Chapter Seventeen: The Pit and the Explosives

  In 1915, outside the mouth of Shi Zi beach, a large yard surrounded by simple asbestos tiles, dozens of tons of cement were piled up in the yard, as well as ten tons of industrial ammonium nitrate and more than a hundred barrels of diesel oil.

  This is a simple "warehouse" set up by Sima in this space-time to store building materials, or more accurately, it should be called a material stacking point.

  "Hmm, hmm, hmm......"

  A shrill, ear-piercing sound unique to a single-cylinder diesel engine came from afar. Watching over the supplies, Old Wang squinted his half-blind eyes and looked outward, knowing just by the sound that it was Young Master Sima who had arrived again.

  Lao Wang was a lonely old man living in the village, making a living by herding sheep. A few days ago, Gao Lao Ban, the owner of the Gao family's pawnshop in town, came to offer him a deal: a monthly package including food and lodging, plus four silver dollars, so Lao Wang moved his family here.

  For several days, almost every day, there were a few hours when Master Sima drove over in that big car with the somewhat frightening sound, pulling along foreign ash and machinery. After several days, more and more things piled up here.

  Luckily, unloading the truck only required one flip of the cargo, and after finishing, Old Wang used those large tiles as tall as a person to cover the goods. With these four large pieces of luggage, it was easy to get them. It's just that being alone here is a bit too lonely.

  "Master, you've arrived."

  Lao Wang had already moved the long tile that was blocking the road to one side early on, and stood outside watching as Sima slowly drove the car into the yard. As soon as Sima stopped the car, he ran over and said...

  "Here! This is the wine I brought for you. A person has nothing to do here and just drinks a couple of mouthfuls."

  Simma took out a bottle of white wine with the label torn off from his bag, this old Wang liked this kind of thing. He was alone here looking at these things and had no one to talk to. Every time Simma came, he brought a bottle of wine and then wrapped some peanuts in paper to bring over to him.

  "Hehe! Thank you, young master."

  Although a man and a dog in this place watching these things, indeed some anxious. But old Wang has never felt as comfortable as he does now.

  Every time this young master Sima comes, he never forgets to bring some wine and dishes for himself. Who is this young master Sima? Even someone like Old Master Gao has to rely on him for food, yet he treats me with kindness.

  In Old Wang's heart, unless he did his best to help Master Sima take care of things, there was nothing else that could be done to repay him.

  "Master! This time you've brought so many people. Are those reinforcements from Guanli arriving soon?"

  To be honest, Old Wang felt a bit uncomfortable with Master Sima doing such rough work, but Master Sima didn't think much of it and looked at the things on the cart. As someone from a farming family, Old Wang was very familiar with iron hoes and hoe handles, only these seemed to be more exquisite than those sold in the market.

  "Hmm! I reckon it's just a matter of these two days."

  Simmer down, it's about time for the workers recruited from Guannei to arrive.

  When the time comes, the resettlement of these workers will become a problem. Even now, it's a problem to find a place for thousands of people to live. Fortunately, it's not winter yet, and sleeping outdoors in the summer doesn't seem like a big deal.

  "Master, let me take a look at this iron shovel and try it out first."

  Old Wang took an iron shovel blade and a shovel handle, asked once, seeing Sima had no objection, he took the vegetable knife and slightly modified it, and pressed the iron shovel in place.

  These days, although I sleep under the big tile-roofed Anzi, that kind of place always feels uncomfortable no matter how I sleep. The young master has brought over iron shovels and the like, just right for digging a hole to live in first.

  "Old Wang, what are you digging?!"

  Watching Old Wang digging a hole on the gravel ground with great effort, Sima felt somewhat strange, as if he hadn't asked him to do this job! What is this old man doing?!

  "Nothing much! I'm digging a hole here, and that pile of stuff over there smells really bad."

  Knowing that Master Sima is an easy-going person, Old Wang spoke the truth.

  "What's a 'land wok'?" Sima was baffled by this term he had never heard before.

  "The young master is from the south, and has never seen this kind of place. When I was young, I lived in this cave dwelling for over a decade while reclaiming land for others in the Hetao region. There were hardly any people who begged for food outside without having lived in this cave dwelling, including the old master Kong's father back then."

  Old Wang dug a dozen or so shovels and then stopped to catch his breath.

  "This gravelly ground is really hard to dig with a spade. If it were on yellow earth, you could at least dig one chi deep."

  "Come on, Old Wang, tell me about this cave."

  Simma took an interest in this earth cellar, although it's summer now. However, it's definitely not suitable for those people to sleep outdoors all the time. If they dig a bit and live in this earth cellar, that's not bad either. At least it can be used as a temporary solution.

  "What's the big deal about this earth house? It's just digging a hole that's one or two zhang deep, three or four zhang long, and one or two zhang wide. Then build an earthen wall around it that's as high as your knee. Next, put up some beams, prop them up with branches, cover them with a layer of wheat straw, and then add another layer of earth on top. That's basically a room. The bed is just the earthen platform inside, covered with a thick layer of wheat straw, which can comfortably sleep three or four people. It's warm in the winter too. If the young master agrees, could we get some large tiles instead? Using those would be more convenient than using branches and wheat straw."

  Old Wang told what he knew about the earth house and also asked for a few large tiles, which would be perfect for covering the earth house.

  "Is it really that easy to dig this hole?"

  Simar couldn't help but admire the people who had been living in this remote area for decades, and yet they had come up with such a clever invention - this kind of earth-sheltered house. It's likely that one person could build a room for themselves in just one day, even if there was no other place to live.

  It seems that the workers recruited from Guan Nei don't need to rush into work, let them settle down first. It's estimated that a cave dwelling would require about 500 asbestos tiles, which can accommodate four people. So, with just over a thousand asbestos tiles, they can be settled.

  "Ah! That's right! Young master, look at my memory. Yesterday afternoon, Old Gao asked the apprentice to carry two boxes of things with a mule, saying that you had asked him to buy something - Lei - tube - something. I put them in those white bags."

  Old Wang got up yesterday and told his colleagues what the old boss had entrusted them with.

  "Mine!" As soon as Old Wang said that, Sima almost got scared to death. That white bag, Old Wang didn't know what it was, but Sima knew exactly what it was.

  That white bag is industrial ammonium nitrate, and this old Wang actually put the detonator with it. If it were to explode, that would be ten tons of industrial ammonium nitrate!

  "Old Wang, come and help me move these two boxes over there, put them on the other side of the cement pile." Looking at the large wooden box, Sima knew it wouldn't be easy to move, so he called out to Old Wang to help him move the box to the side where they piled up water for mixing cement. That place was at least a dozen meters away from those ammonium nitrate things. At least the possibility of an accident was much smaller than before.

  With the crowbar, Sima opened the wooden crate. Inside, several rows of palm-sized white tin boxes were neatly stacked. Sima took out a tin box, which weighed about one kilogram. He opened the lid and found that inside the box was like a honeycomb, with dozens of detonators inserted into the "honeycomb eyes", all pointing downwards.

  "Is this a lightning rod?"

  Playing with the yellow brass, shiny - Lei - tube, Sima carefully measured it, like a bullet shell, one end was plugged in and the other end was hollow with an open mouth. He looked at the picture on the wooden box cover,

  Although the above-mentioned foreigner couldn't recognize a few words, looking at the picture above, Sima knew that this hollow head was the position of the fuse.

  Just moved the box and felt that the two boxes were not equally heavy. It seems that the wooden box contained the fuse, Sima put the detonator back in the metal box, opened another wooden box, and found that it was divided into ten empty grids, with cylindrical objects wrapped in oiled paper inside the grid, took one out and tore open the oil paper, and indeed it was a brownish-black fuse with a diameter of about 4 mm.

  Among various nitroamine explosives, ammonium oil explosive is the easiest to obtain, with simple raw materials and manufacturing processes that are almost non-existent.

  Ammonium oil explosive is a simple mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. Because the raw materials for ammonium oil explosives are rich in sources, low in cost, easy to manufacture, safe to operate, and convenient to use, they are the main industrial explosives, widely used in mining, quarrying and salt production to replace low TNT explosives, and even ammonium nitrate and fuel oil are simultaneously loaded into drilling machines for use.

  Its main disadvantages are that it is easy to absorb moisture and be purified by water, sensitive to fire, prone to static electricity, low packing density, and small explosive force. Adding surfactants to ammonium oil explosives has a better effect.

  Ammonium nitrate used as agricultural fertilizer, appearance is small grain size of round dense particles, generally white, some light yellow, explosive performance is poor.

  Its surface is attached with a layer of water-repellent substance - anti-wetting agent, composed of mineral oil, phosphogypsum powder, and kaolin. The existence of this water-repellent substance makes it impossible for ammonium nitrate particles to absorb diesel oil. If simply mixing ammonium nitrate with diesel oil, there is no explosive performance at all. After removing the fat from ammonium nitrate by heating method, it condenses into a block and cannot be ground into powder.

  According to the information Sima found online, just adding a certain proportion of sawdust can solve this problem by absorbing it. In an iron bucket, Sima quickly mixed some ammonium nitrate explosives according to the data and then loaded the explosives into paper tubes that had been prepared in advance.

  Take a fuse of about one meter long. Hold the detonator, fuse and pipe-shaped explosive and walk to a slope several hundred meters away from the warehouse. Insert one end of the fuse into the detonator and secure it with pliers;

  Then insert the other end of the detonator into the pipe-shaped explosive, and a little diesel oil has already penetrated several layers of newspaper used to make paper tubes. As for whether it can be blown up or not, Sima's heart is not at the bottom.

  As an outsider, Sima just ignored the most important thing - the detonator is an explosive device. Large vibrations and squeezes can cause explosions. Explosives and detonators absolutely cannot be placed together.

  What scene is most shocking?

  When a loud noise, accompanied by a thick smoke, reached Sima's ears tens of meters away, Sima knew that the most shocking scene was an explosion. At the bottom of the slope, he lit the fuse and ran up the slope without his life. He ran out hundreds of meters later.

  Just as he lay on the ground, quietly waiting for that loud noise, after about half a minute, just when he was about to lose his patience, a deafening sound came from the bottom of the slope. The shock made Sima's ears still ringing "buzzing" for several minutes later.

  Chapter 17: The Pit and the Explosives

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