Chapter 14: Stars on the Ground
For his ten-year plan, the first thing Li Qingsong changed was the current power supply model.
Under the previous model, if a location ran short on electricity, a dedicated generator would be built just to supply it.
But this model was highly inefficient, difficult to coordinate, and quite wasteful.
So, Li Qingsong reformed it from the ground up.
He produced electrical wires and connected all power consumers and suppliers.
And just like that, a rudimentary, initial version of a "power grid" was formed.
From then on, the generators only had to feed power into the grid, while the blast furnaces, factories, and cultivation bases only had to draw power from it.
All Li Qingsong had to do was monitor the grid’s voltage and adjust the generators’ output as needed.
Another benefit was that it allowed for incredibly convenient expansion. New generators and electrical equipment could be connected at any time, which left plenty of room for future growth.
He consolidated the three existing generators in an energy industrial zone. Now, the tractor only had to deliver Oxygen Ore and Tolin Mine to this one location instead of running all over the place.
The blast furnace was moved to a metallurgical industrial zone. In the future, more blast furnaces would be built here to smelt a greater variety of ores.
Ores no longer needed to be delivered to separate locations; they just had to be brought to the metallurgical industrial zone.
The same went for the metalworking industry. All the machines were gathered together, and the metals produced in the metallurgical zone could be transported here in bulk.
There was also a chemical industrial zone, though it was currently empty.
And a fledgling glass products industrial zone, among others.
Setting up this framework took Li Qingsong over a month.
Looking at the industrial facilities—still crude and sparse—Li Qingsong felt something completely different from before.
He knew that all he had to do now was to keep fleshing out this "skeleton." As long as he kept adding to it, it would eventually become substantial, and that quantitative growth would lead to a qualitative leap.
Over the next year, Li Qingsong built a second and third tractor, manufactured a larger model of generator, and extended his reach beyond the canyon for the first time.
At the nearest open-pit iron mine, Li Qingsong assigned a permanent worker for the first time. This person would stay there to mine the ore and load it into a trailer.
When a tractor arrived, it would simply drop off an empty trailer and haul away the full one.
That year, the population under his command grew to 47.
By the second year, the number of metalworking factories under Li Qingsong’s command had increased to sixteen, capable of producing a wider variety of parts with greater precision.
At the same time, the first chemical plant was established. Here, Li Qingsong began producing simple chemical raw materials, like the foundational industrial acids and alkalis.
Of course, the equipment was crude at first, the output was very low, and the process was largely dependent on manual labor.
But that was fine. He would gradually iterate and improve upon it.
The third year, the fourth, the fifth...
By the start of the sixth year, the population under Li Qingsong had risen to 87, and Cultivation Base No. 2 was capable of operating at full capacity for the first time.
Of course, he had no intention of doing so at this stage.
’Why produce so much food? We can’t eat it all. It’s better to allocate the population to industrial development.’
In the seventh year, the first death occurred.
One of the Clones developed radiation sickness. When treatment failed, Li Qingsong had it terminated. His population thus saw its first decline, falling from 97 to 96.
In the same year, another Clone was killed in a blast furnace accident, and the population decreased by one more.
After that, the first fully enclosed, steel-structured factory building was constructed.
This factory was used to produce certain chemicals. With these chemicals, Li Qingsong could finally produce special types of steel alloys.
Time flowed by as the Clones worked tirelessly.
Gradually, the canyon filled with more and more steel structures, and the cables stretched longer and longer.
Moreover, the cables were no longer exposed to the elements; they were properly insulated, which drastically reduced the chance of accidents.
The metallurgical industrial zone grew from a single blast furnace to over twenty. In addition to iron and steel, they could now smelt other common metals.
The number of tractors increased to sixteen. Their design was more rational, their assembly more precise, and their performance more powerful.
The original generators had all been decommissioned, replaced by a total of twenty more efficient thermal power units with a combined installed capacity of forty thousand kilowatts.
Even the fuel-feeding process had become partially mechanized, making it much more convenient than before. Now, all twenty generators could be managed by just five people.
Time quietly flowed by.
On this day, aboard the Deep Space Spaceship, Li Qingsong’s original body stood before a porthole, gazing silently at a brilliant star in the distance.
That was the Sun.
Earth was in that direction, too.
Today marked the end of his self-appointed ten-year deadline. It had now been roughly fourteen years since he lost contact with Earth.
In all those fourteen years, he had never received a second message from Earth.
Limited by his observational capabilities, he had never been able to find out what had truly happened on that distant planet.
’Maybe they’re really gone.’
Li Qingsong thought to himself, a touch of sadness in his heart.
But he quickly pushed the feeling aside.
He turned and looked down at the massive, dark-red planet below.
On the planet’s surface was a speck of light, shining in a way utterly different from its surroundings, like a star had fallen to the ground.
Passion and anticipation filled his heart once more.
He knew that point of light was the fruit of ten years of ceaseless labor, which he had led a total of 135 Clones to accomplish.
With a flicker of thought, the view from one of the Clones on the surface appeared in his mind.
He saw tractor after tractor thundering across the land, saw truckload after truckload of Oxygen Ore, Tolin Mine, iron ore, copper ore, and aluminum ore being brought in, saw blast furnace after blast furnace belching black smoke, and saw generator after generator running through the night.
’My industrial scale is still very small, all things considered. In fact, all of it combined probably doesn’t even measure up to a small factory back on Earth.’
’As for the technological level, it’s not even in the same league.’
’I still haven’t managed to implement even a bit of automation.’
’But that’s okay. The overall framework is in place, and the various industrial foundations are all established.’
’At least, they’re established for my current level of technology.’
’All I need to do in the future is continuously upgrade, modify, and perfect everything.’
The fruits of these ten years brought Li Qingsong a sincere, heartfelt joy.
But what brought him even greater joy was something else entirely.
He could finally produce the nutrient fluid for the Clones!