Making a hydrogen balloon is certainly not a high-tech one, pure hydrogen and oxygen can be obtained by electrolyzing water, and in the new world of magic, it is much easier to create electricity than to climb the technology tree in the old world. Flammable and explosive hydrogen can only be used to make toys with gums, and for those open-minded alchemists to make practical use, but oxygen is mostly used. Whether it's blowing oxygen into a steelmaking furnace to inhale oxygen for emergency patients, or compressing oxygen into a liquid state through a special alchemy process, and finally combining it with discordant substances such as maroon gunpowder to form a new type of explosion with even more destructive power. medicine, these are very promising derivative projects.

Luo Zhengdao borrowed a series of black technologies from the knowledge of the old world, and on the surface, it lacked the capital to be black, but it also achieved the basic purpose of making the natives of the new world drop their jaws.

"Whoosh-smack! Boom-"

At this time, as a bright white light flashed, the hydrogen balloon as a target instantly turned into a huge fireball in the air, and the loud sound of the hydrogen explosion made the audience praise in unison, and this movement was almost in time for the main gun of the ironclad ship to be launched.

Seeing this, Luo Zhengdao applauded and laughed with satisfaction, got up and said:

"The demonstration is good, but what about the results of animal testing?"

The chief engineer of the project, who looked like a thin nerd, turned his head to look at the person in charge, and then he said with a wooden expression:

"Directly irradiating the target's eyes, lasting one breath can cause an hourglass time blindness, and if it takes more than five breaths, you will become blind if you don't die."

Hearing this, Luo Zhengdao became happier and said:

"Oh, so is it ready for mass production?"

The chief engineer, whose unkempt hair was clearly not good at interpersonal communication, scratched his head in embarrassment and said:

"Well, there are some hurdles in terms of parts supply."

Luo Zhengdao, who frowned, glanced at the person in charge, and then said:

"Can you be specific? Where are there obstacles? ”

"Yes, His Majesty the King. The supply of high-purity flawless gemstones is insufficient, and the production of lasers has to wait for raw materials, and our production capacity has not been able to increase. ”

As soon as he heard this, Luo Zhengdao immediately quit, he patted his thigh and said:

"Don't we have a synthetic gemstone project?"

"Yes! 陛xià. The quality of synthetic gemstones is relatively poor, the failure rate is high, and the cost cannot be reduced. ”

More and more feeling that he had come too late this time, Luo Zhengdao was already impatient to solve the problem, waved his hand and said:

"Needless to say, take me to the factory."

In the Old World, the man-made gemstone industry had reached a very high level of technology, and synthetic gemstones surpassed natural gemstones dug out of mines in terms of texture, purity, color, and most importantly, hardness. Especially for the pure graphite crystals of diamonds, if it were not for the monopoly of the whole industry behind the big consortium to maintain price stability, I believe that the diamond market would have collapsed early on. The so-called diamond is eternal, and a diamond lasts forever. The slogan itself is a big joke, you just need to focus a diamond with a magnifying glass in the sun for a while, and in an instant it will burn until it becomes a handful of ashes, if this virtue is called eternity, then eternity is too cheap.

High temperature and high pressure are the basic principles of synthetic gemstones, which are relatively simple, but the problem is that it is not easy to create a special environment of ultra-high temperature and ultra-high pressure.

In the old world where science is in charge, the cliff of the high-pressure vessel is a big money-burner, not to mention, the manufacture of a container that can withstand ultra-high pressure can make a number of so-called developed countries cry and be ashamed, which shows that this thing is really not a big deal that ordinary small households can toss.

Referring to the conventional technology tree model of the old world to climb, one after another to light up the front technology, it is estimated that Luo Zhengdao will not have the luxury of seeing any actual results in his lifetime.

The magic system of the New World has made a great contribution to the cause of synthetic gemstones, and alchemy has bypassed many harsh prerequisites, allowing researchers to avoid many difficulties and directly touch the core projects that follow. However, it would be foolish to think that everything is all right, and that there will be a price to pay for taking shortcuts. The difficulty that is currently stuck in the synthetic gemstone project is called "crystal and structural differences". In fact, no one understands why some of the synthetic gems made in the same batch can be used as the core components of the laser, while others can only be disposed of as beautiful and useless waste, and the human eye alone cannot tell the difference between the two.

The research team, which was puzzled by this, typed an application report and sent the two products to the alchemist masters of the Yaling Empire for identification, and finally came to the conclusion that the microscopic crystal structure of the synthetic gems was slightly different.

If you want to ask whether this difference is caused by flaws in the processing process, or other factors, no one can say what the conclusion is, so the cost advantage of synthetic gemstones is gone, and people can only pray that they can use a little more of the gems they have smelted in one furnace. It is a pity that excluding those defective products that have defects such as zài transparency, even among the few boutiques with the most perfect appearance, there are still most heterogeneous crystal gems that are not suitable as laser components.

After a few turns in the quiet workshop, Luo Zhengdao looked at the unqualified gems that were discarded in the corner of the factory and said:

"What do you do with all this waste?"

Hearing this, the person in charge of the factory hurriedly replied:

"Your Majesty, the appraisers in the jewelry industry can tell that they are not natural gemstones, so they cannot be sold for a good price, and we provide them to the glass workshop as cutting tools and abrasives."

Hearing this, Luo Zhengdao was simply ridiculous, and said:

"It's a waste to do that, and you have to work hard to develop the surplus value. Even if we can't sell it for a high price, we can seize the cheap jewelry market, and we need to bring back more funds to support the development of subsequent projects. ”

As long as there are more poor people than rich people in this world, the market space for cheap jewelry, or fakes, will never be smaller than real jewelry. You know, most of the poor people who can't afford to buy expensive real gems still yearn for the social class represented by this luxury, just like the old world that sold them. The kidneys buy apples, and the brain-disabled young men and women who sell their bodies to buy LV bags are the same. Since this market is objectively saved, no matter how you calculate this account, it is much more valuable to process factory scraps into jewelry and sell them than to use them as industrial raw materials.

Luo Zhengdao, who turned around, remembered one more thing and asked a squire officer beside him:

"How's Project 10?"

"Your Majesty, there are too few skilled craftsmen to expand production. Current pocket watch samples are larger than the mouth of a bowl and weigh more than a pound, and I don't think anyone would want to carry such a bulky timepiece on their body. ”

Touching his chin, Luo Zhengdao thought for a while, and then asked rhetorically:

"Isn't it okay to expand production on the assembly line?"

"Yes, His Majesty. The kind of thing you ordered us to improve can only be used to make parts like cases and bracelets, not the intricate parts of a watch that are as small as ants' legs. ”

Shrugged helplessly, Luo Zhengdao, who admitted that he was inconsiderate, smiled slightly, and said:

"Moving on, what is the percentage of the finished product?"

"The latest report is about one-tenth, Your Majesty."

couldn't help but cover his forehead, Luo Zhengdao said with an exaggerated expression:

"Oh, it's terrible."

"Your Majesty, you're right, but we couldn't find a suitable way to improve the process."

Industrialization is a tight chain linked by one link, and if you want to skip the previous links and get the results directly, it is better to change your career and learn alchemy! Anyway, this thing is a little bit more reliable.

In the old world, there was once an aspiring young man, because he deeply felt that his motherland was poor, poor and weak and bullied, so he was determined to join the navy to drive the foreign hairs out of the land of the motherland, but after some understanding, it is useless to join the navy, you have to have a warship to fight! This benevolent brother is really a very persevering person, and immediately decided to change his career to learn shipbuilding, and must produce the world's best performance warship for the country. Gotcha! Let's just go and learn metallurgy! You have to build the planks first and then talk about the ship, otherwise where will the battleship come from? Without warships, where is the navy? Do you rely on wooden sampans to fight with other people's strong ships and cannons?

This philosophical little story is not over yet, and what should this aspiring young man do when he discovers that he doesn't even have the ore he needs to make steel?

If it rests on ordinary people, it is 100% disheartened to toss to this, after all, the idea of an aspiring young man is different from ordinary people, and he finally went to study geology, vowing to find more mineral deposits for the motherland, and thus became a famous geologist.

After listening to this story, a very interesting phenomenon appeared, devoting himself to the navy→ learning shipbuilding→ learning metallurgy→ geological prospecting, the process of industrialization is so rigid, you don't have to think too much, step by step climb up will naturally come to fruition. If you don't insist on doing everything in place, then don't expect any good results in the end, just as if you don't work hard to plant trees today, you don't have to expect to be able to enjoy the shade under the big trees in the future.

"What percentage of the supply of lasers can be met at the current capacity?"

Since he knew that opportunism would not end well, Luo Zhengdao could only suppress his displeasure, he asked again, and the person in charge of the factory opposite replied with a bitter face:

"The most optimistic estimate is a third, Your Majesty."

Hearing this, Luo Zhengdao understood that he couldn't do anything at the grassroots level, so he patted the person in charge on the shoulder and encouraged the other party to work hard. Then, Luo Zhengdao turned to the entourage and asked:

"What's next?"

"Project No. 9, His Majesty the King."

Looking up at the sky, Luo Zhengdao took a deep breath with complicated eyes, nodded and said:

"Okay, hurry up!"

The perfect combination of trenches, machine guns, and barbed wire was a web of death that strangled a piece of flesh and blood, and tens of thousands of John Bull soldiers fell to the guns of the German Maxim water-cooled machine guns at the Battle of the Marne during World War I. Before the advent of the Trench Tank, trench warfare was the dominant feature on the battlefield, and although Hans Cat developed the Storm Commando squad infiltration tactics to break through the increasingly rigid trench warfare system, it was still not enough to replace the tank's frontal assault role. The so-called Project Nine is a trench warfare system developed based on the World War I model, and the core item of it is the machine gun.

The water-cooled machine gun has the biggest advantage of continuous shooting, but the machining accuracy of the components is also relatively high, compared with the Maxim heavy machine gun, the relatively low-end Gatling machine gun is more in line with the actual industrial level of the new world, especially in the point that it does not have to consume valuable metal resources to make warheads, the Gatling gun is much better than the Maxim.