The fire cap is not good, it is not really bad, although it is inconspicuous, but his appearance has changed the development of weapons. Increased the rate of fire of muskets, wages, increased the rate of fire and accuracy of shots of muskets, and quickly eliminated flintlock muskets as soon as they appeared.

Even though it's really fragrant.

However, it is difficult for military households to obtain surplus fire caps outside of training, because the only way to obtain fire caps is through the guard station, and they cannot buy fire caps in the market. Naturally, this also restricts the use of military households.

What about letting go of the fire cap and selling it to the outside world?

It doesn't seem realistic, after all, the fire cap has not been produced by itself, in fact, this is also because you can buy smashing paper, and a box of smashing paper is enough to make hundreds of thousands of fire caps.

Although the quantity on the other side is enough, it is not a long way to buy it like this, and it is still necessary to make mine mercury by yourself and realize the production of fire caps independently.

Gotcha, until then, it's a flintlock pistol! In fact, the firing pistol is also an improvement on the basis of the dog-lock flintlock flintlock pistol.

Compared with the firing pistol, although the flintlock pistol has a lower firing rate and a slightly slower rate of fire, as long as there is flint and gunpowder, it can be fired normally, and for the time being, it is more suitable for military households in the guard than the firing gun. After all, flint is everywhere, the technology is simple and abundant, and of course it is advanced enough, after all, a century and a half later, Napoleon used flintlock pistols.

In the future, the civilian flintlock pistol and the army will fire the gun, which can also maintain the army's superiority over civilian weapons.

The new factory was not built in Dalian, but in the Dasha River, and was chosen to be built here to use water power, which is the closest river to Dalian, with the experience of building a factory near the Wangling Tomb, and soon built an aqueduct in a suitable area on the bank of the Dasha River, and installed a water turbine, but this water turbine is not used to generate electricity, but is used to drive the drive shaft, which is the same as the effect of the water wheel, but the power of the impact water wheel is low, and it cannot be used in winter, which is also in the middle and late 18th century, The reason why the water turbine replaced the waterwheel with the steam engine in the early days of the British Industrial Revolution.

Although, according to the design of the plant, after the Dasha River Gunsmith was put into operation, the hammer forging workshop and five hydraulic boring machines could produce hundreds of muskets per day, Dasha River was still too far away from Dalian.

Industry needs power!

And power requires a steam engine!

"It's really not good, just get a diesel generator here!"

Again, in the face of the inefficient windmills in the arsenal, Zhu Guoqiang silently thought that there was no available water power near the urban area of Dalian, and the windmill was the only power source for the factory, but the efficiency of the windmill was too low.

At the beginning, Zhu Guoqiang thought about the pot camel machine, known as the artifact of the passage, which is a kind of power machine with a boiler and a steam engine connected together, equipped with wheels and can be moved. Coal, firewood, heavy oil and other fuels are used as fuel, which is suitable for rural use. It can drive water pumps for irrigation, generators to generate electricity, and of course, it can also directly drive various working machines in machine building.

Merely...... I can't buy it!

That thing was discontinued in China in the fifties, and it was basically eliminated in the sixties and seventies. No matter how convenient the fuel is, can it be convenient to have a diesel engine?

"I don't know, how is Chen Zhizhao's steam engine built?"

Thinking so in his heart, Zhu Guoqiang deliberately went to the arsenal by the sea, and before he arrived at the workshop, he heard the familiar roar of the machine.

That's right, that's the sound!

The sound of the machine!

Walking quickly to the workshop, Zhu Guoqiang first saw a machine the size of half a room roaring. The gray-headed and gray-faced Chen Zhizhao commanded the workers to shovel coal, covered in coal ash.

Zhu Guoqiang was surprised by the big guy who was spewing smoke from the chimney in front of him, the coal burning in the furnace, and the rapid rotation of the flywheel, which spewed out a little steam from time to time.

"Made?"

"The minister has seen the prince!"

Chen Zhizhao's expression looked a little proud, after he and Ge Shizhen threw themselves under the door of the prince last year, he devoted himself to the steam engine, since then, all he thinks about is the steam engine, he always believes that as long as the steam engine is built, it can bring earth-shaking changes to the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, just thinking about it is not good, in addition to thinking, he also got a model from the prince, and there are some patterns, that is, the drawings of the Watt steam engine, which are actually still open.

However, although it was opened, it was not easy to build a steam engine by relying on a model and pattern, and even when it was on the side of the royal tomb, several units were blown up in front of it - the boiler pressure was too great.

Fortunately, with the support of the prince, otherwise the factory director would have kicked him and his disciples out long ago, they were all orphans in the almshouse, of course, orphans who had gone to private acquaintances.

"It's made, but the performance is still very average."

陈之call says:

"It's leaking, and although the piston that comes out of the chamber is very tight, there will still be air leaks, but it can already make the steam engine work."

Looking at the fast-moving flywheel, Zhu Guoqiang asked again:

"And then?"

"It's just ...... explode"

Chen Zhizhao's face changed, and he said quite embarrassedly:

"We've improved a lot, but the boiler still explodes due to excessive pressure."

"In other words, apart from this problem, the steam engine is basically made?"

Zhu Guoqiang asked.

"It's done, and the power is still comparable, and it can reach ten horsepower."

Chen Zhizhao said,

"I did the math carefully, and it can really drive various equipment such as forging hammers and grinding machines in the workshop, and the cost is not too high. It's just that it's too easy to blow up. ”

Looking at this machine carefully, although Zhu Guoqiang is not a steam enthusiast, he still knows that this thing is probably Watt's early horizontal steam engine.

That is, the centrifugal governor and throttle valve steam engine, although there are some problems, but it has initially had commercial value.

It's still a little primitive, but it came out at the right time!

"Explosion...... Hmm, any ideas for improvement? ”

In fact, it is just a pressure gauge, Zhu Guoqiang silently thought in his heart, if it really doesn't work, take it.

In many cases, take-it-or-leave-it doctrine is undoubtedly the best choice.

In fact, in this factory, there are a lot of "take-it-or-leave-it" things, such as the steel inner tube of the "steel core iron composite cannon" cast in the factory, which is a seamless steel pipe brought from the other side, and even an iron mold is used in order to improve the efficiency of the cannon casting, after all, there is a steel inner tube, but I don't care whether the cannon body is white pig iron.

Casting this kind of composite is very simple, only need to fill the inner tube with wet sand, and then fix it in the iron mold, and then cast molten iron, although because the iron mold conducts heat quickly, the casting condenses quickly, resulting in the gun body is white iron. However, because the inner tube is a steel pipe, it is naturally not brittle with white iron, and it is easy to crack during launch, and it will even explode if used repeatedly.

But it doesn't mean that it's perfect, one of the simplest problems is the quantity, more than a dozen guard forts need thousands of artillery, plus the construction of the army and navy, at least thousands of artillery guns are needed, so many guns rely on the steel pipe brought from the other side as the inner pipe is definitely not good, the best way is of course to solve it nearby, that is, local casting.

"At present, our casting cannon is mainly based on sand casting cannon and solid drilling, however, the solid drilling is too slow, and now the Ordnance Department is urging us every day, but how can the solid drilling cannon be as fast as the previous casting of the whole gun, not only do you not need to drill the barrel, but you don't even need to cool, if you want to increase the speed, you have to improve the casting method!"

In the hot cannon casting workshop, as soon as he saw the prince, Sun Hewu couldn't help but complain, these days in the face of the Ordnance Division's supervision, he can be said to have a headache to the extreme,

As Sun Yuanhua's nephew, Sun Hewu defected at the invitation of Sun Hejing, when Sun Yuanhua was training, Sun Hewu was specially responsible for casting cannons, and escaped from the chaos during the mutiny. When he arrived here, he naturally participated in the casting of cannons, and he was indeed more professional than the craftsmen who became monks halfway through the factory. He could even read the foreign cannon materials translated by the late Qing Dynasty.

Zhu Guoqiang asked, "What, do you have any ideas?" ”

"Lord Shizi, I have been studying the water-cooled casting method in the book "Internal Mold Water-Cooled Casting Cannon Method" you gave me recently, and I think I might as well try it."

"Inner mold water-cooled casting cannon method?"

After a while, Zhu Guoqiang remembered what this was, that is, the Rodman cannon casting method, which was a hollow casting process invented by Major Rodman of the United States Army during the Civil War. It can greatly speed up the casting speed and reduce the scrap rate, especially when casting heavy cannons.

In fact, the vast majority of the Western books "introduced" by Zhu Guoqiang were translated by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, such as Chen Zhizhao, there is part of the book "The Origin of the Steam Engine", and the books he took include chemistry, physics, mathematics, medicine, military science, technology, etc., but the main content is still focused on manufacturing, military, surveying, and machinery. This is exactly what is needed in this era.

In fact, at the beginning of the introduction of Western technology in the late Qing Dynasty, most of the translated books played the role of popular science and literacy, and the technology of those books was simple and even somewhat primitive. But one thing is undeniable is that those primitive technologies are for this day and age. It is undoubtedly an epoch-making existence.

This is also the reason why Zhu Guoqiang deliberately "copied" those books, and in terms of social and technical level, the Manchu Qing after the Opium War was not necessarily more advanced than the current Ming Dynasty, so the books were just right for use in this era......

After leaving the arsenal, when the carriage drove on the road, Zhu Guoqiang looked quite proud, after all, he had seen the dawn of the industrial age here today.

Looking out of the car, he even sighed rather proudly.

"Oh, this steam engine, and this industrial area, it's just the beginning of the industrial revolution......"