1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 727 Tai'an
On August 1656, 8, Hanzhou, Tai'an (now Albany, southwest Australia).

"During more than ten days of rest here, the officers and soldiers of the fleet have deeply felt the love of the county lord and the people of the whole city, so we are all flattered!" Lu Zusheng, commander of the Eastern Squadron of the Exploration Fleet and Lieutenant Xuanjie (Major), expressed gratitude said.

"You wait for the naval officers and soldiers to fight the waves, proclaim the prestige of our great Qi country overseas, expand the living land of our Chinese people in the ocean, and be respected by the people of this county. It's not worth it." Wang Zhongyi, the county magistrate of Tai'an, said warmly: "Lieutenant Xuanjie will go to Jianye to return to his mission. He will definitely be rewarded heavily by the king and the military department. The future is limitless!"

"Don't dare to dare, my lord is too praised." Lu Zusheng waved his hand humbly, "It is the responsibility of our navy to be ordered to explore unknown ocean routes. If this is the case, we should not be rewarded by the king and the military department."

Although he said so, Lu Zusheng was quite proud in his heart.In one year, they crossed the vast Pacific Ocean, crossed the dangerous Atlantic Ocean, and then crossed the Indian Ocean, and experienced two continents. During this period, they discovered more than a dozen islands and set up a stronghold in the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of America.What is even more gratifying is that the "Fengxing 4" exploration ship that lost contact has safely arrived in Yunyang in the east of Hanzhou (now Mackay in eastern Australia) on April 4, and there is not much loss of personnel. Let people shout lucky.

In this way, the officers and soldiers of the entire exploration fleet lost only 47 people during the voyage. In addition to the losses caused by battles, accidents, and disappearances, less than ten people died of illness. In comparison, it can be said that the loss is slight.

However, the harvest of the exploration fleet is huge. It not only confirmed the reliability of the route from the south latitude westerly belt to the American continent, but also discovered several islands that could be used as midway supplies along the way, and more practically explored the east and west coasts of the Spanish American continent. The situation has laid the necessary prerequisites for the subsequent exploration of the American continent.

After bidding farewell to the officers and soldiers of the exploration fleet at the pier, Wang Zhongyi, the county magistrate of Tai'an, led a group of officials and businessmen slowly towards the city.

"Shopkeeper Su, how is your threshing machine doing?" Just as he was about to enter the city, Wang Zhongyi suddenly turned and asked a merchant-looking person.

"Master Huizhi County, the threshing machine was enlarged several times according to the original model, but it couldn't work normally. Several craftsmen have been studying it for more than ten days, but they still can't find a way." Su Guicheng, the manager of the "Yongyu" grain processing factory in Tai'an County, hurriedly Respectfully stepped forward and replied.

"Oh?" Wang Zhongyi frowned, "A month ago, I didn't tell you the principle of the machine's operation, as long as you follow the diagram and expand it a little, even if it can't be used much, it won't stop working ah!"

"My lord, forgive me for being stupid, I can't understand what my lord suggested. That machine...is really difficult to make." Su Guicheng's face flushed with indescribable embarrassment.

"Forget it, there is nothing serious in the official office, let me walk around with you. Go and see what the machine looks like." Wang Zhongyi turned his head and ordered a patrolman to bring the horse over, and he was about to go to the farm outside the city. View the thresher development process.

Several Tai'an County officials who followed him couldn't help shaking their heads and laughing. This lord was originally the commander of the overseas territory of Guangning Fort (now Cilegon City in the northwest of Java, Indonesia), and his political skills were impeccable.Colonization, land reclamation, resettlement, and the establishment of various workshops and mines have made Tai'an, which has just been upgraded to a county, prosperous and prosperous in just two years. It is known as a capable official in the entire Tai'an area, and it may be a few years later. After the abolition of the district, it was upgraded to a prefecture, and it is likely to be the strongest contender for the first magistrate.

However, this lord likes to tinker with some machines in addition to his daily routine. He often tells the officials and people under his command to actively use his subjective initiative and respond to the call of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Cabinet to make more inventions and improve people's livelihood.

As we all know, the southwestern area of ​​Hanzhou has become one of the most important grain production bases in Qi State. In addition to maintaining the food supply of this area and more than ten coastal towns in the western general area every year, it also provides thousands of tons of high-quality wheat for Jianye Mansion , to meet the local grain food demand.

Therefore, in view of the huge wheat production in Tai'an County, the annual harvest season is limited by the separation of grains and chaff, which requires a lot of manpower and relies on natural wind for artificial lifting.Seeing this situation, the county magistrate insisted on organizing dozens of craftsmen to develop and design a grain lifting machine.

A corn lifter is a simple hand-cranked machine that generates artificial wind that allows farmers to winnow and separate grain from chaff (and other unwanted debris) in any weather.

The farmer turns the handle at a steady rate, which spins a fan inside the machine and creates an airflow that passes directly through a narrow horizontal duct.Once the wind speed is sufficient, the farmer dumps the grain into a hopper on top of the machine.As the grain passes through the air stream, any lightweight components are blown out the other side.Due to the large mass of the grain itself, it will fall down through a chute and exit on the other side.

This kind of machine greatly facilitates the grain shelling of farmers, and it can be carried out even in a windless or rainy environment, speeding up the process of grain processing.Wang Zhongyi was not satisfied with this, and he also ordered the craftsmen to work hard to equip this machine with a steam engine, hoping to replace pure handwork with a steady stream of steam power, so as to improve the working efficiency of the machine.

When this machine was known by the Ministry of Industry and Agriculture, it was immediately promoted to other parts of the country and several overseas territories.However, there were difficulties in granting the machine patent and awarding bonuses.You must know that in the past ten years or so, many patents and various awards granted for inventions and creations were aimed at craftsmen and ordinary people, and no official has ever obtained the above rights because of this.

In the end, with the approval of King Qi, the Ministry of Industry awarded this invention patent to the "not doing business" Tai'an magistrate, and issued a reward of 2000 yuan of Hanzhou silver dollars.

As if inspired, this Lord Wang began to think about how to develop a machine for threshing grain.A few months ago, because of the immigrant season, as many as [-] immigrants from Daming and Annan were assigned to Tai'an County. Many resettlement work had to be presided over and planned by him, so he temporarily left the thresher research and manufacturing.

Now, after the basic arrangements for various general affairs have been made, Wang Zhongyi thought of the development of the thresher.

Grain threshing is one of the most important links in the crop harvesting process. After harvesting, the grains of the crops are removed from the ears, and other extruded objects such as short stalks, chaff, debris and grains are removed as much as possible. seperate.

The difficulty of grain threshing is closely related to the fixation strength of grain, cob and chaff, and the fixation strength of grain is related to crop type, variety, maturity and humidity.According to measurements, wheat is easier to thresh than rice and indica rice than japonica rice; it is easier to thresh than wheat with high maturity and low humidity than low maturity and high humidity.

The mechanical action process of the threshing device on grain threshing is relatively complicated. When threshing a certain crop, a certain force is often used as the main force, and several forces are used to complete the threshing. Generally, there are impact, rubbing, combing, rolling, etc. .

The earliest threshing tools in ancient Chinese history were flails and stone rollers. The former was threshing by manpower, and the latter was threshing by pulling stone rollers by manpower or animal power.These two threshing methods are not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also cause certain damage and waste to the grain.

During this period, European countries were not more advanced than China in the agricultural technology of grain threshing. Even until the end of the 18th century, the method of threshing hardly changed.

However, the principle of the threshing machine proposed by Wang Zhongyi is far beyond all threshing technologies of this era. He borrowed the model of a wool washing machine invented by Kaiyuan Cotton Mill, and through a series of derivations and verifications, he drew a new grain threshing machine. The organization constructed the model and handed it over to the "Yongyu" grain processing factory for further development.

This new design uses a powerful drum with beaters attached to it.By beating vigorously, the husks of the grains are removed (the previous experimental machines just rubbed the grains).This experimental threshing machine is powered by manpower and can process 120 to [-] kilograms of wheat per hour. Compared with traditional flails and stone rollers, the efficiency is more than twice that of the traditional flails and stone rollers, and there is no damage to the grain particles.

If this machine is built a little bigger, there will be more grains to be threshed.Of course, if it can be equipped with animal power, the efficiency may be increased several times.Even if this machine is installed next to the waterwheel, or managed to connect to the steam engine, the efficiency will be geometrically improved.

The evolution and evolution from tools to machines means higher efficiency and is a prerequisite for the development of large industries.Compared with those ordinary tools, machines are more complex and efficient, and also more specific and capital.Machines realize the integration of tools and technology, and even the simplest machine is more efficient than tools.

The most fatal shortcoming of Qi State is that the population is too small, which makes it face the embarrassment of insufficient manpower in both agricultural production and the booming primary industry.In order to solve this contradiction, the State of Qi continued to increase immigration and desperately increased the domestic population to meet the manpower needs of various domestic industries.

At the same time, various industries and departments are also racking their brains to invent and improve the production tools at hand, optimize various production organization methods, and try to continuously expand the level of industrial and agricultural output with the minimum human consumption.

Before Wang Zhongyi immigrated to Hanzhou, in addition to studying the Four Books and Five Classics and preparing for the imperial examination, what Wang Zhongyi was most interested in was the research and production of the operating principles of various tools and utensils.However, the Yangzhou massacre almost killed him by the Qing prisoner's knife.Later, due to the critical situation, he boarded the immigration ship of Qi State as a scholar, fled the hellish north bank of the Yangtze River, and finally came to the mainland of Hanzhou.

When I first came to Hanzhou, because I had a certain amount of cultural knowledge, and because I was well-versed in people without the pedantry of traditional literati, I entered Jianye Mansion and started as an official.In the next few years, because of his ability to do things, he successively served as civil affairs officer in Kaiyuan County, general affairs officer in charge of colonization in Xinhuai'an County, and commander of Guangning Fort.Two years ago, he was promoted to the county magistrate of Tai'an.

During his more than ten years in Hanzhou, he gradually discovered that the promotion of officials in Qi State only pays attention to actual performance, and doesn't care at all about what moral articles you can do.Moreover, because it is a new type of kingdom where immigrants gather, it doesn't pay much attention to background and seniority--of course, this kingdom that has been established for just 20 years does not care about noble backgrounds and rich families, as long as they can make a name for themselves in the local area. Excellent political achievements and a smooth upward path will be open to all officials with certain political ability.

In addition, the emphasis placed on all kinds of machines and science by the entire Qi State also slowly released Wang Zhongyi's deep love for industrial machines.In addition to governing the local area and managing general affairs, he would often organize local craftsmen and scholars in Tai'an to research and manufacture various utensils that are conducive to industrial and agricultural production.

"Science and technology are the primary productive forces", he is deeply convinced of this phrase that King Qi often talks about.If a country or a place can easily produce a huge amount of goods with a large number of machines, it will mean that within a limited population size, the number of social products will increase dramatically. Correspondingly, the material resources that people may obtain or Wealth will also increase several times than before.

Food and clothing are abundant, the people are rich and the country is strong, and then the world is governed. This prosperous scene that only exists in ancient legends will surely be realized in our country of Qi.

After several days of research and improvement, a threshing machine with animal power as the power output has been successfully developed. Under the traction of a mule, this threshing machine can process about 120 kilograms of grain per hour. Compared with the previous use of stone roller threshing, the efficiency has been improved by five times.The invention of this machine was [-] years earlier than the grain thresher developed by the later British Andrew Meeker.

"If all the parts of this machine are made of iron parts, it may be more durable." Wang Zhongyi patted the wooden feeding port of the machine, "In addition, if some steel gears are added to some of the transmission devices, it will save labor. Much more."

"My lord, although the amount of steel we get here every month is not much, it can be done evenly." An official said with a smile, "However, the transmission steel gears you mentioned may not be available for a while. It’s easy to get. It needs to be specially ordered from the Jianye Mansion in the north, so that we can supply a certain amount to us.”

"Everything has to be shipped from the Jianye Mansion, it's too late." Wang Zhongyi shook his head and said: "If we also build a steel factory in the southwest region, and then bring some iron processing factories or hardware factories here, Wouldn't it better promote the development of our southwest region?"

"My lord, although iron ore has been discovered dozens of miles away from Tai'an County, the Ministry of Industry may not agree with us to build a steel plant here." The official said with a wry smile: "Because we lack iron-making here. Coal necessary for steel smelting... I heard that the Ministry of Industry intends to build a steel factory in Nandu (now Melbourne, Australia), and they discovered coal mines there."

"...Hehe, by the way, the luck of Nandu is really good. A gold mine has just been discovered on the front foot, and a coal mine has been discovered on the back foot. Now, we are going to build the third steel base in Qi State. Maybe, within a few years, this The southern capital is booming!"

"Yes, their geographical resources are indeed better than ours in Tai'an. What's even more rare is that the chief executive of the Hannan District Administrative Office with Nandu as the core is Mr. Shen who retired from the cabinet vice premier last year (former cabinet vice premier, Minister of the Ministry of Officials Shen Cheng'an) is in charge. In this way, all the resources and contacts in the south will develop due to the situation, which is also a matter of course." The official said enviously.

"That's not necessarily the case." Wang Zhongyi glanced at the official, "Development depends more on living people, and more on the concerted efforts of the local officials and people, not the so-called resources of a pile of dead things."

(End of this chapter)