Nowadays, Suzhou's mining industry, especially coal mines, has developed to a considerable scale, but because it is located in the water network area of the south of the Yangtze River, basically every few meters underground, there will be more and more water accumulation underground, and it is difficult to meet the requirements of removing groundwater from mines by manpower and animal power alone. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The raw material needed to drive the steam engine was coal, and there was abundant and cheap coal as fuel on the site, so Li Zeshui began to study the exploration and experiment of lifting water with firepower.

Li Hongfei vigorously promoted the research and development of steam engines, it is not really fruitless, but the effect is not very good, those huge steam engines, their power is not even comparable to ordinary manpower, in this case, who wants to use this kind of chicken ribs?

Fortunately, after a year and a half of unremitting efforts, in February 1646, Li Zeshui finally invented a practical steam engine, the "vacuum steam engine", and the purpose of this steam engine is to pump out the water in the mine.

Li Zeshui's steam engine, after introducing steam into the cylinder, manually close the cylinder valve, and then sprinkle cold water on the cylinder to cool down, the original high-temperature steam began to condense rapidly, and the cylinder became a vacuum state, causing the other side of the piston to push the piston because of air pressure, completing the transformation of steam energy to mechanical energy.

At this time, only a rod deep into the shaft is needed to drive the water pump, and the piston movement of the steam engine will pass through this rod to the piston of the water pump, and finally pump the water out of the shaft.

The obvious feature of this steam engine is that the cylinder and the condensing cylinder are separated through a valve, and only in this way will the work efficiency of the steam engine really surpass the work efficiency of manpower.

After that, Li Zeshui spent more than a month again, with the help of his teacher Song Yingxing, to change the manual valve to an automatic valve, which greatly improved the work efficiency of the steam engine.

Li Zeshui invented a new type of steam water pump, and Song Yingxing, as a teacher, was also very happy, after all, the steam engine, which had plagued the industrial zone for a year, finally had a breakthrough development.

And Zhou Furen also saw the profits, and directly appointed Li Zeshui as the director of the steam engine research and development department, presiding over the design of more models of steam engines.

According to Li Hongfei's original idea, the textile industry, manufacturing, and even military enterprises, those industries that consume manpower, can even be replaced by steam engines, so the future of steam engines is limitless.

Through many tests, the first practical steam water lifter in Nanming made by Li Zeshui was officially mass-produced in April 1646 and put into use in the mining area.

In order to draw water from a mine tens of meters deep, the steam water pump must be installed in the depths of the mine, and the water pressure can only be pressed to the ground with a higher steam pressure.

Because the thermal efficiency of this steam engine is very low, mainly because when the steam enters the cylinder, it needs to be condensed on the cylinder wall that has just been cooled by water, so a lot of heat is lost, so this kind of steam engine can only be promoted in the coal-producing areas where the coal price is low, and it seems that the steam engine still has a lot of room for improvement.

At least Li Hongfei thinks so, after all, he knows that the steam engine of later generations can not only act on ships, but also drive behemoths such as trains, but now it is so laborious to even pump water, which shows the shortcomings of this steam engine.

The matter of the steam engine could not be improved in a short period of time, and after Li Hongfei proposed some improvement directions, he handed it over to the following researchers and became the shopkeeper.

In fact, he didn't want to, reforms were being carried out everywhere, development was carried out everywhere, and at the same time, he had to vigorously expand the army, especially the large-scale rearmament of the weapons of the Suzhou New Army, which seriously dragged down the financial revenue of the local government, so that Wu Hao, as the prefect of Suzhou, ran to Li Hongfei's mansion almost twice in three days and asked Li Hongfei to help find a way to get money.

The change of outfit was a matter for Li Hongfei to decide on his own, and Zhu Youzhen agreed in principle to the large-scale replacement of this weapon, but it was only verbally supported, and the imperial court did not have any extra funds at all, and to support Li Hongfei's weapon replacement, he could only let the local government where the First Group Army was stationed find its own way.

Among the local governments, the most financially powerful is probably only Wu Hao's Suzhou, but no matter how rich Suzhou is, it can't support the replacement of firearms for 100,000 people!

"The only way to do this is to sell weapons." Li Hongfei thought for a while, and finally spoke: "The imperial court is now expanding the army on a large scale, and the only few ordnance bureaus cannot produce at all, as long as we have a certain advantage in the quality and price of weapons, it is still easy to get orders from the rest of the military regions." ”

"I asked Qi Jiajun, they wanted to buy it, but unfortunately they didn't have the money in hand, so they only ordered 20,000 flintlock pistols, artillery and the like from us this year, and they didn't purchase any of them." Wu Hao said.

In fact, whenever a new weapon is researched, Li Hongfei's new army, after testing its performance, will purchase it as soon as possible, followed by the Qi family army with strong financial resources.

However, the reform step was too big, directly offended all the scholar class, and the impact in Suzhou was not great, but the Qi family army suffered a big blow, and the chaebols who had always supported the Qi family army stopped military aid one after another.

Not only Qi Jiajun, but also chaebols everywhere, as if they had discussed it, in addition to the necessary taxes, they were not paying a penny more at all, and if they wanted to take the money, they had to ensure the privileges of the scholars.

Even the investment policy encouraged by the imperial court was ignored by these chaebols, without the injection of a large amount of funds, industrial development almost stagnated, and some low-level businessmen wanted to take the opportunity to rise, but the reserve funds of the imperial court were limited, and the interest-free loans that were promised could only be forced to run aground, and it was not easy to ensure the establishment of government-run enterprises.

Zhu Youzhen is also a ruthless character, saying that if he wants to reform, he will directly and thoroughly reform, without any compromise at all, and the two sides spent half a year like this, and no one was able to subdue anyone.

Originally, according to this development trend, at most continue to insist on half a year, those scholars and scholars are determined to compromise, after all, the current policy is very beneficial to the development of merchants, and the main advantage of scholars and doctors to confront the imperial court is that they have money in their hands, and their family is huge, which holds up the entire economic system of Nanming.

However, now many government-run enterprises, because of the strong support of the imperial court, have shown a tendency to catch up, and many small traders have unique vision, hitching a ride on this free ride, and if this development continues, within half a year, the union of those scholars and doctors will collapse.

It is impossible for anyone to get along with money, and if they don't seize the last chance, some chaebols are afraid that they will come to an end............