The Rise of the European Emperor

As for helping the Netherlands to build roads, the problem of hollow steel drums and wheels will be exposed, and Marin is never worried. Because the material for making hollow steel drums is stainless steel...

After all, it is something to hold water, and there is no qualified waterproof paint these days. Therefore, ordinary steel cannot make steel drums for water. Even if it is made, it is easy to rust and break. After all, ordinary iron is afraid of water, and it is easy to rust when it encounters moisture.

In the absence of qualified waterproof paint, only hollow steel barrels made of stainless steel can withstand wind and rain and rust. After all, this is not an ordinary small iron bucket with thin skin, and it is not even convenient for maintenance.

In order to maintain the gravity and strength of the rolled foundation, the steel drum is cast as a whole, otherwise the strength is not enough. Only the sealing part adopts welding technology and riveting technology. After all, it is impossible to cast a hollow barrel as a whole these days, at best it can only cast metal copper with an opening, which is similar to the principle of casting a cannon.

However, unlike the requirements of casting cannons, this kind of hollow barrel does not require high wall strength. After all, it is only used to hold water and press the road, and does not need to withstand the huge pressure of gunpowder blasting like artillery.

Of course, other countries can also imitate. The way is to use copper with strong corrosion resistance instead of steel to cast a hollow drum, and use it as a roller after filling water...

But the question is, how expensive is copper? Who can be so rich with a roller used as a road roller? Marin, a real local tyrant, dare not do this... After all, the grinding wheel is a durable ordinary tool on the construction site. If it is made of priceless materials... In future generations, you can try the grinding wheel made of gold on the construction site?

As for the tinning of empty barrels, how much tin water is needed to soak such a big iron barrel...

Moreover, tinplate is afraid of damage. Once it is worn, it will rust and break soon. However, when used on a construction site, it is most prone to wear and tear...

Therefore, in terms of road construction, the Beihai Kingdom crushed other countries in terms of engineering equipment alone, making it impossible to compare with it. The appearance of the hollow steel drum roller also brought the road construction efficiency of Beihai to a higher level.

In addition, the American colonies actually needed this kind of hollow steel drum roller more. Because places like Panama and Cuba over there have a tropical rainforest climate, the land is relatively humid and not solid enough. It must be rolled repeatedly with heavy rollers to ensure the firmness and durability of the roadbed. Otherwise, in the rainforest climate, the rainy season lasts for a while longer, and the roadbed will be soaked and soft...

Marin ordered the casting of 100 stainless steel hollow steel barrel rollers in one go, and sent them to Cuba, Panama, Grenada and other tropical regions with relatively humid climates. In the future, a batch will be produced and sent to the newly developed Haiti Island.

These hollow steel drum rollers, combined with materials such as limestone, sand and cement slab bricks, will allow tropical colonies with more rain to have more reliable roads.

Of course, those main roads with great strategic significance still need to be paved with stronger and more durable cement roads. After all, if the cement slab road is frequently used in rainy days, it is easy to cause the cement slab with some gaps to be loosened and deformed, which will affect the use of the road.

Therefore, Marin intends to divide domestic roads into two levels-national roads and ordinary roads. Among them, the national road is a very frequently used main road, which can only be paved with cement to ensure the quality of the road. Ordinary roads, including streets inside cities, can be replaced by cement slab roads. Anyway, if you don't often take the cart on rainy days, the concrete road is not so easy to break.

...

In fact, as a traverser, Marin is well aware of the importance of the road. Especially for colonization, the road is the core foundation of colonial rule. Only places that can be reached by roads can be truly controlled by the colonists. Otherwise, they can only choose local princes to cooperate like the British colonized India. Otherwise, local rule cannot be maintained.

The same is true for Laomei. Laomei has extended its tentacles to the Pacific coast by relying on the Pacific Railway, which was built by a large number of Chinese workers. Prior to this, transportation on the east and west coasts of the old United States required ships to bypass the Strait of Magellan, the southernmost point in South America.

It takes a long circle to reach the coast of California in the west...

With the railway, Lao Mei directly and strongly controlled the western region, and quickly wiped out the several western states seized from Mexico.

Although Beihai has also begun to develop steam engine trains, there is a big problem in building trains-rails require a lot of steel. However, with the steel output of Beihai State, the cost of building a railway... is a bit unimaginable... Moreover, the steel production can't keep up with the demand...

Of course, if you can control the coal mines in the Appalachian Mountains and the iron-rich iron mines in the Great Lakes region, and build a steel center in a place like Pittsburgh that is close to coal mines and where iron ore is easily transported, you will be able to obtain enough steel to make rails. .

But first, you gotta get hold of the coal mines of the Appalachians and the iron-rich mines of the Great Lakes! Therefore, before the railway is built, a road leading to Pittsburgh and the Michigan region of the Great Lakes region must be built first, so that Marin's colonial army can arrive and control there and the area along the road.

At first, Marin planned to lay a concrete road leading directly to the rich iron mines around Pittsburgh and Michigan. However, the construction of cement roads is difficult and takes a long time. God knows when it will take to build such a long concrete road.

You know, the distance from New York to Pittsburgh alone is 600 kilometers, and it takes thousands of kilometers to reach Detroit. God knows how many years it will take to repair cement roads one by one.

But repairing cement slab roads is different. As long as the hollow steel drum rollers, lime, gravel, and cement slabs are transported to the construction area, the paving of the road can be completed at a very fast speed. Moreover, it is quick to put into use.

Although the quality is not as good as the authentic cement road, it is barely enough. After all, the cement slab road at home uses cement as the adhesive between the cement slabs, and it is easy to stabilize the road surface.

At that time, as long as the horse-drawn carriages for dispatching troops and the carriages for transporting baggage can be quickly transported to the destination through the concrete road, the local resistance forces will be quickly resolved.

Moreover, the technical requirements for repairing cement slab roads are also low, and there is no need for professional engineering troops at all. Find a group of masons directly, and train a group of young men with a little bit of talent for building walls. It doesn't take much skill, as long as the square cement slabs can be stacked neatly on the roadbed, and then put some cement on the gaps to glue them together, it's over. As long as the weather is fine, it can be put into use in about a day or two.

As for laying the foundation, that is not difficult. That is to say, while rolling the road surface with a hollow steel drum filled with water, lay lime and gravel layer by layer, then pour some water, and then compact it...

As long as there is a knowledgeable foreman in command, it can be completed without much skill. Just like the construction teams of later generations, there are only a few leaders who are knowledgeable, and the rest are just rough and rough, and they don't need to be literate.

Marin thought for a while, and a black man with absolute strength is quite suitable. After all, road construction is a physical activity. As long as you have a lot of strength and a knowledgeable foreman to direct and supervise, you can't go wrong. Although the blacks are a bit lazy, a generation of black slaves are more honest and obedient, with great strength, and are more suitable for road construction than Indian prisoners of war.

At that time, Marin plans to form a road construction company with a scale of tens of thousands of people, mainly strong and honest blacks, to be responsible for the construction of colonial roads. But wherever the concrete road reaches, it is actually controlled by Beihai National Energy...