As the UK's most important producer of steam engines, Bolton-Watt would not miss an event like the Pakistan Fair. Therefore, as soon as I got the news that France would hold the Pakistan Trade Fair, I immediately went to the French Embassy and put forward a request to book an exhibition hall at the Pakistan Trade Fair. Because they had a lot of business dealings with France before, they got special care and got a booth in a prominent position in the exhibition building. Many of the other businessmen who came with them to apply for a booth could only get a so-called "semi-open-air" booth.

After paying the deposit for the exhibition, Bolton asked his sons Bolton Jr. and Watt to go to France to have a look. Watt is very proficient in all kinds of machinery, but he doesn't like to talk to people about business. It's not because Watt doesn't understand business – after so many years of partnering with Bolton and doing so much business, how could he not understand? But he prefers to devote his time to studying machinery rather than haggling with others.

It is said that there will be a lot of machinery for sale that no one has seen before, and Watt is full of interest in it, so he must go. As for Bolton, there must always be someone in the company who can make decisions. Moreover, Bolton is old, he goes far away, in case he gets a cold, he gets the flu, and then he forwards it to pneumonia, well, that era is still far from the invention of the ventilator, and the old man Bolton will not survive the day when there are ventilators in England anyway.

But just letting Watt go won't do it. When Watt got there, when he saw all kinds of machinery, where could he still care about business? So Bolton let his son Bolton Jr. go with Watt.

Two men with a group of assistants, as well as a lot of samples and models, went ashore in Calais. After spending the night at the "Reception for Exhibitors at the Bar Fair" in Calais, they got on the two four-wheeled carriages that the reception had put them in touch with and headed for Paris.

On the way to Paris, Watt saw more electric pumping machines and small processing plants using electricity. The London Businessman newspaper was largely made in these small processing factories.

"What are the secrets of motors and generators? I really want to see it. Inside the carriage, Watt said to Bolton Jr.

"Yes, but the French are very tight on this. These things are basically not allowed to be sold to foreign countries," Bolton Jr. lowered his voice as he said this, "A friend of mine told me that the Navy managed to steal an electric motor from here, and many people died for it......"

"What happened?" Watt asked.

"After the sample was stolen, we first tried to attach it to the battery, but found that it had three wires. And no matter which two are connected, the motor will not rotate. Then, while disassembling it, the motor exploded, killing several more people. Now, all we know is that there seems to be a lot of lacquered copper wire in it, which is wound in some particular way, and we don't know anything about why it can move or how it can move. It is said that the Admiralty and the University of Cambridge are working hard to study it, but nothing seems to have come of it. ”

"Oh." Watt replied, and then said, "Actually, I don't think there's anything wrong with using a small steam engine. ”

As a businessman with a large number of patents on steam engines, he certainly didn't like the heresy of electric motors. It's a pity that he still knows too little about electric motors, so it is difficult to find a targeted reason to attack it. Still, knowing that the Admiralty guys hadn't made much progress on this issue made Watt happy.

A few days later, Watt and the others were in Paris.

Watt's first impression of Paris was its cleanliness. In this era, the big cities of Europe were generally very dirty, and Paris was no exception. At that time, European city dwellers would even throw feces and the like directly on the street, and after a long time, the street even made the street taller than the houses on both sides. As for the smell, dust, or whatever, you can imagine for yourself.

After the revolution there were some changes. The shortage of saltpeter caused by the blockade led the revolutionary government to use human excrement as an important strategic resource, which could be used to produce nitrate, and to impose a compulsory expropriation of these strategic resources in Paris. So throwing and urine directly on the street became illegal and even criminal (Robespierre's time).

By the time Napoleon came to power, the problem of saltpeter had been largely solved, but this strategic resource gathering system had been preserved, albeit as compost. In addition, in order to pave the way for the future "Roman Empire", the Ministry of Truth has been boasting about the civilization level of the Roman Empire in various ways, piling up some reliable, unreliable, and even unreliable things on top of the Roman Empire.

Later, when radio technology was invented, someone made up a joke One day, Lucien received a report that an archaeological team had found copper wire at a site in ancient Rome. Lucien was very happy and said, "Great Rome, all the electricity has begun!" However, when he immediately arrived at the scene, he realized that it was a misunderstanding, and that it was not copper wire at all. Then Lucien was even more pleased, and he said, "Great Rome, all the more radio!" ”

The Ministry of Truth boasted that one of the contents of Rome was Roman public health, so as part of the revival of the "Roman spirit", public health was raised to a very important level, and after the discovery of pathogenic bacteria, this problem was further taken seriously, Napoleon took the opportunity to promote the so-called Paris transformation movement, calling on the people of Paris to spend half a day every week to do voluntary labor and clean up all kinds of garbage. The First Consul even took part in voluntary labor with a shovel every week, and at every time the shouts of 'Long live Napoleon' resounded in the sky.

The relatively neat and clean streets were the first impression that Paris gave to Watt. Watt soon noticed another difference between Paris and London, where there were far fewer chimneys. This is true even in the factory area.

"This must be a damn motor." Although the soothing air in Paris was noticeably sweeter than in London, both Watt and Little Bolton now wanted to burn all the electric heretics with a single fire, just as the English burned Joan of Arc.

After spending two nights in Paris, Watt went to the University of Paris the next day to take a spin and have a good conversation with Lavoisier, who happened to be at the University of Paris, about some scientific issues. Watt was eager to meet Joseph Bonaparte, another great French scientist, but Lavoisier told him that Joseph was not in Paris and that he seemed to have gone south.

"I guess it has something to do with electricity. However, he will come back as soon as possible, and you will definitely be able to wait for him at the Pakistan Trade Fair. After all, a lot of the business there is also related to him. Lavoisier said.

When Watt said goodbye to Lavoisier and left, Lavoisier told Watt, "If you go to the venue tomorrow, pay attention to the road leading to the venue, and that road is very interesting." ”

Because of this sentence, Watt spent the night speculating about what was "very interesting" about this road.

As soon as the carriage he rode on the road after dawn came, Watt immediately noticed something unusual about the road. The grayish-white road appears to be paved with a single boulder, and it is cut very flat, and the carriages run on the road almost without any undulations.

Watt told the driver to stop the car. He got out of the car, then knelt down without hesitating his image, took out a monocle from his jacket pocket, put it on his right eye, and carefully studied the road.

"This should be cement, right?" Watt said.

Cement is not a very unusual thing, there was (this is true) natural pozzolan cement in ancient Rome; The British had also previously come up with "Roman cement". But "Roman cement" because of the high requirements for raw materials, so the cost is not low, the price is expensive, if you use "Roman cement" to make such a long road, how much does it cost?

So Watt immediately realized that the French must have invented a cheap cement.

"It's cement." At this time, William Murdoch, his assistant who got out of the car with Watt, also made this judgment.

"It's so wide, it's so long, it's a lot of cement, the French are really ......," Bolton Jr. said.

"Maybe the French invented cheap cement." Watt said, "Matthew, you should pay attention to it when you go to the fair, if this thing is sold, it should be very marketable." Although we mainly sell our own steam engines, if there is anything good, we will not let it go. Of course, it is better to be able to buy the technology and produce it yourself. ”

Little Bolton nodded yes. Watt put the monocle on his nose back into his pocket and got back into the carriage with little Bolton and his assistant William Murdoch.

In the following journey, several people have been discussing how big the market for low-cost cement might be.

An hour later, they arrived at the venue. A few people got out of the carriage, and a huge Romanesque building came into view.

It is a building that closely resembles the Roman "Pantheon" in form, with a rectangular colonnade with twenty-six massive columns on the façade, and the inside is not clearly visible from here. But it's definitely a larger building than the original Pantheon in terms of scale.

"How long did Napoleon take office, even if he started building it from the very beginning, and the level of technology involved in such a short period of time is truly astounding, and it is truly a wonder of our time." Watt said to little Bolton, and at the same time his heart became inexplicably heavy.

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