August 29, morning.
The torrential rain showed no signs of letting up.
Above the pitch-black sky, the only light came from the occasional flash of lightning, leaving behind an endless void of darkness.
But even in such harsh conditions, there was some good news that allowed a sigh of relief.
The floodwaters ravaging the surface, which had submerged nearly 80% of the city, had stopped rising further.
"It should be that the downstream areas have absorbed the excess rainwater," Su Wu reasoned.
The capacity of the river channels to release floodwaters was limited, but when the entire land turned into a marshland, the situation changed dramatically.
Upon receiving the report, Su Wu's mood brightened considerably.
A stable environment, even if it was harsh, provided a rare opportunity for development.
With this time, he could accelerate the growth of his refuge.
Back to the refuge matters.
Since setting the preliminary development plan yesterday,
In just one night, a new power distribution network had been fully established.
The Jingyuan Refuge and the Zhou Xiwuyu Refuge each set up power reserves, one capable of storing 150,000 kWh and the other 30,000 kWh, based on their respective sizes.
The power stored in these two centers would be enough to meet the daily energy needs of both large refuges for a day or two.
While not a huge amount, it was more than enough for day-to-day use.
And in the near future, after the specialized thermal power station at the farmer's small courtyard was established,
Power supply vehicles would be able to transport affordable electricity from the farmer's small courtyard to the two power reserves via land and water transportation, in as little as half an hour.
If various accidents, including natural and man-made disasters, cut off the land transport route,
The backup supply could still be carried out via the Qingniao transport drones, which could deliver high-energy batteries with a capacity of 10,000 kWh from the air.
And if the aerial transport routes were also severed,
Both large refuges could restart their old-fashioned thermal power generators and generate electricity independently.
In the end, the establishment of this new power network was mainly a cost-saving measure, utilizing more efficient thermal power stations to meet the daily energy demands of the refuges.
Its main purpose was to save money, or rather, to save fuel.
It was not truly a vital lifeline for the refuges.
In the extreme case where the entire power network was completely destroyed,
And the electricity from the farmer's small courtyard's thermal station could no longer be used,
It would not pose a fatal threat to the refuges.
Aside from the power network,
The transportation capacity of the supply lines was steadily increasing.
Considering the large number of supplies submerged under the floodwaters, unattended,
Su Wu planned to increase the number of medium-sized hovercraft navigating through the city's flooded areas to around 30.
This process would require the manufacturing center to operate at full capacity for about 70 hours.
Once completed, it was expected that they would be able to transport thousands of tons of supplies daily.
Among these supplies, rare materials and precious metals would be sent to the farmer's small courtyard refuge,
While the remaining common resources would be sent to the Jingyuan and Zhou Xiwuyu refuges for storage.
"In the future, the warehouse in the farmer's small courtyard refuge
Will no longer store low-value scrap metals."
"The scavenger teams' findings will be received by the lookout tower base and the Qingning refuge."
"The more than 8,000 tons of scrap metals left in the warehouse"
"Will continue to be gradually smelted into finished metals through the underground recycling center on the fourth floor and high-temperature furnaces from other refuges."
"Until it is completely consumed."
The surplus resources had made Su Wu somewhat dismissive of the meager returns from recycling scrap metals.
So, he decided to completely remove this business from the farmer's small courtyard.
Instead, it would be moved to the nearby Qingning refuge.
As for the five high-temperature furnaces in the remaining recycling center, they would not be dismantled.
These facilities could be incorporated into the industrial manufacturing center to improve the production speed of certain mechanical items.
Meanwhile, the attached refuges had already begun large-scale construction activities under the direction of the artificial intelligence, following Su Wu's plan from the day before.
More than half of the newly arrived 230,000 people were conscripted as dedicated workers.
They were tasked with building dormitories, producing beds, storage cabinets, toiletries, and so on.
The rest, categorized by age, occupation, and skill level, were assigned to schools, farms, or factories for learning and work.
At the same time, a remote control center had been built in the Jingyuan refuge.
It was equipped with 3,000 computers salvaged from various refuge warehouses.
These computers were operated by workers selected for their quick neural reflexes and extensive knowledge and experience.
Through these, the workers could remotely control surface vehicles or robots, one-on-one,
Replacing the artificial intelligence for tasks like driving or operating spider robots to transport supplies from underwater refuges.
The robots operated by workers might not be as efficient as the artificial intelligence and were prone to mistakes,
But they effectively saved the computational power of the AI.
With their assistance, Su Wu's mechanical legion would no longer be limited by computing power.
It could expand indefinitely.
However, during the current testing phase,
Su Wu did not intend to expand recklessly.
He only planned to start by assigning a hundred backup spider robots, humanoid service robots, and some excavators and transport vehicles to the remote control center for operation.
The tasks for the excavators and transport vehicles would remain largely unchanged from before.
The spider robots and humanoid service robots, on the other hand, would be organized into dozens of teams, using outdated kayaks to transport supplies from the abandoned underwater refuges.
Furthermore, once the scale expands,
They would replace the scavenger teams and continue to collect metal debris from the underwater city ruins.
"The kayak can carry about a ton of cargo."
"If it weren't for the risk of capsizing accidents, it would actually far surpass the medium-sized hovercraft in terms of transport capacity."
"Now, with the spider robots, which can freely operate underwater, driving the kayaks,
We don't need to worry about casualties anymore."
"We can fully unlock the transport potential of the kayaks."
"However, considering that capsizing accidents won't be entirely avoided just because it's being driven by a robot,
The kayaks are only suitable for transporting low-value items
like scrap metals and coal."
"Precious goods still need to be transported by the medium-sized hovercraft."
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