Since the infusion of funds from many large and small miners, the research speed of steam engines has been rapid day by day. Under the condition of ensuring that the research funds and R&D speed do not lag behind, the R&D funds have finally successfully transitioned smoothly from official investment to private investment. Moreover, at the request of Li Wenyuan, the basic construction principle of the steam engine was made public, and there was not the slightest secret in it. As a result, many people in the private sector were driven by the benefits that could be brought by the research of steam engines, and a large number of research and development institutions on steam engines spontaneously organized by the people appeared, and these institutions were also committed to improving the efficiency of steam engines while reducing production costs as much as possible.

Thanks to the strength of the propaganda group built by Li Wenyuan and the popularization of education, the people's wisdom, which has been slightly opened, has begun to try to think for itself at this time. As a result, when the people continued to research all kinds of strange and strange devices, the concepts of patents and intellectual property rights were put forward by Li Wenyuan and quickly passed in the parliament. This also means that if you don't develop it, you have to pay the patent fee out of your own pocket to use the patent. Although it will not cause sky-high patent fees for long-term use, it will undoubtedly thin up a lot of profits, which is the most unacceptable thing for those small miners.

As a result, big entrepreneurs have begun to recruit their own people to carry out corresponding research, and invested a lot of manpower and material resources to carry out various experiments, just to be the first to invent. Even if you don't do business anymore, you can just rely on the patents you hold in your hands to cover your daily expenses, and you can live a worry-free life. However, the capital in the hands of many small miners and small entrepreneurs is simply not enough to support them to recruit their own manpower to conduct research like those big entrepreneurs, so some small entrepreneurs began to spontaneously unite and form a consortium, and everyone advanced and retreated together, and jointly funded the establishment of research institutes.

All of a sudden, research institutes under Li Wenyuan's rule sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. After all, the institute is supported by the government, as long as the researchers take their ID cards to the government for registration with the government, there is no requirement for the qualifications of the researchers. Almost all of these institutes specialized in steam engines, so a large amount of metal and coal was thrown in, which caused large fluctuations in the market prices of steel and coal. However, fortunately, the market trading rights of this strategic raw material were completely controlled by Li Wenyuan, which did not allow some foreign forces to take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune.

However, thanks to the existence of these research institutes, the evolution of the steam engine was more rapid than in the original history, and it soon left the laboratory and began to try to use it in the mines on a small scale. Although it can be barely successfully put into daily production and use now, these steam engines are only some early models after all, and there are still many deficiencies in some details, and there is still a lot of potential for improvement in durability.

Soon, those working on steam engines noticed the problem of durability. After many structural optimizations, it was found that there was no significant effect, so the developers began to work on the materials that made up the steam engine itself. They began to research more suitable metal materials for steam engines, hoping to improve the durability of steam engines in this way.

Therefore, the research of the steam engine inadvertently led to the research of metal materials under Li Wenyuan, and the primary task of these metal materials research institutes after the establishment was to consider how to further improve the performance of the existing materials at hand, so that they could withstand the huge pressure of steam, so as to achieve the purpose of increasing the durability of the steam engine. This makes it possible to pursue more horsepower in the steam engine. With the unremitting efforts of these metal researchers, all kinds of metal treatment methods that Li Wenyuan had never heard of were developed by these researchers, and after a selection test, a total of three metal treatment products passed the screening test, all of which achieved the performance they expected to achieve, and then began to be put into daily steel production in various workshops under Li Wenyuan's rule.

Although at the beginning, because it was a new technology, it did not have the advantages of high efficiency and low cost in terms of production speed and production cost as mature technology, but with the continuous production and the improvement of production efficiency brought about by the optimization of production lines, the production cost of this new metal began to slowly and gradually decline. The reduction of the cost of the new metal is also equivalent to a disguised reduction in the cost of the steam engine. Therefore, with the increasing maturity of steam engine technology and the great improvement of durability, more and more mine owners have added two or three steam engines to their mines, one for daily production work, and two for backup. As long as he has drunk enough water, whatever he eats, whatever he can burn, can be used as his power material, driving the minecart dragged by the attached winch back and forth between the mine and the surface.

As a result, a large number of laborers who were trapped in the mines, who repeated the monotonous and boring work of carrying ore every day, were finally relieved, and after settling their wages from the mine owners, they returned to their homes and migrated to Central Asia with their wives and children. The news of the shortage of laborers in Central Asia had long been publicized in newspapers throughout the territory under Li Wenyuan's rule, so these laborers who had lost their jobs from the mines began to migrate to Central Asia without hesitation in order to get a bite to eat.

With the addition of this group of laborers, the construction speed in Central Asia has doubled again. After all, there are so many people who can work, and before the winter of this year, all the people stranded in Central Asia have been allocated their own houses. The official roads that connect to each other have also been renovated neatly. Because the grassland is difficult to pass after snowfall, there is a guard post every five miles around each official road, and there are three or four people living in it, most of whom are hired from nearby villages to maintain the official road. Their daily work is similar to that of later generations of railway workers, for example, after the rain, they have to brave the rain to survey whether the entire official road will be washed out and destroyed, and after the snow falls in winter, they must remove the snow on the official road as soon as possible, so as not to be blocked by heavy snow.

(End of chapter)