Several major items of survival: food, clothing, housing, and transportation.
Jin Kela was in a bad mood. The reason was that the committee "completely ignored agricultural work." Food was the first necessity of life, but instead of addressing the food problem first, they focused on making bricks and cement, only to sit idly afterward. In his opinion, this was all because the committee was full of "contractors, bureaucrats," and other people who "did not understand science." In a month, the soybean planting season would begin in South America. The 200 bags of Northeast soybeans in the cargo hold were well preserved and could be used as seeds. The land here was incredibly fertile, virgin land, and the harvest next year would definitely be good.
Until yesterday noon, he had still been full of ambition, ready to do big things—burning the wasteland, reclaiming the land, digging ditches, explaining the characteristics of soybeans to his subordinates, and training them in agricultural knowledge. He had been very busy.
But all of this came to an abrupt halt at noon on October 7. Ma Qianzu, this "idler" and "bureaucrat," had used the excuse of mining limestone to forcibly take away most of his staff. There were no lime kilns or cement kilns yet, but they had already started mining limestone. This nearly drove Jin Kela to anger.
"It's all crap!" Jin Kela spat angrily on the ground and continued awkwardly digging into the fields with an iron pickaxe. "He can't even make a farm tool, and he doesn't understand science at all."
"Captain, these acres of land have been watered. Can we sow the seeds now?" Zheng Bin, a high school student with acne on his face, asked eagerly, looking up at Jin Kela. Zheng Bin was a very down-to-earth guy, always doing whatever work he was asked to do, and Jin Kela liked him quite a lot.
Jin Kela paused, his frustration still simmering, but he appreciated Zheng Bin's dedication. He wiped his brow and replied, "It's not time yet. We need to wait a little longer. But soon, we'll be able to sow the seeds. Just keep up the good work."
Zheng Bin nodded with a smile, determined to continue doing whatever was necessary to help the cause. "Okay, Captain. I'll do whatever needs to be done."
"Well, it's done. The acre on the left is planted with leeks, the one with the black seeds, so don't mix it up. The acre on the right that was sprinkled with lime is planted with amaranth, which likes alkaline soil. Damn, lime is still somewhat useful." Jin Kela muttered to himself. "Sprinkle wood ash on both acres of land. Remember, water the leeks every two days, but don't water the amaranth. When my acre of land is ready, you can bring the green vegetable seeds and we'll plant those too."
"Hey, Lao Jin, you really seem to know your way around farm work," a young man wearing black-framed glasses called out as he approached on a bicycle, laughing. "You didn't waste your time at Agricultural University after all."
"Go away!" Jin Kela grumbled, irritated. "Why did you come all the way here, Lan Guo? Are you here to build a biogas tank for me?"
"How is that possible?" Lan Guo smiled bitterly. "I'm here to build a fence for you. The logging team has many trees that aren't suitable for making boards, and Commissioner Liu asked me to bring them over to you. We'll use them to fence off the nursery first. These vegetable seeds are really important to us—they're non-renewable in the short term. To be blunt, they're more important than people right now, and we have to protect them carefully. Look, I've brought people to build the fence for you. Your place is too far from the freighter, so Wang Qinian will bring a team tonight. He'll take care of security from now on."
"Commissioner Liu understands science, at least," Jin Kela said, nodding in appreciation. "When will the biogas digester be fixed? We'll need farmyard manure for future farming."
"There's no material for it," Lan Guo replied with a shrug. "The committee has some cement and bricks, but Shao Shude was yelling this morning that there aren't enough bricks to repair the chimney. How can we allocate them to other places? So, you'll just have to wait. We'll have to wait for the brick kiln to fire the first batch of bricks."
"It won't be my turn even if they fire a few more batches of bricks," Jin Kela said, sounding a little discouraged. "Housing, toilets, canteens, bathhouses, office buildings, water diversion channels, reservoirs, cement kilns, lime kilns… even building walls—all of them need bricks and cement. I'll be waiting forever at this rate."
The man with glasses smiled awkwardly but didn't say anything. He didn't tell Jin Kela that not all the bricks and cement in the committee's possession were allocated to Shao Shude for building the kiln. Duncan, who had worked at the water plant for many years, was in charge of building a set of simple water purification facilities under the "key attention" of the committee.
Currently, the main source of domestic water for the time travelers came from several streams on the north bank of the river. The streams converged in a low-lying area to form a large wetland about 500 meters away from the riverbank. The water quality was excellent, and the water volume was also considerable. The only problem was the distance—getting the water was inconvenient and not very hygienic. So, Duncan took the initiative to propose to the committee a plan to dig a water diversion channel and build water purification facilities. This plan was quickly approved by the committee.
The committee not only assigned most of the construction team to him but also allocated a batch of precious cement and building materials. After a day of hard work yesterday, a sedimentation tank measuring 25 meters long, 5 meters wide, and 4 meters deep was completed. Today, the excavation of the filter pool and the reservoir had begun.
The water source was the wetland stream. The stream water was directed into the sedimentation tank through a 100-meter-long water diversion channel. Since the groundwater level was generally high in this area, the canal was temporarily muddy, but it would be made of brick once conditions improved. The water inlet and outlet of the sedimentation tank were blocked by wooden boards. As the slow-flowing stream water entered the sedimentation tank, the sediment and other materials in the water naturally settled under the force of gravity, before flowing into the filter pool through the outlet.
The filter pool was divided into two layers. The bottom of the first layer was paved with coarse sand to filter out larger suspended particles, while the second layer was lined with fine sand to filter finer particles. The filtered water was stored in a reservoir, which was an open structure covered with wooden boards to prevent dust and reduce evaporation.
This purification method was quite primitive and crude. Firstly, the water source lacked a coagulation process, and there was no disinfection process after filtration. However, given the lack of alum and chlorine, it was the best solution available under the circumstances.
The three pools were reinforced concrete structures. This project consumed a lot of steel bars and cement from the committee's supplies. However, since it concerned the health of the time travelers, no one raised objections.
Compared to the "luxurious" materials used for the water purification facilities, the construction of another essential project—public toilets—was far from impressive. The simple toilet built on the north bank of the river could only be described as "basic" to the extreme. Essentially, it was just a pit dug into the ground with a few wooden boards placed over it. Reeds and thatch were laid on top for some form of coverage, and men and women were separated by makeshift wooden boards. There were no anti-leakage measures in place. Fortunately, the toilet was located far from the drinking water source, minimizing the risk of contamination. The health department regularly used lime for disinfection. Once the formal toilet was constructed, this rudimentary facility would be filled in and buried.