At night, oil lamps are lit in the woodworking plant's shed.

Seven or eight old carpenters and young apprentices were working overtime around several carpentry lathes. They accepted a task from Zhao Ze, the Minister of Engineering, to imitate bearings of different specifications from hardwood.

After the 'Great Leap Forward' provided by Xu Hongru, Zhao Ze can also independently control his own industrial killer 'CNC machining center'. He had already made a number of industrial machines using some of the raw materials stored in the space-time island technical school, but he soon faced a thorny problem - many key components were missing one by one, especially bearings.

Due to the technical difficulty of crucible steelmaking, Shi Stone of the Ministry of Mining directly shook his head and said that it was impossible for him to make qualified alloy steel in the short term. Zhao Ze can only find a way to solve the problem of key components, and the first thing to solve is various types of bearings. Without bearings, there is no way to talk about slightly more high-end industrial equipment.

The only good news is that the various machinery used by the current 'revolutionary army' does not have high performance requirements for bearings. In terms of life and load, it can be used basically. This work became a difficult task for the carpenters to overcome. They are currently changing careers to work as fitters, and sooner or later they will have to face this dilemma.

Zhao Ze personally served as the guide of the project team. But he has too much work, gives materials, arranges the research direction, and does the work of the craftsmen below. Since most of the old carpenters in the engineering department were illiterate, they were often accompanied by an apprentice with a secondary diploma.

"Wang Zhen, give me that vernier caliper."

The light of the oil lamp was yellow, but it was bright. Sang Youshen twisted a wooden bead with his hand and shouted to the apprentice assistant beside him. The apprentice named Wang Zhen is the next student who taught him a few days ago, and he is also the son of a carpenter, who is smart and quick to work, but he is a little inexperienced.

The vernier caliper was handed over, and Sang Youshen skillfully put a card on the wooden beads that had just been processed, measuring its diameter. Bearings have high requirements for machining accuracy, and machining accuracy depends on measurement accuracy.

Zhao Ze tried his best to provide a batch of new measuring tools to the engineering department. The high-end goods of spiral micrometer are still more troublesome, but even if the vernier caliper is popularized, the minimum accuracy can be up to 0.1 millimeter. This is a great step forward in ancient times when there was no uniformity of weights and measures among different carpenters. Dramatically improve collaboration efficiency.

Kuwayushen uses hard catalpa wood to make the balls of the bearings, which can ensure that they can bear light loads without breaking. It is not difficult to process wood beads on woodworking lathes, but it is difficult to process a batch of wood beads to ensure the same tolerance. The number of this batch was not ten hundreds, but tens of thousands—for example, the four-wheeled carriages used for land transport by the 'revolutionary army' needed a large number of bearings.

Zhao Ze provided the drawings of the bearings and also designed the manufacturing process, which can solve the process problems of mass production, which is a headache for the carpenters. They had to find a way to produce efficiently and quickly, or they would be held back.

After the measurement, Sang Youshen was very satisfied with the wooden beads he had on hand, but he shook his head when he saw the other beads on the carpentry workbench. He asked Wang Zhen, the apprentice beside him, "You read the minister's book to me again, and I will listen to it." ”

Zhao Ze only has the information of metal bearings at hand, and the production process is not complete. The balls in the metal bearings are punched into wool balls by a die machine and then polished by a grinder. He knew that he needed a grinding machine to grind balls, but how to build a grinding machine for grinding wood materials was a big problem.

Wooden balls are made by hand by carpenters, and this production is too low. Sang Youshen is now relying on the words provided by Zhao Ze to figure out how to get a manual grinder. A truly industrialized grinding machine can grind hundreds of balls at a time, and now Zhao Ze doesn't have that requirement, just grind one at a time. It's a big deal to build a few more.

The grinding machine is essentially two static and moving high-hardness metal grooved plates, and the rough embryo of the balls is ground in the groove. It's just that there are a lot of challenges in turning a design into a physical object. Sang Youshen has already made a prototype of a hydraulic grinding machine, and the balls that can be ground are always big and small, and he can't figure out what went wrong.

Wang Zhen slowly read through some of the information given by Zhao Ze, and there were some things he didn't understand, and he had to check the dictionary at hand. The master and apprentice pondered all night, and felt that they were only afraid that it was the cause of the vibration of the machine - the hydraulic machinery had this problem, and the strength would be greater and smaller. There is no difference between processing ordinary items, but it is different when grinding balls.

"Get on the flywheel." Sang Youshen remembered the hydraulic sawmill he saw a few days ago. With the flywheel, an inert energy storage device, the stability of the whole machine is greatly improved, and the sawing efficiency is also greatly improved. "And this lubricant also has to be changed, since the minister said that the heat during grinding will affect the accuracy, then we have to lower the temperature."

It takes time to improve the grinder, whether it is a flywheel or lubricating fluid, Sang Youshen has no experience. He could only give some of the wooden balls that he had already ground to the other craftsmen in the group to use first. Other craftsmen are responsible for manufacturing the inner and outer rings of the bearings, which are also processed with hardwood as raw materials, which is not easy, and can only be made by hand in small batches.

This is the case with technological development, and a small problem in the details will delay the progress of the whole system. Now the industrial system of the 'revolutionary army' is too crude, and it is not that there is a problem with one detail, but that all the details are problems.

The wooden bearings were immediately used to produce other tools and machinery. As more and more hydraulic machines were installed in the processing plant, apprentices who had practiced making furniture and kitchenware began to make other, more complex products. In addition to the four-wheeled carriage that is urgently needed for road transportation, it is the 'Jenny Spinning Machine'.

What was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Britain? Steam engine? No, ......, history textbooks will clearly say that it is Jenny Spinning Machine.

Human beings need food and clothing, and cloth can be used as a commodity that can be used directly as hard currency in ancient times. The efficiency of the spun fabric determines the price of the cloth. The first Jenny spinning machine increased spinning efficiency by a factor of eight, and it was not too technically difficult, but it was a completely creative change – the flat spindle was changed to an upright one.

The later improved version uses hydraulic drive, which not only improves the yarn quality, but also increases the spinning efficiency to a hundredfold. The advent of cheap textiles made Britain a huge amount of wealth, and gave a greater impetus to the progress of the Industrial Revolution. A large number of people began to think of more efficient equipment, and human wisdom was strongly stimulated.

Zhao Ze didn't focus on bearings because he was working on the real revolutionary product of water-powered spinning machine. He abandoned the immature 'Jenny spinning machine' in the early days and went directly to the 100-spindle water-powered spinning machine that was improved in the later period.

Most of the equipment is made of wood, with only a small number of metal parts. When the equipment was ready to be verified and started, Zhou Qingfeng and others all came to see it.

"The Jenny spinning machine is actually turning one spindle of an old-fashioned spinning machine into N spindles. However, it has the disadvantage that it can only spin roving into fine yarn. So what we are currently improving is only a part of the cotton spinning industry chain. Of course, this is the key bottleneck. ”

With Zhao Ze's signal, the workers opened the sluice plate to stop the water. The river's hydraulics drive the waterwheel, powering a quirky machine on the riverbank. Zhou Qingfeng didn't know anything about machinery, he only saw a hundred spindles starting to rotate with the operation of a few female workers, and the yarn was pulling and pulling.

"Is that a success?" Zhou Qingfeng asked stupidly. He had never seen the inefficiency of the old spinning machine, and he had no idea of any revolutionary progress in the machine in front of him. Anyway, no matter how you look at it, these things in front of you look like old antiques in a museum.

Zhao Ze was deeply satisfied with the smooth operation of the spinning machine, but seeing Zhou Qingfeng's stupid appearance, he had to wave his hand and say, "Forget it, I shouldn't have asked you to come and see." I know you kid doesn't understand the beauty of this industrial progress, so you'd better play with your army. ”

"Don't mind! I'm very sincere. Zhou Qingfeng circled around the spinning machine for half a circle, and shouted to a person next to him: "Cai Zhiwei, come and draw a picture of Minister Zhao and this spinning machine." Such a great moment must be remembered. ”

The royal painter Cai Zhiwei ran out, but he was extremely surprised by the scene in front of him, "Minister Zhao is really talented, talented." My mother also used to spin and weave cloth, and the yarn wheel that shook overnight could not weave three or four taels of cotton yarn. Tired day and night, backache, dizziness. But one day of the machine is worth three or four months of toil for the spinning woman. Awesome, really awesome! ”

Finally, someone who knows the goods came, and the horses were well photographed.

Zhao Ze laughed when he heard this, he stood still next to the spinning machine, and hurriedly beckoned Cai Zhiwei to paint a portrait of himself. Who can not love this great cause that has left history and Ze is born by the common people?

Zhou Qingfeng, who was not interested, brought in a few craftsmen who made spinning machines and asked about the output and details of the machine. As it turned out, he was right in his decision to start a wood processing plant.

Not only did it produce a large number of ordinary daily necessities, but it soon became an important equipment production site for the 'revolutionary army' like the machinery factory, even more important than the machinery factory that was often short of raw materials. After all, this place in Liaodong can be fully supplied with timber. Timber will be an important industrial raw material for centuries to come.

Xu Bing approached Zhou Qingfeng and said in a low voice: "I just discussed with Zhao Ze that before the steel production capacity can not be increased, it is better to increase the production of wooden machinery." I plan to come in a ruthless way, smash 500,000 taels of silver from the White Lotus Sect, recruit more people to expand production capacity, and by the way, establish the entire industrial chain of the cotton spinning industry. ”

The success of the timber processing plant gave the top brass of the 'revolutionary army' immense confidence. Let them realize that industrial development is not just about coal and iron, but also about water and wood.

The cotton spinning industry can absorb a large amount of labor. Shandong, Henan, and Jiangnan in the Ming Dynasty are all cotton producing areas, and the supply of raw materials is not a problem. At present, one acre of cotton field produces about 60 catties of seed cotton, and 20 catties of lint is obtained after rolling. There are still seven or eight processes from lint to spinning, and after spinning, the fabric needs to be woven before it can become a marketable commodity.

This industrial chain is complex but not highly technological, and if it is done, it can bring into full play the production capacity of a large number of women on the peninsula who were originally inefficiently used. It has tremendous benefits for social stability and development. At that time, the consumption of the current hundreds of thousands of people will be like a play, and it will even make the 'revolutionary army' feel that the population is not enough.

"Cotton is harvested in autumn, and although it is now winter, there is still a lot of cotton waiting to be processed in the production area. I have already sent people to procure, and the main procurement is in Shandong, where the White Lotus Sect system is becoming our vassal. After the clean-up and renovation, it is a very good business network. Xu Bing said.

Zhou Qingfeng looked back at Zhao Ze, who was 'freeze' next to the spinning machine, and said with a cheerful smile: "It is really glorious and joyful to see this piece of machine that transcends the times appear in front of me. Fortunately, everyone can make this happen. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to do such a big business on my own. ”