Chapter Eighty-four: Liven Up
Cars and horses are galloping, pedestrians are walking hastily. The streetcars that ring out from time to time are still running along fixed routes, but the rickshaw men on the streets have long lost their former "spirit", especially when they encounter blond-haired and blue-eyed foreigners, they hurriedly bow and salute, fearing that the car will not be pulled well.
The once prosperous and bustling Bund, with its Gothic buildings and crowded shops, is now a desolate landscape. The various stores that lined the streets, especially those owned by foreigners, all bear a common sight: destruction. Shattered windows, broken glass, and bricks scattered on the counters are a testament to the anger of the crowd. The goods that were not burned lie scattered on the ground, a reminder of the fury that was unleashed upon this place.
The once eye-catching signboards of the shops along the street have disappeared, and the bustling crowds are no longer customers today. The dilapidated shops have lost their ability to operate. The Chinese-owned shops also did not open for business due to the intense wind or perhaps a lack of goods. A massive Chinese civil rights movement has turned everything into nothingness for these foreigners, but while they may have lost some material possessions, the Chinese people may have lost even more.
A movement ended with the resignation of Xu Shichang, the most powerful president of the Republic of China, which was also the first compromise between the Beiyang government and the people. The refusal to sign by the Chinese delegation at the Paris Peace Conference was reasonable and lawful. The Beiyang government acknowledged this fact and expressed strong dissatisfaction and protest through diplomatic notes to various powers regarding the decision to transfer Shandong interests to Japan... Of course, this was all that the Beiyang government could do. It released the detained students, expressing anger and disagreement with the powers' decision, but there was no other way. However, even so, it temporarily eased national contradictions, suppressing a massive anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movement, transforming it into a meaningful and praiseworthy Chinese nationalist civil rights movement. Of course, some extreme behaviors must also be punished.
The rights movement that came with the wind and left with the rain, apart from leaving a large number of dilapidated foreign shops in major cities, also left behind traces of burnt foreign goods. In other places, no visible traces can be found. The blond-haired and blue-eyed people still dominate the concessions, and foreigners' businesses will surely resume quickly after the repair of their stores is completed. Life will go on as usual, but for those who have experienced a major movement, many things have changed, especially in terms of ideology.
Democracy and science have thoroughly swept away half of China, awakening many ordinary people from their feudal remnants. Those who harbor imperialistic thoughts can now awaken; when the Qing emperors ruled, Chinese were bullied into ceding territory and paying indemnities. Without these emperors, Chinese can pat their chests and say "no" to foreigners.
Those who want to take the road of capitalist republicanism should also wake up. A big country like China is not simple, and if you want to learn from the Western world and walk on the road of a capitalist country, the domestic bourgeoisie should be relatively strong. However, in reality, among Chinese people, there are still more poor masses, and national enterprises have been beaten by the dumping of powerful countries, making it extremely difficult to develop, let alone achieve capitalist republicanism.
Those who want to take the road of proletarian dictatorship have also experienced it, they have experienced the greatness of people's power and the boundless role of unity, but at the same time, they have also experienced how difficult it is to unfold a vigorous democratic movement in China under the intervention of imperialist powers. Of course, many people have also found a bright and bumpy road that is no different from taking the road of proletarian dictatorship, that is, taking the road of people's revolution and joining the Revival Party...
Throughout the years, whenever the Revival Party takes control of an area, it vigorously launches various construction projects, including transportation and water conservancy infrastructure, as well as ideological transformation, land policy implementation, and punishment of evil forces that have harmed the people for a long time. Based on the experience of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces, it generally takes at least five years to complete the groundwork in a newly controlled area. This means that if the Revival Party is given five years to settle in an area, it will inevitably return to the world a region with good development momentum, thriving people's livelihoods, and high living standards. Of course, this steady and down-to-earth construction approach makes the development of the Revival Party's cause seem like a tortoise race, testing not each other's abilities, but their perseverance.
"There is no difficult task in the world, only people with heart", when ancient people all sighed that the heavenly country of Bashu had the beauty of material splendor and spiritual treasures, they also had the feeling of "the difficulty of Shu Road, more difficult than ascending to heaven". Combining these two, we can know where the advantages and disadvantages of Sichuan lie.
Rich in resources and populous, but with poor terrain and inconvenient transportation, the basin-like terrain that has brewed a mild climate for Sichuan while also bringing about travel difficulties. The People's Government of Sichuan must first challenge not the evil tyrants within the borders of the Heavenly Kingdom, nor poverty, ignorance, and backwardness, but rather the "difficult road to Shu". For this reason, railways, highways, and inland waterways, under the leadership of the Communist Party, the people of Sichuan, like those of Yunnan and Guizhou, have launched the most arduous and protracted challenge against inconvenient transportation, especially in Sichuan.
To eliminate the difficulties of Shu Road, to manage the Yangtze River and its tributary Minjiang River, so that cargo ships can reach Yibin and even Leshan. Build highways to connect important towns such as Chengdu, Chongqing, Guang'an, and Duhekou. Build railways, the Sichuan-Guizhou railway from Chengdu, Sichuan via Chongqing to Guiyang, Guizhou, and then through the Guiyang-Liuzhou line can be connected to important areas of the People's Government, a Sichuan-Guizhou line is about to connect Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangdong provinces, providing conditions for Sichuan and especially Guizhou to achieve leapfrog development.
On May 4, 1918, the Chuan-Qian railway was fully operational. After more than three years of construction, on March 5, 1921, the railway successfully connected with the Liuzhou-Guiyang line built by China Railway Third Group, marking the completion of the entire Chuan-Qian line. As a result, countless industrial equipment produced in Liuzhou no longer needed to be transported to Sichuan by numerous cars. The opening of the railway also brought hope for the development of several northwestern provinces.
China Railway First Construction Group obtained the Sichuan section of the Chuanqian railway, which did not have too much construction difficulty. However, the Baocheng line was slightly more difficult due to the presence of Qinling Mountains. Nevertheless, compared to their competitors who were building a super important railway trunk line in the Great Northwest, with Baoji as the hub, extending left to Kashgar in Xinjiang and right to Xi'an in Shaanxi, spanning nearly 4,000 kilometers, was a project of extraordinary significance. At that time, when the second and third groups were taking root in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, overcoming one mountain after another of harsh terrain, striving to extend the railway to Kunming, the Third Group had already established a significant lead on the Baocheng line.
Through arduous highway transportation, the first group made great efforts to change the original plan of building the Baocheng Line from one-way to two-way construction converging in the middle. The project from Chengdu via Deyang, Suining, Jianmen Pass to Guangyuan was completed quickly. On this grand day of March 5th, although they did not attend the parallel line ceremony in Guiyang, they celebrated with the sound of non-stop excavation work at the new Huilongchang Tunnel, which is expected to be 4245 meters long, making the sky-rending and earth-shaking sound of "Heavenly Moat Turning into a Flat Road" and "Shu Road No Longer Difficult".
According to the plan, they will complete the construction of Baocheng Railway by around June 2022 at the earliest. This railway has only over 300 tunnels and more than 1,000 bridges. If it weren't for the complex terrain caused by Qinling Mountains, Bashan Mountains and Jianmen Mountains due to the large height difference, China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group Co., Ltd. could have completed the construction task at a faster speed, because this railway is not the double-track line required by the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway.
If it's really going to be a double line, I estimate they don't have the confidence to compete for the top spot in the future super railway project. Of course, ideals are beautiful, but reality is cruel. The Baoji-Chengdu Railway needs to pierce through hundreds of large mountains and fill in hundreds of deep valleys, with nearly 60 million cubic meters of earthwork to be filled. If it's really going to be calculated at a height and width of one meter, then the earthwork can circle the Earth's equator more than once. Therefore, China Railway First Group has no choice but to grit its teeth and work hard, completing the Baoji-Chengdu Railway as soon as possible, which will bring endless benefits to itself, the people, and especially the government.
To make Shu Road no longer difficult, and even the future transportation of the whole China is not in hardship, just repairing highways and laying railways is not enough. Without suitable means of transportation, a dense network of roads can only be abandoned, and the painstakingly built railway can only be leisurely, because when the road and rail are extended to the terrain with little ups and downs outside Guangxi Province, all means of transportation will face unprecedented challenges.
Cars have to go up and down hills, through the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Sichuan Basin, Loess Plateau, Gobi Desert, etc. The application range of cars in autonomous regions is wider, but the high level of automotive manufacturing ensures that cars can still function normally in a wider area of use. Otherwise, military and government personnel stationed in Xinjiang would have to thoroughly adapt to local customs. With a large automobile transport capacity, their work and life can proceed according to plan and habit. Military operations will not be hesitant due to logistical considerations. There will be enough ammunition for the battles that need to be fought. A single 12-ton heavy truck carrying a load of ammunition is enough to wipe out many separatists and nationalist dissidents.
Of course, highway construction is much simpler than railway construction. The highways that cover the entire autonomous region were completed long ago, and many of them have been renovated to change the traditional gravel roads into asphalt roads. Before the railways were completed, cars played a major role in the overall development of the autonomous region, but at the high cost of transportation, people still cannot forget the importance of trains. It was precisely because of the huge expenditure on automobile transportation that there was an unstoppable effort to build railway construction projects, but the trains running on the railways are still steam locomotives, which are clearly outdated and cannot meet the requirements.
The steam locomotive, as the first hero of human entry into the railway transportation era, changed the world's main traffic mode with its appearance, making large traction and high speed possible. In the competition with horse-drawn carriages, it was in a leading position, and later played an extremely important role in transporting goods and passengers, driving industrial development while promoting economic exchange and regional expansion, also contributing to the economic development of areas along the railway line.
As human industry developed, new industrial technologies gave birth to new means of transportation. Cars began to emerge in land transport, but although cars were flexible in use, they were limited by their limited power and were not as cheap as trains. However, steam trains themselves also had many problems. During the journey, it was necessary to set up replenishment points for adding water and coal; otherwise, relying on their own reserves, steam trains could not achieve long-distance transportation with super-large capacity.
In the face of a more complex railway operating environment, the limited power of traditional steam locomotives is fundamentally unable to fulfill better functions. For example, after the completion of the Baocheng Railway and Kunnan Railway, etc., in order to cross the Qinling Mountains and climb from the low-lying Guangxi to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau with an elevation of over 2,000 meters, old-fashioned steam trains are definitely unable to meet the use requirements. Therefore, the autonomous region has no choice but to develop the best steam locomotives, research and develop internal combustion engines or electric locomotives, and realize railway electrification. Although the conditions for this are still lacking, it is still possible to develop internal combustion engines that are better than steam locomotives. However, before this, the autonomous region's industry follows its own habits, which is to "not abandon or give up" old comrades-in-arms. Steam trains are not entirely useless, and after improvement, they can certainly play a greater role.
The most important thing about a train is the source of its traction, that is, what type of locomotive it uses. The steam engine is the key to a steam train, just like the engine in a car. Therefore, for the steam trains widely used around the world and in autonomous regions, the most important thing is the locomotive.
This is a type of locomotive that uses a steam engine to convert the thermal energy of coal into mechanical energy, allowing the train to run. It mainly consists of four parts: boiler, steam engine, frame and running gear, and tender. As humans apply it more widely, there are now complete series of locomotives in the world, which is probably not what British inventor Stephenson thought when he invented the steam locomotive in 1814. Classified by working nature, there are already three types: passenger locomotives, freight locomotives, and shunting locomotives.
If classified in a more professional way, i.e. by axle arrangement, the number of driving axles, driven axles and trailing axles of a locomotive are represented by three Arabic numerals in sequence, which is also a special classification method within the autonomous region. Simply put, passenger locomotives generally use the later Victory type, passenger locomotives require high-speed operation and stable running through curves, so this type of locomotive has a larger driving wheel diameter and has a two-axle pilot truck at the front of the drive wheels, with an axle arrangement of 2-3-1.
Freight locomotives are specialized locomotives used to haul freight trains. This type of locomotive, which uses a forward-facing articulated design, is designed to pull heavier trains at ordinary speeds. As such, it has more driving wheels and smaller diameters than passenger locomotives, but larger cylinder diameters, giving it good traction and adhesive weight. They are all equipped with single-axle bogies for easy passage through curves.
Shunting locomotives, in order to facilitate passing through turnouts and smaller radius curves, and also need to have sufficient traction force, this type of locomotive is designed to be relatively short, with a smaller driving wheel diameter. Of course, most of the time no one deliberately manufactures such a traction locomotive, using freight locomotives can also serve as shunting locomotives, so there are not many countries in the world that produce professional shunting locomotives, and the same is true within the autonomous region, idle freight locomotives in the station can be used for shunting.
July 3, 1876, China's first narrow-gauge railway - the Songhu Railway was completed and opened to traffic. The British-made steam locomotive named "Pioneer" had a top speed of 32 kilometers per hour and was the first foreign-made steam locomotive in China.
November 8, 1881, China built its first self-built railway - the Tangshan-Xiguanzhuang Railway. While building the roadbed for the "Tangshan-Xiguanzhuang Railway", there were several drawings by British chief engineer Jintai, and Chinese people used old materials such as mine hoist boilers and well frame iron to successfully trial-produce a steam locomotive with only three driving wheels, no guide wheels or trailing wheels. Named "Chinese Rocket" and "Dragon" by British experts, it was China's first domestically-made steam locomotive.
The development of China's railways has reached the point where the main lines along the coast are operated by locomotives from various countries, including England, America, Germany, France and others. However, in the autonomous region, two types of locomotives designed and manufactured locally are used for passenger and freight transport. Although it is inevitable that steam locomotives will be replaced by internal combustion, electric or high-speed trains due to advances in science and technology, the two locomotives from Liuzhou Locomotive Company in the autonomous region are also worthy of recognition and appreciation.
Liuzhou Locomotive Factory designed and manufactured freight locomotives, it is the first and best self-designed in modern China after Zhang Yu plagiarized, of course, it is also the most advanced professional mainline freight steam locomotive in the world. Its "Forward Type" name was not changed by Zhang Yu. The Forward Type steam locomotive had already reached the advanced level of steam locomotives in various technical indicators on its birth day.
The locomotive is 26,063 mm long, with a construction speed of 80 km/h, traction force of 324 kN and axle arrangement of 1-5-1. In order to adapt to the more stringent railway operating lines, Liuzhou Locomotive Company plans to increase its power, and the growth of the locomotive will become inevitable.
This locomotive adopted many new technologies, structures and materials that are unimaginable in the world today, such as all-electric welding boilers, cast steel cylinders, closed driver's cabs, mixed feedwater preheating devices, etc. It has the reputation of being the first in the world in another time and space, and it is also a king in this time and space. Its large wheel power, good traction performance, coal and water saving, good working conditions for drivers and other advantages are unmatched by locomotives from other countries. With its excellent performance, it has played a huge role in the rapid development of the autonomous region.
Like the advanced locomotives used for freight, the autonomous region's passenger locomotive is also an excellent passenger locomotive from another time and space. The Victory-type locomotive was manufactured to meet the needs of long-distance direct passenger trains. In another time and space, this type of locomotive pulled the Asia Express train, which was designed for high-speed operation and long-distance non-stop running. Therefore, it adopted a streamlined design, Schmidt E-type preheating device, automatic coal feeder, etc. This type of locomotive is also the greatest contributor to the entire steam passenger train, and of course, it is also the best traction locomotive in steam passenger trains.
However, whether it is a powerful and advanced steam locomotive or a stable and reliable one, they cannot escape the fate of being a steam locomotive, nor can they get rid of their dependence on water and coal. It is precisely because the operation requires a large amount of coal and cooling water as a guarantee that the scope of application of steam trains is greatly limited. Imagine if the railway crossing the desert were completed, could we continue to use steam locomotives that require a lot of water and coal? Obviously, due to its inherent shortcomings and limitations, steam trains will eventually fade out of history. Liuzhou Locomotive Company has done its best to continuously improve the two types of locomotives, hoping to increase their power and improve operating conditions, but it has also shifted its attention to more promising internal combustion engines and electric locomotives.
Internal combustion locomotives are also referred to as diesel locomotives, gas turbine locomotives have lower efficiency than diesel locomotives and also have the disadvantages of high-temperature resistant materials being expensive and noisy. No one is willing to put their attention on such a noise-making machine, so most of the time internal combustion locomotives refer to diesel locomotives.
Very early on, countries began to explore the development of diesel locomotives, but the main restrictions on the development and application of diesel locomotives were that the performance of diesel engines was not stable enough, and AC-DC power transmission could not be stably implemented. It wasn't until high-power silicon rectifiers appeared that it became possible for diesel locomotives to emerge. Diesel locomotives have a significant advantage over steam locomotives in terms of reliability, stability, and economy, especially as traction vehicles for trains traveling through arid regions in the future. Unlike steam locomotives, which require both coal and water, diesel locomotives or internal combustion engine vehicles will demonstrate better performance.
So, from the perspective of power ratio, it is difficult to distinguish between steam locomotives and internal combustion locomotives. Taking the Qianjin-type locomotive manufactured by Liuzhou Locomotive Company as an example, its traction force can reach 324 kN, which is not much different from that of internal combustion locomotives undergoing various experimental verifications. According to theoretical calculations, a locomotive with a traction force of over 30 tons can provide around 30 tons of traction force when starting on level ground, which means it can theoretically start more than 100 empty cars.
Of course, a steam locomotive pulling more than 100 empty cars on standard tracks is of no value at all, as this is clearly unrealistic. Taking into account the coal and water needed for the locomotive to run, as well as the weight of the cargo in the freight cars and the condition of the railway line, the practical value of a steam train is still considerable. In other words, under certain conditions, steam locomotives will not be eliminated by history and will continue to survive in autonomous regions and even around the world for many years. Given the current state of railways and station conditions, passenger trains can pull over 10 cars and freight trains can pull around 20 standard freight cars, which is the maximum suitable range for steam locomotive applications in China. However, this is already quite suitable for use in autonomous regions at present. With more perfect and convenient transportation, the development of the entire western region will become even more vibrant.
