How long can a railway be built in five years? In the age of mechanization, a long, long section of a railway could be built in five years, but in the era of 205 B.C., it depended on how much labor could be used and where it was built.

The terrain of China is mountainous, and only in North China can it be regarded as more plains, otherwise there is really no shortage of mountains everywhere. Cultivating the path in mountainous terrain? What could be more painful than this?

"It seems that it is time to stop using troops abroad for a while......" Lu Zhe looked at the steam engine that was already being heated, and thought to himself: "Before the transportation was built, it was not easy to transfer the local area, and it was almost reaching the extreme wall of the empire, and it would only be indigestion if we continued to open up." ”

It takes seven or eight months to travel from Nanling to the Western Regions on foot, and nearly three months on horseback, so it can be said that such a distance is actually not suitable as a territory.

If you can't get to where quickly, the rule will be unstable, because once something happens, the information needs to be transmitted to the center, and the center needs to respond according to what happens, and how much time it takes to deal with it depends on the size of what happened, but it will take a while.

I don't know how long the wait has passed, and the center reacts, and it is about to embark on the road to the place where the incident happened, how long will it take?

From Nanling to the Western Regions, it takes half a year to go back and forth, and many times a lot of things can be decided in one day. Half? Then it's too late for anything.

It is said that a country's control is reflected in the combat effectiveness of the army, but in fact, this perception is wrong.

The strength of a country is reflected in how much time it can strike at the enemy far away, and this is the embodiment of true strength!

How important is transportation? It is the key to what kind of speed the ******** machine can use. If a country can strike any enemy it wants to fight within an hour, such a country is definitely a great power in the world. If a country has weapons to destroy the enemy, but it can't hit the enemy at all, it is almost no different from a weapon of that kind. Using the word "almost", it is better to substitute the item of people who can self-harm and pull the whole world to accompany the burial.

"How long can you build a tracked road in five years?" Zhang Liang wanted to run away, and he knew that it was a mistake to follow the emperor. He said with a bitter face, "Your Majesty." Minister...... It's not in charge of this aspect, it's Kui Shangshu who is in charge of the road......"

There are many scholars in the ruling government, and each of them is in charge of a certain department, and Zhang Liang is now in charge of immigration, and he only knows a little about roads.

Immigration has always been the center of gravity of the empire, after all, it is still the same sentence, occupying land always has to be managed by someone, otherwise it will be wasteland?

In addition to being in charge of immigration, Zhang Liang is also responsible for encouraging childbearing. And both of these are the priorities of the future empire, as long as they can develop according to plan. The Empire will be invincible...... At least invincible on this planet!

The steam engine on that side had been warmed up, and after a whistle, the crankshaft was already turning, and the flywheel was moving with it.

Listening to the movement, the vibration frequency of the steam engine seems to be a bit high? It's not that the device is unstable, it's because the piston pressure is constantly changing, so that the crankshaft can rotate and then it can drive something.

"This one has been tried and tested, and it has about 446 horsepower." Lu Qi stopped and looked at his emperor father. Finding that the emperor's father did not show a confused expression like the others, he continued: "This is the first generation of aircraft, if it continues to be perfected and improved, there will be better discoveries." I expect ...... If it is used in Hainan Airlines. According to the consumption of about four catties of coal per hour, depending on how many steam engines are used and how many turbines are used, it is initially estimated that the normal pressure state can be close to 1,000 horsepower, and the strong pressure state can be close to 2,000 horsepower. It's just that it's currently limited by materials, otherwise there will be more. ”

Of course, Lu Zhe understood. After he lamented that history had been changed by himself, he was faced with a new change.

The steam engine appeared in the eighteenth century. But now the empire already has this technology!

The advent of the steam engine is considered the beginning of the first industrial revolution, with which the world will be different, at least in the application of transportation!

"Five years? Five years! Lu Zhe's fist couldn't help but clench, he looked up at the sky, and couldn't hide his excitement and said to Lu Qi: "I established an empire, and you created a new world!" ”

Lu Qi lowered his head reservedly, what was he thinking?

If Lu Qi had not appeared, someone in the empire would have invented and created a steam engine, that was in the forty-fourth year of the imperial calendar, after eighteen years of research, the imperial royal academy of sciences made the first steam engine that could be used for navigation, and then in the forty-eighth year of the imperial calendar, the empire had the first steam engine that could be used as a locomotive.

It is now eleven years of the imperial calendar, and the steam engine is thirty-three years earlier. For many people, thirty-three years is already their life, but for the whole history is a blink of an eye, but this blink of history is destined to make a difference in the world!

"If you need any resources or people, you can report to me directly." Lu Zhe looked at his eldest son with great seriousness and said, "What you need to do is to perfect it as soon as possible so that it can be practically applied!" ”

Lu Qizai nodded, as if a chicken pecked rice. Of course, he hoped that new progress could be made, but there was a lot of things that could not be said.

There is no single progress in the field of science, and any scientific and technological progress depends on a premise, that is, the foundation of materials science.

In many cases, it's not that something can't be made, it's that the material can't meet the standard, so that even if a machine is made, it's just an appearance, and when it is really to be used, the machine collapses because of the inappropriate material.

In the field of power, how much horsepower can be created depends on material science, because it is obviously built according to the same drawing, and it is absolutely the same machine, and it will have different properties depending on the grade of the material.

Materials science is a very wide range of knowledge, involving an unimaginable amount of knowledge, and there are many disciplines related to it, such as the relatively rapid metal science and non-metal science are two big foundations, and there are more things to extend. If it were piled up on paper with words and patterns, it would probably fill every inch of the entire empire.

Lu Zhe obviously also understands that science is not achieved overnight, but he takes it for granted that since Lu Qi can make a steam engine. Then it is possible to continue to innovate. So, he's still a layman.

The current material science of the empire is actually not the strongest among the known countries, and it is the Mauryan Empire (India) that puts the material science at the forefront of the known countries.

The Mauryan Empire (India) was the first country in the world to discover steel, and they had mastered the art of steelmaking. Then, they discovered rubber, and began to use it on a number of things, but it was clear that they were going the wrong way, using rubber for construction and some weird sorcery. Who left them without a traverser, didn't they?

In addition to steel and rubber, the Mauryan Empire (India) also led the world in creating a rune. This rune makes math much simpler. These are the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Later generations of the whole world know that these numbers are called Indian numerals, and it seems that only the Celestial ~ Dynasty still rigidly and naturally thinks that they are called Arabic numerals.

There is no doubt that Lu Zhe originally thought that the rune numbers were the first to appear in the empire, and he had already called these rune numbers "imperial numbers", but he didn't know that people in India had already made them.

However, it doesn't matter, even if it is not called "Imperial Numbers", one day the army of the Empire will set their boots on the land of Indochina and destroy the civilization there. At that time, it was not called "Imperial Numbers" but also "Imperial Numbers"!

And it seems that it can be done without destroying the civilization of Indochina? Because Indian steel became Qiuzi steel or Damascus steel later, Indian numerals also became Arabic numerals. That's because since the collapse of the Mauryan Empire, the land of Indochina has never been unified, but has been divided into more than ten states (kingdoms). It was still necessary to wait for the British to colonize them, then enslave them, and wait for the "colonial liberation" stage to form a large-scale unification, but it was still dismembered by the British into India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Oh...... A Kashmir is also left as a disputed area. Therefore, the British are also quite poisonous.

"Once the steam engine is applied to the HNA fleet, it is ......inevitable that the tonnage of warships will increase," Lu Zhe began to feel lucky, and he turned to Lu Yi and said: "We have been working on researching bigger and better warships. But only two gunboats were produced, no more were produced. ”

Don't look at the current ships are made of wood, but the complexity of the process is not a lot at all, if a certain stage of time produces a warship that is destined to be abandoned in a short time, and the production quantity is extremely large, the waste caused will make even the empire feel distressed.

"With the use of steam engines in HNA, our sea shipping capacity will become very considerable." The more Lu Zhe said, the more excited he became: "Not only the carrying capacity, in fact, it no longer depends on the direction of the wind, so the speed will inevitably usher in a leap!" ”

How much speed is 2,000 horsepower? It will be more than ten knots, and it should be a dozen or more than a ship. The empire has a scientific research institute specializing in the study of the shape of the hull, which was established in the third year of the imperial calendar, and it has been eight years since this year. At present, almost all the ships of the empire are determined by the scientific research institute in Xiamen, Minnan County, and then handed over to the Kanjiang Ship Manufacturing Bureau in Nanhai County for manufacturing.

"If the steam engine is used, the structural design of the ship is equivalent to a major innovation. We have been conducting research in the past, but the results have been quite limited. Lu Yi must have paid special attention, he said: "The most important thing we need to know now is about the volume of the steam engine and the associated turbines, and then we can move on to the layout of the ship's structure." ”

Lu Qi nodded his head and responded, "That's the case, Father." We will determine the volume in the shortest possible time so that the relevant departments can have the data to carry out the research. ”

Lu Zhe didn't understand much about this, and he wouldn't pretend to understand, nodding silently, he was already thinking about whether to strengthen the exploration of the American continent in a hurry. But after thinking about it for a while, I immediately felt that it was not necessary in a short period of time, what the empire needed was to conquer the "world island" first, and then turn its attention to the non-world island, and it was very likely that the next target of conquest would be Africa, not the American continent.

There are reasons for such considerations. First of all, how many resources a nation or country needs for development is generally not the more the better, but the more convenient the better. In addition, there should be relevant considerations in the distance of resource acquisition, and it should not be near and far.

Yes, the use of the steam engine in navigation was equivalent to increasing speed and carrying capacity, but the Americas were still too far away, and the amount of manpower and material resources that the Empire wanted to conquer there would be a terrible number. For the Empire, if you need copper, you can go to the Luzon Islands, if you need gold and silver, you should go to the Japanese Islands, you need incense wood, rubber, etc. It is also in the South Seas, what is there in the Americas? The South Seas that the Americas should have are all there, does the empire want to engage in the tobacco trade in advance? Otherwise, the urgency for the development of the Americas is really not so high.

"The other most critical place, the early development of the Americas, is equivalent to the formation of two parts that the empire cannot reach." Lu Zhe had already re-boarded the carriage, and he was going to take the members of the royal family to the Martyrs' Garden in Yiling. After he got into the car, he closed his eyes and pondered: "Even in the seventeenth century, science can no longer enter that role, and the British are about to step into the position of the hegemon of the earth, but the American continent still wants to be independent. The premature development of the Americas by the Empire, especially the massive immigration to the American continent, will definitely have hidden dangers! ”

The discovery of the American continent was a matter of time, but it was okay for the empire to plunder only a few rare resources, and it was delayed to emigrate and establish administrative units.

"Perhaps the occupation of Australia is the most urgent than the Americas!" Lu Zhe carefully recalled the report of the HNA exploration team, and it was strange that neither the official nor the private people of the empire had found Australia. He suddenly spoke: "How much area has been explored in the South Seas?" ”

Lu Yi was stunned at first, and then replied hesitantly: "According to our demarcation, the exploration area should reach 60 percent?" ”

Lu Zhe was silent. In his impression, the number of islands on the other side of the South Sea is very large.

It is precisely because of many that the Nanyang Fleet has been exploring the South Seas for six or seven years, and the Strait of Malacca, which is most wanted to be found, has still not been found, but judging from the topographic map, Lu Zhe has seen the shadow of Malaysia in the future.

"Father." Lu Yi asked curiously: "Do you want to unblock the sea route as soon as possible because of the new forms of Seleucus and Parthia and Bactria?" ”

………………

Fortunately, there was a check, and the automatic release was not sent!

Once again, I would like to recommend my friend's World War II book "Fighting in the Third Reich", and if you have a ticket, go and support it? (To be continued.) )