Chapter 2319: Competition in Progress

When Xiluo's steam car crossed the starting line, a bright blue indicator appeared above Xiluo's steam car and hovered there, moving as the steam car moved.

Clear and concise text on it indicated the current status of Xiluo's car, such as its name, speed, load, water level, coal level, and so on.

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And when Xiluo had been off for about five minutes, the second exhibition car began its warm-up at Dien's signal; naturally, during this process, key questions such as load were also asked.

Once the warm-up ended, the second car also clattered off.

Just like that, a competing car departed every five minutes or so, and the appearance of each competing car would draw loud cheers and applause from the surrounding audience.

Xia Duo and Niya watched silently from the stands, occasionally exchanging a few words with Laidun, because the winner among these cars would become the Territory's public transportation and would be under Laidun's management; bringing up any issues early meant they could be resolved early.

……

There were no accidents for any of the competing vehicles during the departure phase, but there were quite a few that broke down and stopped on the road; the reasons for this were, of course, multifaceted.

Some people saw that others could seat six people at once and, worried about falling behind in the evaluation, also proposed a six-person load; once overloaded, it was very easy for accidents to occur.

Others were simply mechanical failures, but more were due to road conditions.

During the previous preparation phase, these competing teams basically conducted vehicle testing in the Floating City for the convenience of using the Magic Array to adjust the locomotive structure at any time.

And the roads of the Floating City were molded as a whole during the early stages of the Floating City's construction; although they had undergone subsequent fine-tuning and reinforcement, it could not be denied that the road conditions of the Floating City were absolutely far superior to the 【Daxia-Saville Passage】.

The 【Daxia-Saville Passage】 also had very good road conditions initially, but that was compared to the mud and dirt roads of the past; in reality, in Xia Duo's eyes, this road was wide enough, but in terms of quality, it couldn't even compare to the rural roads in his hometown.

It was just a matter of leveling and compacting the forest, then laying down road bricks to finish it; after two years of use, many sections had experienced road subsidence, broken road bricks, or even missing ones.

Although the Territory's Logistics Department had been actively maintaining it, it was impossible to fully restore it to its initial state, not to mention that Xia Duo had specifically instructed that no maintenance be done during this period.

The Logistics Department didn't maintain it, but the horse-drawn carriages transporting goods between the two places wouldn't stop, which made the state of this road even more complicated.

Furthermore, the design of the steam car itself was a relatively difficult task for the current competing teams, and most steam cars were imitating Xiluo's initial version.

It was sometimes difficult to hide the test driving in the Floating City from the eyes of other teams, but it was also difficult to penetrate the internal structure through one or two observations.

This made the disparity between the various vehicles extremely exaggerated, almost entirely dependent on the mechanical design talent of each team.

The good ones were already approaching practicality and had come up with schemes relatively consistent with the improvement suggestions Xia Duo had once given to Xiluo—Xiluo had not hidden Xia Duo's evaluations and opinions on the prototype from the other teams.

The poor ones couldn't even manage to imitate the prototype; of course, the worst of them had already given up the competition before the exhibition phase began, and those who could appear in the exhibition phase had at least reached a certain standard.

……

Soon, just as the last four or five cars were about to depart, Xiluo, who had departed first, had already entered the final sprint phase before the finish line.

Although it was only because he started first that he could return first, and it was not yet the fastest speed, the onlookers couldn't care about that much; any slight change on the field could trigger their cheers.

Not to mention that Xiluo's steam car had not had a single accident throughout the entire journey and had run the whole course steadily, which brought him extremely high popularity.

Nowadays, the literacy rate in Daxia Territory was, if not 100%, at least over 90%, not to mention that Dien, as the competition host, had specifically introduced the members of Xiluo's team before the start.

At this moment, when Xiluo successfully completed the competition, almost everyone at the south and north ends of the 【Daxia-Saville Passage】 was shouting Xiluo's name.

Of course, the names of Boli and others in Xiluo's team also appeared in the cheers and shouts of the crowd, but compared to Xiluo, who appeared as the driver, those voices were much fewer.

After Xiluo returned, the vehicle was shut down and parked in the exhibition area, and he himself went to the rest area with his other teammates to start celebrating in advance.

Of course, all of this did not affect the continuation of the competition, and the four or five vehicles that had not yet departed still departed in their respective order.

……

In the stands.

Xia Duo turned his head to ask Laidun, "What do you think of this car?"

"It's a bit slow in speed; although it's faster than a horse-drawn carriage, the load capacity is completely incomparable to a horse-drawn carriage. If it only seats six people, it's not very suitable for public use in the Territory. I wonder what the cost of this car is?"

"The cost is just the iron used to build that car; you don't need to worry about the rest."

"If we only calculate the iron, that's still a bit high. I think this car still has room for improvement."

"Room for improvement" was actually just another way of saying it wouldn't be selected. Laidun and Xia Duo were both very concerned about the status of the competing vehicles, but he cared more about the practicality of these vehicles, or more accurately, providing convenience to the current Territory.

If it could, of course, the Territory's Government Hall would come forward to purchase it; if it couldn't, then they certainly wouldn't waste the money.

As he said, if only the iron was calculated, the cost was also very high. Currently, Daxia Territory had no Iron Mine; after integration with Saville, they could use the Iron Mine of Savile Territory.

But the problem wasn't calculated that way; originally, one Iron Mine only needed to supply Savile Territory, but now it also had to supply Daxia Territory, which had a larger population than Savile Territory.

Considering that after the integration of the two places, all aspects needed to implement the standards of Daxia Territory, there were too many places where iron was needed, which made iron resources become even tighter instead.

Even with external imports, it was difficult to satisfy the long-term development of the Territory, and Laidun was clearly unwilling to relax standards in this regard.

"Then which car are you more optimistic about?" Xia Duo asked again.

"I am more optimistic about the one driven by Adaofu!"

"The one driven by Adaofu?"

Laidun mentioned that car, and Xia Duo had a very deep impression of it, only because the team Adaofu was in had the most obvious changes to the prototype; everyone else was replicating or improving on the basis of the prototype.

Only Adaofu's team had almost overturned the design of the prototype, placing the Steam Engine in an independent front car, with multiple carriages pulled by the front car behind it, similar to the design of a train.

It was just that this team's design focused more on the vehicle structure rather than the core Steam Engine and transmission device, which made their car, although it had the largest load—towing three carriages, each loaded with eight people.

But the speed was also the slowest, not much faster than walking; this point perfectly replicated Xiluo's version of the prototype, and many cars that departed after Adaofu had already overtaken him.