Denglai Institute of Science and Technology.

Zhao Yan wrote a physics and a chemistry textbook, which were directly copied from the middle and high school textbooks of later generations and distributed to the members of these science and technology academies for study.

Many of them are unproven theories, and some members have also questioned these theories proposed by Zhao Yan, but before Zhao Yan confirmed the existence of atmospheric pressure, they could not come up with a reason to question them, and in the face of such rich theories, they were all immersed in research.

Textbooks on physical chemistry can undoubtedly provide an accelerator for scientific and technological research, after all, the theories in the books have only been developed over a period of several hundred years.

With these theories, there is no need to take detours.

However, Zhao Yan is not an expert in physical chemistry, he can only give theories, and he does not understand too advanced and esoteric theories, and he still needs special people to study practical applications.

"At present, it has been confirmed that atmospheric pressure is real, since the theory has been studied, it is necessary to apply this theory to actual production, yesterday I designed a pumping machine, which can be used to pump water in the mine, I call it 'Friends of Miners', let's look at the drawings!" Zhao Yan sent the drawings of the 'Friends of Miners'.

This is a device that uses atmospheric pressure to pump water, called a steam vacuum pump, which only appeared in 1696, first filling the container with steam, then condensing the steam, forming a vacuum in the container, using atmospheric pressure to press the water in the mine into the container, and then using high-pressure steam to blow all the water in the container out of the well. Because the container is hot and cold, and the steam pressure in it is high, the container often bursts, so it is not widely used in mines.

The members looked at the drawings and began to discuss, at this time Zhao Yan sent down a few drawings again, and said: "There is this, this is the drawing of the pressure cooker, and it is also a product designed using atmospheric pressure, but this thing will explode if it is not good, and you must be very careful during the experiment." ”

"This is a drawing of a cylinder and a piston device. Putting the principle of the Friends of the Miners, plus the cylinders and pistons, here is this - the steam engine, which is the drawing of several steam engines. Zhao Yan took out more than a dozen drawings, all of which were about steam engines, which were the things he had been in contact with the most in the research institute before he crossed over, and he could draw them almost with his eyes closed.

The study of the steam engine was not as convenient in this era as it was in later generations. It had to be carried out step by step, so Zhao Yan first asked them to build a steam vacuum pump, then a cylinder and a piston, and also drew two drawings of the steam engine, "The drawings of these steam engines are different, the first one is a simple steam engine, everyone first makes this simple steam engine, and then improves it to the advanced steam engine." ”

The steam engine drawing number 1 is a steam engine made by Newcomen in 1712, and it is a great waste of power, but it is better than simple.

The main reason is that the cylinder and piston are constantly cold and hot, so that a lot of heat is wasted. When steam enters the cylinder, it must expend enough heat to raise the temperature of the cylinder and piston from 20°C to 100°C; In order to obtain a vacuum, cold water must be injected into the cylinder immediately to bring it down to 20°C, and the condensate takes away a lot of heat. In one stroke, heat is wasted twice.

The steam engine numbered 2 was Watt's improved steam engine, which added a separating condenser to improve the heat waste defects of the Newcomen steam engine, and a gear linkage device that converted the round-trip linear motion of the piston into the rotary motion of the wheel shaft.

In addition, the single cylinder was turned into a two-way cylinder, and the principle was that the double-acting bellows were invented during the Northern Song Dynasty in China, which could double the efficiency. There is also a centrifugal regulator that automatically controls the steam output that the Newcomen steam engine does not have.

With these devices, the steam engine can become a universal steam engine.

"What are we going to do? Do you make them all? Richardson asked, looking at the drawings and wondering if they were correct.

"That's right, I will set up five teams to develop steam engines, each of them to manufacture steam engines, and the manufacturing funds can even be unlimited, but you can't spend it indiscriminately, the team that first makes the steam engine will be rewarded with five thousand taels of silver per person, and the reward will be doubled in two years, and each team will have three people, and you will form it yourself in private." Zhao Yan said very generously, even if he used a few million taels of silver to exchange for a steam engine, he was willing.

However, it is obvious that it is impossible to spend millions of taels to build a steam engine, even if it is five groups, it is estimated that it is already the top of the sky to spend two or three hundred thousand taels, after all, the drawings have been drawn, and there are many detours that can be avoided, and it will definitely not cost much on raw materials.

Five thousand taels!

If you create it in two years, the reward can be doubled, isn't that ten thousand taels of silver! It suddenly made those members boil a little. According to Zhao Yan's thoughts, it is almost impossible to build a steam engine in two years, and doubling the reward is purely to draw a big pie and give them more motivation.

The next day, the members of the Institute of Science and Technology quickly formed five teams, and then began to manufacture in full swing. At the same time, Zhao Yan asked the craftsmen of the Ordnance Bureau and the trading houses to cooperate in the procurement of raw materials.

The first thing they manufactured was a steam vacuum pump, and only when the theoretical feasibility of the steam vacuum pump was confirmed could a steam engine be made, which was also a process of verifying the theory.

In addition to the steam engine group, there is also the 'Lathe Research Group', as well as the 'Textile Machinery Research Group', the 'Crop Improvement Group', the 'Open-hearth Steelmaking Research Group', the 'Cement Formula Improvement Group', and the 'Concrete Research Group'.

The other groups are different from the steam engine research group, the steam engine research group has drawings drawn by Zhao Yan, the patent belongs to the Academy of Science and Technology, and the science and technology belong to Zhao Yan.

Those groups that do not have direct guidance, if they conduct their own research, can own 50% of the patents, and the other 50% of the patents belong to the funded science and technology institute, and the science and technology institute has the right to authorize the use. In addition, if the members of the Academy of Science and Technology have any ideas, they can write a plan and submit it, and after Zhao Yan reviews it, they will release funds for research.

With the guidance of Zhao Yan, a time-traveler from later generations, these researchers can not make the mistake of common sense, although Zhao Yan does not know many things, but common sense knows, as long as he gives the direction to study, it is not wrong.

Genius is 99% hard work and 1% inspiration, and Zhao Yan provides that 1% inspiration.

Of course, the most important thing is to expand the staff size of the Academy of Science and Technology, in addition to those research groups, the training of physics and chemistry teachers is also very important, for this reason Zhao Yan will give classes to the members of the Academy of Science and Technology every day, teach them the knowledge in the textbooks, and then set aside some of them as teachers.

Some of these teachers went to the school to teach the children, and some of them taught the adult literati, that is, the poor talents who were found everywhere. There are a lot of poor talents in the Ming Dynasty, and every imperial examination can create a large number of talents.

It's not a show, children can also be, as long as they can read and write, have a certain cultural foundation, the younger the better. The firm is recruiting literati everywhere, and the number of literati recruited is already in the thousands, and these literati are all trained and assigned to work in posts. Some went to work in commercial banks, some went to work in the tundi, some were recruited into political departments to serve as political commissars, some were assigned to hospitals to study medicine, some were trained as teachers, and some were in the army as artillery and staff officers.

Everything runs according to the way Zhao Yan has set, and Zhao Yan's task is to supervise these modes of operation, and at the same time make continuous improvements, and determine the mode of gear operation in the new area, which is the job that a superior should do, and he does not do anything himself.

After dealing with the affairs of the Science and Technology Institute, Zhao Yan inspected the textile factories along the Shahe River.

Dense water-powered textile machines have been built along the Shahe River, and these water-powered spinning machines and looms are operating in two shifts of twenty or forty hours, and the textile workers are working like machines in the sound of spindle rotation and the sound of mechanical friction.

Zhao Yan has raised tens of thousands of children, and he has no ability to educate them, only a small number of children have been educated, so most of them work in textile factories.

These child labourers are paid very little, less than the salary of a normal textile worker, and work about 10 hours a day. Child labour is done during the day and women at night, in two shifts 24 hours a day.

The textile base in Shahe has a total of 200,000 spindles and more than 8,000 hydraulic looms. This equates to a labor force of 520,000 women, but only 10,000 are actually working, a 52-fold increase in efficiency.

The textile base in Songjiang Prefecture has already started some machines, and it is expected to build 500,000 spindles and 20,000 water conservancy looms.

"It's still too low." Zhao Yan turned around, muttering in his heart, Zhao Quan's people have calculated that according to the speed of construction and the speed of mechanical operation, there will be nearly thirty percent of the yarn by the autumn harvest.

The biggest conflict is the speed of weaving, and the speed of spinning can keep up.

Zhao Yan then came to the cotton processing workshop, and the scene he saw made him almost collapse, and the workshop was actually a worker peeling cottonseeds by hand.

"How much can you peel in a day?" Zhao Yan asked one of the women.

"Back to my lord, a woman can probably peel two catties a day! Others can only peel more than a pound a day. The woman said proudly, Zhao Yan couldn't help but sweat coldly when he heard it, although he had built a mule machine and a water-powered loom, but the cotton tie machine was forgotten, and he turned to Zhao Quan and asked, "How many workers are peeling cotton now?" ”

"Maybe two or three hundred thousand! There are only 20,000 people who peel cotton in the workshop, and the rest distribute the cotton to the homes of the households before harvesting it. Zhao Quan felt very normal, all over the Ming Dynasty, all of them were peeled cotton by hand, and said strangely: "Is there something wrong?" ”

"We also don't have a machine to strip cotton." Zhao Yan said with annoyance.

It can only be said that he lacks common sense in the textile industry, although he has seen cotton, he has always thought that it is enough to spin cotton directly into yarn and then weave it into cloth.

This was true in later generations, and there were all kinds of machines for cottonseed stripping, which did not require any brains at all, but this era is different.

The cotton tie machine was invented by an American teacher in 1792, before the invention, cotton seeds were undoubtedly a headache, so small things, to peel out one by one, undoubtedly very depressing.

(To be continued)