Chapter 131 Resources

A railway construction site in Austria.

"Damn, what is this?" A sturdy young man sat on a sleeper, staring at the hard thing in his hand in amazement. "Is this meat?" He knocked it against the rails on the side, and the two collided, making an extremely crisp sound. "Is this a stone? How do you eat this thing?" He was a little worried that he would pop out a few teeth if he bit it.

The middle-aged man on the side smiled and said. "Are you new here? You have to take that meat back and boil it for an hour or so before it can be soaked."

The young man looked around, and sure enough, no one was chewing this "stone". Everyone was eating black bread and soup. "Uncle, what kind of meat is this, so hard?"

The uncle took a bite of black bread and said vaguely. "That's imported, just a little older. I heard it's American pickled beef from decades ago."

"American beef?" The young man muttered in disbelief. He never dreamed that beef could be so hard, it was just like a stone.

In fact, the uncle didn't know that this kind of meat was purchased from the United States by Yannick's catering company. It was war meat left over from the American Civil War, and it has a history of more than 70 years. After a long period of pickling and air-drying, these meats did not deteriorate, but the taste was very bad, which was completely different from fresh beef.

Fortunately, Americans have long been disgusted with these things that are not only unpalatable but also take up space. They were thinking about how to deal with these things. When they heard that someone was going to buy these meats, they couldn't wait to sell all these "ancient" war meats to the Germans at a price cheaper than cabbage.

The meat bought back was distributed to various places, and here it became an additional subsidy for the workers in addition to their normal wages.

The young man didn't think too much, put away the pickled beef, ate the black bread in big mouthfuls, and drank a few mouthfuls of thick soup from time to time.

After eating the meal like a whirlwind, he burped comfortably.

After a rest, he heard a shrill whistle sounded not far away.

The workers who were sitting, lying, or leaning to rest stood up and prepared to start work.

With the roar of various machines, the entire construction site became lively again. The team in front had already laid the roadbed and stones, and what they needed to do was to lay the sleepers and fix the rails.

The truck with the wall crane placed the rails one by one near the construction section of the railway. The workers laid the sleepers one by one on the stone foundation and fixed them. Finally, everyone worked together to move the rails to the sleepers and fix them, and a small section of the railway was laid.

While preparing the next rail, the young man looked in the direction he came from. He knew that this railway started from Vienna. Although he didn't know how many kilometers it was laid, he could see the shadow of the Alps in the distance. If this railway didn't turn, it should go straight to the Alps.

Could it be that this railway would also be built to the top of the Alps? Would it also be a tourist route?

This is not impossible, after all, there have been precedents before. As early as 1889, Switzerland built the world's steepest railway on Mount Pilatus. The entire railway has to climb to an altitude of 1,629 meters, with a total length of 2,070 meters and an average slope of 42 degrees, which means that the train rises 1 meter for every 2 meters it advances.

Because of the technological conditions at the time and the terrain restrictions of Mount Pilatus, the construction of this railway can be said to be the most difficult in history. All the materials for laying the roadbed were transported by horses and manpower. There was a section of the road full of cliffs, and the installation of rails and racks could only be done by people hanging safety ropes and driving them into hard granite slabs.

Just as he was full of wild thoughts, a group of people were struggling to move forward in the steep Alps, with the logo of the resource exploration department of the German "Zeus" company on their mountaineering clothes.

The terrain here is too rugged, there is no road at all, let alone vehicles, even horses can't get up, and they can only rely on their legs. Everyone is still carrying heavy equipment, step by step.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, the leader, the bearded man, stopped and panted. "Take a break."

"Ouch!" Everyone sat down on the ground, panting. Although everyone in their line of work is a strong man, they were exhausted on the way.

After resting for a while, the bearded man took out the compass and map and looked at them carefully for a while, then stood up and looked around. "It should be here, everyone get ready... God!" Before he finished speaking, his eyes suddenly focused, and he ran forward almost with his hands and feet.

??? The people who were lighting a bonfire and preparing to make coffee were startled by his sudden move. They saw the bearded man running to a pile of rocks not far away, picking up a stone and looking at it carefully, his cheeks showing uncontrollable excitement, and even his voice trembled slightly. "Quick, everyone come here!"

Everyone ran up to see the white and yellow stone in the bearded man's hand, and then looked at the ore of the same quality on the ground under their feet, and couldn't help but widen their eyes. They were all experts and could tell what it was at a glance. "Oh my God, this is scheelite!!" After being shocked, everyone cheered.

The bearded man excitedly shouted. "Quick, start exploring and identify the distribution of the ore."

Tungsten metal is known as a strategic resource. It has extremely important and extensive applications in the military, especially in modern military. According to literature records, tungsten was already used in weapons as early as the cold weapon era. Archaeologists have measured the composition of tungsten in unearthed ancient knives.

In modern times, the service life of steel gun barrels is not long. In order to extend the service life of gun barrels, that is, to enhance the corrosion of gun barrels against gunpowder combustion, people added tungsten to gun steel as early as 1822.

By World War I, German ordnance engineers had paid special attention to tungsten-containing gun barrels. According to data records, at that time, Russian and French light machine guns could only fire about 6,000 rounds of bullets before they were damaged, while German light machine guns could fire 15,000 rounds of bullets, more than doubled. Not surprisingly, tungsten production increased sharply during this war. However, this still could not meet the needs of the war, especially for Germany, which lacked tungsten resources and was in urgent need of tungsten.

The Germans could not be said to be foresighted. They had stored a considerable amount of tungsten ore before the war. But these tungsten ores could not withstand the consumption of a world war. Although German metallurgists thought of finding tungsten from the waste slag of tin smelting, it was also a drop in the bucket.

In the original time and space, the Mittersill tungsten mine in Austria was discovered in 1972. After it was put into production, open-pit mining was first started, and pit mining began after 1986. In other words, it does not require too much mining cost in the early stage, and it can mine open-pit tungsten for ten years. The most important thing is that it is the second largest tungsten mine in the world, with an annual ore mining of 400,000 tons and a commercial tungsten metal production of 1,800 tons. Even if only half of this amount was mined during the war, it would be enough for Germany to squander.