I want to be emperor

And when the Great Chu Empire established two major canal companies to prepare for the construction of two very large canals, it was to test a series of technologies and to accumulate sufficient construction experience.

The Chu Empire took the first step to dredge, expand, and deepen some sections of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in China.

Further expand the shipping capacity of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, a major north-south inland river artery and cheap river transport channel.

At the same time, we can also test the application of a series of mechanized construction equipment such as steam engine-powered excavation equipment, lifting equipment, and transportation equipment on a large scale in advance, and accumulate experience in the design and installation of ship locks.

However, it is worth noting that the lock experience will mainly be applied to the Panama Canal, not the Suez Canal.

Because of the preliminary survey, technicians concluded that there is no gap between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, and it is completely possible to allow ships to navigate naturally without the need for large ship locks. Once built, its navigation efficiency will be very high.

But the two alternatives for the Central American Canal, the Panama Canal and the other alternative, the Nicaragua Canal, are different. They all face the same problem, that is, there is a gap between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Of course, this is not important... The difference is only a few dozen centimeters. After passing through tens or hundreds of kilometers of canals, this difference is actually almost negligible.

If you just find a river, the drop within dozens of kilometers will be more than this... The boats are still running happily. As for the tides and the like, you fools don't know how to build a flood barrier. The port's breakwater You can do it all, but you can’t do the breakwater at the canal entrance?It doesn’t make sense!
The real problem is that the terrain of Central America is relatively complex. This place is somewhat similar to a north-south mountain range. In this place, both Panama and Nicaragua are much higher than sea level.

Digging a canal here, even in the plains, is equivalent to digging a canal on a mountain tens of meters high... and it is still digging a river channel dozens of meters deep and dozens of meters wide...

This is too difficult, not to mention in the contemporary era, even in the 21st century in the original time and space, it is not easy to carry out such a super project... Of course, it will not be possible in future generations, but the cost will be extremely high and not worth it!
Therefore, when building a canal in Central America, the engineers of the Chu Empire came up with an economical and affordable solution, which was to directly dig a naturally navigable waterway without spending so much effort.

Instead, local lakes and rivers were used to shorten part of the canal distance, and multiple locks were used to raise the height of ships to build a canal dozens of meters above sea level!

In this way, the overall construction difficulty will be greatly reduced, and the construction volume will also be greatly reduced, saving construction costs and reducing technical difficulty.

It's just that the Chu Empire has never built such large ship locks before... Before this, it had only built some small ship locks in a few domestic canals such as the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal.

Therefore, the Chu Empire wanted to design and build some large ship locks in the domestic Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to gain relevant experience before building the Central American Canal.

After all, the design and construction of a ship lock, especially a super-large ship lock that is tens of meters wide and capable of navigation of tens of thousands of tons of ships, is not a simple matter. The weight of a single door of this kind of thing will have a huge impact. Hundreds of tons.

In addition, how to open and close such a giant ship lock weighing several hundred tons is a big problem.

If you want to lift such a heavy gate directly, it will be very difficult. If you use the opening and closing mode, you will need to face strong water pressure...

In short, no matter which switching method is used, it is very troublesome and poses a great challenge to Chu State's engineering technology.

Under such circumstances, combined with the opinions of engineers, the empire planned to widen and deepen the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and build several large ship locks.

This can not only improve the navigation capacity of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, but also provide cheaper and larger-scale canal transportation capabilities to the economically developed area along the canal.

It can also accumulate large-scale mechanical construction capabilities and test technical details such as the design and construction of super-large ship locks.

Therefore, under the unified deployment of the high-level officials of the empire, construction on some sections of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal quickly began, and a large number of mechanical equipment powered by steam engines gradually entered the site.

Among them, Anton 152 series single-bucket excavators and 263 series multi-bucket excavators of Anton Machinery Company are even more popular... frequently appearing in newspapers and making them familiar to ordinary people.

This situation made the management of Anton Machinery Company smile from ear to ear.

You must know that although the excavators produced by Anton Machinery Company have been used for many years and appeared in some large-scale projects, they actually had very little response and their application scale was very small.

After all, excavators, even steam engine excavators, are not cheap, and the early steam engine excavators were technically immature. After being rushed to the market by early excavator manufacturers, the response was actually not good.

The price is expensive and the construction efficiency is not high. Not only do problems occur every day, there have also been many safety accidents.

Therefore, the early steam engine excavators actually did not have a good reputation...

And this bad reputation continued for more than ten years, and it also affected the products of Anton Machinery Company.

Although the 152 series and 263 series excavators developed and produced by Anton Machinery Company are completely different from the early products of other companies, and their efficiency and safety have been greatly improved...but it is still difficult to open up a large market, well, here In fact, the price of a series of excavators from Anton Machinery Company is more expensive than those early excavators, and it is not ordinary expensive, but a price difference of two or three times.

Not many construction workers can afford the extremely expensive Anton excavator...

Coupled with the inherent safety and bad reputation of excavators, it has also led to the fact that although the Anton excavator has been developed for seven years, the market sales have not been very good.

And when sales are not good, Anton Machinery Company cannot reduce costs by expanding production. If costs cannot be reduced, the selling price cannot be lowered, and it is forced to maintain relatively high prices for a long time.

This creates a very bad vicious cycle.

Over the years, Anton Machinery Company has been looking for a breakthrough...but it is too difficult to directly break the situation in the market, so they have set their goal on technological breakthroughs.

We have tried to reduce the cost of using excavators through the advancement of technology, so that construction parties find it profitable.

To this end, they have spent a lot of effort on technology research and development to develop a crawler traveling mechanism that is more reliable, simpler, less difficult to maintain, and has a lower overall cost.

Using a steam engine with better performance not only increases the total power of the equipment, but also improves thermal efficiency to reduce the power cost per horsepower.

Use better steel wire ropes and make more safety precautions in the design to avoid safety risks caused by wire rope breakage...

The reason why their products are not selling well is because of the poor strength of the wire ropes and the lack of safety precautions in the batch of 38 excavators they produced in Chengshun in 152, which caused customers to break the wire ropes during use. The wire rope broke, and then carried strong kinetic energy like the scythe of death, directly killing one person and injuring three people on the construction side. The injured also included a senior management of the construction side.

This accident directly caused the 152 series excavators, which had just been launched on the market, to be cold in the market... The construction company would rather use other steam construction equipment that was even more backward than their 152 series excavators.

After all, Anton Machinery Company is not the only company that develops and produces construction equipment in the Dachu Empire, and the types of construction equipment are not limited to Anton Machinery Company's 152 and 263 series excavators.

There are actually many kinds of construction equipment... and they can all be used for construction.For example, Xujiang Heavy Machinery Company, that is, the Yangtze series crawler bulldozers, Huanghe series wheel bulldozers developed and produced by Xujiang Heavy Industry, and crawler or wheeled forklifts that are extensions of these two basic configurations are very good. Engineering equipment sells well in the market.

There is also a series of silt cleaning equipment developed and produced by Jiangnan Offshore Machinery Company. This equipment can also be regarded as a variant of excavator to some extent. Various silt cleaning equipment produced by Jiangnan Offshore Machinery Company are widely used in rivers and lakes. , various construction occasions such as offshore ports. At the same time, they also launched iron wheel-type engaging excavators for land construction to the market.

It is worth noting that the steam engine crawler or wheeled chassis used by the above-mentioned companies are basically products or technology authorized by Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company.

Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company, the earliest pioneer in steam engine mobile equipment, defeated a large number of competitors such as Tangshan Machinery Company in the early years, and successfully reached the king of steam engine tractors... However, not long after reaching the top, due to internal Poor management, and at the same time, several competitors were introducing new products, and several of their own core patents expired one after another, and they failed to develop new core patents to form a new patent moat. In the early 30s, the new company management was once again focused on one thing. What about the internal combustion engine? At that time, their company had developed a gas engine, and they wanted to use this gas engine as the power of the tractor to build a gas tractor.

As a result, they underestimated the danger of the gas engine. As soon as the first prototype was tested, the gas pipe leaked and was ignited by the high temperature of the engine... Bang, a big fireball appeared.

One person died and five were injured on the spot.

In the second prototype, there was no problem with the gas pipeline, but there was a problem with the gas engine itself. It vibrated violently during operation and then exploded. Then there was another gas explosion... and another person was burned.

The third prototype... There is no need to test it. When the tractor was just assembled and the gas tank was inflated, because the gas tank was not working, too much gas was rushed in when the operator was operating it, and the gas level was not good in the end. The tank burst on the spot...

This time, due to strict precautions, there was no gas explosion, but it almost poisoned a large area... The main flammable component of gas is carbon monoxide, which is highly toxic to the human body, and is colorless and odorless... The Great Chu Empire When using gas, pungent gas is added to the gas so that people can know in time after a gas leak and get out of the gas leak range.

After three tragic failures, Song Huaquan, the supervisor of Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company, which was fully promoting the gas engine project, was sadly transferred. The gas tractor project that the factory invested heavily in research and development was forced to cancel due to many problems.

By the way, Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company went from research and development to the cancellation of this project... As the master of the empire, Luo Zhixue actually didn't know that there was already such a government-run enterprise in the empire that had played with gas engines, one of the internal combustion engines...

The empire is too big, with countless companies and countless technologies developed. As the emperor of the empire, it is impossible for Luo Zhixue to know all the technological advances in all walks of life... Besides, he has not paid much attention to these technological developments in recent years. details, what he values ​​​​is the overall macro development.

After entering the mid-to-late 30s, Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company's life became increasingly difficult, so it began to sell steam engine tractor chassis on a large scale, not only selling land, but also selling technology. As long as you pay enough, they will even grant permanent technology licenses. All sold.

But it has to be said that although Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company has problems of one kind or another, they have a very deep accumulation in steam engine tractors, especially crawler and wheeled motor structures, and they hold a large number of tractors. patent.

After they sold their land and liberalized technology licensing, they indirectly promoted the development of steam engine-powered walking equipment in the Great Chu Empire.

After selling land and even technology, Hekou Machinery Company regained a lot of blood. Only then did it have money to spend on the research and development of new products. It is impossible to recover agricultural equipment. Tangshan Machinery Company is too strong and has a low market share. Very high, and the technical barriers are also very high.

But with the steam engine tractor chassis technology, many things can actually be done... No, Hekou Machinery Company does not intend to compete with Tangshan Machinery Company in agricultural equipment. Instead, it turns around and builds a steam engine truck.

This thing is quite simple. In fact, it just uses the previous tractor and replaces the agricultural equipment behind it with a wheeled body... Their only innovation is to get a braking system for the body!
Well, it actually can’t be considered an innovation. After all, their horse-drawn carriages also have braking systems.

This steam engine truck is not a new thing. Other companies have done it, but the market size is not large, and the field technology of other manufacturers is not very good, so there is no response.

However, Liaohe Machinery Company's steam trucks sell quite well, especially the optimized design for harsh terrain, severe cold, etc., making this truck very suitable for use in harsh and complex terrains. Many forest farm companies in the north have purchased a lot of these trucks. Plant things for log transportation in deep mountains and old forests.

The Dachu Empire has been engaged in steam engines for decades, and even counting the application and development of high-pressure steam engines, it has been more than [-] years. During such a long period of time, countless people and companies have used steam engines wherever they can be used. On.

Many engineering equipment from later generations are actually available in the contemporary Chu Empire, but the power is just a steam engine, and the design in all aspects is relatively primitive.

This situation is an inevitability of technological development... Once you develop a high-pressure steam engine, people will naturally continue to try to use the steam engine in various aspects.

Steam engine excavators, bulldozers, forklifts, trucks, and more widely used harvesters, plows and other steam engine equipment have all appeared and been used one after another.

This situation was not deliberately promoted by Luo Zhixue. In fact, Luo Zhixue had not paid much attention to this. At most, he only paid attention to the research and development of trains and ships.

But even without Luo Zhixue's attention, market demand is constantly prompting people to develop various steam equipment.

The military has already started using steam tractors to pull cannons, and the army is also thinking about using tractors powered by steam engines to build a steam chariot or something.

This is the Army's 'Future Advanced Integrated Combat System'... Just hearing the name, it sounds very high-end!
And this lofty plan is actually that the Army wants to build a steam engine-powered tank, and then mount a few artillery pieces on it, and then add some armor plates... In short, it is to use the power of the steam engine to pull the vehicle. They run around with artillery, and they also come with a certain amount of armor that can directly charge into battle.

This thing is just a steam tank... or an oversized one. The initial design tonnage of this thing is [-] tons... But so far, the empire's technicians still have not been able to solve many technical problems, even if it can run. I can't even get the car out.

It is said that after the navy generals learned about the army's plan, many of them laughed, and then said some comforting words to the army in a caring tone: Alas, it is not easy for them, it is driving them crazy...

The Army has always wanted to build large-tonnage warships, but according to the military development plan personally finalized by His Majesty in the early years, the Army cannot build warships other than small-tonnage river gunboats. That is the business scope of the Navy.

Many people are speculating that the reason why the Army is building steam battleships is that since they are not allowed to build steam battleships that can run in water, then I will build a steam battleship that runs on land...

But it can be seen from the army's desire to develop steam chariots. The Chu Empire has also made great use of steam engines. They want to get a steam engine for everything...

The two major series of excavators of Anton Machinery Company are actually in this category, but their market sales are not good.

This time, in order to open up the market and build its brand, Anton Machinery Company gritted its teeth and signed an equipment supply contract with the construction company. The price given was only the cost price. It really did not make half a copper plate. It was just to open up the market and start a new business. word of mouth.

Especially their newly launched 263 series multi-bucket excavators, which are very suitable for large-scale earthmoving projects and can be used for railway construction, canal excavation, open-pit mining, etc.

It has the characteristics of large excavation volume and high efficiency.

Of course, this thing is also a large-scale device with a relatively small range of applications and is also expensive. It is not easy to open the market.

That's why they thought of providing the equipment to the construction company of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal at cost price in order to advertise and build reputation.

And the development of things was as perfect as they expected. As the widening and deepening construction of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal began, and after various media reports, their two main equipment, the 152 series single-bucket rotary excavator and the 263 series multi-bucket Excavators appear frequently in newspapers and are well known.

Soon, companies came to discuss ordering equipment.