The Ministry of Works Office and the Council Office was held in the meeting on the construction plan for the Yangtze River Floating Bridge in the Xiakou Ezhou area. If the emperor had not been on the scene, the debate would have turned into a fierce quarrel, and supporters of the various plans would have rolled up their sleeves and roared.

The Yangtze River Floating Bridge, as the name suggests, is a floating bridge across the Yangtze River. It sounds like a very magnificent project, but it is not unprecedented. Because in the early years of the Later Han Dynasty, Gongsun Shu, who dominated Shu, built a floating bridge at the exit of the Three Gorges in order to prevent the Han army from entering Shu by water.

This bridge is like a water pass, blocking the Yangtze River surface, so it is named "Jiangguan Floating Bridge".

At the end of the Later Han Dynasty, the world was divided into three parts. After the demise of Shu Han, the Jin army built ships in Shu and then went downstream to attack Wu. The Wu army pulled up the Hengjiang iron chain on the river surface and tried to stop it.

Therefore, it is not difficult to build a floating bridge on the Yangtze River with the current technical level, but once this floating bridge is repaired, it will "lock" the river surface, which means that shipping is interrupted.

This result is unacceptable.

For example, in order to ensure the unobstructed traffic of the steamship, all the original floating bridges on the Yellow River were demolished, but the Xiakou Yangtze River floating bridge must be repaired, so how to take into account shipping while ensuring the traffic capacity of the floating bridge has become a technical problem.

A technical problem, different people (technical teams) give different plans, and which of the several plans is better or worse is the focus of the debate among the officials present.

Yuwen Wen, who was listening to the side, doesn’t need to express any opinions now, just listen to opinions from all parties and know the pros and cons of each plan.

The argumentation meeting was held more than once. Because it was of great importance, the construction of the floating bridge had to be done with caution. The final argumentation result had to be discussed in the Political Affairs Hall, and the officials of the Political Affairs Hall made the decision, and finally Yuwen Wen nodded.

The first thing he has to consider is that this pontoon bridge will reduce the cost of use and maintenance as much as possible under the premise of long-term use, so we cannot only focus on the construction cost of the pontoon bridge.

Compared with plans with high construction costs but low maintenance costs for subsequent use, solutions with low construction costs and high maintenance costs for subsequent use, they may not be worse.

Secondly, building a cross-river floating bridge is not a simple act of building a bridge. Yuwen Wen also needs to consider the important task he will bear later, that is, obey the long-term plan of "Xinxiakou".

Based on the planning and development of the entire Xiakou City, it is something that Yu Wen Wen must make a decision to consider the construction of the Yangtze River Floating Bridge under this premise.

Xiakou, Ezhou, is Wuchang, the three towns of Wuhan in later generations (the name of Wuchang has not yet moved westward). It is located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and is also at the intersection of the Han River and the Yangtze River. Its geographical location is very important. It has a name in later generations, which is the "bridge of nine provinces".

Starting from Xiakou and following the Yangtze River waterway, you can go west to Bashu, east to Wuyue, north to Han River to Henan and Shaanxi, or go south to Xianggui through Dongting Hunan. It can be said that the geographical location is very important and it is a natural shipping hub.

The steamships have been put into shipping, and the metallurgy and manufacturing industries in Ezhou and Huangzhou have further developed, and the personnel and material throughput of Xiakou Port has increased by five times in just a few years. According to the current shipping scheduling level, Xiakou Port can no longer support such a huge personnel and material transfer task.

It is not possible to blindly expand the port area and increase berths, because without radio, it is impossible to uniformly dispatch and manage many ships entering and leaving the port. The larger the port area, the more berths, the more chaotic the ships will enter and exit.

A large number of steamships loaded with cargo run around in the port area like headless flies. This kind of scene is frightening just by thinking about it. As long as a collision accident occurs, it is easy to cause major casualties.

If a large ship sank on the waterway entering and leaving the port, then the entire Xiakou Port will be paralyzed.

Xiakou City is developing very rapidly, and the original layout is somewhat inappropriate, so it needs to be re-planned, and the same is true for the port.

Not only should there be a port at the Xiakou in the south of the Yangtze River, but there should also be a transshipment port at the mouth of the Han River in the north of the Yangtze River, and a city that accommodates civilians to settle down.

Everything is like the three towns in Wuhan in later generations, and it consists of three cities (Hankou, Hanyang, and Wuchang) into the "Xiakou" city.

Xiakou City should be divided into three, and Xiakou Port should also be divided into three, and undertake different shipping tasks. There must be an efficient personnel and material transfer method between the ports on the north and south sides to ensure smooth passenger and freight transportation.

The arduous task of transporting cargo between the north and the south is to rely on steamer ferrying alone, because it involves multi-level transfer, and every additional transfer link reduces the transfer efficiency. Therefore, in order to maintain efficient transfer efficiency, it is necessary to build a cross-river pontoon bridge.

With the floating bridge, carriages on both sides of the Yangtze River directly pull cargoes and personnel across the pontoon bridge. This is convenient and quicker than crossing the river through shipping, and can also effectively share the shipping burden between north and south ports.

Therefore, the Xiakou Yangtze River Floating Bridge must be built. The problem is that the pontoon bridge itself will cut off the channel. The solution is to make the pontoon bridge have the "open and close" function, which can ensure that carriages pass through the north and south of the Yangtze River, and also to ensure that ships sailing east and west can pass through the river where the pontoon bridge is located.

How to make the pontoon bridge have the "open and close" function while as low as possible is the difference between the bridge construction plans. Yu Wen Wen has carefully read these plans and only feels that "the man is right and the woman is right."

In this regard, Yuwen Wen's requirements have become stricter, requiring that each bridge repair plan should not be discussed in general and must be spoken of with data.

For example, the load-bearing capacity and traffic capacity of a pontoon bridge are in units of hours. It is necessary to calculate the amount of traffic (carriage) that can be accommodated per hour, and the upper load limit of each carriage.

This calculation also includes predictions of traffic in the future period. The built pontoon bridge must consider the crossing demand in the next ten years. Therefore, when calculating, the passenger and freight "increased volume" brought about by urban development and industrial and commercial development.

For example, how long does it take to close a floating bridge? How big the "mouth" needs to be opened, and how long does this opening take to ensure smooth operation of shipping without allowing the "interruption" of the floating bridge to last too long, affecting personnel and cargo exchanges between the north and the south.

For example, the estimated cost (construction cost) of the construction of a pontoon bridge and the calculation of maintenance costs must be listed for verification and questioning of the "judges". It cannot be said in general, and it cannot be carried out "fishing projects".

The so-called "fishing project" means that the project price is lower when it is quoted, but the price is constantly increased after implementation, so that the total cost of the final project is much higher than before.

Yuwen Wen doesn't want to be a sucker. In addition, in order to promote "applied mathematics", he strictly "data-based" large-scale projects, and everything has to be spoken by data.

The importance of mathematics is unquestionable. Without mathematics, science cannot develop, and only a large number of application needs will stimulate the development of mathematics. Yuwen Wen wants to turn it into an "application problem" to significantly improve the mathematical literacy of officials of the Ministry of Industry in this project.

In the future, all large-scale project demonstrations will be deeply "data-based" and the "Mingjuku Science" established in the imperial examination must have meaning. When mathematics (arithmology) is truly integrated with the imperial examination, then the imperial examination in the new era will not follow the old path of taking the eight-legged essay exam.

As he thought about it, Yu Wenwen was full of energy, but looking at the bridge repair plans in front of him, he was in trouble:

Each plan has a large amount of data as support, proving that the plan is feasible and each plan looks good. So, as a decision maker, how should you choose?

This kind of thing cannot be determined by rolling dice. Yu Wenwen only felt a headache when he looked at it. When drinking tea to refresh himself, he suddenly remembered the "friendly" officials in the political affairs hall.
Chapter completed!