Wild North America 1846

Chapter 561 Pier 9

Author: Portuguese toothless

Chapter 561 Pier 9

next day

The sound of pots and pans in the courtyard and the energetic shouts of children kicked off the day, which seemed very lively.

Richard's breakfast consisted of a large bowl of stick noodle porridge, two stick noodle steamed buns weighing half a pound, and a plate of pickles pickled with cabbage stalks. He ate them all.

Feeling the warm feeling of fullness in his stomach, he lit up a Havana cigar, sat on a stool with his legs crossed and sipped tea leisurely, thinking about where he was going to go for a walk today.

The courtyard does not provide meals at noon, because the men who go to work will not come back at noon, and the journey back and forth is too time-consuming.

Whether it's a factory or a dock, there won't be much time left for workers at noon.

So when I go to work in the morning, after having breakfast at home, my wife will prepare a few steamed buns or pancakes, and bring the leftover vegetables from last night, or two pickles and dumplings, and make some for lunch.

Workers who do manual labor cannot do without food in their stomachs.

Only dinner will give you a rich meal. Stir-fry two vegetables, add some peanuts, and drink two cups of wine with the pancakes to eliminate the fatigue of the day.

Ordinary people don't have big things to do in their lives. It would be good if they could improve their health two or three times a week. This is the simplest life.

It’s not that ordinary people can’t afford it, but that the Chinese have always had a tradition of thrift and thrift. The money they save is used to buy a house, educate their children, make clothes, and marry a wife. How can they use it freely?

The consumption in Chang'an, the imperial capital, is relatively high, and ordinary people rarely go out to restaurants. When friends come, the mother-in-law cooks a few dishes and drinks some wine to entertain the guests.

A friend would weigh a pound of braised chicken feet, braised pork liver, braised pork head and other meat dishes on the street, and it would be a happy day with wine and meat.

It was almost 9 o'clock in the morning when Richard went out.

not long after

He came to Pier 9 on the seaside. The Chang'an Bay Area of ​​the imperial capital is also called the San Francisco Bay Area. In a narrow sense, it includes the periphery of Chang'an and along the Pacific coastline. 11 large cargo terminals have been built one after another, with different functions.

Pier 9 is mainly a bulk cargo terminal and is a large seaport terminal. It has a series of unloading berths along the seaside, a wide concrete terminal, a terminal hoisting operation area, a warehouse area, etc. The facilities are quite complete.

The adjacent Pier 10 in the north is a specialized iron ore terminal, mainly used by several large steel companies. It has specialized iron ore conveyor belt lines, stockyards, steam engine grabs and other specialized facilities.

The northernmost Pier 11 is a dedicated terminal for the Royal Navy, which is located in the town of Oak Bay dozens of kilometers north of Chang'an.

The town now has 4 10,000-ton berths, 8 5,000-ton berths, a large naval shipyard, three naval stations, coal-fired terminals, oil depots, several large naval weapons and ammunition depots, as well as naval sanatoriums and

Some training base facilities are the Royal Navy's most important and most complete support bases in the empire.

Back to topic

Pier 9 occupies a coastline of about 1.3 kilometers along the coast. There is a tall bridge crane standing on the pier. This is a port machinery first developed by Changan Heavy Industry. It mainly uses small steam engines as the power for steel rope winches. Later,

There are 8 concrete cement board counterweights at the end, each weighing 260 pounds.

Each time it is lifted, it can lift goods weighing up to 1,600 pounds.

When Richard came here, it was a busy time of the day. Ocean-going ships loading and unloading cargo were full of docks. Thousands of dock workers were busy loading and unloading cargo. Thousands of trucks and heavy-duty carriages were passing by.

Between the dock and the warehouse, an orderly and busy labor scene is presented.

Coastal Terminal is one of the first companies to use heavy-duty trucks on a large scale. The original 1.5-ton heavy-duty trucks here often carry three tons or even more goods. The distance between the terminal and the warehouse can be as long as more than ten kilometers, and as short as 10 kilometers.

Then a few kilometers.

Once this kind of load-carrying truck, which does not require rest, feed or water, and does not know how tired it is, was used, it was favored by wealthy terminal companies and was soon widely promoted.

After many years of application

The performance of diesel trucks has gradually stabilized, and they no longer break down halfway. They are able to adapt to long-term and high-intensity transportation labor, and thus they have gradually become the main force in terminals and ports.

Richard glanced over

There are about five or six hundred heavy-duty trucks within sight. Some heavy trucks are emitting thick black smoke and struggling to load goods into the distance. Some empty trucks are lined up in a long queue, waiting to be loaded. Some vehicles

The car hood is open for maintenance.

During the doping period, there were about three to four hundred heavy-duty carriages with two horses and shafts, which were not as numerous as the heavy-duty trucks.

These four-wheeled heavy-duty carriages can carry five to six thousand pounds of cargo. They were originally the main force of terminal transportation, but now they are obviously in decline.

In the early 19th century, when French Emperor Napoleon led his army to invade Tsarist Russia, he brought with him more than 18,700 heavy and light four-wheeled carriages. Military heavy-duty four-wheeled carriages could carry up to 3,000 pounds and were the main force for transporting the French army's baggage.

The French army's heavy-duty four-wheel carriages mainly drive on dirt roads in the wild, while port transshipments drive on flat cement or asphalt roads, so the amount of cargo they can tow is heavier, but it is also more strenuous.

on the pier

Several waiting coachmen were vigorously helping their companions to push the carts filled with goods.

The coachman in front whipped his whip loudly, driving the two strong horses to slowly pull the heavy carriage, which seemed quite strenuous.

"Hey... man, do you have to push the carriages like this when loading? It's too laborious." Richard walked over and chatted with the drivers.

Several coachmen who had just pushed away a carriage were slapping the dust off their hands and clothes. They turned around and walked back. When they heard Richard's question, a sturdy middle-aged man replied cheerfully; "This gentleman looks like

Even those who have drank foreign ink still don’t know that our jobs are almost being taken away by the big iron bull. How can we not pretend more?"

"It's okay to run away quickly. What do you say?"

"That's different. Haven't you seen such a long queue? It takes at least more than an hour to queue up at a time, and it only takes half an hour to transport it from here to the warehouse. How many less goods will be transported in this day?

"

"That's true, but it's too much for the horse to haul goods like this!"

"I heard from my husband that he understands livestock. We are the best horses in the pasture. Basically, we need to replace a batch every 20 days. It is really hard for the horses to keep pulling such heavy goods. We need to change them properly."

You need to take good care of yourself, otherwise you won’t be able to do heavy work anymore.”

"Then why don't you save up and buy a big iron bull?"

"Hahaha... Sir, you are a well-fed man but a hungry man is hungry. How much does it cost to buy a big iron bull? One of the trucks we transport here is a Changan truck and the other is a Detroit truck. The cheaper Detroit truck also costs 9,000.

Diversified and Changan trucks cost over 10,000 yuan. If you can buy two houses in Changan at this price, who can afford it?"

"What about them?" Richard asked, pointing to the other trucks on the pier.

The trucks on these terminals are not owned by the terminal companies. Most of them are privately owned. They are doing a business of transporting goods here and are paid according to the quantity of goods transported.

The leading coachman flattened his mouth, stood down and said;

"Sir, you don't know that those who really work hard at the dock can't afford a car. Those who can afford a car hire someone to drive it and sit at home to collect the money.

At the dock, you can hire a driver for sixteen or seventeen yuan a month and earn at least twenty or thirty yuan a day. How cost-effective is this?

In Chang'an, our imperial capital, a good strong horse like mine costs between 300 and 400 yuan, and two horses and a carriage cost 1,000 yuan.

If you calculate this, you will know where the difference is?"

(End of chapter)