In 1891, the 17th year of Guangxu, in early spring, the spring rain continued.

After the carriage of goods leaves the special line of the machine, slowly walks through the muddy puddles between the factories, dragging heavy pig iron, steel and wood to the silo, the current Seoul Machinery Bureau, after several expansions, has become a large factory covering an area of more than 4,000 acres, the scale can be called the first mint in the Far East is also located in it, the daily freight carriage continues to go back and forth between the warehouse and the special line station, the raw materials are transported in or the products out, all day long.

The west of the machine is a row of continuous factories is the new machine factory built last year, its scale has expanded more than ten times compared with the past, more than 400 machines, not only the machine is equipped with such as steam hammers, steel-making furnaces, and chemical iron furnaces, and even the factory has built an iron-making workshop, and a second-hand 25.55 cubic iron-making blast furnace has been added to make iron-making for the factory, of course, the most important use of this iron-making blast furnace that is not more than 11.4 meters high is for technical verification, for the general supervisor to study the new iron-making process here.

Since this small iron-making blast furnace was put into use a month ago, after several transformations, its daily output has jumped to more than 50 tons, and the utilization coefficient of the blast furnace has reached an astonishing 2.1/m3, and even fell into shutdown due to lack of raw materials, but with the construction of the Inhan Railway, Incheon's coke and ore from the northern iron ore ore were transported by rail to the Machinery and Construction Bureau to meet its production needs.

Perhaps it is thanks to the need for raw materials and products to be transported at the steel branch that it has the only in-plant railway in the plant, which is next to the railway leading to the iron plant. There is a semi-open-air shed. The shed used to be used for the production of railway boxcars. It was just a makeshift assembly shop, and after the railway boxcar order was completed, the shed was idle, and now it is busy again.

In the past ten days, more than a dozen workers and technicians from the Machinery Bureau, under the leadership of Tang Haoran, have assembled the first tram on the track in the shed, using the wheels, planks and other parts produced by the Bureau.

This tram borrowed directly from the railroad boxcar. Just a moderate weight reduction, the blue wooden carriage with the door and window side of the Golden Gate, although not magnificent, but also extremely gorgeous, the wooden board in the carriage is coated with a layer of light varnish, revealing a beautiful wooden system, the seats on both sides of the carriage are also very simple, a bit like a wooden chair in the park, which seems to be not much different from the passenger car made by the machine qì bureau before, but the window is equipped with glass.

And unlike the train car. There are three more glass windows on the front of the front of the car, which is now in this strange-looking compartment. Several workers were busy with the car, and even under the car, two workers were looking at it by the lights.

"Put these two wires, yes, these two wires are connected, and ......"

In the carriage, Tang Haoran instructed the workers from time to time to connect the circuits in the carriage, and the tram was marked "East Asia 100" in the machine qì bureau, and if the test was successful, it would be the world's first tram.

In the past thirteen days, Tang Haoran devoted himself to the design of the "modern urban transportation system", and after dealing with the official affairs of the government in the morning, he would immediately come to the factory to explain the drawings to the workers and technicians, and on the other hand, he had to squeeze out time to design the electric system of tram traffic, that is, the "braid" dragged on the tram and the overhead contact lines in the city, compared with the tram, the power supply system, especially the overhead line network, is undoubtedly the most complex.

There are too many problems encountered in the design of the overhead line network like a "spider web", fortunately, these problems have now been solved one by one, and a test network has been laid in the factory, and it is Zheng Tingxiang who solves the problem of the overhead line network, as a mechanical engineer, he gave Tang Haoran too much help in the development process of the tram.

"My lord, can you really sell this tram overseas?"

Although he is aware of the convenience that the promotion of trams in the city has brought to people's lives, Zheng Tingxiang always thinks of the discrimination of white people against yellow people, and whether they can accept this new thing invented by yellow people. Although it does make a huge difference in people's lives

After hearing this, Tang Haoran said with a smile:

"I didn't think you would be so unconfident, not to mention whether foreigners buy or not, now we have begun to lay tracks along several main roads in the Special Economic Zone, this tram in addition to this passenger model, the next thing we build is the cargo model, a tram is 7.3 meters long, yellow 2.2 meters, I estimate that after removing the carriage, the load of the cargo model should be about 10 tons, so that we can use the tram to transport construction materials and workers to all corners of the special zone......

For now, this is the most important thing, the cost of raising horses is too amazing, in order to ensure that the material transportation company in Incheon raised more than 2,700 horses, the daily expenditure is as much as 3,000 yuan, this horse is really a "noble" thing, if you add more than 200,000 yuan to buy horses, enough to lay dozens of kilometers of tram tracks in the city, and the capacity of the tram is far more than the carriage.

"The eyes of those foreigners in the concession are not invisible, and when they see the convenience of the tram, when the time comes, they will naturally negotiate with us to introduce technology, and when the time comes, we will knock them hard! Just like when they sold us trains! You have to get this bad breath! ”

The disgusting thing in Tang Haoran's mouth naturally refers to the high price when buying a locomotive, especially the high price of later maintenance, and the experience of being slaughtered so many times, how can Tang Haoran forget it, if not, how can he make the locomotive research bureau.

As soon as the adult said this, Zheng Tingxiang hurriedly gave a thumbs up and praised sincerely.

"My lord, if it weren't for this invention of yours, I'm afraid we wouldn't have been able to get out of this evil breath."

It's not my invention, I'm just plagiarizing someone else's invention!

Every time there is a new "invention", although Tang Haoran is used to it in the face of the praise of his subordinates, his face is still not so thick, although he constantly says to himself in his heart, "invent other people's things, so that others have nothing to invent", but modesty is always a fine tradition of the Chinese.

"Well, this is a suspicion of sycophancy. This electricity. It's that I don't invent. I don't think you're going to let go of the motor, are you? ”

Looking at Zheng Tingxiang with a smile, Tang Haoran shook his head and said:

"Haven't you already started experimenting with a motor driving the machine in the machine? Sooner or later, you'll want to use it in your car! ”

The electric motor is undoubtedly the greatest invention of the 19th century, and although the electric motor in other countries was not yet mature in this era, in the end, in the coming decades, it was the electric motor that changed the world and changed the pattern of industry in various countries. Perhaps what surprised Tang Haoran the most was that he used the electric motor in the workshop for power tests, which even reversed his perception of Chinese technicians in a certain way, whose sense of innovation was far greater than he imagined.

"Your Excellency. Compared with the steam engine, the electric motor not only has the advantages of convenient use, but also safer and more powerful, and will be applied to industrial production, with its high speed and the high-speed steel cutter invented by adults, the production efficiency of the machine is more than doubled, but this experiment is not very successful. ”

High-speed steel, for the machine, this is the first "trump card product" of the machine, which is the application of high-speed steel. The production capacity of the machine has been rapidly improved, and it is Tang Haoran who "invented" high-speed steel.

Before the "invention" of high-speed steel. The best steel for knives of this era was 1865, by Robert of England? Mocht invented alloy tool steel, which can generally withstand a cutting temperature of 350C, and the cutting speed can be increased to 10-12m/min when processing general steel. And this speed is far from meeting Tang Haoran's needs for industrial capacity.

In view of this, Tang Haoran naturally remembered another "primitive" tool steel - high-speed steel, in history it should have been invented by Taylor and White together, and now Taylor has arrived in Incheon, the responsibility of "inventing high-speed steel" naturally falls on his shoulders, the technology of high-speed steel is not complicated, compared with the previous alloy tool steel, it can withstand the cutting temperature of 550-600C, and the cutting speed of 25-30m/min can be used for cutting general steel, So that its processing efficiency is more than 4 times and 2.5 times higher than carbon tool steel Qiajin tool steel respectively, from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, has made the United States, Britain and other major capitalist countries have a leap in the cutting level, so as to obtain huge economic benefits, machinery manufacturing industry also depends on the rapid development.

However, although the smelting of high-speed steel is not complicated, the heat treatment process is more complicated, and it must go through a series of processes such as quenching and tempering. When quenching, due to its poor thermal conductivity, it is generally carried out in two stages. First preheated at 800~850C to avoid causing large thermal stress, and then quickly heated to the quenching temperature of 1190~1290C, which is different according to the actual use of different grades, and then oil cooling or air cooling or gas cooling. In the past, salt furnaces were used for heating in general factories, but vacuum furnaces were widely used later. However, after quenching, some residual austenite is not transformed into martensite because the internal structure is still retained, which affects the properties of high-speed steel. In order to transform the residual austenite and further improve the hardness and wear resistance, it is generally necessary to carry out 2~3 times of tempering, the tempering temperature is 560C, and each time it is kept warm for 1 hour.

So much so that Tang Haoran spent nearly a month in the crucible workshop used to refine alloy steel, and only then did he determine 12 types of high-speed steel, but the hard work was worth it -- the promotion of high speed brought the production of the machine to a new level -- and the production capacity was nearly doubled.

The reason why Zheng Tingxiang is mentioning this matter now is precisely because of the success of high-speed steel, which makes him believe that the use of electric motors can also increase the production speed of the factory.

"What do you mean by that?"

Tang Haoran was a little curious, the motor was not successfully applied to the machine tool? How is this possible? If it is not successful, there will be no machine tools in the future.

"My lord, the motor you designed, but only 78 horsepower, its power is not enough to move the workshop axis, if you want to switch to electricity, you have to design a large motor, but the large motor, because of some technical hardware problems, but it can't be built for a while."

"The big ones can't be made, so why can't the small ones be made first?"

Tang Haoran smiled and asked rhetorically, it turns out that because of this, it is very simple to solve this problem, and if it is not big, is it difficult to make a small one?

"Since it can't drive dozens of machines, it's because the power can't be compared with the steam engine, but why do you have to stick to the sky axis or the earth axis, the reason why the sky axis or the earth axis was used in the past is because the power of the steam engine is large, and the cost is expensive, and it is inconvenient to use, so you need to use a steam engine as a workshop power, compared with the steam engine, the motor is undoubtedly very cheap, if the power is further reduced, for example, its power is just suitable for a machine tool, and its cost is naturally lower. Wouldn't that solve the problem? ”

"My lord, do you mean to add an electric motor to every machine?"

Nodding, thinking of those machine tools with independent motors in later generations, Tang Haoran continued:

"That's right, it's to add an electric motor to every machine."

Sometimes the memory is too good, it is also a problem, the books I have read in the past few decades, the articles I have read are scattered in the depths of my mind, and I can only recall them after a proper "reminder", because of this, Tang Haoran has been trying to completely copy the things in his memory, but it is just an unrealistic idea, and there is not so much time, it is the scattered memories in his mind, which will always affect his "invention", just like now, if it is not for Zheng Tingxiang's "reminder", I am afraid I really can't remember this" Revolutionary Innovation".

Machine tools have independent power, in the era of the use of steam engines is undoubtedly a dream, but with the maturity of motor technology, at the beginning of the 20th century, Siemens finally installed a separate motor drive for machine tools, thus setting off a revolution in machine tool manufacturing and industrial production, before this revolution, the factory can only drive the machine tool with the help of complex transmission axis or earth axis, which is not only dangerous and the cost of use is higher, but it is not conducive to improving the processing speed of the machine tool, but after the machine tool is driven by a separate motor, The face of industrial production was immediately and fundamentally changed.

"This not only avoids the casualties of workers that may be caused by the transmission belt of the sky axis or the earth axis, but also makes the construction of the plant easier and the production area of the plant more tidy, which is acceptable even if it increases the cost of the machine." Tang Haoran then added.

"But I don't think the cost will increase!"

As a mechanical engineer, Zheng Tingxiang, after thinking carefully, immediately realized the improvement of production efficiency after the machine tool is driven by a separate motor, so he said excitedly:

"My lord, in that case, why don't we try it now?"

"Look at this machine qì bureau ......"

Pointing to the factory, Tang Haoran smiled and said:

"You are the general manager of this machine, as for what to do, why do you need to ask me? In the end, it's up to you to decide what happens in this factory? (To be continued......)