The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1816 Joseph Zell
Due to its simple structure, relatively low cost, and a relatively mature industrial system, the Austrian Empire was already able to mass-produce motorcycles.

However, the prototype that Franz saw at this time had three wheels, rather than the two wheels that are more common in later times.

At this time, the person in charge of motorcycle research was not Lenoir, but Joseph Zeller, who was also one of the buried geniuses in the history of the Austrian Empire.

Joseph Zeller was originally an art student who secretly ran away to Vienna with his family's savings, only to be criticized for his paintings lacking emotional expression.

In addition, since several of his paintings depicted plants, he was transferred to the neighboring forestry college and eventually became a forestry officer in the navy.

The job of a naval forestry officer is to help the navy select suitable timber for shipbuilding. Joseph Zeller would typically spend his life among the forests, just like his predecessors over the past thousand years.

However, he was very good at learning and observation, and soon invented a set of precision instruments to quickly measure the height of trees and the hardness of wood.

Because the data measured by this instrument is more accurate than that measured by many experienced forest rangers, and it only takes less than 1% of their time.

So Joseph Zeller successfully got himself out of work.
Fortunately, the Austrian Imperial Navy at the time had a very open atmosphere, and they soon assigned Joseph Zeller a job delivering messages in the shipyard.

Because of the complex environment inside the shipyard, he often had to overcome many obstacles to deliver the letters, and he was also questioned about whether he had peeked at the contents or taken items from them.

Joseph Zeller considered this a completely pointless task, and then he began to seek a solution.

Through his research on aerodynamics, he successfully designed a system that uses air pressure to transport capsule containers in a pipe.

Joseph Zeller successfully resolved the privacy issues faced by engineers and generals, and he was awarded a substantial prize.

Then Joseph Zerer lost his job again, or rather, he briefly achieved financial freedom.

Joseph Zeller, who was wealthy, had plenty of free time, and was just over 20 years old, couldn't sit still any longer. He wanted to revitalize the Austrian Empire's navy.

After witnessing the British paddlewheel warships, Joseph Zeller understood that the Austrian Empire's sailing warships would inevitably be phased out.

Joseph Zeller also saw the shortcomings of the paddlewheel warships and came up with a perfect solution.

He felt that if the Austrian Empire wanted to defeat Britain at sea, it had to seize this window of opportunity to reform, so Joseph Zell began to write to the Admiralty many times.

As mentioned earlier, he was the first person in the world to invent the propeller, and he sent a large number of manuscripts, including those on design principles, to the Navy Headquarters.

However, Joseph Zeller's official rank was too low, and his letters were never heard from again.

Joseph Zeller decided to build the finished product himself first, as he always believed that the Austrian Imperial Navy would eventually accept it.

Joseph Zeller then built the earliest propeller according to his theory and determined the best position for installing the propeller, fifty years earlier than the British.

In addition, Joseph Zeller determined the optimal geometry of propeller blades, and his theory was not found to be correct until the twentieth century.

Joseph Zeller poured his entire fortune into building the world's first steamship using a propeller. His ship was fast and agile, immediately changing the perception of steamships among merchants and navies.

However, this time good fortune did not favor Joseph Zeller. Just as he was about to sign the order, the ship exploded, injuring three crew members instantly. The steamship also broke anchor, and he was arrested by the police. The Trieste police determined that Joseph Zeller's actions were too dangerous and ordered him to terminate the subsequent experiments.

In fact, the explosion of the hull had nothing to do with the propeller; Joseph Zeller's design was entirely feasible.

The real cause of the explosion was that the manufacturer cut corners and caused problems in the welding process, which made the steam pipes unable to withstand the high pressure.

But the police at the time didn't understand this; they believed that Joseph Zeller's propeller was what caused the tragedy.

Joseph Zeller thus incurred huge debts, and his patents were also preemptively registered. He wanted to sue, but he had no money and the government's attitude was indifferent.

Joseph Zeller later made many inventions in various fields, but most of them were not patented because the Austrian Empire at the time was extremely weak and corrupt.

The Navy offered Joseph Zeller a respectable job and a good salary, but nobody cared what he did.

Joseph Zeller eventually died of depression in a small hotel, penniless, with only a suitcase full of manuscripts by his side.

Joseph Zeller's manuscripts contained a wealth of theoretical research and projections on the latest technologies, which led the police to suspect that he was a spy.

It was only after the manuscript was sent to Vienna that it was discovered to be Joseph Zell's reverse engineering of advanced technologies from other countries.

When people discovered this genius, he was already dead.

Joseph Zeller was much luckier in this life. Although Franz was unaware of his story, Archduke Friedrich was well aware of this naval joke.

In addition, since Franz wanted to build a propeller, Friedrich simply retrieved it.

Initially, Franz consulted a large number of experts and amateur craftsmen, and their propeller designs were quite varied. Only Joseph Zeller's design was similar to the shape of a modern propeller in Franz's mind.

However, Friedrich could not simply believe Franz's account, so he immediately conducted comparative experiments with propellers of different shapes.

Joseph Zeller's design crushed all competitors with an absolute advantage, and he naturally became a naval designer and joined the Royal Academy of Sciences.

All of Joseph Zeller's regrets in history have now become his achievements. Not only his independent inventions, but also the experiments and conjectures that he was unable to conduct under his own conditions have been put to the test.

Joseph Zeller's team had by this time completed research on hundreds of patents, but the roller bearing was his greatest invention.

Although this invention is insignificant, it can be considered a great invention in the entire history of mankind.

Because it is the foundation of modern industry and a prerequisite for heavy industry. It directly broke through what humanity previously considered to be physical bottlenecks.

Before the invention of roller bearings, humans only had two choices: sliding bearings or ball bearings. However, neither of them could withstand loads of several tons and could not maintain accuracy and sufficient precision.

However, there is no need to worry about roller bearings at all; they can withstand loads of tens or even hundreds of tons.

The Austrian Empire was able to use steam turbines thanks to them; without roller bearings, ordinary bearings would have had difficulty withstanding the immense power of steam turbines.