From Robinson Crusoe

Due to insufficient sleep, Chen Zhou felt slightly groggy on the way to the beach.

In the early hours of the 30th, the dark clouds began to slowly dissipate.

The mountain road was bathed in sunlight after the rain, and the heat steamed up the puddles, making the accompanying locals feel the dampness.

Laifu excitedly led the way, wagging its broom-like tail.

On Saturdays and Sundays, the two stayed by Chen Zhou's side, answering his questions from time to time.

For example, the condition of indigenous people suffering from hypothermia.

The indigenous people who were rescued from herding yesterday spent another night warming themselves by the fire in the wooden house. When they were able to move around on their own, they ate some rice and lean meat porridge. Although they are still very weak, their lives should be safe for the time being.

However, after being caught in such a heavy rain, although he was lucky enough to survive, he still inevitably developed symptoms of a cold.

Unlike hypothermia, a cold is a disease that lasts a long time and can potentially worsen to the point of being life-threatening in its later stages.

It is said that good fortune never comes in pairs and misfortunes never come singly. This native was able to survive severe hypothermia, but without medication, he may not be able to defeat the virus. Whether he can fully recover is indeed an unknown.

……

On Saturday and Sunday, they took turns explaining the situation of the herding natives clearly.

As Chen Zhou nodded repeatedly, he couldn't help but feel a little regretful.

After finally training a capable person to take charge of animal husbandry, we risked losing a valuable laborer simply because we didn't explain to him beforehand whether the livestock or the person was more important.

This was indeed partly because his leader had not considered things thoroughly and had not given detailed enough instructions.

On the other hand, it was also because the native was too stubborn—

You work hard all day just to fill your stomach, and at most you get a piece of chocolate as a reward. What kind of life are you living?
……

"Observe his condition closely these few days. If his high fever persists, come to my place and get some tobacco leaves to make tea for him to drink."

Give him a few more cloves of garlic, let him curl up in bed and sweat it out, maybe that will make him better.”

Since he was sick and had no medicine, Chen Zhou wanted to cure the natives with reliable methods, but he had no choice but to try these folk remedies that he didn't know if they were reliable or not.

"Let him stay home and rest for the next few days, don't go out to work, and try to avoid being exposed to the wind."

If you're really bored, you can stay home and cook for others, learn rattan weaving, study vocabulary, or read more books.

As for the herding, find someone to help you when you get back on Sunday, and while you're at it, check if a few sheep are missing.

If we can find a sheep carcass, we should skin it and drag it back to the cave as soon as possible; then we can have a couple more meals…

……

As they walked, they assigned tasks for Saturday and Sunday.

They navigated the rain-soaked forest with practiced ease, bypassed the campsite at the foot of the mountain, and headed straight for the beach.

Suspecting that the anniversary gift package had been distributed ahead of schedule, Chen Zhou was genuinely unsure about this mysterious reward.

This anxious and fearful mindset persisted until the wooden and stone wall came into view in the distance, at which point it instantly crumbled when the enormous pile of rewards came into view.

……

Having been on the island for so long, including this mysterious reward, Chen Zhou has received a total of seventy-three mysterious rewards.

These modern artifacts, delivered every 15 days, were either expensive or cheap, useless or extremely practical; regardless of their design, they all left a deep impression on him.

When you're in a foreign world, you might sometimes find these "fellow countrymen" annoying, but you still won't forget them.

Of all these rewards, the seventy-first mysterious reward, the enormous thin metal box, was the largest. Next was the iron cage containing two cows, the small container containing Damascus steel billets, and the cement.

These rewards are not included in the anniversary gift pack.

In Chen Zhou's memory, the anniversary gift package was always packed in an exquisite gift box, filled with small but useful items.

It could be a book, a precious plant seed, or a metal arrow...

But this anniversary gift package overturned his perception.

What truly overturned Chen Zhou's preconceived notions was the sheer size of the reward, but rather the fact that the range of this transdimensional teleportation was completely different from the area he had always defined—

In March 1660, Chen Zhou discovered a loophole in the rules while transporting cement, which gave rise to the bold idea of ​​using trans-dimensional cutting to profit himself.

To cut the wood and stone more accurately, he measured the approximate range of the trans-temporal cutting by arranging tree trunks and ropes.

A region with sides of five meters, a width of about three meters, and an unknown height.

Since then, up until the last reward, the cut area has never changed. Even the container delivered the time before last was not larger than the cut area.

But this time, Chen Zhou saw for himself that the area of ​​the reward in the sand was so large that it far exceeded the previously measured cutting range.

...The wooden and stone wall piled up at the edge of the original "cutting line" seemed to have been pushed open from the center by a pair of invisible hands, and scattered all over the beach. There were no traces of cutting on the surface of any of the wood and stones.

Looking from dozens of meters away, in the center of this area cleared out by an unknown force, the first thing that filled Chen Zhou's eyes was all kinds of building materials.

The straight and thick H-beams and I-beams, all coated with a layer of black paint, were neatly piled into a small mountain according to their length and model. The shortest was 1.5m long, and the longest was over 6m, exceeding the original cutting range by more than 1m.

Various types of square and round steel bars, arranged according to their thickness and length, are placed next to the I-beams. These building materials are unpainted, revealing their silvery metallic color.

Upon closer inspection, a clear line of stamped specifications can be found on the surface of the steel.

执行标准GB/T1591-2008，型号Q345D，这是一种抗拉强度在490-675MPa之间，屈服强度≥345MPa的优质低合金钢。

If you walk past the mountains of steel, you'll see rows of large gray plastic crates.

Pry open the buckles and lift the lid; inside, you'll find rivets and bolts of various sizes.

A quick count reveals that there are nearly a hundred of these gray plastic boxes containing rivets and bolts.

Further ahead, Chen Zhou saw a familiar object—cement.

But the cement delivered this time was not the ordinary kind produced by the cement factory where he worked. Not only was the packaging exceptionally exquisite, with a unique "national brand" feel, but it was also divided into several different models.

Among them is PI 62.5 engineering cement, which is suitable for super high-rise buildings;
There is a type of engineering cement called PS 52.5 that is resistant to seawater corrosion, has a long service life, and is often used in the construction of cross-sea bridges.
Medium-heat 42.5 engineering cement is characterized by its resistance to cracking, low heat of hydration, suitability for manufacturing ultra-large volume concrete, and suitability for constructing water conservancy dams or steel plants.

There is PC 52.5 cement, which is suitable for geological tunnels, is impermeable and crack-resistant, and has strong adaptability;

Chen Zhou even discovered more than 200 bags of silicate cement called Quick Hard 52.5R. This cement sets extremely quickly, reaching a strength comparable to that of ordinary cement after 28 days in just three days. It is typically used for emergency road repairs and military projects.

This special type of cement is not manufactured by their cement factory; they can only learn about it from the training materials distributed by the factory.

Who would have thought that this special type of cement would appear in this anniversary reward?

Moreover, the cement delivered this time is not only of high quality, meeting the needs of various fields, but also comes in a very considerable quantity.

The medium-heat 42.5 cement, which has the highest demand, was piled up to a height of more than 4 meters, with an estimated total weight of over 20 tons.

There were also many other types of cement, wrapped in thick, light gray bags, resembling serious little giants. Even the quick-setting 52.5R cement for emergency use amounted to more than a ton.

Passing through the queue of "cement giants," you reach the end of this side's reward area, where tons of steel bars are piled up.

……

"Damn it, is this a survival challenge or a reality show about training civil engineering guys?!"

Before he had even finished browsing through the rewards, Chen Zhou was already overjoyed, but he pretended to be smug and muttered some complaints under his breath.

With such a large quantity of building materials and cement, it can be said that as long as he makes good use of them, optimizes the building structure, and reduces waste, he can build an impregnable fortress near the shore.

The most powerful conventional siege cannon of the 17th century could produce shells weighing up to 24 pounds. It was loaded with black powder and its destructive power mainly relied on the impact of solid shot, which was not very penetrating.

At that time, there was no other choice but to use black powder for explosive charges.

Black powder has an energy density of 3 MJ/kg, which is only 60% of that of TNT. Furthermore, 17th-century explosive projectiles had poor sealing and extremely low explosion efficiency.

When Chen Zhou used black powder to open up the cave dwelling, he calculated that the radius of destruction of ordinary walls by black powder explosive bombs could not exceed 2m.

Under these circumstances, when facing reinforced concrete buildings, 17th-century cannonballs could at most crack the shallow concrete walls, without causing structural damage to the steel reinforcement.

And this is based on heavy siege cannons from the 17th century.

The ship's cannons needed to be lighter and smaller in caliber, making them far less powerful than contemporary siege cannons.

If anyone really wanted to crack the reinforced concrete wall, they would need to concentrate at least dozens of 24-pound heavy artillery pieces to launch dozens of concentrated bombardments on the concrete wall, and the bombardment must be concentrated in the same area.

However, the artillery of that era could not achieve this goal in terms of either accuracy or rate of fire.

Chen Zhou could even be certain—

Even if Spain in the 17th century concentrated all its national strength to manufacture cannons and send them across the ocean to attack the fortresses that were designed and built to withstand artillery attacks, it would still take a year and a half to take them down.

The difference in technological levels over hundreds of years can completely overturn the understanding of humankind in this era.

……

While pondering the optimal solution for using these building materials, Chen Zhou unknowingly moved from the pile of steel bars to the other side.

Normally, receiving such a valuable batch of resources would have made him incredibly happy.

But the visual impact of this award is truly stunning.

After the initial disbelief and even ecstasy, Chen Zhou's mindset had become somewhat numb, and he had fallen into a state similar to "sage mode".

Even though he should have appeared joyful emotionally, his physical condition didn't fluctuate much and remained largely unchanged. (End of Chapter)