The flying man was a young man, but fifteen or sixteen years old, with red lips and white teeth, and a faint layer of fluff on his lips, which seemed to be well maintained, and he should be a rich boy, but this kid behaved very vulgarly, lying on the bed in the cabin, covered with a quilt, and showing a lively appearance as soon as he woke up. Seeing Liu Ziguang come in, he waved his hand very casually and motioned for Liu Ziguang to sit down.

"Ah, you saved Ben Gongzi?" The young man asked with a big grin, a mouthful of Nanjing dialect.

Liu Ziguang is not a polite person, he sat down on the side without care, and replied casually: "It's me, you fly well in the sky, but it's a pity that the water is a little worse." ”

"I'm blessed and won't die easily, but if you save me, I still want to reward you with something." As he spoke, he fumbled for a while in the wet clothes he took off, and took out a turquoise thing and threw it to Liu Ziguang.

Liu Ziguang stretched out his hand to catch it, and looked at it, a good piece of flawless jade jade pendant, the whole body is turquoise without a trace of variegation, and the round jade pendant is embossed with a delicate phoenix, the handiwork is exquisite, and each feather is carved in detail. Looks like it's worth a lot of money. Liu Ziguang looked at the light outside the porthole to see the light transmittance of the jadeite, which was very good, and there were no impurities inside.

"Then I'll be disrespectful." Liu Ziguang picked up the jade with satisfaction and asked the flying boy: "The servants of the child's family must be very anxious, how about I arrange a small boat to send you ashore?" ”

"Don't worry, listen to the voice, you are a paddle steamer, bring me a set of dry clothes, I want to see the steam engine." The young man didn't treat himself as an outsider at all, Liu Ziguang called over a horse Ben, and asked him to bring his own set of clean clothes, and after a while, Ma Ben sent in a set of clothes and went out, Liu Ziguang also got up and prepared to go out of the cabin to let the young man change his clothes, but the young man was surprised and said: "Why is no one serving me to change clothes?" ”

Liu Ziguang's nose was almost crooked, this eldest young master was really unkind, he actually asked someone to serve and change clothes, and immediately replied: "The boat is full of rough people, they don't know how to serve people, you better wear it yourself." The young man had no choice but to wave his hand to let Liu Ziguang go out and dress himself.

Liu Ziguang shrugged his shoulders and went out, but he didn't see the young man crawling out of the quilt and wearing bright yellow pants.

When they came to the deck, they saw that a clipper had already leaned against their boat, and it turned out that the captain of the flying boy had arrived, and the four white-faced and beardless family members politely thanked everyone, and hurriedly ran into the cabin to serve the young man and get dressed.

It took a long time for the boy to get dressed up and stop and walk out of the cabin, by which time the paddle steamer had already ignited and started, and the boy's clipper followed behind. The young man is young and small, but he is already relatively tall, but he is relatively thin, and the clothes in ancient times are all large, so he looks good in Liu Ziguang's clothes.

The young man commanded to go to the engine room to see, it happened that Liu Ziguang had never seen the steam engine on the ship, so he accompanied him down, the engine room was at the bottom of the ship, connected to the coal bunker, the air was dirty, the heat wave was rolling, and it was filthy everywhere, and the general officers rarely came down, the young man was really interested, and he didn't care about such a dirty environment, he touched everywhere to see, the bare shipwright picked up the charcoal into the furnace, the fire door closed at once, and opened again, Liu Ziguang looked at it for a while and felt that it was not interesting, just about to go up, Hearing the young man speak: "It seems to be a steam engine from the Liguo Iron Factory, the reliability is very high, the furnace wall and pipelines are very strong and pressure-resistant, but the weight is too large, and the speed is affected on the ship, but it is not as good as the size of the steam engine in the Wuchang Shipyard, and the weight is much lighter than that of the Liguo Factory." Therefore, it is better to use Wuchang to make civilian ships, and whether it is used in weapons, it is still good for the country and has high reliability. ”

It turned out that he was still a science boy, and he was familiar with flying in the sky and running in the water.

After checking in the cabin, the two returned to the deck, and the young man's entourage was moving the damaged big kite to their clipper, Liu Ziguang asked curiously: "Did you design this delta-wing aircraft?" ”

"What, you call him a delta wing aircraft, this name is interesting, I call him Flying God Wing, the name is very good, right? Yes, this artifact was designed and manufactured by Ben Gongzi himself, does this brother have any advice? The boy replied.

"Flying God Wing, the name is very windy, but it is too backward to rely on the air flow without power, if only a propeller were added." Liu Ziguang still admires the science teenager very much, and sincerely puts forward his advanced views.

"What is a propeller?" The boy was a little puzzled.

"It's a thing that spins non-stop, driven by a machine, and can blow the wind behind you, blowing your wings wherever you want to go. For example, flying from Nanjing to Yangzhou or something. "Liu Ziguang has never eaten pork, he has only seen pigs running, but the description is quite vivid.

When encountering a scientific problem, the young man's eyes immediately lit up, and he grabbed Liu Ziguang and asked him to draw a pattern of the propeller and tell the idea.

There happened to be white paper and charcoal pencil that Peng Jingrong had just drawn the wings of the flying gods, and he came over with a long follower, holding it on a wooden board and letting Liu Ziguang draw it, and the Peng sisters also came around, curiously watching Liu Ziguang draw a picture of the flying boy.

Seeing so many people around, Liu Ziguang also wanted to be in the limelight, shake his spirit, and play out the sketches he learned in the Children's Palace when he was a child, first drew a delta wing, and then drew something similar to a bicycle below, but there are no wheels, and pedals with their feet can drive a large propeller behind, pedals, chains, gear drives, and human drives, and it is not a very detailed design drawing, it is a schematic diagram, but a simple schematic diagram is enough for a genius. The boy's gaze had become very eager.

Liu Ziguang smiled slightly, and drew a larger delta wing, with a movable tail on it, which can control the direction, and a cockpit and engine compartment below, driven by two propellers. There is also a small figure drawn next to it as a size reference. I was afraid that the teenager would not understand, so I also wrote a text description, clockwork drive or engine drive.

The young man's eyes were green, shining with greed like a wolf, and he asked eagerly: "I understand the first one, I can do it when I go back, the clockwork drive, it is the clockwork like that in the clock, I'm afraid it can't continue to provide power, what is the engine, how to get the power?" ”

The young man knows a lot, Liu Ziguang patted the young man's shoulder approvingly, and said in a scientific grandfather's tone: "The engine is something like a steam engine, but it is not coal that burns, but the fuel with higher energy and no waste residue, the volume of the machine is the size, much smaller than the steam engine, it is a heat engine that burns the fuel inside the machine and converts the heat energy released into power." It's not like the steam engine, which relies on fuel and boils water into steam as a power. In the past, the resurrection plug type of internal combustion engine was the most common. A piston internal combustion engine mixes fuel and air and burns it in its cylinders, releasing heat energy that produces high-temperature and high-pressure gas in the cylinders. The gas expansion pushes the piston to do work, and then outputs the mechanical work through the crank connecting rod mechanism or other mechanisms to drive the driven machinery to work.

Fill a box of fuel. For example, alcohol or gasoline, alcohol you know, is a very pure spirit, a little bit, gasoline is more powerful, but there is no technology to refine gasoline. A box of fuel can fly far away, and then this flying god wing can also be very large, magnified many times, and it can seat hundreds of people. A long-distance trip or a surprise attack on the enemy's capital or something, and a quick maneuver is simply a divine soldier. ”

The young man was fascinated by Liu Ziguang's flickering, his face flushed, and he heard so many new terms, what internal combustion engine, alcohol and gasoline, of course, saving the process of burning steam will definitely save a lot of space and weight, this simple truth can still be understood, he only feels that it is suddenly clear, once this thing called the internal combustion engine is invented, it will be a huge leap.

The young man suddenly solemnly bowed his hand and said that he wanted to worship Liu Ziguang as a teacher. Liu Ziguang was taken aback, and the little thing in his mind was almost the same, and he couldn't be serious at all. Besides, he still has so many things, how can he have the heart to be a teacher for others, and hurriedly said that he has something important to do, and he can't delay, so he can only thank the young man for his love.

The young man didn't make it difficult for others to be strong, looked at everyone, and said, "You guys are in Beijing to do business, right?" ”

"Yes, it's a little bit of a trivial matter for us to go to the military headquarters." Liu Ziguang replied that this is not a secret, and there is no need to hide it.

"Alright, we'll have a date later." The young man was about to leave, and Liu Ziguang was not polite, so he said, "I will not send it far." "I watched the boy and his entourage carry his flying god wings onto his own clipper. The boatman held the bamboo pole open, and the two sides waved goodbye. The boy glanced at the ironworks flag on the bow of the paddle steamer and nodded thoughtfully.

After the two sides parted ways, the ship of the ironworks was already approaching the Shuixi Gate.

The official name of Shuixi Gate is Sanshan Gate, which is one of the thirteen city gates of the city wall built by the Ming Dynasty in Nanjing, and the Jubaomen (now Zhonghua Gate) and Tongji Gate have three urn cities and four door openings. It is the most important city gate in the west of Nanjing City, facing the Qinhuai River, so it has become the main road to enter and exit Nanjing City from the waterway.

In the end, it is the city wall of the capital, tall and majestic, and the tiger is standing on the dragon plate, in contrast, the city wall of the iron factory can only be regarded as the product of a child's house.

Seeing Liu Ziguang's shocked look, the eldest lady came to popularize common sense for him again: "The city wall of Jingshi is sixty-eight miles long, and it is the largest city in China today. After the founding emperor Taizu captured Nanjing, he began to build the city wall in the second year, and spent 21 years to build the longest city wall in the world, which is five zhang to seven zhang high, five zhang and a half meter wide at the base, two zhang and three zhang wide at the top, and there are 13,660 six battlements, 200 Tibetan caves, and 13 city gates, which can be attacked and defended. It is said that when it was built, granite was used as the foundation, and tung oil, glutinous rice juice and lime juice were poured into the brick joints, so it was very strong, and I am afraid that the huge return cannon of the Qing army could not easily smash such a fortified city.

After listening to the introduction of the eldest lady, Liu Ziguang was even more shocked, the endless city wall, the majestic Yangtze River, the weaving river boats, Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, I came!