North and South groceries

After the Dragon Boat Festival, the weather became hotter and hotter day by day, and their place in Changle County became more and more lively day by day.

In fact, not only Changle County, Jinchang Dunhuang and other places are also very lively recently. Although there are no biogas lamps in those places, after buying lanterns and oil lampshades made of that kind of thorium stone from Changle County, the lighting conditions are improved. It's actually much better than before.

As soon as the lighting conditions improved, the world seemed to suddenly become very lively, as if after a long and long winter, it was finally spring.

The lanterns and oil lamp shades produced in Changle County are so easy to use. People who have seen them are all shocked and praised. Naturally, the news spreads quickly. Now it is not only the vendors in the surrounding towns, but even the Liangzhou city. People from all over the world came from thousands of miles to buy.

Don't look at that lampshade only sells for a few pennies, it can't support a large quantity, and the newly opened lampshade shop does not know how many cars are sold every day.

After the Dragon Boat Festival, there were many merchants coming and going. Luo Yong once heard a few idlers in the city joke that Guo Duhu might be able to make back his money if the wooden track from Jinchang to Jiuquan was not ready to be paved.

It is said that at the beginning Guo Xiaoke proposed to pave a wooden track from Jinchang to Jiuquan. If it was just a common pavement made of wood and cement, the governments of Jinchang and Jiuquan would each provide part of the money and labor, and it could barely handle it.

However, Guo Xiaoke said that since it needs to be repaired, it should be done better. There are several rivers along the way, and it is inevitable to build bridges. Ordinary wooden bridges are not durable, and stone bridges are too time-consuming. Earlier, Luo used those disciples in Gaochang A set of reinforced concrete bridges was built on the wasteland between Dunhuang, which is very good, if not all of them are built this time.

Officials in Jinchang and Jiuquan heard how much fine iron would be used to build these bridges, so they complained to Guo Xiaoke, but they couldn't afford the money.

Guo Xiaoke was surprisingly easy-going this time. There was no money in Jinchang and Jiuquan, so he used his own money and food to pay for them. Naturally, he paid a lot of money for this road, so he earned income from operating this wooden track. , he must also take the lead.

Because of this wooden track, Guo Xiaoke has passed by Changle County several times recently, and the relationship with Luo Yong has eased a lot.

Seeing that the time was almost up, Tang Jian told him the truth. About the ore vein on the other side of Jiuquan, Luo Yong actually revealed it to him, and he didn't know it from that person himself.

"Since that's the case, why did you lie to me that day?" Guo Xiaoke sighed.

"You were angry at that time. If I told the truth, I wouldn't have annoyed you for no reason. I'm afraid I might not believe that mine vein." Tang Jian explained to him.

Regarding this matter, Guo Xiaoke has actually speculated these days. Luo Yong is an unusual person, and he seems to have some knowledge of astronomy and geography.Perhaps, as he himself said, after the scene of being ill, he opened his mind.

Last year, Luo Yong sent people to Yiwu to look for thorite, and finally made a biogas lamp.How did he know that there was that kind of stone on Yiwu's side?Since he can know that Yiwu has thorium, can he also know that there is a vein in Jiuquan?

Thinking about it this way, Guo Xiaoke decided that the possibility of mineral veins in Jiuquan is very high!

Even if his eldest son returns without success this time, the Guo family will not give up their search for this vein easily.

That's why Guo Xiaoke was so enthusiastic about the road construction this time, and he also asked to build a reinforced concrete bridge across the river, because in his conception, this road will be used to transport iron ore in the future, the bridge The load-bearing nature is very important.

These days, whenever he passes by Changle County, Luo Yong's hospitality is considered considerate. He has passed his temper at this time, and now he knows that Luo Yong told him where the mine is, so he is naturally more grateful.

In this way, County Magistrate Luo and Guo Duhu reconciled.

Later, Guo Xiaoke asked Luo Yong to build a biogas digester in Gaochang. Luo Yong told him that biogas is poisonous, flammable and explosive, and relatively dangerous.

Now he himself hasn't figured out the characteristics of this marsh gas, so he doesn't dare to spread it rashly. It's better to wait for him to figure it out first, accumulate a certain amount of experience, and then promote it to Gaochang and other places.

"How long will it take?" Guo Xiaoke was a bit impatient to hear his refusal, but what he said was not completely unreasonable.

People are suffocated to death in ordinary cellars, not to mention their biogas digesters, which ferment excrement and waste to refine miasma to light lamps—in the eyes of people in this era, biogas is almost the same as miasma.

Speaking of it this way, the biogas thing is indeed somewhat terrifying, but it is economical. These people in Changle County only need three pennies to light a biogas lamp for a month. If it is replaced by an oil lamp, then no matter what is not enough.Moreover, the Changle County Government may still be able to make money at the price of three Wen a month, which shows that its cost is low.

"No more than one or two years." Luo Yong promised.

After one or two years, the biogas system in Changle County should be relatively mature, and some local people are more experienced in the maintenance of biogas tanks and the use of biogas, and it will be a matter of course when it is promoted to surrounding areas. things.

In the mid-June of the lunar calendar, the first biogas digester put into use was not producing much gas, and there was a lot of waste residue in the pond. Even if it was filled with new materials, there was no improvement.

So Luo Yong said that a thorough desilting work should be done on the biogas digester.

During the use of the biogas digester, biogas liquid and biogas residue will be continuously produced.

Among them, the biogas liquid is easier to handle. At the machine shop, a hand-pressed liquid pump was made earlier, which is basically the appearance of a hand-pressed well in later generations.

When in use, just fix the liquid suction pump next to the discharge port, put the Eucommia rubber tube connected to the pump body into the pool, and two or three young and strong will take turns to get started, and it will take half an hour to drain the eucommia in such a large pool. Most of the biogas liquid is pumped out.

Every time they pumped biogas liquid, the nearby people heard about it, and someone brought wooden barrels to pick it up.

These days, regardless of whether it is in the city or in the countryside, every household has to grow some vegetables in their courtyards. The biogas liquid is mixed with some water and poured into the ground. Those light-colored green vegetable leaves can grow into dark green in a few days, and they are very fertile. is strong.

Some farmers in the outskirts of the city need a lot of fertilizer, and many people drive donkey carts into the city to pull them.

At this time, there was no chemical fertilizer. Because the land was small and there were many people, the farmers planted a large area. How to get enough fertilizer for such a large area was also a big problem. Some children came out to pick manure for this reason.

The biogas liquid in the city does not need money, as long as you go there, you can get it. Sometimes there are too many people who go there, and the officials will open the outlets of other biogas tanks to see which pool has the highest water level. If it is gone, some more will be drawn from the pool.

This is also what Luo Yong specifically told. When the biogas pool is cleaned of waste liquid and residue, it is best not to ask people to return empty-handed whenever nearby people come to get it. , They pumped so much biogas liquid from the pond and no one wants it, so where should it be discharged?

Although the biogas liquid is good for fertilizing the land, if no one wants it, there will be too much water in the pond to affect the fermentation, and after it is discharged, it will flow here and there everywhere, which will also greatly affect the environment.

In the past few days, the No. [-] biogas pond was dredged, and the liquid pump was also set up to extract the biogas liquid. After the biogas liquid was roughly drained, the entire biogas pond was left open for two or three days.

In the early morning of this day, several officials caught a chick, tied its legs with hemp thread and hung it in the biogas pond. It was almost done, so two or three people tied ropes around their bodies, and each of them took an iron rake and went down to the bottom of the discharge port to remove the methane residue.

In addition, they set up a hand wheel above the discharge port. The people below used iron rakes to rake the biogas residue into the dustpan, and then hung the dustpan on an iron hook hanging from above, and the people above shook their hands. Wheel, lift up the dustpan with biogas slag in a few strokes.

People were already waiting there, and at this time, some people helped, taking the dustpan and dustpan of biogas residue from the hook, neatly lifting them aside, and pouring them into the baskets brought by themselves, or wooden carts superior.There are also some elderly people who come to collect biogas slag, and some young and strong people on the scene will help to fill up the baskets and carts they brought.

While the people above were working, they also had to pay attention to the movements of the people below. If anyone felt dizzy and chest tight, they had to be replaced immediately. They were all tied with ropes. Even if they were weak and unable to walk, the people above Dragging can also drag them out.

After working for an hour or two, everyone stopped to rest, let the pool below let out the air again, and then arranged for people to go down and continue digging. This time, the digging stopped after less than half an hour, because the deeper the Digging, the thicker the methane gas, people will feel uncomfortable after staying below for a while. For the sake of safety, I will not dig anymore today, and the pond has to continue to disperse the gas.

Such a large biogas digester was dug and dug non-stop, and finally when it was basically emptied, there was no telling how much biogas slag was dug out back and forth.

The residue in the pond was dug until there was only a bottom left, and some waste was left at the end, and some new materials were added. It is summer now, the temperature is high, and the fermentation in the biogas digester is also very fast. It will not take long. Today, the No. [-] pool will be able to produce biogas again.

To put it bluntly, the cleaning work of this biogas pond is really troublesome. The pond is dirty, smelly, and dangerous.

Because of this inconvenience, many biogas digesters have been abandoned in later generations.But the current era is different. At this time, people have no electricity, no oil, no natural gas. For them, biogas is already a very advanced, convenient and cheap energy source, so even if there are so many inconveniences, they will never abandon it easily.

This time, a lot of waste was cleaned out of the biogas pond, and many people in the city went to take some back home. Even the old county magistrate Tan took a few grandchildren to watch the excitement twice, and took two loads of biogas slag back home. .

The methane residue was dried in the backyard, and then they buried it next to the sweet potato nest.

This spring, almost every household in Changle County has planted sweet potatoes, but most of them don’t grow much. The sweet potatoes from last year’s Baochang’s family were taken out to sprout, and each family was given a few twigs. Take it home and plant it carefully.

The old magistrate Tan's family planted a lot of sweet potatoes. At the beginning of spring, only those in Changle County had sweet potato seeds, and the farmers outside the city and the towns below would inevitably have some complaints.

At this time, Luo Yong brought out a lot of sweet potato vines. He said that he was not willing to throw away these sweet potato vines last year. He carefully stored them. Although the leaves were completely dried, the vines still looked green. Cut these sweet potato vines into small pieces. , Distributed to various villages and lis under the jurisdiction of Changle County, so that the villagers can look at it, and maybe they can grow it alive.

At that time, the old county magistrate Tan got a whole vine from Luo Yong, happily took it home, carefully cut them into sections and inserted them into the ground, and unexpectedly they all came alive.

Now this piece of sweet potato field has grown lush green. The family can't help but care for it carefully, looking forward to eating sweet potatoes this year.