The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 282 A New Round of Technological Revolution

"Qianlong died after all."

Zhu Jianxuan received the telegram from Shenyang and sighed without commenting.

Zhu Jianxuan felt that although Qianlong had the talent for longevity, his living conditions would definitely affect the development of his talent.

He was completely destitute and became a laborer. The living conditions he enjoyed were far different from those when he was the emperor or the emperor emeritus.

It is normal that he did not live to the original lifespan expected in history.

However, the cause of Qianlong's death was a little unexpected for Zhu Jianxuan.

It turned out that he was beaten by Duoduo's descendants and then trampled to death by the crowd.

In addition to being surprised, Zhu Jianxuan began to consider how to deal with Qianlong’s death and the events that led to his death.

What attitude should I, as the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming court show?

Zhu Jianxuan felt it was better to just ignore it.

The fact that Qianlong was trampled to death in a melee among the former Qing Dynasty's high-ranking officials almost shows that Qianlong's own prestige was gone.

Paying special attention to him, whether giving him extra care or special treatment of relevant personnel, will only increase the attention to Qianlong's death.

Let him just disappear like this, and let the irrelevant people have no idea when he disappeared.

So Zhu Jianxuan simply replied:
"Zhao Hongli was treated as an ordinary laborer's death, and the people involved were dealt with as normal fighting."

Before the railways were fully connected in all directions, telegraph lines had been built from Shuntian Prefecture to Liaodong, Mongolia, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Jiangnan, Guangdong and other places.

Important military and political intelligence from all over the world can be transmitted at any time via wired telegraph.

At the same time, wireless telegraph equipment has been mass-produced and has been used in important military garrisons, military camps, and naval warships.

The efficiency of information transmission in the Ming Dynasty entered a new era.

Correspondingly, the ability to dispatch and control remote resources has naturally risen to a new level.

When conflicts came between the natives of wild areas and residents near the border, the news could basically be transmitted directly to Shuntian Prefecture on the same day.

Shuntian Prefecture could naturally also immediately arrange appropriate troops in the garrison area to provide support.

For Zhu Jianxuan, compared with Qianlong’s death and how he died, the technological innovation on the European battlefield concerned Zhu Jianxuan more.

In fact, Zhu Jianxuan had been mentally prepared for a long time. He knew that if the overall scientific and technological foundation met the standards, the innovation efficiency of technological followers would be very high.

For places like the Qing Dynasty, Japan, and Africa, their own handicraft industrial bases were relatively poor, and their efficiency in catching up with the Ming Dynasty's technology was very low.

But the situation in Europe is different.

Places like Britain, France and Italy have relatively high levels of scientific theory, relatively high levels of handicrafts, and relatively strong commercial sectors.

There were great craftsmen and scientists such as Watt, Lavoisier, and Lagrange who left their names in history.

After seeing the industrial products used by the Ming Dynasty, they will definitely carry out targeted research and imitation under the drive of local officials or commercial investors.

Targeted research is much more efficient than exploratory research, especially in the era when industry has not yet completely separated from handicrafts.

Especially for something like picric acid, which already existed, once Europeans got samples of picric acid grenades, they could immediately make the finished product.

The French obtained the secret of picric acid grenades from the war with the Ming Dynasty, and then other European countries were likely to obtain picric acid grenades through wars with the French.

The widespread use of picric acid grenades during the Napoleonic Wars would have certainly directly changed the way warfare was fought.

Zhu Jianxuan even believes that the power of the Australian repeating rifle will definitely attract European craftsmen to continue research, and the ongoing war will also provide demand support for such research.

Even if they cannot improve their production technology in a short period of time, it is possible for them to create bottom-expanding bombs.

By then, the technological gap between the Ming army and the European army will be greatly narrowed.

However, Zhu Jianxuan was not too worried.

The Europeans seemed to be followers, but the Ming Dynasty could not be considered a true pioneer.

Zhu Jianxuan understood the history of modern science and technology, and always guided Ming Dynasty's scientific research in the right direction.

So the Ming Dynasty actually also had a follower effect, otherwise it would not have achieved its current achievements in just twenty years.

After years of accumulation, the first industrial revolution has been basically completed, and the foundation of the second industrial revolution has been almost laid.

The prerequisite technologies for several epoch-making equipment have been completed.

Zhu Jianxuan asked the Ministry of Public Administration to arrange some time, and brought a stack of drawings he had drawn himself to the Academy of Sciences to attend meetings and classes and to arrange new tasks.

Those who received the notice to attend the meeting were Zhu Jianxuan’s most familiar disciples, and the most important officials and craftsmen from the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering.

In the small conference room of the Academy of Sciences, Zhu Jianxuan looked at everyone saluting him, then asked directly:

"How is the new ship power system? Has it met the requirements I set three years ago?"

Li Rui immediately reported:
"Your Majesty, according to the standards for military ships, the new ship power system with steam turbines as the core has reached the reliability standard.

"After resolving typical malfunctions and sealing problems, the power of a single boiler has reached 12,000 horsepower, meeting His Majesty's requirements three years ago."

Zhu Jianxuan was quite satisfied:
"Okay, go close the doors and windows, draw the curtains, and turn on the slide projector. I have a new task for you."

The structure of a slide projector is very simple, consisting of a large light bulb and several lenses, which can project simple hand-drawn schematic diagrams onto a white screen.

Since this machine was invented in the 17th century, it has undergone many improvements and upgrades and has been used until the 21st century.

The schematic diagram that Zhu Jianxuan took out showed a machine with a cylindrical body, two pairs of horizontally spread wings, and a pair of front propellers.

Zhu Jianxuan pointed at the image on the projection and said:
"You can see that this is a flying machine. This is my idea of ​​a flying machine."

The craftsmen on the scene were all a little stunned at this time. They had just asked about the ship's power system, so why did they move on to the airplane now?

However, the craftsmen present were not too surprised about the research on the aircraft itself.

Airplanes are also a product of the Second Industrial Revolution, but research on airplanes began very early and lasted for nearly a hundred years.

The idea of ​​flying machines dates back to the time of Leonardo da Vinci. After Watt's improved steam engine became basically mature, some people began to try to use steam engines to drive airplanes.

But the steam engine itself was too heavy, the wooden frame could not support the steam engine, and the steel frame was too heavy, making the aircraft heavier overall.

In the 1850s, someone built a well-structured steam-powered aircraft, but the total weight was over one ton and the engine power was only a few dozen horsepower.

Given the power density of steam engines at the time, the flying machine itself was not feasible, so it never successfully took off.

However, experiments and theoretical research on flying machines have been ongoing over the past few decades.

By the late 19th century, the gasoline engine, which was relatively light and had easy fuel storage, had appeared, and the dawn of flying machines was finally on the horizon.

After the electrolytic aluminum industry took shape, industry and commerce also had frame materials that were both light and strong, and the industrial foundation for the practical application of flying machines was complete.

In the eyes of later generations, the Zhuge Liangs believed that by the end of the 19th century, flying machines were only a matter of seconds away from actually taking off.

But in real history, this layer of window paper is not easy to break through, after all, exploration and learning are completely different. Flying machines were a very popular research at the time, and craftsmen and inventors from major industrial countries in the world constantly proposed various ideas and experiments.

Everyone wanted to figure out what kind of machine could fly under its own power and what shape of wings would be suitable for flying.

And the most important question is how to control the flying machine, how to take off, land and turn stably.

The Wright brothers, who were later honored as the inventors of the airplane, did not seem to have any special achievements at the time.

In the same year that the Wright brothers' airplane was publicly tested, a Brazilian named Alberto Santos-Dumont also completed an experiment in France.

Two years after the Wright brothers' test flight, American Glenn Curtiss also completed a flight experiment alone. The key is that he truly solved the most important flight control problem.

The Ming Dynasty now has gasoline engines and an electrolytic aluminum industry, and Zhu Jianxuan himself knows the basic knowledge of airplanes.

Now it’s only a matter of time to make the plane.

From the perspective of simply realizing the most basic functions, the design and manufacturing of aircraft are simpler than those of cars.

The structure of propeller aircraft from World War I to World War II did not require a gearbox compared to cars, and the engine did not require a special cooling structure.

There is also no need for a complex transmission and control structure between the engine and the drive wheels.

The simplest aircraft structure is a shell with the right shape for the wing and a suitable engine.

For an airplane that simply needs to fly, the only required technology is actually a gasoline engine.

Wooden-structured aircraft can also fly, but their carrying capacity is certainly very limited, and their practicality is naturally very low. They can only be used as reconnaissance aircraft, and they cannot fly fast.

Aluminum alloy can make aircraft more practical.

The schematic diagram that Zhu Jianxuan showed now was similar to the appearance of a biplane from the World War I era, and he then explained the principle directly to the craftsmen:

“Take a typical hang glider as an example. The glider glides forward while tilting upward as a whole.

"The airflow below the glider hits the bottom of the glider, which provides a backward and upward force on the glider.

"So the hang glider can be lifted by the airflow, slowly fly forward and gradually land.

“At the same time, according to the principles of fluid mechanics, the pressure is lower where the fluid flows faster, and higher where the fluid flows slower.

"If the cross-section of a hang glider is smooth at the bottom and rounded at the top, it is similar to a semicircular shape.

"The airflow under a flat wing remains constant, but the airflow over a raised wing increases in speed.

"This then forms a force that lifts you up, which I'm going to call lift.

"However, for a hang glider, the speed of the airflow can never exceed the flight speed, and the lift obtained by the wing can never exceed its own weight.

“So we tried adding a power source to the hang glider to artificially speed up the wing’s forward flight, thereby increasing the speed of the airflow.

"If the lift provided by the flowing air exceeds the total weight of the machine to which the wing belongs, it should theoretically be able to continue flying without falling to the ground.

"On this basis, we refer to the principle of the rudder and adjust the flight direction and altitude through the controllable wing surface..."

Research on flight can be considered a small-scale popular project at the current Ming Academy of Sciences.

Human beings' yearning for the sky is irrepressible.

Anyone with a little common sense can realize the huge prospects of flying machines.

This era saw military balloons and even large military kites, or rather large hang gliders.

However, the disadvantages of these things are very obvious. Balloons have limited speed and are difficult to control, while kites and hang gliders can only land.

The key to autonomous flight is a machine that can rise and fly continuously, which can solve these problems.

But like many cutting-edge research, without the guidance of Zhu Jianxuan, this exploratory research is slow to produce results.

If Zhu Jianxuan leaves it alone, it might take ten or twenty years to produce anything.

Zhu Jianxuan now directly pointed out the correct direction. After listening to Zhu Jianxuan's opening introduction, the craftsmen on the scene all had a very familiar feeling of amazement and sudden enlightenment.

Zhu Jianxuan explained clearly in just a few words the principles of flying machines that relevant researchers are still exploring.

As long as you have basic knowledge of mechanics, you can judge that this idea is logically feasible. The key lies in the ratio of the weight of the flying machine itself and the engine power.

In addition, Zhu Jianxuan's previous ideas had basically been realized quite smoothly, so the craftsmen on site had no doubts at all.

After they figured it out, they almost instinctively expressed their admiration and felt that they could start a special project on it.

Zhu Jianxuan did not waste time on pleasantries. After explaining the basic schematics and principles, he distributed some more specific and detailed design schematics.

He let the disciples and craftsmen on site circulate it, and then he continued to point out the key points to pay attention to.

For example, the cross-sectional shape of the wing, or the rudder control method, and finally several disciples and craftsmen were assigned to try to make the task and conduct experiments.

After arranging the research and development project of the hair-styling machine, Zhu Jianxuan immediately began to arrange a new project with aircraft as the prerequisite - a warship carrying aircraft.

Zhu Jianxuan first asked about the research progress of new ship power systems, which was specifically for warships that carry aircraft.

In the original history, after the news of the successful test flight of the aircraft spread, someone almost immediately envisioned placing the aircraft on warships to be responsible for faster and larger-scale reconnaissance.

The aircraft carrier, which seems very "high-end" in later generations, was actually very simple in its original form.

Simply put, a ship with a large enough deck to allow simple early aircraft to take off and land could be considered an aircraft carrier.

There is no direct inheritance relationship between aircraft carriers and dreadnoughts. A coal ship with a wooden deck can also be considered an aircraft carrier.

But even so, the construction cost of large and medium-sized ships and warships, even the cost of partial modification, is not on the same order of magnitude as that of simple-structured aircraft.

The warships themselves are assets of the navy. The modification of warships to make them suitable for carrying aircraft is extremely expensive. If the experiment is unsuccessful, the modified warships will have to be modified back.

In the absence of strong support from high-level officials, early warship-mounted aircraft verification tests were usually full of compromises, makeshift work, and delays.

Since Zhu Jianxuan knew that the direction of warships carrying aircraft was correct, he also knew roughly how to design such warships.

Then, naturally, it will be like any other research, with a direct compromise and uncertain exploratory phase.

Instead of conducting traditional modification and testing of old warships, we can directly start designing and building new warships with practical combat significance.

Zhu Jianxuan started drawing the design drawings of aircraft carriers three years ago, after the acceptance of the internal combustion engine and the power system of the new warship was completed.

Of course, as before, this design drawing is certainly not a detailed drawing, and that kind of thing is not something that the human brain can remember.

This is still a concept map of the basic functional structure of the battleship, and the details are left to the craftsmen to fill in.

However, based on his experience in his previous life, Zhu Jianxuan marked all the places that required special attention and drew separate schematic diagrams.

For example, the layout of chimneys and flues, the layout of hangars and elevators, the planning of armored defense systems, etc.

The first type of aircraft carrier envisioned by Zhu Jianxuan was a new warship with a full load displacement of up to 15,000 tons and a maximum speed of over 50 kilometers per hour.

The largest, fastest, most unique warship the world has ever seen.

(End of this chapter)