Volume 10: Our Journey Chapter 317: Dreaming of Homeland
In May, a fleet consisting of sixteen 2,000-ton cargo ships, one 1,000-ton passenger ship, and four 800-ton frigates crossed the inland sea and arrived at the elven port.
Seeing the National Sea Fleet of Flame returning from the southern continent from afar on the lookout lighthouse, the garrisoned forest elf warriors immediately closed the cargo passage between the port and the warehouse, arranged for the ships to dock at the port, and sent people riding on two-legged ground dragons to notify the MSG factory.
When Huabao Yugu, the head of the MSG factory, received the news, he took out more than a thousand workers and borrowed a thousand young and strong men from the Snake Department and brought them to the port to unload the goods.
In the past two years, the unloading work was done by the Snow Wolf Tribe, but now there is construction going on everywhere and there are no idle people available to sit at the port for loading and unloading, so this job fell on the human workers and the Snake Tribe of the MSG factory - boss Ashu's food store originally had two adult members and two half-grown members of the tribe "staffed", but now it has been changed to three cat tribes and one human helping Ashu, and Ashu carries the main responsibility himself... ahem!
Fishbone led a large group on a carriage pulled by a six-legged lizard (purchased by the MSG factory at its own expense. This thing can eat grass and pull people and goods, which is more convenient and cost-effective than a tractor). They came to the Elf Port along the road they had built.
"Fishbone, do you need someone to help operate the crane?" When Hailin, who was promoted to sergeant, saw Fishbone leading people into the warehouse area, she immediately threw the weapon in her hand to her companion and ran over excitedly with her sleeves rolled up.
"You don't want to help at all, you just want to play, right?" Fishbone said.
"Just tell me whether you want my help or not!" Hailin said in a disrespectful manner.
"Okay, come on !" Yugu waved his hand, took out the key and opened the door of the warehouse.
Among the young snakes following behind Yu Gu, several of them glared at Hai Lin directly... It was not even their own family's turn to do such a prestigious job as driving a crane, but this guy always came to snatch it!
Hailin turned around and faced them with the back of her head. She said, "What you usually do, like playing with tractors, sowing and harvesting, that's fun enough. Don't take all the credit!"
This warehouse is filled with loading and unloading machines. Although the ships of the Fire Country are quite "small and exquisite", the amount of cargo that the entire fleet can carry is actually quite a lot, and it would be difficult to rely solely on manpower for loading and unloading.
Yugu led the team into the loading and unloading auxiliary machinery warehouse, and the first thing he pushed out was a big guy - a six-meter-high all-steel structure lifting frame mounted on a two-meter-wide and three-meter-long chassis. There was also a stretching adjustment device in the middle of the steel frame, which could raise the steel frame to a height of ten meters when needed. Of course, because it was relatively heavy, it had to be laid horizontally before the height could be adjusted.
There is a mechanical arm extending straight out from the top of the steel frame, and a large row of large and small pulleys are installed at the bottom of the mechanical arm... Yes, it is the kind of pulleys used to raise the sails on old sailboats...
Two cylinder-shaped devices, one large and one small, are welded side by side in the middle of the chassis, which is about 40 centimeters above the ground. The large one is the fuel boiler, and the small one is the pneumatic engine cylinder with an aluminum alloy inner wall. Five pairs of load-bearing rollers are installed on both sides. Due to technical conditions, only the front pair of road wheels can steer, and the four rear pairs are welded, which makes them very cumbersome to operate... But anyway, it is a thing that is pushed to the dock for unloading at a fixed point. It just needs to move forward and backward. Who expects the crane to run freely?
Well, because of its incredible weight, this extremely simple and ugly crane does not have a well-designed operating cabin. The operator must climb to the top of the steel tower by himself, with his feet stuck between the steel beams, hanging on it like a "plug-in" to contact the operating device installed on the top. It is simply stupid...
As soon as Hailin saw the crane being pushed out, her eyes turned green. She shouted "Let me do it" and wanted to jump up and climb the steel tower.
"Wait a minute!" Fishbone hugged the guy around the waist with a frown on his face and pulled him back, "Just push it over, push it over!"
"Pushing is so troublesome, just let me drive over!" Hailin struggled.
"You said the same thing last time, but you drove it to the street for a stroll!" Yugu refused to let go. "The coal powder in the mounted coal bag was burned out and it broke down in the middle of the road. It took us more than two hours to get the crane back!"
"That's because there's not enough coal powder in the coal bag!" Hailin said stubbornly.
Hailin didn't succeed in the end, and Yugu threatened him, "If you don't behave, I will never let him touch the crane again," and then he was pushed down...
Not only that, after pushing the crane onto the dock and placing it, Yugu had people use jacks to prop up the chassis so that the crane could be operated at a fixed point for loading and unloading, and Hailin was not even able to enjoy the dull pleasure of moving forward and backward...
"The only operations we can do now are reeling in and releasing the steel cables and rotating the robotic arm at a small angle. Where's the fun in that?!" Hailin protested.
"This is a machine for lifting cargo. What else do you want to do with it?" Fishbone said angrily. "If you don't want to, get off. We can do it ourselves!"
Hailin groaned and moaned... and occupied the top of the steel tower, which could only accommodate one person, and refused to move an inch.
"Well, what's the fun of driving this clumsy big thing? If you like to tinker with these mechanical devices, come to the Snake Department to help during the autumn harvest. There are plenty of machines for you to drive." Fishbone was both amused and angry. Due to its extremely immature design, this cobbled-together crane was very painful to operate. Not to mention driving it to move, even turning the mechanical arm would make the operator sweat profusely. Only Hailin, this weird elf, could operate it so skillfully that she could even drive it on the street to show off... Considering that this guy was operating it on a voluntary basis, Fishbone had to give him a good face.
As soon as Yugu finished speaking, the snakes who were fiddling with the fixed-point forklift racks (which were super simplified versions of forklifts), climbing up the side of the ship to wrap the lifting belts, and arranging the assembled temporary cargo tracks towards the warehouse area all looked over in horror...
Brother Fishbone, are you serious?! We in the Snake Department are not rich. We have only saved up about 30 tractors over the years. There are not enough for everyone to drive!
Fishbone gave them a reassuring look.
On the steel tower, Hailin was skillfully operating the bulky mechanical arm to turn the ship's surface and lower the iron hook on the steel cable to let the crew tow the cargo. She was delighted at first, but then she looked bitter: "When you harvest in autumn, we also harvest in autumn. If I run to your place to help instead of going back to Ananas to work, won't the elders scold me to death?"
The snake tribe was relieved and continued to work on their own matters...
No matter how ugly the all-steel hoisting tower looks, it is actually a luxurious thing. This thing was developed and manufactured for the Grand Canal project, but because it was too heavy and could not be flexibly disassembled and assembled, the engineering team solemnly thanked Qiuling New District for its efforts and refused to accept it... So it "drifted" to the port.
At the port, this crane that the engineering team had highly acclaimed has become a real treasure. The steel tower can be raised and the mechanical arm can be extended. It can transfer several tons of cargo from a cargo ship several meters high to the dock at one time without causing any collision or damage to the cargo, not to mention saving a lot of manpower.
In addition to the extremely conspicuous crane, the MSG factory is also responsible for loading and unloading fish bones for its own fleet. There are many other magic weapons: such as fixed-point forklifts, which are used to load goods onto the truck or unload goods from the truck. Nothing is more convenient than this thing.
Another example is the assembled tracks. The steel production of the Fire Country is not yet at the level where it is feasible to make railway tracks, but there will be no problem in making assembled short-distance temporary tracks. The assembled tracks dragged out from the warehouse can be laid from the gate of the warehouse area to the dock, and the goods unloaded from the ship can be thrown onto a flatbed truck with two rows of track rollers installed on the chassis. Forget about using six-legged lizards, even cats can transform into beasts and drag the goods very fast.
The dock was busy unloading cargo , and on the other side, on the passenger ship docked at the outermost side of the dock, Yale, the only remaining tiger tribe leader, and several tribesmen squeezed out of the cabin and onto the deck among the adventurers, small merchants, and crew members. Stopping at the gangway for disembarking, several tiger heads raised their heads at the same time, looking at this land that their tiger tribe had abandoned without any nostalgia with complicated expressions.
The side of a thousand-ton passenger ship was not very high, but just by standing on the deck, they could see half of the elven port. At first glance, it was not much worse than the human towns they had seen while working in the human kingdom.
"More than 20 years ago, a Lamia merchant ship ran aground here. I came here with others to search... The desolate beach at that time was unexpectedly managed by the forest elves into this state." An old tiger soldier with white hair, white eyebrows and white beard looked greedily and hungry at the homeland that he had returned to in his dreams many times, and said it with a sour and unpleasant feeling.
"What are you doing? Don't just stand there like an idiot! Move forward quickly. The people behind you can't get off the boat because you're blocking the way here!" The adventurer who was blocked behind by these tiger men had no time to listen to their sighs and shouted at them.
Yale looked back at the adventurer with a bad temper, said nothing, and went down the gangway first.
The tiger tribe in the past may have been full of pride and ambition, but the tiger tribe now... not only the Yale tent, but also the ordinary warriors have long been accustomed to the rudeness of others.
The tiger tribe, with an average height of 2.3 meters and stronger than the snow wolf people, stood out among the crowd with an average height of 1.7 meters. As soon as these tiger-headed people got off the boat, the people who guided them found them. A small cat tribe jumped out of the crowded crowd and waved vigorously: "Is this the Yale tent? This way! Please come over here!"
A few Yale people stretched out their big hands to push away the crowded crowd, and while making a series of curses, they approached the small cat who was leading them.
"You are..." Yale looked down at the enthusiastic little cat and felt that the other party was somewhat familiar, but he couldn't recognize it.
"My name is Baixiang. I used to work in the royal court. Of course, you won't recognize me." The small cat with beautiful dark brown skin, black hair and black pupils smiled and showed a mouthful of small tiger teeth. "The grass-roots tribe leader sent me to pick you up. Please follow me over here."
After saying that, the small cat turned around, called on several tigers to follow him, and tried hard to squeeze into the crowd...
A small number of the passengers who came across the sea on the Fire Country passenger ship were small businessmen who came to the Elf Port with their servants and bodyguards to purchase the adventurers' spoils. The rest were all adventurers who came to the Northern Continent to explore and make money.
In the past, adventurers who wanted to explore a foreign land full of unknowns would mostly travel together and form a group before setting out. However, the Elf Port has been developed for several years, and its safety and stability are well-known in the adventurer circle. In addition, the transportation is convenient (the grassland fleet travels back and forth once a month, and the passenger ship ticket is cheap), so many adventurers who have not formed a group or are accompanied by a few people have come here to try their luck.
That is to say, every time a fleet enters the port, the already formed team of adventurers in the port will come to the merchant passage at the dock to block the door and replenish fresh blood on the spot... This place is narrow (the spacious space is all occupied by the cargo passage), it would be strange if it is not crowded!
The Yale tent stared silently at the small cat who was squeezed to the point of despair by the rude adventurers who kept shouting "recruiting" and "recruiting new people". He reached out and lifted the cat up to a height higher than the average altitude of the crowd: "Which way are you going?"
