After seeing Liu Dacheng off, Fang Er called Zhao Gang over and asked him to arrange for people to make sleepers.
He had helped Fang Er make them when he was at Fang Family Village, so there was no problem.
With the steel rails and sleepers sorted, Liu Dacheng would take care of the land and personnel.
In the following days, Fang Er entered book-copying mode.
Railway routes!
The surveying of the routes was definitely a huge undertaking and allowed no room for error.
Fortunately, he had exchanged for books multiple times and found what he needed in them, both for the entire country and for individual provinces.
In this mode of hard work, he hardly noticed the days passing by.
He worked on the maps during the day, and at night...
He slept!
It wasn't until the assessment of the "Skyfire Reserve Team" concluded and the five division commanders, including Zhuzi, came to report the situation that Fang Er finally emerged from his room.
Looking at the thirteen reserve teams in the courtyard and Zhuzi and the others, Fang Er walked out with dark circles under his eyes, oblivious to them.
"Tell me about the situation."
"Reporting to Lord Duke, forty-seven people were captured. The others remained hidden until the time ran out."
Zhuzi looked dejected.
"Five thousand people surrounding a mountain to search for two hundred and sixty people, and only forty-seven were caught. This is too damn embarrassing!"
Fang Er was secretly delighted. He had initially thought that if a hundred people remained, it would be good enough. The results seemed to be far beyond his expectations.
However, he showed no outward emotion. After telling Zhuzi and the others to return to their camps, he looked at the remaining 213 people.
"Congratulations on passing the second test. Don't celebrate too early; the third test has already been prepared for you!"
After speaking, he turned and went back into his room, taking out the railway route map of Liaoning Province, the section from Shenyang to Shanhaiguan.
He divided this section of the railway into twenty-one parts with a pen, then made twenty-one copies. He put the original back and came out with the copies.
"Here are twenty-one identical maps, each divided into twenty-one sections. From now on, you will be divided into twenty-one teams. Form teams freely, and then come to me to receive your maps. What you need to do is to follow the route on the map with your own feet and walk it! Everything on this route – mountains, rivers, forests, villages, farmland – you need to record it all and compile it into a booklet! This is your third assessment. The assessment will begin in three days. Starting tomorrow, I will teach you how to read maps and calculate scales. Today is for rest. Now, form teams, receive maps, and dismiss!"
The 213 people began to form their teams, and after receiving their maps, they left with worried expressions.
The content of the third assessment for the Torch Reserve Team had not been decided before, so he might as well use this as the test. Soldiers who cannot read or draw maps are definitely not qualified special forces soldiers.
Of course, Fang Er didn't solely rely on them. He went back into his room, made another copy of the original, and sent it to Liu Dacheng.
The next day, Fang Er began his lectures.
Those participating in the training, in addition to the 213 reserve special forces soldiers, also included officials from the governor's mansion sent by Liu Dacheng and thirty clerks. These officials were equivalent to officials in the Six Ministries of the imperial court, each responsible for a specific role, managing various affairs in Liaodong.
In two days of intensive training, what Fang Er taught was simple.
On the first morning, the courtyard echoed with recitation: "One times one is one, one times two is two." This was the multiplication table.
In the afternoon, it changed to "Up is north, down is south, left is west, right is east." This was common knowledge for reading maps.
On the third day, the subject changed again: how to use a ruler and how to convert scales on a map.
After two days of learning, each team was given a multiplication table sheet to prevent them from forgetting or making calculation errors. Even in later eras, calculators were allowed in college entrance exams, so giving them a chart was not excessive.
The following period was spent waiting for their field survey results. Then, whether facing mountains or rivers, nothing would be able to stop the Great Tang's railways.
Two days later, Tan Zong sent someone to report that the first batch of raw materials shipped from Qingzhou had arrived at the aluminum workshop.
Fang Er selected a group of skilled ironworkers from the iron mine, brought the newly made ore crushers and electrolytic cells to the aluminum workshop.
As soon as he entered the aluminum workshop, he heard a cheer from inside.
"It's done! Boss, 380 is a full house!"
"Exactly, not too much, not too little!"
"Hahaha, we can report this good news to Lord Duke!"
As the door opened, the cheers inside stopped abruptly. Hu Lian looked at Fang Er, who had appeared before him, and was stunned for a moment, then excitedly said, "Lord Duke, you've come at the perfect time. The voltage has reached your requirements!"
Fang Er leaned over to look at the multimeter still connected to the switch in Hu Lian's hand. Indeed, it was 380.
Looking at the crusher that had come with him, he smiled and waved his hand.
"Hahaha, good! Well done! This is a merit. When your monthly salary is paid next time, I'll add a reward of five strings of coins to yours! And one string for everyone else!"
"Thank you for the reward, Lord Duke!" Hu Lian and his fifty electricians saluted respectfully.
"Alright, it's perfect. We need electricity for this trip. Connect this; we'll need it later," Fang Er said, pointing at the crusher.
"Hehehe, Lord Duke, just watch," Hu Lian said excitedly. Seeing that the newly installed electricity was immediately put to use, he led his subordinates to unload the crusher from the tractor.
Power was connected, and the test run was normal.
By the Taihe River outside, sand was collected and washed with river water to remove the soil. This was washed sand, also known as silica sand.
Sodium carbonate, washed sand, and fluorite were added to the crusher in proportion and ground into powder. During this process, they were also mixed together.
This mixture of composite powder was then fed into a calcination furnace. Coke was added to the furnace, and after ignition, Fang Er began to explain the process of electrolytic aluminum to the ironworkers and the precautions to be taken.
As the furnace fire burned, the powder inside slowly solidified. Two ironworkers stood on a rack next to the furnace, constantly monitoring the changes in the furnace through the opening at the top.
The solidified powder slowly turned into a red liquid, starting to melt.
"Lord Duke, it's melting!" The ironworker on the rack shouted to Fang Er upon seeing the change.
"Stop adding coke!" Fang Er ordered. The other ironworker at the furnace opening stopped adding coke to the furnace bottom. Then he instructed the ironworker on the rack to use a large steel shovel to stir the raw materials in the furnace to ensure complete reaction.
The entire process lasted for more than half an hour. The fluorite, sodium carbonate, and silica sand in the furnace reacted through calcination, producing a new product: crude sodium fluoride. The crude sodium fluoride still contained a large amount of water-insoluble impurities. These impurities were not useless; they were collected and set aside for future utilization. Sodium fluoride itself, however, was soluble in water.
The crude sodium fluoride was dissolved in water to obtain a sodium fluoride solution. This process was also called washing. Then it was reacted with aluminum sulfate. After the reaction, sodium hexafluoroaluminate, also known as cryolite, was produced.