Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1571 The Spring of Science ([-])

At the end of January 1670, the east coast was surprisingly hot, which made people wonder whether the temperature inflection point had just appeared during the Little Ice Age.However, in this hot weather, Marco Tripp from Amsterdam was still wearing a tight formal suit, sitting on a rail car of the Oriental Streetcar Company, heading towards the most prosperous August Avenue in the capital on the east bank. The United Provinces embassy in the middle is gone.

Little Tripp just came back from the famous Big Fish River Armory, where he stayed for three full days, accompanied by two clerks from the East Coast Department of Trade, and talked over and over again with the people in the factory's sales department, I want them to produce the weapons and equipment needed by the United Provinces as soon as possible and ship them back to the country immediately.

Due to the end of large-scale wars around the world-even the French who are at war will not buy ordnance from the east coast, they insist on self-production-now the Dayuhe Arsenal and the Northern Arsenal have entered the off-season of production, but with the With the sudden recovery of orders from the Ottoman Empire and the changes in the situation in China from the Far East, these two companies have started to produce all kinds of war weapons at full capacity, such as carburized iron spearheads, arrowheads, armor, sabers, muskets, artillery, etc. A series of military supplies are produced here (of course, some of them have been transferred to Shipu Reservoir in Guide County for production). It is indeed a bit of a coincidence that the Dutch will come to the door. The order is logically behind others.

However, the Dutch are a little guilty now. On the one hand, they don’t know whether the French will reach an agreement with the negotiators in Aachen this time (although they think they are very confident), and even if the French agree this time So, will the United Provinces, which has offended them greatly, be angered by the extremely proud Louis XIV?Therefore, in order to protect themselves, the Dutch have to start to strengthen their military strength, not only to strengthen their own, but also to strengthen the equipment of some core allies, which has resulted in extremely large military purchase orders.

The Dutch intend to purchase this part of the military purchase order in several places. One is naturally the coal and iron industrial areas in Birmingham, England, and Wales, which are close at hand; the other is the traditional North German military production base. The yield is huge; this last one is, of course, the East Coasters from the southern New World.

Not putting all your eggs in one basket has always been the Dutch way of doing business!

Considering that the Dutch have not developed their armaments for many years-the navy would not have invested 1200 million guilders in one winter if the two Anglo-Dutch wars had not broken out-there is a lot of historical debts to make up, so their In the eyes of many people, the order is still of great investment value. Even if it is divided into three parts and falls into the hands of the people on the east coast, it is enough for the two arsenals to make a fortune. The premise is that they let the Dutch People jump in line and produce their stuff first.

Marco Tripp, who was on a mission, negotiated for a long time with the officials on the east bank, and finally managed to get a certain degree of priority. The director of the Dayuhe Armory, under the instruction of his superiors, dispatched a batch of equipment that should have been sent to the Far East. The 32-C flintlock rifle of the servant army was intercepted at the last moment, and it was planned to be shipped to Amsterdam through the South Sea Transport Company's ship to equip the poor army of the Dutch. The two countries of Fort-Prussia may also be able to follow suit and replace some unusable equipment. This is the benefit of being on the thigh of local tyrants.

As a child of the arms family, Little Tripp knows the quality of those firearms very well, which is really great.Although it is generally produced by machines, the appearance is rough, and there are some problems with the assembly and connection of parts. It is not as smooth as manual production, but thanks to the excellent materials, the quality of these firearms is very good. , the life expectancy is generally about [-]% higher than that produced in Germany, so the Dutch love to buy it - I believe that if it is not limited by the relationship between the United Provinces and Germany, as well as some non-commercial factors, the Netherlands One might prefer to pack all the weapons and buy them from the east coast, because it is obviously cheaper.

As with muskets, cannons are even more outstanding.Long service life, light weight, long range, and great power are the characteristics of East Coast artillery. Especially after the "Ironsmith" series hydraulic presses were born, the cost of processing some small and medium-caliber artillery plummeted. The direct consequence is The sales of Eastern-made artillery in Europe have increased significantly—this is not as great as the advantages of muskets. The cost advantage of Eastern-made artillery is crushing—and by the way, the concept of some Eastern-made calibers has been promoted.

Little Tripp expressed his amazement at the achievements of the people on the east coast in military production.Their family is also an insider. They have iron mines and copper mines in Sweden. They have also set up iron smelting workshops and cannon casting workshops. But let alone people from the east coast, they can't even compete with the English and Germans. It can only be forced to increase the shipment of arms to the east coast and maintain profits. The tragedy is extreme, so Tripp sincerely admires the ability of arms production on the east coast.

During the previous trip to the Dayuhe Armory, as an important guest, Tripp once visited the production workshop of the East Bank people and saw some unheard of machines. He was deeply impressed by the precision instruments of the machine.

In fact, in the old continent at this time, craftsmen often encountered a problem in production, that is, the indexing of rulers and dials, which is very important for high-precision manufacturing.Little Tripp is not ignorant. Having stayed in a British workshop for a while, he understands that local craftsmen rely on a horizontal line method invented by the Dane Tycho to obtain one-tenth of a unit. One or one hundredth; at the same time, there are many unusual craftsmen who have mastered the geometric method of using compass for graduation (that is, using seven concentric circles to read 10 minutes of angle).

Little Tripp once naively thought that people on the east coast also used this kind of mathematical method to divide the scale, and once marveled why they divided each scale so accurately-even people who don’t know anything can understand , Accurate division of the scale is the key to precision production. It is not that the people in the old continent do not want to process higher-precision things, but they are a bit powerless. After it existed, he was really shocked, and asked the United Provinces on the spot if they could buy this precision instrument, no matter how much it cost!

Little Tripp's efforts naturally came to nothing.Because whether it was the officials from the East Coast Trade Department who accompanied him or the personnel from the sales department and technical department of the Dayuhe Armory, they all rejected him tactfully but firmly, saying that this was not for sale, which made Marco feel very sorry and secretly remembered it. With that in mind, they plan to go back and try to get people to start research and development, although they don't have a clue yet.

In fact, the engraving machine that Marco Tripp saw came from a group of people from the Machinery Institute of the Engineering Technology Research Institute. from.A total of two were produced, which were released just last month, and were immediately sent to the Dayuhe Armory and the First Heavy Machinery Factory for testing. By the way, they indexed some of the instruments they produced, such as sextants and geodesics. The ring is mechanized, instead of the time-consuming and laborious manual calibration as in the past, not to mention that for some large instruments, manual calibration is almost impossible. At this time, the importance of the engraving machine is unparalleled.

To be honest, in today's China East Coast Republic, is the industrial production really having such an urgent requirement for the engraving machine?The answer is naturally no.In fact, in the current east coast, most of the production process does not have such high requirements for precision. The two engraving machines that have just been produced so far are actually not used a few times throughout the year.But as the old saying goes, there is still a big difference between having and not having this thing. With this thing, it represents a certain possibility of progress in the machining industry on the east coast, which is far more important than simply focusing on materials or other materials. progress is much more important.

This engraving machine uses the principle of the indexing plate, that is, the East Coast people have established a set of correspondence between the number of crank rotations and the rotating angle of the indexing plate, and then used the usual method to find out the indexing and produce A copy master model, fixed on the top by the engraved disc, and the engraved knife rotates below, which is graduated; while the machine used to engrave the straight line is slightly simpler than this, that is, a graduated rely The template moves under the high-magnification lens, and at the same time, a ruler to be scaled moves under the scribe knife, and its displacement is obtained by engaging a plate with helical teeth on one side with a worm rotated by a crank, and at the same time The other side of the board engages with the toothed rack on the pallet carrying the template and ruler.

From this, we can see that the so-called engraving machine produced by Dong An Ren has strong characteristics of the 17th century, which is quite different from the later generations, but we can find similarities in the inspiration of some European watchmakers in this century. .But in any case, the invention of these two machines, which are used for graduations and straight lines, greatly meets the needs of people on the east coast in the fields of measurement, navigation, astronomy, and precision machining. It is a great contribution to the improvement of the country's basic industrial level It is not an exaggeration to sing praises no matter what—this can be seen from the importance attached to this matter by the members of the Executive Committee. They have ordered the Government Affairs Council to come forward and establish a company directly under them, "Dong'an Precision Instrument Company" , and allocate funds and personnel to enrich its skeleton and play its due role in the development of the east coast industry.

In addition to the engraving machine, the researchers of the Machinery Institute of the Engineering Technology Research Institute have also come up with some other "interesting" gadgets, such as dilatometers for measuring the thermal expansion of metals (watchmakers must love this instrument), such as a comparator whose accuracy is many times higher than the original, etc., are very practical precision measuring instruments, and are indispensable in industry.

It is said that the first task of the newly established Dong'an Precision Instrument Company in the future is to continue to improve the three precision instruments of the two types of marking machines, metal dilatometers, and comparators. Use to increase their craft production level.In addition, practical large and small instruments such as astronomical instruments, geodesy instruments, and physics instruments must also be developed, produced, and improved. This is not only for teaching and research, but also the demand for them by the army and navy. They are not inferior and should not be underestimated.

Although Marco Tripp didn’t know about the establishment of Dong’an Precision Instrument Co., Ltd., he was really envious of the Dong’an people’s engraving machines, and some bad thoughts began to turn in his mind. It is not enough for outsiders.

The rail car of the Dongfang Streetcar Company he was riding on was driven by a small steam engine, thanks to the great improvement of the East Coast technology level, the steam engine could be made as small as possible without reducing the output power, Then came many new applications, such as this experimental railroad car that is slowly advancing under the haul of a steam locomotive.

Little Tripp had a good opinion of this steam track street car, but he felt that what was more exciting was a machine he had seen in the outskirts of Dongfang County, which was called a "bicycle" by people on the east coast. style vehicles.It is a magical vehicle that allows people to sit on it and propel themselves forward. The frame is wooden, and there is a saddle-like thing in the middle for people to ride on; two iron frames are installed on the wooden main frame. The wheels of the same size can make the front wheel rotate relative to the frame through a handle fixed on the top of the front fork, so that the car can carry people forward.

Tripp saw this kind of vehicle at the home of Qiang Xiaoman, the son of Qiang Quansheng, the former chairman of the East Bank.At that time, Qiang Xiaoman was riding on this car without any braking system. He took turns to stare at the ground, pushing himself forward. As a result, he fell down during a thrilling downhill process, and the car fell apart, but nothing happened. There is no doubt that this process can also be rowed, very exciting.

The steam track streetcar soon stopped at the gate of the United Provinces embassy. After paying the fare with his entourage, Marco Tripp tidied up his clothes and strode into the embassy.Unexpectedly, just as he entered the door, he saw a strange figure, an old acquaintance he had dealt with in Amsterdam, Heimer Dejan from the Dutch East India Company (former governor of the Dutch South African colony) ).This made him feel a little strange and at the same time a little uneasy, thinking to himself: "Could it be that something happened in the Far East, this is too bad..."

(End of this chapter)