At four o'clock in the morning, it was the darkest time before dawn, and most of the common people were still asleep, but the Qianqing Palace in the Forbidden City was already brightly lit.

Qin Mingyue led a team of palace maids into the emperor's bedroom with toiletries, at this time Zhu Cijiong was sleeping fragrantly, and he didn't know what delicious food he was eating in his dreams. Qin Mingyue walked to the dragon bed lovingly, bent down the willow waist, and whispered in the little emperor's ear: "Your Majesty, it's time to get up, the time for the early dynasty is almost up." ”

Zhu Cijiong's biological clock is also relatively punctual, and he is about to wake up at this time, when he hears someone calling, he immediately opens his eyes, and a beautiful face meets his eyes, it is Mingyue! He suddenly perked up, opened his hands and hugged Qin Mingyue and looked at him with a mouthful.

Qin Mingyue picked him up with a smile, helped him put on his court clothes with the assistance of the two palace maids, and then served him to wash up.

As soon as everything was cleaned up, Cao Huachun's respectful voice sounded at the door: "Your Majesty, the dragon chariot has been prepared." ”

Zhu Cijiong directly put his arms on his shoulders when he heard this, and Mingyue next to him squatted down very cooperatively, gently picked her up, slowly walked to the dragon chariot outside, and then gently put him on the dragon chariot.

At this time, Cao Huachun on the side looked over with an inquiring eye, and although Zhu Cijiong was a little reluctant, he still nodded slightly.

Cao Huachun immediately said loudly: "Get up." ”

The eight eunuchs who knelt on one knee immediately stood up, and the brocade guards in front and behind also hurriedly raised the big flag in their hands, and the group walked towards the Imperial Palace.

Seeing Long Yuan leave the Qianqing Palace, Qin Mingyue turned around and walked towards the side hall where he lived, the early dynasty lasted at least an hour, and this time was a good time to practice swords.

She has been in the palace for three days, and when her aunt Qin Liangyu asked her to enter the palace to protect the little emperor, she was saddened, she hadn't grown up yet, and she suddenly asked her to take the child, and she really didn't know how to take it.

Fortunately, the little emperor is five years old, and she basically doesn't have to worry about anything, but she doesn't like to walk a little, so she can be held wherever she goes. And the little emperor couldn't treat her well, so he specially arranged an independent side hall next to her dormitory, not to mention, and directly appointed her as Shanggong. This Shang Palace is the head of the palace maid, a senior official of the fifth grade, and the little emperor doesn't seem to be very satisfied, and he thinks the grade is too low.

She has now slowly adapted to the life in the palace, and her aunt Qin Liangyu has already led the officers and soldiers of the Shenji Battalion into the city, and she is stationed in the imperial city outside the Forbidden City. Every day, whenever she has free time, she takes her two brothers to see her, and she is even less panicked when she has the comfort of her relatives.

She feels that this kind of life is quite good, and there is nothing to do all day long, as long as she accompanies the little emperor, at most she will carry him around. Such a cute child, of course she is not disgusted, after a few days of getting along, she feels closer and closer, she knew that entering the palace is to hug the child, she will not be so worried, hug it, who wouldn't hold the child!

Of course, these are Qin Mingyue's feelings, and our little emperor Zhu Cijiong doesn't think so. Since Qin Mingyue entered the palace, Zhu Cijiong suddenly felt that the entire palace had become more cordial. He used to feel like he was living in the Forbidden City Museum and just a tourist, but now he feels more and more like his home in the Forbidden City.

Every morning when you wake up, you can see Mingyue, a peerless little beauty, and in addition to going to court and sleeping, the two are inseparable at other times. Zhu Cijiong feels like a young man in love, and he can't help but take the initiative to stick to it, pretending to be stupid and cute, just for Pomeranian to laugh at. even pretended to be tender without a lower limit, refused to walk, and let Qin Mingyue hold him wherever he went.

If this was before Qin Mingyue entered the palace, which palace maid dared to hug him, he would definitely roll his eyes angrily. What to hug, I'm in my twenties, you are my child? Now he doesn't think that he is in his twenties, is he only five years old, it is not a problem to pretend to be three or four years old, anyway, I am not good at walking, I have to be hugged by Mingyue!

............

Happy times are always short-lived, Zhu Cijiong has only been sticky by Qin Mingyue's side for three days, and Xu Guangqi came to report that the first drilling machine has been prepared.

Zhu Cijiong suddenly came to his senses, now is not the time for Qingqing and me, Daming is still waiting for him to save it, he can't learn from King Shang and Emperor Tang Ming, and play the country for the sake of a smile of the Pomeranians. What 'Beacon Fire Opera Princes', what 'Riding the Red Dust Concubine Laughs, No One Knows It's Lychee.' That's a lesson!

Besides, he can't do anything else except a Pomeranian smile now, after all, he is only five years old, and this body doesn't allow it!

It's still important to get down to business, so he shamelessly opened his arms to Qin Mingyue next to him, Qin Mingyue naturally knew what he wanted to do, and immediately squatted down, picked him up with a light car, and followed Xu Guangqi to the side hall with a drilling machine.

Xu Guangqi muttered as he walked in front: "Why can't the emperor suddenly walk again, it was no problem to run before!" ”

Zhu Cijiong naturally didn't know what he was muttering in his heart, and even if he knew, he didn't bother to pay attention to it, he was now tired of explaining to her about the drilling machine in Mingyue's arms, the two rubbed their ears and cheeks, and whispered in a low voice, there was an old man in front of him.

Soon they came to the side hall, and Bi Maokang and others were already gathered around the drilling machine, just waiting for him to give the order to start the experiment.

Although Qin Mingyue had already heard his introduction on the road, she was still shocked when she saw such a strange thing for the first time.

It's a bronze monster!

On the left is a huge gear with a small pinion, and underneath it is connected to a round cylinder, which is also connected to a copper kettle for boiling water.

On the right are two huge copper blocks nearly half a meter wide, with a groove in the middle, and a solid copper rod with the thickness of two fingers is sandwiched in the groove.

The left and right sides are connected to a horizontal line by two arm-thick log poles, which in turn are held to a height of one meter by two thick planks. There is also a wooden table underneath, on which is fixed a rack, and on top of the rack there is a gear that can be shaken, and the gear is connected by a round shaft to the copper block on the right.

Zhu Cijiong took a closer look and felt that there should be no problem, so he ordered: "Let's start." ”

Hearing this, Xu Guangqi stepped forward and opened the steam valve of the new work, and with the action of the cylinder, the drill bit immediately spun rapidly.

Song Yingxing carefully rotated the gears on the workbench, and the copper pillar slowly approached the drill bit, and the drill bit slowly drilled into the copper pillar with a slight friction sound. Everything was going smoothly, and in less than a cup of tea, the drill bit had already gone in a third of the way, but Song Yingxing obviously felt that the gears were a little unable to turn. He quickly reversed the gear, shook the copper pillar back, the drill bit was slowly exposed, the original sharp two edges and corners had been smoothed, Song Yingxing immediately turned off the steam switch, skillfully replaced a drill bit, and continued to drill.

It took about a quarter of an hour to change three drill bits, and the half-meter-long copper pillar was finally drilled through.

Song Yingxing opened the clamp, clamped the copper pillar into a bucket of cold water next to him with iron tongs, cooled it for a while, and then couldn't wait to put it in front of him, watching the situation on the inner wall of the copper pipe, and after looking at it for a while, Song Yingxing said excitedly: "The inner wall is much smoother than that of a hand-drilled one, and such a barrel will hardly explode!" ”

Zhu Cijiong is not concerned about this problem, he is concerned about the problem of the drill bit: this drill bit is too useless, you have to change three copper rods, and if you drill iron rods, you can't change more than a dozen of them!

He asked Song Yingxing, it turned out that the drill bit was made of high-carbon steel copied by the steel copying method, there were too many internal impurities, the carbon element was unevenly distributed, and the hardness after quenching could not meet the requirements of the tool at all.

What should I do, this gun can't be made of bronze, one or two is okay, if you build one or two thousand, or even a hundred thousand, where to find so many bronzes? Besides, this bronze material is soft, and it is easy to deform after heating, and the gun is easy to explode when it is deformed, which is really not suitable for use as a barrel.

He carefully flipped through it in his mind, and there was really a smelting method for steel, and it was a simplified version of the blast furnace steelmaking method in later generations. As a process engineer, he naturally knows what is going on in blast furnace steelmaking, and the steelmaking furnace given by this system is not as large as that of later generations, and there is no need to wrap it with steel plates like later generations, just use clay as a thermal insulation layer and build a small blast furnace with a thick point.

Such a small blast furnace can also process one or two hundred catties of steel each time, the process is relatively simple, add a certain proportion of charcoal and coal to make the pig iron fully burned, and then add an appropriate amount of limestone and micz stone as an additive for impurity decomposition, you can create high-quality low carbon steel. Then use the popular hundred refining method of the Han Dynasty to repeatedly hammer and carburize, and high-quality medium carbon steel and high carbon steel can be made.

Mild steel has good flexibility and can be used directly to make gun barrels.

Medium carbon steel has moderate flexibility, and can be used to make springs and shrapnel after quenching.

High-carbon steel is relatively hard and can be used to make drills and knives after quenching.