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Chapter 1266 Show off 3
Just as Emperor Jingyang said at last year's opening ceremony, only half of the future of the Ming Empire is in the hands of the court, and the other half is hidden in the Royal Academy.

In fact, this statement should be more arrogant. It should be changed to the future of the whole world instead of the future of the Ming Empire. The birth of a steam engine alone made everyone stunned. Even the members of the project development team did not expect that it would have so many and such a big effect.

If the Prince of Orange still fantasized about relying on European countries to unite and force the Ming Empire to submit by force, he was really wrong and the ending would be tragic. European countries might never recover from this and fall into the dark Middle Ages again.

Did the Ming Empire have steam engines? The answer is yes, and they were not just early experiments.

As early as the time when Wang Zheng was in charge of the Haihe Machinery Factory, engineers had manufactured steam engines according to the emperor's ideas. To be more precise, they were high-pressure steam engines without condensers.

With the general principle and sketch, the production of the steam engine was not complicated, and a prototype was soon available and could operate normally. However, due to process and material limitations, the operation of the prototype was not stable and required manual supervision and intervention at all times, making it impossible to use it in large-scale production.

However, the design principle and manufacturing process of this steam engine have generally surpassed the level of Watt's steam engine and are closer to the horizontal steam engine of the 19th century.

Why not start from scratch, first manufacture a condenser vertical steam engine with a relatively simple structure, and then gradually improve it step by step through actual use?
The answer is simple, because Hong Tao is a time traveler, a standard cheating invention. Who has ever heard of writing down the calculation process on a draft paper when cheating? ! !
Early steam engines were not as efficient as traditional water, animal, or human power. Not only were they inefficient, they were also more expensive to use, making them unsuitable for large-scale mechanized production.

Since there are better models, why do we have to walk slowly step by step? Don't stroll when you can run. If you can't run, just continue to use traditional power.

Anyway, according to current production needs, power is not a particularly critical shortcoming. The fundamental development lies in transforming more people engaged in agriculture into industrial workers as soon as possible and changing the structure of agricultural society.

With the arrival of European scholars, the conditions for the start of the revolution became mature. Although they were not as skilled as the Ming scholars in terms of technology, they brought a very important change that Hong Tao was not good at, namely, the scientific theoretical system.

Only with this system can we formally incorporate the upgrading of practical technology into the scope of scientific research, carry out systematic inventions and creations under theoretical support, and then enrich the theoretical system through practical applications.

Then the high-pressure steam engine came into being. After gradually solving the manufacturing and material processing problems, the first prototype was officially put into operation at the Haihe Machinery Factory and reached the level of practical application. If Hong Tao had not insisted on further improving safety, it would have been officially finalized and entered the mass production stage last year.

In early summer, the Time Workshop finally developed the barometer needed for the high-pressure steam engine. After multiple on-machine experiments proved its reliability, it began small-scale trial production. However, it has only been used on a small scale in the Luanzhou Industrial Base and the Handan Industrial Base, and is still in the data collection stage.

According to the current progress, if there are no major accidents, it should be officially finalized and put into mass production next year. The first large-scale wool spinning mill powered by steam engines is also under construction outside Xi'an.

By then, there will be neither huge water wheels turning nor herds of cattle roaming around the factory. Instead, there will be towering chimneys, loud whistles, and breakthroughs in production.

Under Hong Tao's intervention, the Ming Empire entered the industrial age at a slightly different pace than humans in history. Before the steam engine, an unprecedented innovation was invented: the generator. The leader of the project team was none other than Helmont, a doctor from the Spanish Netherlands and the head of the Royal Academy's Department of Gas Chemistry, who was whispering something to Governor Cohen.

Being specialized in one field and being versatile is a notable feature of scholars in this era. In addition to focusing on the study of certain classics and history, the learned Confucian scholars of the Ming Dynasty were usually also painters, calligraphers, poets, and politicians. Their scope of knowledge was very wide, and there was absolutely no one who specialized in only one field. They could not be called great Confucian scholars, and they were not even worthy of being called scholars.

The same is true for European scholars. Those who study mathematics are generally proficient in physics and astronomy. Most of those who study medicine are also alchemists, and they also know mathematics and physics. More than half of those who study natural sciences have also studied philosophy. If you ask them carefully, they may even be theologians.

Helmont is a typical jack of all trades. He did not give up his main profession of medicine, but spent his spare time pondering the components of the atmosphere. And it was not just blind speculation, as he had already achieved some very impressive results, having found carbon dioxide in the air.

For this reason, Hong Tao specially set up a branch in the Department of Chemistry for him, the Department of Gas Chemistry. Currently, he is the only professor, and there are very few students, and 100% of them are from other departments who come to listen to the class for free, and most of them can't understand it.

The teaching task was easy, and Helmont was not only not upset but also very happy. Because he had abandoned his wife and children and came to the Ming Empire without the intention of teaching and educating people, it was better not to have a student, so that he could devote all his energy to analyzing what was in the gas.

But his calculations were wrong. After only one semester, the emperor came to visit with a sly smile on his face and a small wooden box in his hand. In the box was a round roller wrapped in thick paper with an iron rod pierced through the center.

The emperor said he wanted to perform a magic trick, and asked Helmont to hold two copper wires in each hand and then shake the iron rod. As the round roller turned faster and faster, Helmont, who was waiting foolishly to see the strange phenomenon, suddenly trembled and wailed, his whole body twitched, and the room was suddenly filled with a strong smell of urine.

Helmont was electrocuted all over his body and peed his pants! Sadly, he was not the first person to experience artificial electric current. Almost all the eunuchs in the palace were electrocuted.

The hand-cranked alternator was secretly made by the craftsmen of the Time Workshop and the emperor. The round roller is wrapped with copper wire, with shellac as insulating paint, and in the middle is a magnetic core made of natural magnet.

Hong Tao didn't know how much voltage and current it had, but it could electrocute people. There was also a bigger one in the Jinyiwei prison, which was driven by a small donkey and had a gear transmission device, and could electrocute people to death.

When they encountered a steadfast prisoner who they did not want to injure, the Imperial Guards would take out the torture device bestowed by the emperor, burn incense and offer sacrifices before tying the wire around the prisoner's wrist.

The little donkey could not run a few laps before 99% of the prisoners confessed or were electrocuted. But it didn't matter, because there were no obvious external injuries and no evidence of poisoning, so it could only be considered a sudden death due to hidden illness.

(End of this chapter)