On the outskirts of Jincheng, Lanzhou, on the Yellow River, a steam pile driver roared, slowly and firmly driving piles to the bottom of the river. Many people were busy on the construction sites on both sides of the river. Several steam cranes sprayed black smoke and kept transporting various building materials.

It's summer morning now, the weather is hot, cloudless, and the sun is scorching. Shao Wangyu and Wen Il standing by the river feel hot even if he has a cool umbrella to shade, so he knows that the construction workers are probably sweating profusely.

However, the project must not be suspended without reason after the start of construction, otherwise the construction period will be missed and the railway opening time will be delayed. The resulting losses will be considerable and the construction team cannot afford it.

Thinking of this, Yuwen Il picked up the design drawing of the Yellow River Bridge and looked carefully.

He took the dispatch as an observation envoy to Longyou to observe the construction of the Qinlan Railway, visited several construction areas along the line, listened to the opinions of relevant personnel, and met local figures to hear what suggestions (complaints) are there for the railway construction.

The Qinlan Railway is more than 500 miles long. It is a railway connecting Qinzhou Shangfeng and Lanzhou Jincheng (distance by Weizhou where the Li family in Longxi is located in the middle of the journey), and is also a railway that runs across the Longyou area, with extraordinary significance.

After a year of line exploration, the railway started construction in late spring this year.

The court had no financial resources to build the Qinlan Railway. If the plan was as planned, the railway would not start surveying at the earliest five years later. However, officials and civilians in Hexi kept petitioning, and the children of the Li family in Longxi were running around and demanding that the railway be built at their own expense without the use of the imperial financial appropriations.

Therefore, the imperial court allowed the establishment of a railway company that was "official supervision and commercial operation" and raised funds on its own to build the Qinlan Railway.

The survey team sent by the imperial court took a year to complete the survey of the line, and the railway company also raised a large amount of funds and contacted many iron and smelting to prepare for the railway construction.

That's why today the early construction of the Qinlan Railway broke ground.

After three years (the estimated construction period) the railway will be completed, and the western section of the Guanzhong Railway will be built to Qinzhou Shangfeng. At that time, trains departing from Chang'an can directly reach Jincheng, Lanzhou, and cargoes between Jixi (Western Regions) and the Central Plains will be transported via this railway.

At that time, cotton, cotton cloth, livestock products and other goods produced in Longyou, Hexi and Xihai areas can be transported to Chang'an at low transportation costs.

The Yellow River Bridge in Jincheng, Lanzhou is an important part of the Qinlan Railway. Once the Lanzhou Yellow River Bridge is completed, it will be the first permanent bridge on the Yellow River. Its significance is also extraordinary and will be famous in history.

Yuwen I felt that being able to witness the construction of this bridge with his own eyes is indeed a memorable thing in life.

Because the water in the Yellow River section of Lanzhou is relatively shallow, the construction of the bridge is relatively difficult. After all, this is the upper reaches of the Yellow River. Unlike the middle and lower reaches, the river is deep and the water is urgent. At present, it is almost impossible to build a cross-river bridge in the middle and lower reaches.

But it's different in Lanzhou.

Everything has its pros and cons. It is precisely because of this that it is basically difficult to navigate the Yellow River section of Lanzhou. In addition to ordinary wooden boats, those steamships that can shuttle through the middle reaches of the river section are struggling in the Lanzhou section where the water level is shallow.

Therefore, the pile driving ship in front of me is specially made and its construction period is relatively short.

When the river water level rises in summer and autumn, steam pile drivers with slightly deeper drafts can move freely on the river surface. In winter, the river surface freezes or the river water is lower in spring, which will affect the operation of the pile driver.

Therefore, the construction of the Lanzhou Yellow River Bridge will be completed in the summer and autumn this year. The first destination of Yuwen International is here.

Yuwen International made sufficient preparations before traveling and read a lot of information, so he had a rough understanding of the Qinlan Railway and knew that the technical content of the Yellow River Bridge was not low.

Especially in winter, once the river water freezes, it will affect the strength of the bridge piers. In spring, ice and snow melt, and a large amount of floating ice will impact the bridge piers with the river water, which will also affect the bridge.

Therefore, the progress of bridge repair must be guaranteed and the quality must be guaranteed.

This requires reliable supervision. Yuwen I asked his attendant to pack the drawings, remove the cool umbrella, take steps, and walk towards the construction site on the shore not far away.

He and the accompanying officials were wearing work clothes, "hard helmets" on their heads, and "labor protection boots" on their feet. They wandered around the construction site, stopped from time to time to watch the workers' work, and then saw the quality of the building materials.

As an observer, Yuwen Yin came to Longyou not to go through the motions. The emperor asked him to go to the construction site more and to see the construction site with his own eyes while ensuring personal safety. The report he wrote should be meaningful and should be listed more numbers instead of using adjectives.

For the young Yuwen, the emperor was more of a father than a cousin (brother). Therefore, the request made by the emperor was not only an order issued by the emperor to his ministers, but also an homework assigned by the father to his son.

His report can be said to be an "internship report".

As a royal vassal king, Yuwen Yi must take important positions when he becomes an adult and serves the court, but he needs to be trained in advance. Whether it is governing the army or the people, it requires accumulation of experience. Therefore, every time he leads a mission to go out for business, it is a training.

But when he was sent out to work in business with the royal family, unlike ordinary officials, he had to complete an additional "internship report" and hand it over to the emperor for review, just like a student handing over homework to the teacher for review.

In this way, we continue to practice internships, accumulate experience, and learn how to manage and employ people. We must also understand the sufferings of the people so that people’s livelihood is not easy.

Then gradually began to stand alone, either leaving the town or becoming an official in the capital.

Yuwen Il's hobby is to study various machinery, especially steam machinery. In fact, he was happy to be a noble royal family and did not want to take on any important positions. He worked hard all day long and had a lot of free time to invent and create.

So I don't want to be a real official.

In his opinion, if you leave the town or lead troops to fight, you will have no time to do research, and you will easily be criticized for losing your ambition or not doing your job properly.

But the emperor believed that the two did not conflict, because the emperor taught him that no matter whether he was an official, led troops or conducted research, learned and had the ability to discover, analyze and solve problems, and no matter what he did, he would achieve twice the result with half the effort.

If you want to do research, then complete your job efficiently. If you cannot even complete your job efficiently, how can you invent and create?

Yu Wenyin thought the emperor's teachings were quite reasonable.

Yuwen Yin's father Yuwen Liang died when he was still very young, and his elder brother Yu Wenming also passed away a few years ago. Therefore, Yuwen Yin studied and played with his cousins ​​in the palace. The emperor named his cousin actually played the role of his father.

The teachings from time to time pointed out the direction of life for Yuwen.

For Yuwen, the emperor is his compass. If you do it according to the emperor's request, it will definitely be right.

Yuwen Yin came to a paved railway, watching the small train running back and forth, busy transporting building materials, and looking at the busy workers like ants, he didn't know what to say for a moment.

Then I took out my notebook and started recording my experience.

Since ancient times, governments have had to recruit people to serve labor and work on construction sites for construction projects. This practice is very cost-effective for the court, but if it is not properly operated, it will delay the farming time.

If officials ignore the lives and death of the people and increase the amount of labor in order to speed up the construction period, it is easy to lead to a large number of casualties among the people who are in labor service, which will lead to the destruction of the people's families.

Therefore, large-scale projects should not be built too frequently, otherwise they will not care about the people's strength and will easily stimulate civil unrest.

However, with the emergence of trains, the court and local governments have a strong demand for building railways. However, it takes two or three years to build a railway, and it is impossible for the government to recruit people to serve labor and build railways for a long time.

In addition, the construction of railways is different from the construction of ordinary dirt roads. Whether it is building bridges or opening mountains, the technical content is very high, and ordinary people and craftsmen cannot participate in core construction at all. Therefore, the court began to adopt a new policy.

Establish a construction company that is "official supervision and commercial office" to specialize in the construction of railways, river embankments, bridges, and large-scale buildings.

This kind of construction company has a "professional" construction team that uses advanced machinery, construction and construction technology to carry out the core construction of various projects. Local people do not need to serve on the construction site for a long time.

These "professional" construction teams can even undertake the construction tasks of the entire project, and do not require the government to recruit people to work on the construction site and will not delay the farming time.

Of course, the people must pay waives for this.

Such a system has been implemented recently and has good results. The construction of Qinlan Railway has introduced this system. It is now considered an internship period. One of the tasks of Yuwen International is to observe how professional the construction team of the construction company is.

This kind of highly technical job is quite difficult for him.

Because he really doesn't understand the new construction techniques very well.
Chapter completed!