Ming Dynasty: Tanks blocked the door and you said to me, "Long live Ming Dynasty"

Zhu Youxiao nodded in affirmation: "It's more real than real gold! With this thing, there will be another way to process ironware in the future!"

Xu Guangqi immediately stopped the other craftsmen and began to prepare crucibles and other utensils.

This amount of manganese soil alone was far from enough, so Wei Zhongxian sent someone to the Ministry of Works to get more.

After a day and night of baking, the furnace had its defects repaired and is now ready for use.

A crucible made of graphite was placed at the furnace mouth, and Xu Guangqi personally threw clay into it.

The two craftsmen pulled the bellows together, and the flames in the furnace instantly shot out more than a foot high, enveloping the entire crucible.

In less than an incense stick's time, the bottom of the pot was burned red, and the manganese soil in the pot gradually changed.

Some of the impurities begin to burn at high temperatures.

The furnace was still open at this moment, but after Xu Guangqi added two iron ingots into the crucible, he had someone hang up a cover weighing hundreds of pounds and cover it.

Chapter 32 The Secret of Geometry

The bellows were whirring, and as time passed, the temperature around them gradually became warmer.

The craftsmen lit incense sticks to tell time.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Zhu Youxiao led his team to make a mold for the drill.

Only after the two incense sticks had burned out did Xu Guangqi have the furnace cover hung up again.

boom!

A fire dragon rose into the air along with the furnace cover, and then retracted into the furnace in an instant.

Through the flames, the manganese clay and molten iron in the crucible have melted into red juice.

The craftsmen came forward and used the steel-frying method to give the juice a final treatment in order to adjust the carbon content in the molten iron to the appropriate proportion.

This step has no specific data support and can only be measured based on the craftsmen's superb experience.

Only after these were completed did Zhu Youxiao give the order.

"casting!"

"Yes!"

The steelmaker stepped back, and four other craftsmen stepped forward, picked up the crucible with large iron tongs, took it out of the furnace together, and poured it into the drill mold.

"Snapped!"

Due to insufficient preparation, the first mold suddenly cracked shortly after the juice was poured into it.

Then, the second and third ones also failed one after another.

But it doesn’t matter, Zhu Youxiao has prepared more than twenty molds!

After thirteen molds were cracked in a row.

Perhaps the temperature of the liquid alloy dropped slightly, or perhaps the shell of the fourteenth mold was thicker. In any case, this clay mold withstood the high temperature inside and showed no signs of cracking.

The craftsmen continued to cast into the remaining clay molds, while Zhu Youxiao and Xu Guangqi fixed their eyes on the fourteenth clay mold.

From the excess parts exposed outside, it can be clearly seen that the color of the liquid alloy is changing rapidly, from red to gray and then to black.

Perhaps feeling that it was almost done, Xu Guangqi threw the mold and the embryo inside into the rapeseed oil that he had prepared in advance.

Compared with water quenching, oil quenching is gentler, produces less stress, and has less risk of deformation and cracking of the embryo.

With a puff, thick smoke rose from the rapeseed oil in the wooden barrel and then began to churn.

The clay mold could not withstand the rapid temperature change and broke into pieces, sinking to the bottom of the barrel.

Xu Guangqi took the pliers, fumbled around in the wooden barrel, and fished out the shaped drill blank.

The drill blank in front of him was black with a blue glow, and there were some lumpy and redundant parts on it.

He knocked it twice casually, and it made a crisp tinkling sound.

"It seems that something is different!"

Xu Guangqi nodded thoughtfully, then had someone bring an iron ingot, and he used the drill bit to make a strong cut on it.

"Squeak..."

After the harsh friction sound, a clearly visible mark was left on the iron ingot!

Zhu Youxiao came closer to take a look and immediately became excited.

Knife!

Although it is not quite up to standard, it can be made up for in quantity!

Even if you only need to drill a gun barrel, you can just use ten drill bits!

His original plan to test-produce artillery shells today was immediately changed to manufacturing machine tools!

The most original machine tool!

Workbench, improvised out of good hardwood.

A fixture to fix the drill bit, a fixture to fix the workpiece, plus a set of transmission mechanism, it's that simple!

He asked someone to bring paper and pen, and he made a plan on the spot and handed it over to the craftsmen to work on.

Although the new ruler is only accurate to millimeters, it is sufficient for the current situation.

Xu Guangqi stood next to Zhu Youxiao and watched him draw lines on paper with a pencil, and a hint of doubt flashed in his eyes.

Where did the emperor learn these things?

And those alphabetical symbols...

Zhu Youxiao occasionally looked up and met his gaze, then smiled and said, "Master Xu, you should be familiar with these symbols, right?"

But Xu Guangqi shook his head and denied it: "I have seen them, but I don't know what your majesty means by putting them together like this."

As he spoke, he pointed to the symbols cm and mm.

Zhu Youxiao was stunned: "How is that possible? Didn't you translate Geometry?"

"translate?"

This time it was Xu Guangqi who was stunned.

"The Geometry is a summary of the works of my ancestors. How can it be called a translation?"

“Dang…”

Zhu Youxiao stopped drawing and threw the pencil on the table. When it comes to this problem, the machine tool can wait for a while!

"Master Xu, don't joke with me!"

"Then wasn't it you and Matteo Ricci who translated the Elements of Geometry together?"

"How is that possible! It was clearly Matteo Ricci who asked me for advice and translated it himself! He said he wanted to bring it back to his country and teach his people!"

"You mean... the content of Geometry's Elements is actually the essence of our ancestors, and you are just summarizing it?"

"Yup!"

Xu Guangqi nodded in affirmation as a matter of course, but the next moment his eyes widened.

"Your Majesty, you don't think that Geometry was originally translated from foreign texts, do you?"

Zhu Youxiao:..........

This is not just what I think, it’s what people in later generations think!

Seeing that he acquiesced, Xu Guangqi became anxious. In the face of the reputation of the literati, he simply threw away the distinction between the monarch and his subjects, pulled up a chair and sat opposite Zhu Youxiao, and snatched the paper and pen, and began to explain as he spoke.

"Your Majesty, look, points, lines, surfaces, and bodies are all recorded in the Book of Han!"

"There are also the Shang and Zhou laws and Chen Zi's method of measuring the sun, which were already recorded in the Zhoubi Suanjing."

"In the Three Kingdoms period, the annotations of Liu Hui to the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art also clearly recorded the method of dividing a circle, which led to the later Zu Chong's Zu Rate!"

"The law of Shang and Zhou, that is, the hypotenuse is three, the leg is four, and the chord is five. This law has existed since the time of Duke Zhou!"

"......"

He explained the contents of Geometry one by one, and the more Zhu Youxiao listened, the wider his eyes became!

Fuck!

Oh my god!

Is this the truth?

Those so-called mathematical axioms and formulas in Europe were actually plagiarized from China?

He suddenly remembered something. According to common sense, when foreign things came to China, they would always be renamed into Chinese names first. The most straightforward way was to transliterate them!

But the four words "Elements of Geometry" cannot be translated phonetically into either "geometry" in English or "geometria" in Latin!

This is not in line with the habits of Chinese people!

There is another point, which is clearly written in Xu Guangqi's Elements of Geometry: Geometry is the origin of degrees and numbers, which means that geometry is the basis for studying all numbers and quantities, and is the foundation of the entire discipline of mathematics.

But Western geometry is obviously much narrower than geometry itself!

The more Zhu Youxiao thought about it, the more he felt that it was true, and a surge of anger rose to his head.

"boom!"

He slammed the table and turned to look at Wei Zhongxian.

"Tell Tian Ergeng to arrest all the foreign missionaries in Beijing!"

"If you dare to let anyone go, I'll take his head!"

Chapter 33 God? What is that?

Zhu Youxiao never understood!

Why did Pythagoras quote Zhuangzi's original words in his theory: If you cut a one-foot long stick in half every day, it will never be exhausted in ten thousand years!

You have to know that Pythagoras was born two hundred years later than Zhuangzi!

It turns out that this is originally a Chinese thing!

It’s just that when the Ming Dynasty fell and China fell into three hundred years of darkness, those guys in the West changed the names of these works, plagiarized them and made them their own things. In order to increase the persuasiveness, they even made up a person who created these axioms and formulas!

Therefore, the life stories of most of those Western mathematicians cannot be found, let alone any anecdotes. Even if there are any, they are mostly like fairy tales!

When he thought of this, he became even more angry, but now was not the time to pursue the matter. He had to wait until Zheng Zhilong surrendered, and then go to the West to look for those legendary people who were alive during this period.

For example, Galileo and Kepler!

I believe that as long as we find them, we can find the truth of all this!

Xu Guangqi didn't know why Zhu Youxiao was so excited. In his opinion, it was a scholar's honor to let the glory of the Ming Dynasty go beyond the country and enlighten those ignorant barbarians!

Zhu Youxiao didn't tell him what would happen in the future, for he was afraid that the old man would be angry to death!

However, when he was giving the order to Wei Zhongxian, he was always paying attention to Xu Guangqi's reaction. Seeing that he had no intention of stopping him, he couldn't help but become interested.

"Master Xu, I heard that you are also a Catholic. How come you didn't react at all when I wanted to arrest those missionaries?"

Upon hearing this, Xu Guangqi once again showed a surprised expression.

"God? What is that?"

"I learned the teachings of Confucius and Mencius and the rites of Zhou Gong since I was a child. After I became an adult, I was influenced by Cheng Zhu and others. I can't even worship all the gods and Buddhas in the Ming Dynasty. How can I be a Catholic as your majesty calls me?"

The corners of Zhu Youxiao's mouth trembled unnaturally for a few times...

Fuck!

I can’t say any more. The more I talk, the more wrong I become!

He could only lower his head and return to drawing the blueprint, temporarily suppressing what had just happened in his heart.

This little episode left Xu Guangqi completely confused, but seeing Zhu Youxiao's attitude, he knew it was not good to ask any more questions.

A simple machine tool drawing was easy for Zhu Youxiao.

Although his main job is firearms design, he still understands the principles of lathes.