"I even said that Han Xianggong's son is pretending to be the prime minister, and I haven't heard such a funny joke for many days."

"No, that official is definitely going to be unlucky."

"It's not just bad luck. It's a false accusation! ”

"Falsely claiming to be an official, this is a crime that can be revealed, and you have to go to the Western Regions to live for a lifetime."

"It's too heavy, and it's not meant to be."

"What if you didn't mean to? Who made him offend Han Yanei? ”

"I didn't sit in the good box in the second office of Han Xianggong's house, but went to sit in the carriage of the little official. Being humiliated by the villain is also self-inflicted. ”

"Han Xianggong governs the family strictly, even if there is a prime minister's father in the second government of the Han family, he is just a Beijing official. What kind of car does Jingguan do? ”

"The two prime ministers of the dynasty were strict in governing their families. Zhang Xianggong's two sons were admitted to the Jinshi, and all of them went to other places to serve as county lieutenants, and none of them stayed in Beijing. ”

Xu Song walked past the crowd of discussions, his throat was dry and a little itchy.

coughed vigorously a few times, and spat on the ground, the sputum was black.

Xu Song rubbed the sputum on the ground with the sole of his shoe, dragging a dark trace on the cement paved ground.

Among the people who were talking, one or two glanced at Xu Song, but immediately turned their eyes away coldly, as if they didn't see him.

Xu Song also didn't give them a second glance and continued to walk forward.

All of them were idlers, and the whistle had been sounding for a long time, and they were still chatting here with newspapers and teacups.

The blast furnace of Kaifeng Iron Yard is working day and night, and there are workers busy in the factory all the time. The craftsmen in charge of management are also divided into two shifts day and night, without stopping, including Xu Song, almost all the ordnance supervisors and officials who will be stationed here are so busy that they are in the back of their heads. But it doesn't include people who sit in this courtyard and can sit in the shade of the trees and enjoy the cool breeze at the busiest time in the morning.

All of them are idlers who come in through different ways, and they are more or less back. Jing, or distant relatives of wealthy families, or dignitaries, but it is not enough to get shade, unable to enter the stream, unable to serve as an official, and come here to get a job.

The iron yard produces two million stones of iron every year, bringing millions of profits to the imperial court, and dozens of idlers can still afford it. As long as they are not greedy and want to meddle in the practice of entering the iron field, the big people above will not account for this extra expenditure.

But once you can't help but want to get more benefits from it, from Wang Juqing to the ministers in the two mansions, they will all become man-eating tigers.

The last fool got a few thousand stones of iron out of the iron yard, and he was caught in a hurry, and then he was not even exiled, and he was directly ordered to die by the queen mother, and the insiders who colluded with him were beheaded seven and exiled to nine households, a total of one hundred and three people. This is still married to the daughter of the sect. In other words, if it were someone else, I was afraid that even Bai Aya would not be able to ask for it, and only the stainless steel axe from the iron field would give it away.

So now all the idlers have learned to be obedient, just take the money, and don't care about the work.

The officials who were doing practical work in the iron yard were also afraid that they would be misunderstood as collusion between inside and outside, and they would never dare to have the slightest contact with them. The well water on both sides does not interfere with the river water, and if you meet it on the road, you will be the same as Xu Song now, and no one will treat it as if you don't see each other.

Coming out of the public hall a little north in the center of the iron field, Xu Song got into the carriage first.

Kaifeng Iron Yard is a huge institution from smelting to manufacturing, and it covers an extremely large area, with more than three miles of vertical and horizontal lines, the blast furnace at one end, and the wharf at the other end. Turning one direction, the Ordnance Superintendent's manufacturing workshop also occupies a quarter of the area. In the middle of the workshop, there are even railroad tracks to transport materials.

And the test site where Xu Song is about to pass is also on the edge of the iron field.

The carriage did not move slowly, and gradually, all kinds of noises began to fill the ears.

The sound of those lathes, grinding machines, and milling machines in the ordnance supervision manufacturing workshop is completely different, and it is more of a low roar.

Xu Song got on and off the car at the back of the test site, and there were more than a dozen small factories in front of them, each independent, and even separated by a fence.

In almost every factory, there is a roar like a low cough.

It was the sound of a steam engine running.

If it was just a literal steam engine, it had already been invented and even put into practical use.

Where Xu Song came over, the steam engine was already roaring.

As early as half a year ago, on a platform made of green bricks and cement, a monster made of steel began to pump water from a deep well until it reached a height of seven or eight feet.

As long as Xu Song turned around, he could immediately see a dark red tower at the top.

Unlike the blast furnace, which also towers, it is a water tower. The scaffold was built with reinforced concrete, and then a two-zhang diameter circle and one-zhang high reservoir was built on the top of the bracket with red bricks. Clean water from the deep well is fed into this sealed reservoir at the top by a steam engine, and then used the difference in height to allow the water to flow to every place in the factory where water is needed.

But such a steam engine was far from enough to take on a heavier role.

It can operate normally for no more than four hours a day, and only because it only takes half an hour to see the tower fill with water, and it does not need to continue to operate, that this most rudimentary steam engine is useful.

Not just in the workshops, but in four or five coal mines, the same steam engine has been used to pump water. There are also a number of large households with a lot of land to inspect whether it can be used to irrigate farmland, but unfortunately it has not been able to sell it.

With the popularization of "Nature" for many years, everyone knows that the role of the steam engine is not only used to pump water from wells, and a qualified steam engine should never be overhauled after only one or half an hour.

The shortest normal operation time is to be able to drive the train to run 3,000 miles at a medium speed, that is, it can run continuously for at least five days. Once this goal is achieved, no more than four repairs can be made within a month of continuous operation. The ultimate goal is to be able to run for five or ten years with the maintenance standards of daily inspection, monthly maintenance, and annual overhaul - so as to meet the toughness of steel, so that the mules and horses can be left far behind.

Only the steam engine that meets this standard has the most extensive use value.

However, once the first step is achieved, it will be used as a prototype for small-scale manufacturing. In actual use, improvements are made in order to achieve the goals of the second and third steps.

The hammer driven by the steam engine can reach more than ten times the force of the current hydraulic hammer.

Even according to Han Xianggong's theory of liquid pressure, after being driven by a steam engine, a hydraulic press with a pressure of thousands of stones or tens of thousands of stones can be built to forge various parts.

The steam engine, which can pump water, although it often breaks down and does not need too much gear structure to transmit, can already be used to make some basic practical measures. Seeing a steel billet hammered under a heavy hammer and turned into a qualified helmet, Xu Song was so excited that his hairs stood up.

There is no doubt that, as the high-ranking minister said, with the real steam engine that can be popularized, the current factory and even the world will be completely changed.

Xu Song had even imagined how to use the kind of water press that could press the bones into powder. An iron pillar was cast first, and then a lathe was used to drill a gun chamber in the center. The barrel is then treated with a water press, which can be pressed tightly and reduce the risk of exploding. It is better and simpler than the current iron mold casting method.

In order to achieve this goal, thirteen teams are conducting experiments at the same time.

You chase me, in these factories in front of Xu Song.

No craftsman can complete the manufacture of the steam engine independently, and it is impossible to go through the government that controls the production and marketing of steel without going through the raw materials.

As long as the craftsman can show a reasonable design and come up with a certain level of physical objects, the government hall will open the money bag for him and give people money.

However, if the progress is not good, it will be persuaded to merge with other groups, and if it is found that it is indiscriminate, it will even be eliminated directly.

This is how the thirteen groups are formed, merged, and eliminated.

And they, after several years of hard work, are getting closer and closer to the final destination.

Xu Song walked into one of the factories.

Three or five zhang square, more than one zhang high in the factory, the heat wave is rolling. The parts of the steel were neatly piled up, the coal piles and buckets were also in the corners, and in the center, only one machine was roaring. There were seven or eight tall and short people, some sitting and standing, and some of them kept filling the furnace with a shovel, but everyone stared intently at this machine, and everyone was covered with black ash.

"How long?"

Xu Song didn't even say hello, and asked directly after coming in.

"One ...... day," one of them looked at the table clock placed in one corner, "with eleven hours and thirty-eight minutes." Just got the guò whistle right time this morning. ”

He was dressed in an official robe, but his face was also gray and black.

"It's not broken in the night?!"

Xu Song's raised voice let people know that he was not indifferent to this number.

"Nope."

The man replied succinctly.

Xu Song believes in his deputy, not to mention that there are officials from the Ordnance Supervisor, the General Supervisor, and the Salt and Iron Division, monitoring all the R&D teams that are conducting experiments, not to mention, the competitors are also watching, and no one can buy so many people.

"It's already the third best result."

Xu Song suppressed his excitement.

"We can do the best!"

In addition to the workers who shoveled coal, one of the people standing at the front turned around.

Aside from his short stature, he is no different from the others.

Qi science pays attention to becoming more and more new, and a success is only repaired one step at a time, and the pursuit of goals is endless. Don't be satisfied. Small wealth is peace, this is the characteristic of most people, but for researchers, it is absolutely not so.

Han Gang's words are everyone's guideline, and Xu Song is the same.

But this first step is just as important.

Four more, and they'll be number one. In three and a half days, they will be successful!