Unlike Zhao Heng who personally trained the servants, Zhao Fuxiang's 50 zone defense team was immediately thrown to Xinbu Island by him. Zhao Fuxiang did not know how to train and did not want to train. He has many things to do every day, so why bother to train zone defense?

Team? In Zhao Fuxiang's plan, the new army in the hands of his son Zhao Heng will be responsible for fighting in the future, while he will provide logistical support for his son in the rear. As for this joint defense team, to put it bluntly, they are the servants, and it was Zhao Fuxiang who came to see it.

Zhao Fuxiang was looking at the sugar factory workers on Xinbu Island, and he didn't want these guys to run away.

Zhao Fuxiang left the fifty-man joint defense team to Fan Tong and left it alone. Fan Tong said that his son-in-law sent two soldiers, saying they were veterans of hundreds of battles, but Zhao Fuxiang saw that those two guys were almost forty.

, one of them is a disabled person, I don’t know if this guy Fan Tong came to fool me.

But now Zhao Fuxiang has no time to take care of this. The sugar factory has refined all 5,000 kilograms of brown sugar in the past few days, and has refined a total of 2,800 kilograms of fine white sugar. Zhao Fuxiang wants to find a ship to transport the white sugar to Haikou Wharf, and then hand it over.

Li Zhengdao took him out to exchange money.

Zhao Fuxiang saw the ferry at Xinbu Island and thought that if he had money, he would build a wharf here. It was really troublesome to transport the goods from Xinbu Island to Haikou Port.

After Zhao Fuxiang made all arrangements, he returned to Haidian Island. He also wanted to find his father, Zhao Zhikuan, to see what happened to the steam engine the old man built.

Now that Zhao Fuxiang has people in his hands, Zhao Fuxiang keeps 200 of the 900 refugees. Once he has enough people, boiling sugar will become a bottleneck because there are not so many iron pots. It is too time-consuming and laborious to boil sugar in iron pots at the same time. The people on Xinbu Island

There are a lot of trees, but they can't be cut down like this. Trees are the best building materials. Zhao Fuxiang doesn't want all these trees to be turned into firewood, so he needs a steam engine to provide steam to dry the sugar.

Back on Haidian Island, Zhao Fuxiang went to find his father, Zhao Zhikuan. The old man was very happy that he had enough manpower these days. Many projects that could not be done before could be launched. Zhao Fuxiang brought back a thousand refugees, and his son Zhao Heng was fifty.

There were 50 people in the joint defense team, 200 were kept in the sugar factory, and the remaining 700 were given to Zhao Zhikuan.

When Zhao Fuxiang saw Zhao Zhikuan, the old man was leading a group of apprentices to build a house with bricks. Zhao Zhikuan saw Zhao Fuxiang coming, frowned and asked: "You are back, how is Zhao Heng's marriage?"

After hearing what the old man said, Zhao Fuxiang realized that the old man had not gone home these days and was living on the construction site. Zhao Fuxiang briefly explained the situation of the blind date. When Zhao Heng's grandmother and mother agreed, Zhao Zhikuan had no objection.

.

Zhao Fuxiang saw more than a hundred workers building a house and asked: "Dad, what are you doing? Are you building a new house? By the way, Zhao Heng's wedding is scheduled for March 15th, which is still a month away. Are you

Instead of asking your construction team to build a new house for Zhao Heng, and now that the brick problem has been solved, why not renovate our house? The wooden house in our house is leaking!"

Zhao Fuxiang said while watching the workers working. Although Zhao Fuxiang does not know how to build houses, the house in front of him does not look like an ordinary house. There are two chimneys wide enough for one person to stand on the side. Although Hainan Island is colder, it is colder in winter.

No need to heat it?

"Dad, you have rheumatism in your legs? Why do you want to build a hot bed?"

Zhao Fuxiang thought that his father was pretending to be a public servant and used bricks to build a fire-kang building for himself. Little did he know that Zhao Zhikuan scolded: "You are just ignorant and incompetent. What a fire-kang building? This is the steam engine you want!"

In Zhao Fuxiang's impression, steam engines are all made of iron. They huff and puff while adding coal, but the thing in front of him has nothing to do with iron at all, and it is not like the steam engine in his impression.

After Zhao Fuxiang asked the question, Zhao Zhikuan led him into the building through a small door high enough for one person to enter. Only then did Zhao Fuxiang realize that the inside of the building was completely different.

The inside of the building is not large, about fifteen meters long, three meters wide, and five meters high. The top is empty without a shed. There are two platforms built with bricks in the middle of the building. However, the platforms are not flat, but have certain heights.

radian.

Now Zhao Fuxiang was completely confused. Is this a steam engine?

Zhao Zhikuan pointed to the platform and said: "This is where the impeller is. The high-pressure steam comes down from above and blows the impeller to drive the bearing, thus generating power!"

Zhao Fuxiang saw that the wall was quite thick, with three layers of bricks. The joints between the bricks were sealed with plaster and tung oil. It was made of the same waterproof material as the filter tank Zhao Fuxiang built. But Zhao Fuxiang's one was only waterproof, and this thing was used to prevent high-pressure steam energy.

OK?

"Dad, can you make this thing work? Don't you mean high-pressure steam? Can bricks carry the pressure?"

Zhao Zhikuan smiled: "I said it is high-pressure steam, but a regular steam turbine requires fifteen to twenty atmospheres of steam to start. Where do we have a pressure hull? Where can we make a high-pressure boiler that generates twenty atmospheres of steam? So we can only

To make matters worse, I built a two-atmosphere boiler. Although the brick wall may leak air, it can still withstand two atmospheres of pressure!"

Zhao Fuxiang didn't expect that his father would make a boiler without making a sound, so he quickly asked: "Dad, how could you do it without rubber? What should I do if the boiler leaks?"

Zhao Zhikuan scolded: "You kid didn't study seriously. The boiler was already invented in Europe in the 17th century. Watt didn't invent the steam engine. He just improved the steam engine. The 17th century is now. How can you prevent the use of boilers in Europe?

Is it leaking? Is it using rubber? The rubber at this time was all in South America, and the Europeans hadn’t discovered the use of rubber yet!”

Zhao Fuxiang was right when he heard it, but how did European steam engines prevent air leakage?

Zhao Zhikuan continued: "Air leakage cannot be 100% prevented before the emergence of electric welding, but it can be controlled within a tolerable range, and this requires riveting!"

In Zhao Fuxiang's impression, riveting is a very backward process. He did not know that before the advent of electric welding, all steel connections were riveted. The tens of thousands of tons of battleships used by the British in World War I also used rivets.

connected together.

"Dad, riveting? Was there anyone in the Ming Dynasty who knew how to rivet?"

"Of course, didn't you find me a blacksmith? He can repair armor. Ancient armor used riveting!"

After being reminded by Zhao Zhikuan, Zhao Fuxiang remembered that there were no screws or electric welding in ancient China. How those nail leaves were fixed was through riveting. Although the method may be different from the riveting of boiler cylinders, the principle is the same.

of.

Riveting has a very early history in China. Riveting has already appeared in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but at that time it was mostly used on gold and silver products. Because gold and silver have a low soft melting point, riveting is often used when processing gold and silver.

Technology. Iron tools appeared in the Han Dynasty. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to equip the Han army on a large scale, riveting technology was used in the production of armor. The iron helmets worn by officers were all made of riveted iron sheets.

Riveting was used on a large scale in the Yuan Dynasty. Due to the advancement of iron-making technology, cotton armor worn by soldiers appeared in the Yuan Dynasty. There was no way to fix the iron armor pieces on the relatively soft cotton cloth, so the armor pieces could only be fixed by riveting. Blacksmith Wang

He also learned this technique because he repaired damaged armor for the government.

However, what Blacksmith Wang knows is the simplest hot riveting, which is to burn the rivets made of wrought iron red, penetrate them into two pre-drilled nails, and then use a hammer to beat them flat. The hot riveting process is simple, but

Because the rivet deforms after being heated, a certain gap will be created between the rivet and the nail plate after cooling, and the gap will loosen over time. This process can be used to connect two low-strength iron parts, but if you want to keep it airtight

To ensure durability and durability, cold riveting is used.

Cold riveting has many advantages, including good sealing. The rivets are deformed by high pressure, causing large stress in the rivet column area. There is no gap between the equipment and the rivets, and there are no problems with strength.

Although this technology is very advanced, there was no high-pressure cold riveting machine in the Ming Dynasty, so Zhao Zhikuan had no choice but to make one himself. Fortunately, Zhao Zhikuan was good at engineering and transformed the brake piston on the car into a simple cold riveting machine. Although the pressure was not enough to suppress

Steel rivets, but wrought iron rivets are still acceptable.

Zhao Zhikuan used the high-pressure cold riveting machine he made to finally connect the two pig iron hemispheres made by Blacksmith Wang. After passing the life test, it was initially proved that it could be used.

Hearing that the boiler developed by his father had been successful, Zhao Fuxiang became interested and asked: "Dad, where is the boiler you developed?"

Zhao Zhikuan pointed to the back and said: "It's right behind, I'll take you to see it!"

After exiting the steam room, there is a boiler. Called a boiler, Zhao Fuxiang looks like an extra-large kettle.

The boiler is round in shape and is placed on a platform made of bricks. A fire can be lit under the platform to heat the boiler.

Zhao Fuxiang walked along the wooden stairs on the side to the front of the boiler. The furnace body of the boiler was full of the atmosphere of the pre-industrial era. It was densely covered with pits, similar to those of Zhangqiu iron pots. At first glance, it was the craftsmanship of Blacksmith Wang.

Zhao Fuxiang looked at it and saw nothing interesting, but he found that there was something like a whistle on the boiler. Zhao Fuxiang asked what it was? Zhao Zhikuan replied that it was a pressure gauge!

Zhao Fuxiang had never seen such a crude pressure gauge before. He suppressed his laughter and asked, "Dad, this doesn't even have a pointer, how can you check the pressure!"

Zhao Zhikuan also came up, pointed to the pressure gauge and said: "Simple, this is similar to the pressure relief valve of a pressure cooker. There is an iron piece inside. When the pressure inside the boiler reaches three atmospheres, the iron piece is bounced up and the steam is released.

Got it!"

Zhao Fuxiang did not expect that the problem could be solved through such a simple principle. He looked at the empty boiler and asked: "Dad, the steam is there, but how does it reach the inside of the steam room?"

Zhao Zhikuan sighed and said: "What we thought before was too simple. It makes sense for Watt to improve the piston steam engine. The difficulty of that kind of steam engine is much lower than that of a steam turbine. But we have already rushed to the shelves and have no choice but to go on."

Got it!"
Chapter completed!