The Ming Dynasty is Too Fierce Text Volume Chapter 322 The Prologue to the Steam Age The flash bonnet is not good, but it is not really bad. Although it is inconspicuous, its appearance has changed the development of weapons. It has increased the firing rate of muskets.

, wages, improved the rate of fire and hit accuracy of muskets, and quickly eliminated flintlock muskets as soon as they appeared.

Even though it smells really good.

However, it is difficult for military households to obtain extra flash caps outside of training, because the only way to obtain flash caps is from the guard station, and flash caps cannot be purchased in the market. Naturally, this limits the use of military households.

How about letting go of the caps and selling them to the outside world?

It seems unrealistic. After all, the flash caps are not produced in-house. In fact, this is also because you can buy gun paper. One box of gun paper can make hundreds of thousands of flash caps.

Although the quantity on the other side is sufficient, it is not a long-term solution to always buy it like this. We still have to make our own mercury fulminates to achieve independent production of flash caps.

Yes, before that, it was still a flintlock gun! In fact, the percussion gun was also improved on the basis of the dog-lock flintlock gun.

Compared with the percussion gun, although the firing rate of the flintlock gun is lower and the rate of fire is slightly slower, as long as there is flint and gunpowder, it can be fired normally. For now, it is more suitable for the military households in the guard station than the percussion gun.

.After all, flint is everywhere, the technology is simple and abundant, and of course it is advanced enough. After all, the Napoleonic era a century and a half later also used flintlock muskets.

From now on, we should use flintlock muskets for civilians and percussion guns for the military. This will just keep the military's weapon advantage over the civilian population.

The new factory was not built in Dalian, but on the Dasha River. It was chosen to build here to take advantage of water power. This is the river closest to Dalian. With the experience of building a factory near Wangling, it was soon established in Dasha.

An aqueduct was built in a suitable area by the river and a water turbine was installed. However, this water turbine is not used to generate electricity, but to drive the transmission shaft. It has the same effect as a water wheel, but the impact water wheel

Not to mention the low power and the fact that it cannot be used in winter, this is why water turbines replaced water wheels together with steam engines at the beginning of the British Industrial Revolution in the mid-to-late 18th century.

Although according to the design of the factory, after the Dashahe Firearms Factory was put into operation, the hammer forging workshop and five hydraulic boring machines could produce hundreds of muskets every day, Dashahe was still too far from Dalian.

Industry needs power!

And power requires a steam engine!

"If that doesn't work, just bring a diesel generator over!"

Once again, facing the inefficient large windmills in the arsenal, Zhu Guoqiang silently thought that there was no available water power near the urban area of ​​Dalian, and the windmills were the only source of power for the factory, but the efficiency of the windmills was too low.

At the beginning, Zhu Guoqiang thought about the pot camel machine, which is known as the artifact of time travel. It is a power machine with a boiler and a steam engine connected together. It is equipped with wheels and can be moved. It uses coal, firewood, heavy oil, etc. as fuel, which is suitable for rural use and can be driven.

The water pump performs irrigation, drives a generator to generate electricity, and of course can also directly drive various working machines in machinery manufacturing.

It’s just... you can’t buy it!

That gadget was discontinued in China in the 1950s, and was basically phased out in the 1960s and 1970s. Where can we renovate a gadget that has been phased out for nearly half a century? No matter how convenient the fuel is, how can it be convenient to have a diesel engine?

"I don't know, how is Chen Zhihuan's steam engine going?"

With this thought in his mind, Zhu Guoqiang went to the arsenal by the sea. Before he arrived at the workshop, he heard the familiar roar of machines.

Yes, that’s the sound!

The sound of machines!

Walking quickly to the workshop, Zhu Guoqiang first saw a machine that was half the size of a room, roaring and running. A gray-headed and gray-faced Chen Zhihuan directed the workers to shovel coal, and he was covered in soot.

Zhu Guoqiang said in surprise as he stared at the big thing in front of him, with thick smoke spewing from the chimney, coal burning in the furnace, and a bit of steam spewing out from time to time as the flywheel rotated rapidly.

"Has it been created?"

"I have met the Crown Prince!"

Chen Zhihuan looked a little proud. After he and Ge Shizhen joined the Prince's family last year, he devoted himself to steam engines. From then on, all he thought about was steam engines. He always believed that as long as a steam engine was built,

It will bring about earth-shaking changes to the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, just thinking about it would definitely not work. In addition to thinking about it, he also got a model and some drawings from the prince, which were the drawings of the Watt steam engine. In fact, he was still working on it.

However, even though it was enabled, it was not easy to build a steam engine with just a model and drawings. Even when we were at the Royal Tomb, several boilers exploded in front of us and the pressure was too great.

Fortunately, he had the support of the Crown Prince, otherwise the factory owner would have kicked him and his disciples out long ago. They were all orphans from the almshouse, and of course they had had illicit relationships.

"It's made, but its performance is still average."

Chen Zhihuan said:

"It leaks a lot. Although the piston coming out of the chamber is very tight, there will still be leaks, but the steam engine can already operate."

Looking at the rapidly rotating flywheel, Zhu Guoqiang asked again:

"Then what?"

"It's easy to explode..."

Chen Zhihuan's expression changed and he said rather awkwardly:

"We have improved a lot, but the boiler still explodes due to excessive pressure."

"In other words, except for this problem, the steam engine is basically completed?"

Zhu Guoqiang asked.

"It's done, and the power is decent, it can reach ten horsepower."

Chen Zhihuan said,

"I carefully calculated and found that it can indeed drive forging hammers, grinders and other equipment in the workshop, and the cost is not high. However, it is too easy to explode."

Looking at this machine carefully, although Zhu Guoqiang is not a steam enthusiast, he still knows that this thing is probably an early Watt steam engine.

That is, the centrifugal speed regulator and throttle valve steam engine, although it has some problems, has initially gained commercial value.

Although it is still primitive, it appeared at the right time!

"Explosion... Well, are there any ideas for improvement?"

In fact, it is just a pressure gauge. Zhu Guoqiang silently thought to himself, if it doesn't work, just use doctrine.

Many times, using doctrine is undoubtedly the best choice.

In fact, there are many "borrowed" things in this factory. For example, the steel inner tube of the "steel core iron body composite gun" cast in the factory is a seamless steel tube brought from the other side. In order to

To improve the efficiency of cannon casting, iron molds were even used. After all, there was a steel inner tube, and it didn't matter whether the cannon body was made of white cast iron or not.

Casting this composite is very simple. You only need to fill the inner tube with wet sand, fix it in the iron mold, and then pour molten iron. Although the iron mold conducts heat quickly and the casting condenses quickly, the gun body is made of white iron.

However, because the inner tube is a steel tube, it is naturally not as brittle as white iron, which is prone to cracks during launch and may even burst after repeated use.

But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. One of the simplest issues is quantity. A dozen guard bastions require thousands of artillery pieces. Coupled with the construction of the army and navy, at least thousands of artillery pieces are needed.

It is definitely not possible to rely on steel pipes brought from the other side to serve as inner tubes for so many guns. The best solution is of course to solve it nearby, that is, to cast it locally.

"At present, our cannon casting is mainly based on sand casting and solid bore drilling. However, solid bore drilling is too slow. Now the Ordnance Department is urging us every day, but how can solid bore drilling be as fast as casting the whole gun before? Not only

There is no need to drill the bore or even cooling. If you want to increase the speed, you must improve the method of casting the cannon!"

In the hot cannon casting workshop, Sun Hewu couldn't help but complain when he saw the prince. Facing the supervision of the Ordnance Department these days, he could say that he had a terrible headache.

As Sun Yuanhua's nephew, Sun Hewu defected here at the invitation of Sun Hejing. When Sun Yuanhua was training his troops, Sun Hewu was specifically responsible for casting cannons. During the mutiny, he luckily escaped from the rebel army. When he got here, he naturally participated in cannon casting.

He is indeed more professional than the craftsmen who become monks in the factory. He can even understand the foreign cannon casting materials translated in the late Qing Dynasty.

Zhu Guoqiang asked: "What, do you have any ideas?"

"Sir, I have been studying the water-cooled cannon casting method in the book "Internal Mold Water-cooled Cannon Casting Method" you gave me recently. I think I might try it."

"Internal mold water-cooled cannon casting method?"

After a moment, Zhu Guoqiang remembered what this was. It was the Rodman cannon casting method. It was a hollow casting process invented by Major Rodman of the U.S. Army during the Civil War. The cannon was cast around the core, and the inside of the core was filled with flowing water.

Cooling is a method to harden the inside of the gun bore first. It can greatly speed up the casting speed and reduce the scrap rate, especially when casting heavy guns.

Although historically this method of cannon casting was not introduced in the late Qing Dynasty, the translation office of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau translated its technical information and compiled it into a book on the cannon casting method. In fact, among the Western books "introduced" by Zhu Guoqiang, there are no

Most of them were translated by Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. For example, Chen Zhihuan had part of the book "The Beginning of Steam Engines", and the books he brought over included chemistry, physics, mathematics, medicine, military science, technology, etc.

, but the main content is still focused on manufacturing, military, measurement, and machinery. This is exactly what this era needs.

In fact, when Western technology was introduced in the late Qing Dynasty, most of the translated books played a role in popularizing science and literacy. The technology of those books was simple and even primitive. But it is undeniable that those primitive technologies were very important to this era.

It is undoubtedly an epoch-making existence.

This is also the reason why Zhu Guoqiang deliberately "copied" those books. Moreover, in terms of social and technological level, the Manchu Qing Dynasty after the Opium War was not necessarily more advanced than the current Ming Dynasty, so the books are just right for this era...

After leaving the arsenal, when the carriage was driving on the road, Zhu Guoqiang looked quite proud. After all, he had seen the dawn of the industrial age here today.

Looking out of the car, he even sighed with pride.
Chapter completed!