The Industrial County before them was crude to the extreme, with none of the appearance of a county town. Rather than calling it a county, it would be more accurate to call it a factory that served as a county-level administrative unit.
Luo Chong truly wanted to build a factory as large as a county town, but for now, this place had only taken shape.
Several enormous warehouse-style buildings formed the core of Industrial County. In reality, they were all factory workshops. Scattered around them were also some one-story residential houses with small courtyards—the homes of the workers and researchers.
Industrial County was the Han Tribe's strangest—or rather, most distinctive—county. Luo Chong had originally intended to develop industry on a grand scale here, and trains would eventually depart from this place. Thus, to make laying railways more convenient in the future, they had not built city walls at all. Moreover, this was not a county town centered on residential living. In modern terms, it resembled a plot of land designated for an industrial development zone, a concentration of various factories rather than a place for people to live.
Many of the Personal Guards were visiting this county town for the first time, and Qu Bing was one of them. He had seen the Ammunition Workshop in Hanyang City, where several Steam Engines could operate on their own with nothing more than coal and water. So this was where they had been researched and manufactured! Once Qu Bing learned that, he immediately became interested in what lay inside Industrial County.
After they reached the county and tied up the horses, Luo Chong led the Personal Guards to the Power Research Institute. It was another enormous factory workshop. Several Steam Engines rumbled inside, while huge brick chimneys rose from the roof, constantly