Chapter 350 - 347: Homo sapiens' Speed

January 15th.

The middle reaches of the Nile River.

Kom Ombo, a large city along the river, not far from the Aswan Dam.

Several thousand local residents stood atop buildings on the eastern side of the city, gazing out at the ochre desert to the east.

In the morning sun, a behemoth was advancing, inch by inch, toward Kom Ombu City.

The newcomer was none other than the Giant Rhinoceros 1 Canal Boat. Thirteen days prior, it had set out from inland of Hongku Port, working around the clock in four shifts to dig its way toward Kom Ombo.

After 13 days of effort, the 315-kilometer-long canal had finally reached the outskirts of Kom Ombo.

Captain Lin Shengbin checked the blueprints in his hand, compared them with the satellite positioning and the map, and quickly shouted, "Begin turning! Veer south, ninety degrees."

"Roger that."

Inside the cockpit, everyone was busy, working in an orderly fashion.

The Giant Rhinoceros 1 made its turn approximately 3.4 kilometers east of Kom Ombu City, preparing to dig a second, parallel canal line back to Hongku Port.

Just then, a 5,000-ton class passenger ship, which had also traveled from Hongku Port, arrived at the turn. A specially made steel-frame bridge slowly extended from it, settling onto a relatively solid patch of ground on the bank.

The local administrators of Kom Ombo, who had been notified in advance, were already waiting. The moment they saw the bridge extend, they swarmed over.

The man in the lead was middle-aged, with a neat, simple mustache and slicked-back hair. His eyes held a complex mix of emotions, including envy.

A short while later, the ship's passengers began to disembark, crossing the steel-frame bridge with their bags and luggage.

The middle-aged man forced a smile. "Welcome to Kom Ombo, esteemed guests from the Homo Sapiens Company. I am Sable, the person in charge here."

The manager sent by the Coral Construction Group to establish a new branch, Hu Mingliang (Orang Hook), smiled and extended his hand. "Hello. I'm Hu Mingliang, the branch manager for the Coral Construction Group, assigned to the Aswan Region."

The two men exchanged pleasantries for a moment.

In total, 1,200 people, including construction teams and management personnel, had been dispatched here.

They would be responsible for planning the intersection project between the Southern Canal and the Nile River, as well as developing the infrastructure for the Port of Kom Ombo.

"Mr. Sable, our company needs to hire about 3,000 temporary workers locally. Is there any wasteland near the city? A desert area would also work."

Sable took out a local map and pointed to several areas. "These are all wastelands relatively close to the city. Over here on the eastern side, there is a stretch of Gobi Desert."

Hu Mingliang looked at the location on the map, then raised a pair of binoculars to observe the area in the distance.

It was a 4.7-square-kilometer patch of Gobi Desert—or more accurately, a rock-weathering zone. Aside from some stones and sand, not even a few weeds could be seen.

Hu Mingliang turned to the head of the planning group and asked, "Beiyang, what's the situation with this Gobi Desert area?"

Ujima Beiyang was also looking at a map, but he was viewing an internal satellite topographic map provided by the company. This map, with a precision of 0.2 meters, already had contour lines marked.

He checked the location and altitude of the Gobi Desert. "The Gobi area has an average elevation of about 72 meters. To one side, there's a low-lying salt marsh region with an average elevation of 26 meters. We could consider deepening the salt marsh to create an artificial lake."

"What would the workload be?" Hu Mingliang asked.

Ujima Beiyang did a quick calculation. "The area is 7.6 square kilometers. If we want to dig down to 45 meters below sea level and bring over a Giant Rhinoceros-class canal boat, it would take about six days to complete."

Hearing this, Hu Mingliang shook his head with a sigh. "We only have two Giant Rhinoceros Canal Boats here in the Suez Region. Haitian Agriculture has borrowed one, and the other is currently digging the second canal line. We can't reassign it for now."

"What about new boats?"

"Headquarters is rushing the shipyard. The next batch is estimated to have five canal boats entering service, but they won't be available until May."

Ujima Beiyang scratched his head. "This stretch of Gobi is the most suitable. The other areas are all wheat or cotton fields."

After thinking for a moment, Hu Mingliang made the decision. "Then this is it! We'll start with the other construction first."

Sable, who was standing to the side, reminded him, "Manager Hu, this Gobi area has no roads or water pipes nearby. Life could be very inconvenient."

Hu Mingliang waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry, we'll handle it ourselves."

Although he didn't know how they would solve it, Sable knew better than to pry. He continued his introduction to the local customs and culture of Kom Ombo.

The two parties talked for another half an hour. In the end, Hu Mingliang dispatched the head of his human resources team to accompany Sable into Kom Ombu City to prepare for a job fair.

Meanwhile, Hu Mingliang began preparations for the construction of the Gobi Desert New District.

Armored vehicles, pickup trucks, and engineering equipment were unloaded from the passenger ship's cargo hold.

The first order of business was to build a temporary dock to facilitate the unloading of subsequent transport ships.

Although the canal was currently only a single line, its width of 120-130 meters, combined with the lake areas formed by some low-lying regions, made two-way traffic possible. It just required careful scheduling of transport missions, using the lakes as passing zones.

And with an average depth of 20 to 45 meters, the canal could easily accommodate transport ships of the 50,000 deadweight-ton class.

However, considering the canal's current width was still somewhat insufficient, the Hongku Port management company only permitted ships of 10,000 tons or less to navigate it.

For the temporary dock, they first drove some pillars into the ground to reinforce the stability of the local strata, preventing it from collapsing after being saturated with seawater.

At the same time, a water purification truck began drawing seawater from the canal. By passing it through a biological nano-unidirectional osmosis layer, it could produce about 50 tons of pure water per day.

A generator truck supplied electricity to the temporary camp, the water purification truck provided drinking water, and a satellite communications vehicle offered internet service.

「By noon that day.」

A 10,000-ton class bulk carrier arrived at the temporary dock.

The bulk carrier had its own unloading equipment, which it used to deposit the transported engineering vehicles, machinery, and raw materials onto the temporary dock.

Using various modular components, a navigation beacon and a shipping coordination center were quickly assembled on the dock.

The various supporting facilities in the temporary dock area were expanding at a rate visible to the naked eye.

In less than three days, with a constant stream of equipment and supplies delivered by transport ships running on an eight-hour cycle, not only was the temporary dock taking impressive shape, but a temporary town capable of housing 3,000 workers had also appeared in the Gobi Desert New District.

Sable, who had been keeping a close eye on the developments, was utterly shocked by the Homo Sapiens Company's construction speed.

In fact, over these three days, the temporary dock had also supplied Kom Ombu City with 2,000 tons of processed flour and 200 tons of palm oil to alleviate local food shortages.

This was also done to win the hearts and minds of the local population, which would facilitate the upcoming job fair.

The new canal meant that supplies transported from the Red Sea to the Aswan Region no longer needed to detour through Cairo, reducing the shipping route by nearly two-thirds.

Why did the Homo Sapiens Company dig a canal?

The purpose was to facilitate the transport of bulk commodities.

Railways were simply not cost-effective in the Suez Region; in fact, their cost-effectiveness was extremely low throughout the entire Sahara Desert Area.

This was mainly because the desert climate here easily damaged railways. Furthermore, since many areas were uninhabited, the value of rail for passenger transport was low, limiting its use to transporting materials like minerals and grain.

In the Suez Region, for example, the core economic zone is the Nile River Delta and the long, narrow Nile River Valley Plain. There was simply no need to build railways in other areas.

Canals, on the other hand, were different. A canal could revitalize the areas along its banks.