"Co-authored with you, Lan Dashao is returning with a full load today! All the hundreds of people in Wenjia Workshop have been busy for three months, and the total profit is less than 180,000 gold, you can do it well, get back 200,000 gold at once! Director Li was shocked by the richness of the loot Lan Wang had gotten, "You not only respect the God of Killing, but also the God of Wealth!" It's time for the Wenjia Workshop to run! ”

"Okay, okay, you and I are both adults, let's put a few fewer rainbow farts!" Lan Wang scolded with a smile.

"If there are no problems or objections from the workshop, I plan to give this money to the Wenjia workshop."

When Director Li heard this, he was a little stunned for a while: "That's what I said, don't take it seriously!" The money is still yours, don't even think about taking it! ”

"No, no, no, I'm serious." Lan Wang raised his right index finger and shook it gently.

"Think about it, I am a young master from a large family, and a ten-year-old child, every day my father loves my mother to eat and wear, and I don't have to worry about what I want, it's useless to take so much money, don't you say? But if this money can be invested in the workshop, the benefits will be very different. Not to mention anything else, just the medical expenses, compensation and family pensions due to the workers injured in this steam engine explosion case are not a small amount, right? ”

Director Li was speechless. He knew that what Lan Dashao said was right.

"By the way, as soon as I mention this, I remember: how is the accident investigation in the steam engine room? Is it artificial? ”

Director Li's face sank: "Yes, it's artificial—at least that's what the lab analysis results are." “

"The jar you saw this morning, and which I was holding, is proof of that." Director Li, who entered the academic analysis mode, finally seemed to be less distracted, "We collected some of the metal debris produced after the explosion of the cylinder of the faulty steam engine, and took it to the laboratory for testing. The results showed that the culprit that caused the cylinder of the steam engine to burst was an acidic substance. “

"Acids? Strong? “

"Not strong acids, to be exact, but strong acids that are generated later. When we were assembling the cylinders of a steam engine, we were tampering with the watertight paint on the metal joints. Originally, the composition of the paint was very simple, it was a natural binder extracted from plants, and it could harden to form a gelatinous substance in high-temperature steam, which was not unusual. However, we have extracted an unknown salt from the metal fragments, and although we do not know the exact chemical formula of this salt, I am certain that this salt is produced by the reaction of metal and acid. In other words, the cylinders of our steam engines were fine when they were just assembled, and everything was fine even during trial operation, but when they were officially put into use, they were corroded by acid. This subsequently strong acid not only penetrates the natural organic paint, but also erodes the inner wall of the cylinder made of copper, causing the cylinder to burst under the pressure of high-temperature steam. Not only that, but the cylinders of the ten steam engines burst almost simultaneously at the time of the accident, which means that the precise grasp of the total amount of reactants and the reaction rate of the people who secretly did it has reached a terrifying level! “

"If you say so, the authority of this inner ghost in the workshop is definitely not low, and it is likely to be a middle and high-level technical person. Do you have any suspicions in the workshop, like the apprentices in your lab? ”

"I actually doubted it, but I can't say that there is no such probability, but it is really small. The keys to the laboratory and the steamer room were held by only me and Director Wen, not to mention that during the three days between the trial operation of the steamer room and the official commissioning, all the personnel of our laboratory were closed in the laboratory for intensive research, eating, drinking, and lazing inside, and I am sure that no one left during this period. In fact, it wasn't until after the accident that the personnel of our laboratory in the Ministry of Chemical Industry were released from quarantine and came out to see what was going on. ”

"If that's the case, it's going to be even more difficult to find the hidden mole. The fact that this guy was able to carry out such a high-tech sabotage plan in such a hidden corner shows that he already has a certain understanding of modern industry and basic science, and he is certainly not an idle person. Logically, we cannot even rule out the possibility that our opponent is also a traverser. Lan Wang's brow furrowed.

Li Changting didn't say anything, but his face turned white all of a sudden.

"Ah, don't worry too much, this possibility is also very small, just let me be alarmist!" Lan Wang realized that he might be putting undue pressure on a pure technician who had no experience with any military intelligence work, "One thing is certain: until we can pry open the mouth of the captive in the flat arm and extract enough valid information and clues, any investigation will be pointless." “

"Forget it, let's not talk about this, let's talk about what you're good at - with this capital injection this time, what new projects do you and Director Wen plan to invest in? Do you want to start farming? Young Master Lan changed the topic at the right time, and joked with a smile at Director Li.

"Ah, you're talking about developing industry, right?" Li Changting also smiled with relief, changing the topic under heavy pressure is really a very effective mode of adjustment, "Director Wen and I have always had a plan before, and we are also planning step by step, but it took so long, invested so much time, energy and money, trembling like walking on thin ice, and finally tried to make a batch of movable steam engines, and there was such a bird thing!" “

"Our initial plan was, of course, to gradually establish a self-hematopoietic primary industrial system that was not inferior to the technological level of the 1850s and 1860s. Assuming that we can solve the espionage case in the workshop within a reasonable period of time, and receive further financial support, we plan to accelerate the first project to be an iron factory and an affiliated small mechanical equipment factory. Director Li paused, "Needless to say, the importance of the iron factory is self-explanatory, let's just talk about this machinery factory." If we want to develop the metallurgical industry and large-scale equipment manufacturing industry, we must start with all kinds of machine tools. We had to build a lot of all kinds of simple hydraulic or steam-powered small lathes, boring machines, drilling machines, grinding machines, etc., in the first batch. It is only with these "industrial machines" that machines can replicate themselves – simply put, with the first machines, they can be used to process parts and build more machines. “

"And that's not all. When we have a complete range of industrial machine tools, we will have to build some 'big guys', including but not limited to: second-generation steam engines, gravity forging presses, steam forging hammers, strip mills, plate mills, large multi-flue boilers, cranes, large lathes, grinding machines and drilling machines, etc., which are not inferior to the level of the 1830s. “

"The investment in the iron plant itself is almost all in the early stage, and it mainly needs to build three basic production facilities: a blast furnace and its supporting equipment for smelting iron ore into crude iron, a cylindrical iron melting furnace for smelting cast iron, and a mixing furnace for refining wrought iron. In addition, secondary auxiliary facilities of various sizes, such as foundry workshops, forging workshops, finishing workshops, equipment assembly workshops, metal treatment workshops, and even warehouses, stockyards, workers' dormitories, coke ovens, and even brick kilns and cement kilns, are all indispensable. In the future, we will introduce the steelmaking technology and turn the iron mill into a steel mill, and we will have to add Bessemer converters and Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnaces. “

"I know these big routes, and the specific details are better known to Director Wen, so I can only discuss them with him after he recovers."

"If we want to develop the military industry and build a modern army, where do you think we should start?" Even if Lan Wang is a genius, he can't absorb so much information at once, so he can only pick the key points first, and start from the aspects that he is most familiar with and interested in.

"Ah, I was about to get to that part." Director Li's thinking is very organized, "We plan to make the arsenal a subordinate institution of our industrial zone. Judging from the current technical conditions, even if we can overcome the difficulties of gunpowder and explosives, the weapons we manufacture will not be more advanced than the weapons of the sixties and seventies of the nineteenth century in the original plane. Thus, both rifles as individual weapons and artillery as heavy weapons remained in the category of basic industrial goods, which could be produced directly by ironworks and machine-building factories. After all, even the large-caliber front-loading smoothbore gun was only a slightly larger monolithic cast iron component, and even the most advanced infantry weapons of the 19th century were made of parts one by one using machine tools and then assembled. Li Changting spread his hands.

"My biggest concern is my old profession, which is chemistry. In order to engage in the military industry, the chemical industry will certainly not be able to bypass it, and it is necessary to build chemical plants, so that the weapons manufactured by our iron factories and machinery factories will not face the dilemma of having guns and no bullets. But you also know that there is nowhere to find sulfur in this plane, and without sulfur, there is no sulfur, sulfuric acid, no triacids and two alkalis; And without three acids and two alkalis, our military industry is just a tree without roots and a castle in the air! I'm the only one in the Wenjia Workshop who knows a little bit of chemistry, and no one can help me, and recently this simple sulfuric acid has made me sad to death! This is true of inorganic chemistry, but is organic chemistry...... That's just a distant legend! “

Director Li complained with a sad face as he spoke.

Again, I don't understand the details. There are no shortcuts, and the world doesn't have any industrial base to tap into. According to my calculations, it would be good if the scientific and technological level of this Great Ling Dynasty could catch up with the Tang and Song dynasties of our country in the original plane, after all, black medicine was already widely used in the military during the Song Dynasty! When we started, we could say that we were poor and white, and we had to design and build everything ourselves, and there were no ready-made physical examples that could be directly referenced. Director Li had a sad face.

Lan Wang was not very impressed by the difficulties he was about to face. He put on the appearance of an optimistic child: "It's okay, where there is a will, there is a way!" No matter how difficult it is for us, can it be more difficult than those who travel on the original plane? Anyway, we still have the accumulation of technical knowledge in human society since the industrial revolution for 200 years! ”

"That's true, but how to monetize this precious wealth of knowledge is a big problem." Director Li still couldn't stop worrying.

"Eh, I forgot to ask, did you make a preliminary site selection when planning and building an industrial zone?"

Lan Wang had no choice but to sacrifice the weapon of great destruction again - to change the subject.