cement.

In fact, this type of cement has been successfully tested a long time ago, but the reason why it has never been mass-produced is that it is very difficult to grind these raw materials into fine powder.

Limestone is very hard. In an era when everything required human and animal power, you can imagine how difficult it was to grind these stones into powder!

But since the advent of hydraulic presses, this problem has finally been solved.

The craftsmen used cast iron to make a large medicine mortar with a large iron pestle on top.

Boom boom boom!

The ore was poured in and crushed in a few strokes. There was a hole at the bottom of the iron can, separated by a layer of screen. As the iron pestle moved up and down, the powdered lime was rushed out from the hole and floated into a pipe, and then floated into the bag tied to the pipe mouth. When this bag was full, another bag would be replaced.

Dozens of punching machines are working day and night. This efficiency cannot be matched by human power.

……

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The imperial court planned to build a cement road from Bian Jing to Hangzhou, and the project was undertaken by Cheng Industry.

When Cheng Yu first proposed this idea, Emperor Zhenzong of Song was stunned.

There was originally an official road from Bian Jing to Hangzhou, a distance of more than a thousand miles. Since the establishment of the three freight companies, more and more people have been using this road, but walking on that yellow mud official road is really a torture.

The road is bumpy. Although freight forwarders often send people to repair it, a dirt road is still a dirt road, and it will be even more muddy and wet when it rains.

Zhao Heng really couldn't imagine how to build a road that was more than a thousand miles long and had a surface as hard and smooth as stone, without mud or puddles when it rained, and could easily accommodate horse-drawn carriages.

The amount of manpower and material resources required for this project should be comparable to that of building the Grand Canal from Beijing to Hangzhou!

He was very hesitant. It would be great to be able to build such a road. If it was completed, it would be comparable to the achievements of Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty!

But can the country’s financial resources allow it?

Can the civil and military officials in the court agree to this?

It was not until Cheng Yu brought materials into the palace to pave a cement road for the Imperial Garden that

It was a black mass of mud that day, but the next day people could walk on it, and after it dried, it was as hard as bluestone.

Everyone in the palace and ministers in the court went to see it, and they were all amazed and marveled at it!

Zhao Heng knew that it was Ah Cai who gave him the secret recipe, and he was moved.

This is a true immortal!

Although I can't turn stone into gold, I can turn mud into stone. If this isn't a magical skill, what else could it be?

Kou Zhun and Li Di also knew it was Ah Cai, and were equally amazed.

What on earth is going on with that girl’s head?

Why does she know so many incredible secret recipes?

In this project budget, the birth of this new building material has saved at least 90% of the cost and time of the entire project.

Zhao Heng immediately decided to start the project and named the road Beijing-Hangzhou Zhenzong Avenue. The national treasury would contribute 30% of the funds, Cheng's Industry would contribute 10%, and the remaining 60% would be raised from the public by issuing bonds, which would be recovered after three years at an annual interest rate of 5%.

This bond business is a sure win!

For a time, everyone rushed to buy it, especially some wealthy families in Beijing, who used their connections to buy in large quantities.

In order to prevent such hoarding of bonds, the imperial court issued relevant policies stipulating that bonds must be purchased on a household basis, and individuals were not allowed to purchase them.

But under the interests, there are countermeasures for every policy, and some people still find loopholes.

Therefore, the hot topics in Bianjing City recently are almost all about the Zhenzong Avenue Bond.

Now that the funding issue has been resolved, the next issue is manpower.

This project was undertaken by Cheng's Industry. As soon as the recruitment information was spread, young and strong people from nearby towns and villages came to apply for the job.

In recent years, Chengshi Industry has gained a very good reputation in the recruitment market.

First of all, in terms of food, there is white flour and white rice three times a day, meat or eggs every day, no limit on rice, and vegetable and meat soup every other day.

Such food is extremely attractive to most poor families who have to eat coarse food. Although road construction is hard work, these migrant workers actually gain weight after working for a period of time.

The wages are reasonable and paid monthly, which is better than most private employers.

Although the accommodation is not so good and they can only live in temporary wooden sheds, they are all rough men. As the saying goes, what does it matter if a man can sleep anywhere by lying on the roadside? Do they have to live in tiled houses when working on a construction site?

Such good conditions quickly filled up the company, with some people even coming from far away to find jobs. Those who were not hired were extremely disappointed.

However, Chengshi Industry is very humane, and these people will register their information.

Those who have special skills, such as ironwork or carpentry, are selected to go to factories for trial. Those who don't know anything are concentrated in one area, given simple food and lodging for a period of time, so that they can find other jobs, or given priority if there are any job vacancies.

This is indeed a good deed!

In ancient times, traveling was very difficult. People had to sleep in the open air to find a job but were told that there was no work.

No food, no drink, no money, no food, it's easy to push people to the edge of despair.

As the saying goes, poverty breeds evil, and poverty is actually the original sin.

On the day of the groundbreaking ceremony, Emperor Zhenzong of Song, accompanied by Empress Liu E, Crown Prince Zhao Shouyi, and a number of ministers attended the ceremony.

After everyone cut the ribbon, Zhao Heng shoveled the first shovel of soil. Then salutes sounded all around. A group of flower girls presented flowers to the emperor, empress and prince. Everyone at the scene shouted "Long live the emperor!" and the scene was extremely warm and lively!

Such down-to-earth activities made Zhao Heng feel very fresh, and he thought it would be a good idea to hold more of these activities in the future.

Under the watchful eyes of the public, the construction of the Beijing-Hangzhou Zhenzong Avenue started as scheduled. The cement road was paved section by section. After a section of the road was dry, materials were transported along that section.

In order to transport materials, Cheng's Industry laid a railway track on the road. The vehicles running on the track were a series of carriages pulled by mules in front.

Construction materials such as cement and sand are very heavy. If they were to be pulled by a conventional vehicle, the mule would be exhausted to death and still not be able to pull much. However, it is different when pulling a carriage on a track. The weight is almost entirely borne by the rails, and a mule can pull several tons of cargo.

Mules have better endurance than horses and are not picky about feed. They can walk continuously for seven hours a day and can work continuously for twenty days.

Looking at this Zhenzong Avenue, the most eye-catching thing is the dense line of mule carriages. After the rails are laid, they can be used permanently and will be very convenient for pulling heavy objects in the future.

Building such a long road is very difficult, sometimes half of the mountain has to be flattened.

This is when the sugar explosive comes into play. Without this powerful explosive, it would take an unknown amount of time to flatten half the mountain.

The only advantage of building roads in this era is that the places where the roads pass are usually sparsely populated, and in many places there is no need to consider issues such as land acquisition fees.

Anyway, the whole world belongs to the emperor. Who dares to stop the emperor from building a road?