The two soldiers in the vehicle were demonstrated and explained by Fang Er for half an hour before he handed over the excavator to them.
Let them figure it out themselves.
There were still five more vehicles behind.
Using the same method, all the remaining soldiers were taught.
Two days later, the six behemoths started working clumsily.
The silt in the tidal flats was only about a foot deep in shallow areas and about a meter deep in slightly deeper areas.
The deepest part exceeded two meters.
These presented no difficulty to modern construction machinery.
Coupled with more than two thousand young and strong men not being idle,
The progress of clearing the tidal mud could be described as changing day by day.
Fang Er patiently waited here.
After a full half month, the isolated tidal flats were cleared.
He paid the wages of the young and strong civilians and sent them home. The remaining work was enough for the more than one thousand soldiers of the Third Regiment.
The holes previously made with the Luoyang shovel had been lost during the clearing of the tidal mud.
They could only use the Luoyang shovel again to search for suitable locations.
Cylindrical soil samples were brought up from underground by the Luoyang shovel.
This time, the search was not as smooth. When the third section was ejected, meaning a depth of fifteen meters, they encountered a rock layer.
After several attempts, feeling the hardness of the rock layer below, Zhang San's hand holding the Luoyang shovel went numb.
"My Lord, there's rock below."
Helpless, he could only report to Fang Er.
"Rock?"
The first time they directly found oil. Could it be that they had just passed through a rock crevice?
This was Fang Er's guess, and it was the most probable explanation.
"Use iron shovels to scrape off a layer of the ground. Be careful and see if you can find any trace of the previous hole."
The previous hole was not found because after the Luoyang shovel dug and withdrew, the loose tidal mud refilled the hole immediately.
Furthermore, the excavators moving back and forth on top had destroyed the traces.
Perhaps, scraping off a layer might reveal the trace of the first hole.
After all, the color of the tidal mud and the soil layer at this depth were different.
Dozens of soldiers, holding iron shovels, selected a range and began to scrape off the surface soil layer by layer, distinguishing the colors.
After one morning, a soldier suddenly shouted excitedly.
"Found it!"
Fang Er quickly went to look.
Indeed, in the middle of the black soil layer, there was a gray circle embedded.
The size of the circle was almost the same as the diameter of the Luoyang shovel's head.
"Zhang San, dig from here again!"
"Yes, my Lord!"
Zhang San carried the five-meter-long Luoyang shovel and walked over.
He aimed the shovel head at the circle and inserted it forcefully.
One section, two sections, three sections, it was very smooth, with no resistance at all!
This proved that this was the hole they had opened the first time.
When the fourth section was ejected, Zhang San felt the Luoyang shovel in his hand suddenly lighten, and it had gone through!
He quickly pressed the switch on the shovel and retracted it section by section.
The moment he completely pulled out the shovel,
Pfft~~
A powerful airflow sprayed out from the hole, even producing a whistling sound due to friction with the hole walls.
"How much pressure must be down there?"
"Retreat! Retreat quickly!"
Fang Er quickly signaled the soldiers working to step back.
Even after retreating a hundred meters, they could still smell the pungent and strong oil and gas.
"Retreat further!"
More than a thousand people retreated again.
The excavators and bulldozers parked outside were also driven far away.
With such dense oil and gas, standing at the mouth of the hole, one would likely be poisoned to death in less than five minutes.
Oil fields like this are usually formed in sealed spaces underground, where oil and natural gas coexist.
Crustal movements compress the sealed space, increasing the internal pressure, but maintaining a state of pressure equilibrium.
Once there is a breakthrough and this balance is broken, the underground oil and natural gas will erupt.
Fang Er beckoned to Zhang San.
"My Lord."
Zhang San quickly ran over.
"Give me the Luoyang shovel."
"Yes!"
Taking the Luoyang shovel, Fang Er examined it.
As he remembered, the handle was hollow inside.
If he reinserted the Luoyang shovel, with its end reaching below the oil surface, the pressure in the space below might lift the oil up.
In this way, the natural gas that erupted would become the helper in lifting the oil.
The Luoyang shovel had eight sections, each five meters long, so when all were extended, it would be forty meters long.
The handle section was the thickest, so there was no need to worry about it falling in.
He acted as soon as he thought of it, handing the shovel back to Zhang San.
"Go back and insert the shovel into the hole, extend all eight sections. Remember, the oil and gas are toxic. Hold your breath, and if you can't hold it any longer, retreat quickly."
"Yes, my Lord!"
Zhang San took the shovel, took several deep breaths, and then ran towards the hole.
"Don't run! If you run too fast, you won't last until the end!"
Fang Er quickly reminded him.
Without breathing, the more strenuous the exercise, the less time one could last.
Hearing this, Zhang San quickly slowed down, maintaining a steady pace, and approached step by step.
Upon reaching the side of the hole, he inserted the Luoyang shovel.
His right hand repeatedly pressed the retraction switch.
Scrape, scrape, scrape~~
The sound of metal friction came continuously from the Luoyang shovel.
With a crisp click, it indicated that all eight sections had been extended.
At that moment, a stream of black oil gushed out from the handle.
Not only that, after leaving the handle, it sprayed up nearly two meters high before falling back down.
Zhang San paid no attention to this; he was already feeling dizzy.
He let go of the Luoyang shovel and ran towards the outside with great strides.
The distance of a hundred meters felt exceptionally far at this moment.
After all, they had not undergone professional breath-holding training.
Seeing this, Fang Er quickly shouted to the soldiers beside him, "Quick, go and help him back!"
Before he finished speaking, several soldiers rushed out from the crowd, holding their breath, and ran towards Zhang San.
Zhang San, who was helped back, greedily breathed in the fresh air and smiled as he looked at the oil gushing out from the Luoyang shovel handle in the distance.
"Hahahaha, my Lord, it's done!"
"It's done! You've earned a merit!"
Fang Er also happily walked up to him and patted his shoulder, saying.
"The oil is out, the rest is Bideng's job."
It had been almost twenty days, and Zhao Gang should have finished the oil refining equipment by now.
Allowing the oil to surge out and flow along the ground, Fang Er, along with the soldiers of the Third Regiment, waited outside for a long time before approaching the oil well.
He had not anticipated that they would be able to dig a gushing well before coming, so he had not prepared any equipment for storing the oil.
The excavator started, digging a large pit in the distance, and then digging a trench between the large pit and the oil well to guide the flow, preventing the oil from spreading everywhere.
This was also a makeshift solution for the current situation.
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Author's notes: