Urbanization, Mechanization, Commercialization

Chapter 37: 1.37 Urbanization, Mechanization, Commercialization

The heavy rain finally receded. Logically, interfering with nature would inevitably bring retribution.

Two days after the typhoon passed, the various effects of the water and fire catastrophe began to manifest. However, Wei Keng's actions were always a tiny bit faster than nature's. Before nature's revenge could gain momentum, he had already tidied up his surroundings.

As soon as the river water receded, the Wei Keng Collective dispatched teams with gas-powered carts to patrol.

First, they cleared any corpses that might appear in the river channel. Although normally, most bodies would be washed downstream and those that survived would be quickly dealt with by animals, Wei Keng Settlement was a forbidden zone for various gene colonies, so there were no animals nearby to scavenge corpses.

Therefore, the bodies had to be disposed of quickly to prevent the breeding of strange mosquitoes and insects.

Second, they checked the situation upstream of the residential area to see if any animals had fallen in and drowned.

The several large water wells absolutely could not be contaminated. Isolation zones had to be established, the water confirmed to be clear, and quicklime sprinkled for further disinfection. Then, water was drawn, boiled, and stored in water tanks. It had to be boiled again before drinking.

Finally, carrying some dried fish, they searched for surviving animals the size of wild cats.

Searching for them wasn't just for petting. Although Wei Keng had driven away the gene colonies near his area, he still had to construct a new ecosystem based on objective facts and control the energy levels of each ecosystem.

At the very least, Wei Keng himself couldn't catch mice. Cats were essential predators after the formation of human cities.

The emergence of human cities disrupted the local natural balance. A large number of upper-level food chains disappeared, so insects like cockroaches and rodents like mice were bound to proliferate. At this time, cats, which could prey on them without posing a danger to humans, were humanity's best collaborators! They could diligently clean up all creatures below humans.

Even in the 27th century, humans still couldn't eradicate rats in cities. Therefore, when a ban on dogs was issued to eradicate stray dogs, stray cats were treated with great leniency. Even urban management personnel specially built warm basements for them in winter because they were useful.

Wei Keng returned with a large number of cats. Among them, there might have been a few unlucky leopard cubs.

Wei Keng, with great nonchalance, grabbed a cat by the scruff of its neck: "It's okay, I don't have free-range chickens and ducks here. Bite as much as you want. If you encounter a mouse, go and bite it to death."

Thus, after the flood, the epidemics, insect plagues, and rat plagues – the lessons nature was preparing for this scoundrel Wei Keng – were all suppressed and buried on the spot, vanishing without a trace.

Wei Keng silently recited: "Why am I so skilled? Tsk, after thousands of years, humans and nature must live in harmony. To do that, one must understand nature's disposition! I also have a Dao heart."

Next, the Wei Kengs on the environmental inspection teams shamelessly lectured the laborers who had come out with them: "Let us take steps towards sustainable development. We want green mountains, we want clear waters, and we want GDP to grow higher and higher."

Summer flowed away like the rolling Pearl River water. Unknowingly, Wei Keng had stayed in this dimension for a year.

Two months later.

With a gushing sound, the water from the dam poured into the pond as the sluice gate slowly opened. It then flowed along the gradient of the fields into each plot. The roots and stems of the crops in the farmland, embedded in the soil, absorbed the moisture like sponges. In the hottest state of summer, their genes expressed aquatic plant characteristics.

Before the Pandora Era, there was no shortage of water, allowing them to photosynthesize to their fullest with sunlight. Summer was when all sorts of aquatic plants would proliferate. Land plants, to ensure they wouldn't dehydrate from the sun, would stop transpiration and photosynthesis when their leaves encountered excessive light radiation. This behavior of not producing when encountering a little heat was unreasonable in the eyes of the great capitalist Wei! Land plants should learn from aquatic plants.

With the dam intercepting the flow, nearly half of the small river's water was absorbed by the farmland. The air quickly became humid. The soil did not turn into mud from the waterlogging. The farmland, spanning tens of square kilometers, used almost all the water from the 7-meter-wide small river.

Of course, the fruits of this labor made the farmers, toiling under the scorching sun, feel that their sweat was worth it. The produce was rich in starch and had a flavor reminiscent of water chestnuts when cooked. This fruit, after being heated, dried, sliced, and sealed in glass bottles filled with nitrogen, became a commodity highly sought after by passing merchants.

Now, Wei Keng had opened up three river channels to handle the material transportation for the surrounding cities.

... These human settlements, which had previously hidden in the mountains for safety, lacked everything.

In terms of food, they had eaten fungi for generations. This led to their lower classes becoming shorter and shorter, with adult males only reaching 1.6 meters in height.

Wei Keng was not a person who cared about height. At first, when he saw them, he thought they were very capable and didn't consider anything else. Only later did he realize that their cautiousness towards him in the early stages and the sense of oppression brought about by their physique might have been one of the important reasons.

As Wei Keng finished debugging the equipment in the factory and successfully cast the crankshaft and sealed piston of the steam engine, he successfully forged his own single-cylinder vertical steam engine in this world.

Although this steam engine, weighing two tons and fixed to a base, only had an output of five horsepower, it was a breakthrough from zero!

What did the invention of the steam engine mean? Ships, tractors, or textile machines?

In Wei Keng's eyes, it meant an improvement in steel quality! Good steel had to be hammered, and previously, without the output power of a steam engine, water power was used for processing. Such processed parts were very small, at most for forging bayonets, gun barrels, and similar parts.

As for larger steel, ingots bigger than a wine bottle? They would directly jam the water turbine.

But with a steam engine, it was different. When the steam engine rotated, if it encountered resistance, it wouldn't just slip away like a water turbine when it reached its maximum flow. Instead, the pressure in the boiler would increase dramatically, increasing the output.

With the self-made steam engine, it represented a qualitative leap in Wei Keng's processing capabilities! Wei Keng increased his acquisition of minerals in trade, reaching a point where he accepted everything. This was because the surrounding areas were also willing to accept his steel products.

As the saying goes, "A capitalist will go through fire and water for profit."

After these merchants confirmed that there was grain and metal processing capability in the downstream plains, they finally began to transport people. They also brought over some scrapped machines from their city-states from the old era.

September 4th.

Facing the eight diesel generator sets sent by the merchants from Menghe City, Master Wei's mouth twitched.

The merchant who came stared at Wei Keng and quoted a price: eight single-cylinder steam engines. Oh, Wei Keng could only assemble one of those per month. Faced with such an exorbitant price, Wei Keng thought for a moment and cut the price in half.

The merchant immediately sealed the deal: "Sold."

Master Wei Keng felt like he had cut the price too much.

After these merchants left, the people in Wei Keng's industrial group used wrenches and screwdrivers to disassemble these diesel engines. First, the internal electronic control system was aging, so they couldn't be started. Some wires were obviously burnt out due to overheating. However, overall, the cylinder blocks and parts with the highest technical difficulty were still very good.

They were all disassembled, cleaned, and then electroplated. Lubricating oil was used, and for some small damaged parts, drawings were made. They were then forged in the forging field using good steel selected from the scrap yard.

There were very few people who could still repair machinery nowadays. To be precise, there were far fewer people who could understand the manual's solid geometric structure. Although Wei Keng had slacked off in higher education on Earth, he had learned about machinery, chemistry, and simple principles. Even the education in the 27th century had given everyone a practical class in assembling machinery in a factory.

Now, the system had sent Wei Keng a three-dimensional model of the entire mechanical operation. After Wei Keng's work groups understood this machine completely, the system then brought up the model number of this machine and a series of maintenance tutorials provided by the manufacturer. Thus, regarding these diesel engines, apart from Wei Keng being a bit inexperienced with specific disassembly techniques and slightly slower at removing parts, everything else was proceeding in an orderly fashion.

To put it this way, the current Wei Keng Collective, as a high-level talent reserve, was something that all the native human settlements in the entire Yue Region combined could not produce.

The Wei Kengs next to the diesel generator sets were busy until nightfall. There were a total of six groups, with three people in each group. One person wielded a wrench, one held a pen to record, and one organized the disassembled parts.

The number of disassembled parts is increasing, and the process of handling them is becoming clearer. The drawings of the parts have also been stacked according to their categories.

Machinery is a man's romance. A large number of complex geometric bodies, under the transmission of energy, make these parts that I have rationally thought about, when assembled by my own hands, and when I press my own button, they all move at once. Oh, this moment is a hundred times more satisfying than xx.

This... Wei Keng (he) hasn't not looked at women in this plane. Wei Keng: "It's not that I'm afraid of the Observer, I'm afraid of her? Afraid of her? Heh heh. Cough, cough."

The main reason is that my life is precarious now, and I don't have a sense of security. I need to keep expanding, expanding, and expanding.

This is like the early 21st Century, when the economic development of the East leaped forward, and a generation of baby boomers suddenly collapsed.

At that time, ladies might have felt that they had an advantage in the gender ratio and were constantly choosing, while men's personalities were like Wei Keng's, lacking confidence. Houses, cars, savings, working a few more years, and having more confidence in life.

[Of course, it seems to be true. That generation of young people, because society was relatively simple when they were young, they believed too much that hard work would definitely pay off. Coupled with a series of chicken soup from Yilin and Reader magazines, and then passing the Gaokao, which was considered fair enough at the time, they came out. Although they worked hard, they lacked fighting spirit. As a result, in the first few years of their careers, they blindly followed the baton, fattening up the "People's Rich" of that era. In the end~~~~~]

Back to the topic, The simple Wei Keng now believes that machinery will not deceive him. If he uses his intelligence and strength in his position, then the society he is in will not deceive him either.

"Dada da," with an electric ignition similar to a gas water heater, the gas produced by the gas generator was introduced into the diesel engine, and the diesel-to-gas engine finally started.

Electricity reached the newly assembled circuits, and the steel in the factory could undergo more complex heat treatment, and the machine tools did not need to be supplied with pressure connected to the high-pressure steam pipes. Electricity made the rotors of these machine tools rotate with a humming sound. What Wei Keng had to worry about was that after the metal broke, the fragments might fly at the speed of bullets.

On the smelting plant side, various scrap metal raw materials were dug up from the ruins and sent into the newly assembled electric furnace for processing new products.

After spending four months, Wei Keng looked at the latest nickel steel cylinder blocks and crankshafts he had processed, and he seemed to be able to process a Stirling Engine.

This diesel generator set is truly a tech pendant given to him by the natives here.

Wei Keng: "I want mechanization! Let the tracked vehicles move."

Wei Keng confirmed that his current mechanical level is almost comparable to the processing level of the machinery factories in city-states like Jian City. They can only maintain the mechanical technology for producing tractors. And their tractor fuel?

Around Jian City, Wei Keng found a large number of herbaceous plants similar to castor beans, which are the oil refining raw materials for these cities. A year ago, when the armored cars of Kaomu launched an assault, they advanced with a lot of thick smoke, like an asthma attack. But even though this biofuel was not easy to use, they also consumed chemical raw materials such as caustic soda to produce this diesel.

Wei Keng is now focusing on straw oil refining, which is to heat the substance to 650 degrees in a sealed chemical reactor to liquefy it. A large amount of carbon powder is mixed in, and it is difficult to call it diesel. By 21st Century standards, the fuel consumed is high, the output is not good, and the performance easily clogs the machine.

Wei Keng believes that synthesis is better than collection. Whether it is water gas or methane hydrogenation, then filtration, and finally the fuel produced, even if it is inferior, he should be able to accept it.

With this complex plan in mind, the primary problem is the chemical reactor. He needs to build one. It doesn't need to be large, nor too large.

Complete a three cubic meter reactor. This kind of thing might be an experimental product of the early chemical industry during World War I. It doesn't pursue extreme lifespan. After producing ten or so times, check if there is hydrogenation corrosion inside.

Oh, the technical difficulty of this thing is a bit challenging in Wei Keng's eyes. But thinking about it, during World War I, junior high school students were the main engineers in the factories. This inspired Wei Keng's resilience.

Moreover, what he is building is the most primitive small chemical equipment. The smaller the chemical equipment, the lower the challenge in terms of materials, and the simpler the numbers in the formulas.

The difficult part of chemical engineering isn't the principles or technology, but rather the initial set of production regulations and Personnel Discipline. Many operations require procedures that seem unnecessary and slow down work speed, but they prevent one-in-ten-thousand accidents. For example, before discharging, you might be able to complete it in two or three steps, but the regulations dictate forty steps.

Now, Wei Keng has separated a large group to focus on this industry. Regarding this, Wei Keng realized he was short on people again.

In February of the 134th year of the Pandora Era, while Wei Keng was still contemplating a series of chemical supporting facilities, The merchants this time found the reactors Wei Keng needed, though they couldn't transport them. They directly took Wei Keng to the location.

When Wei Keng arrived at the abandoned Brick House and dug out the steel-framed chemical equipment from dozens of broken bricks, he also found dozens of large boxes of Spare Parts.

Wei Keng realized a fact! He was an Outsider. He could go to some Parking Lot ruins to scavenge Stainless Steel, but the local people actually knew about more warehouses.

After Wei Keng wiped out the Gene Colony in the area, these merchants, using records of factory locations from before the Pandora Era, directly led their teams to transport the "formerly useless" equipment from the Abandoned Warehouses to this place. Then, they exchanged it for dozens of sacks of Salt and Ironware.

Wei Keng found it amusing and exasperating. "Should I tell them that all this stuff is on my Territory, and you can dig up at most five hundred pieces plus a Banner?"

Old Master Wei wasn't that stingy, but a new problem arose.

If he ignited a Gold Rush, and these merchants from the city-states repeatedly brought him treasures in a short period, his personnel count and Productivity had reached their limit. He couldn't convert enough output for them to exchange.

However, if Wei Keng refused to accept, these merchants, driven by strong Commodity Demand and their selfish Greed, might smash the equipment from the previous generation's warehouses swallowed by the jungle into scrap and have Wei Keng accept it at scrap prices! Because even if they ruined the equipment, they wouldn't want others to benefit from discovering treasures.

This would bring about a great Catastrophe to the Industrial Heritage from before the Pandora Era.

Once Economic Activity begins, there are sometimes uncontrollable Factors!