Guide Mansion, Yuyuan!

In the small courtyard behind the headquarters, Su Baiyi held a two-foot-long knife in his hand, took a deep breath, and slashed diagonally against the sun, and the target tied to the three poles of bamboo on the opposite side was cut off by him, leaving a Qi Qi inclined incision.

"Fast horse light knife, good!" Su Baiyi smiled and handed the knife in his hand to Li Suo, who was the closest.

"My lord is good at swordsmanship!"

"This knife is even more extraordinary than a Japanese knife!"

"Your Excellency Yunwen Yunwu, you are really the minister of Zhongxing of the Ming Dynasty."

Here's a lot of praise.

Su Baiyi smiled and said, "Don't make a fool of yourself." He looked at Wang Zheng, who was smiling and grinning, and said: "This governor cast weapons for the use of the three railway guards last month, and today's holy decree of His Majesty has also arrived at Guide Mansion, and it is approved." I think this knife is good, according to this weight, cast in the best chrome steel alloy, guaranteed two per soldier. ”

"Yes, Lord Governor!" Wang Zheng agreed, handed the sweat towel in his hand to Su Baiyi, and while Su Baiyi wiped the fine sweat on his forehead, he bowed down and walked around to the side, and whispered: "Since Your Majesty asked us to cast weapons, why don't we make some firecrackers, which is more beneficial to the railway inspector." ”

"The production of firearms is complicated, it takes too many days, and we have few craftsmen, so all the manpower should be used closely for the railway, where can we put it on the study of firearms? Besides, the three guards of the railway are currently only training for maintenance, and the railway has not yet been completed, so there is no need for them to be stationed, and if they really need firearms in the future, it will not be difficult to cast them when the time comes. ”

Su Baiyi said this, but in fact, he didn't think about this.

The reason why firearms are not cast, one is to avoid suspicion, the most important task at present is to build a railway, if there is distraction, it is easy to be impeached by those imperial historians, although the emperor may not mind at that time, but those civil officials of the court can not find trouble.

Second, he doesn't look down on the firecrackers of this era, but now that there are conditions, all kinds of alloy steels are available, and naturally there is no shortage of tool alloy steel, and it is not a problem to make carving knives or anything, so it is not a problem to manufacture rifles.

But the lethality of this thing is extremely high, once the Guide Mansion makes this thing, it is enough to change the pattern of this era and the pattern of the court, in case the court lets him make a gun for use in the battlefield in the north, then the most direct consequence is that he Su Baiyi loses the most powerful weapon advantage in this era.

Su Baiyi thinks that he has not been in charge of the army for a day, and it is better that the rifle does not appear for a day.

"That's okay, the lower official will go back and arrange, this knife is very simple to make, just cast the blade, and the subordinates are estimated to take three or five days!" When he was just brought to Guide Mansion by Su Baiyi from Shandong, Wang Zheng was still a hundred reluctant in his heart, but through his life and work during this time, he is now convinced by Su Baiyi.

"Hmm!" Su Baiyi walked out and asked, "What progress has been made in the device design team?" ”

"Ask Lord Hui." Wang Zheng respectfully trailed Su Baiyi by half a body, and replied while following him: "The balls and bearings have been produced, and a few days ago a group was assembled for use in the cart, hey, I don't know how many times stronger than the jujube wood axle." ”

Su Baiyi smiled slightly, and secretly said Aren't you talking nonsense?

"And the chain that the Lord commanded!" Wang Zheng continued to smile and said: "According to the instructions of the adults, I asked the equipment team to design the size, and the chain and upsetting stubby shaft of the transmission chain have been produced according to the size, but the transmission wheel has not been made, and I don't know what the effect is?" ”

"After the chain is produced, don't forget to pickle it to increase the strength!" Su Baiyi arranged a sentence, and frowned again: "Tell the equipment team to speed up, time is not waiting, once this transmission flywheel is developed, with chains, bearings can be made bicycles, bicycles are a hundred times better than ox carts whether they are riding or loading." The production is a real hot product, which can generate value immediately, and there is no need to delay! ”

"Yes, yes!" Wang Zheng felt a little pressure, but he liked this kind of life full of freshness and excitement, and he also wanted to see what the so-called bicycle in Su Baiyi's mouth was?

Not only bicycles, but also pedal tricycles and ox-pulled four-wheeled bicycles.

These are all things that Su Baiyi wants to produce immediately, and now the key mechanical technology is basically solved, even if rubber and tires cannot be produced, they can be temporarily purchased from the system.

So, it's not far from mass production of bicycles.

Once these cars are mass-produced, it will be an unimaginable huge profit, whether sold domestically or exported to Indochina in exchange for grain and land. This is urgent for Su Baiyi, who is in urgent need of money.

Moreover, there is another benefit to this self-made fresh commodity: monopoly.

Yuin's bicycles are sold all over the world, and who can master the technology of tires, inflation, bearings, and chains in a short period of time. Even if some curious people take apart the product and study some principles, who can do it?

Of course, over time, with the support of strong financial resources, these things that are not high-tech must be able to be developed, but it is impossible in the short term, at least Su Baiyi thinks that in the next twenty or thirty years, items like bicycles, Yuyuan will continue to monopolize them.

"What's the progress?" After Su Baiyi arrived at the headquarters office, he sat down and looked at Wang Zheng.

Wang Zheng took out a thumb-thick screw from his sleeve, as well as a perfectly fitting nut, and said with a smile: "My lord, after half a month of hard work by the equipment team, this screw has finally been produced." ”

"Show me!" Su Baiyi took the screw in his hand, was very happy, and kept nodding and said, "Good, good, good." Don't underestimate this thing, this thread is the key thing in the whole industrial process, turn back and apply this uniform thread to the lathe, whether it is cutting or drilling, it will be doubly accurate. ”

In the previous society, screws were an inconspicuous thing, but after Su Baiyi arrived in the Ming Dynasty, he was tormented by this inconspicuous thing. It took a whole month to make a perfect fit thread.

Later, Wang Zheng was thoughtful, and thought of a small thread engraved with an uneven large thread, and continued to engrave it after going backwards every time he went forward, and used the thread made as the mother pattern, so ten times it took half a month to produce the screw.

This thing is too critical.

When building a railway, the rails are connected by splints, but if there are no screws, how to fix the rails of the two joints together by splints?

Now with the screws, this most critical technology has finally been solved.

And the use of screws is far more than that, such as the production of steam engines in the future, the production of bicycles, pedal tricycles, ox carts, ships, etc., no matter what, screws and threads are indispensable.

"Lord Wang is hard, you can go, you still focus on all matters of the railway, and you must ensure the production of rails." Su Baiyi frowned: "By the way, all the newly built blast furnaces have been built, right?" ”

"It's built!" Wang Zheng said: "After three or five days, those stoves will be ready to use after they are dry." ”

"Okay, there you go!" Su Baiyi waved his hand.

In order to ensure the use of rails for the railway, Su Baiyi originally planned to produce all the rails in three years, but now it seems that the original plan was a bit taken for granted.

Thirty blast furnaces are far from enough.

Because at the beginning, he only calculated the production speed of the rails, but ignored the most important part, that is, the transportation of the rails. Three years is enough time for him to build the roadbed, and at that time he will wait to lay the tracks, but so many rails are piled up in Guide Province, when will they be able to transport them?

What's the best way to lay rails?

It takes a long time to pave and transport it by paved railroad at the same time, and in general, even in modern society, it can only be paved about 10 kilometers a day. At this rate, more than 1,000 kilometers of railway are divided into ten sections, each of which also takes ten days.

Considering that today's conditions are not up to the speed of future generations, Su Baiyi estimated that it would take at least half a year to complete the construction of the rails.

This is still a single line, while the Longhai Railway is a double line, and the time to lay the rails will be doubled.

This is the time for the track to be laid.

And to lay the tracks, you must first transport the rails.

Ten points at the same time, it is necessary to evenly disperse the rails to these ten places, these places may be in Nanzhili, or in Shaanxi, or in Luoyang, Zheng County.

It's a hassle to transport.

So allow plenty of time to transport the rails.

Then it is necessary to complete the production of rails in advance, and Su Baiyi plans to double the blast furnace to strive for two years of production, one year of transportation, and half a year to a year of paving.

In this way, it will take four to five years before it can be opened to traffic.

And that's without any interference.

Another happy thing is that in the mechanical courtyard by the South Lake, the secret production base has also made progress. The first single-cylinder steam engine was born perfectly, and Su Baiyi tried it with a simple boiler, and the maximum speed could reach 300 revolutions per minute.

Of course, this single-cylinder model steam engine could not meet the needs of the railway steam engine, and Su Baiyi asked those craftsmen to start producing real steam locomotives that could be installed on the train, at least three cylinders, and the driving force of each cylinder still needed to be increased.

As for this single-cylinder steam engine, Su Baiyi is not ready to waste it, so some craftsmen began to study fixed vertical cranes, which should be used on cranes when the time comes, which should add a lot of help to this workshop.

"Your Excellency!" Li Suo stood at the door, woke up Su Baiyi who was in deep thought, and arched his hand: "The brother we sent to Jingshi to return the holy decree has returned." ”

"Oh......" Su Baiyi's eyes lit up, and he said, "Call him to me, I have something to ask him." ”

The last time Wen Zhenmeng left, he sent a brocade guard to follow, and while returning the holy decree, he also told him to inquire closely about Wen Zhenmeng's every move in the Beijing Division, and pay attention to the results of Wen Zhenmeng's sale of railway shares.

Su Baiyi knew that Wen Zhenmeng had sold the shares of the railway, and he also knew that part of the silver had been sent to Chen Qiyu, but he didn't know how many shares were sold and how much silver was sold. Now that this brocade guard is back, it's time to ask.