At the beginning of September, there was another loud roar in the open field by a small river in the north of Chenliu County, and the roar came from a large courtyard, and the high fence obscured people's view, and several peasants working around them craned their necks curiously, trying to understand what was happening.

In the middle of the courtyard, dozens of craftsmen surround a blackened two-story machine, the eighth steam engine the craftsmen have ever built.

It is divided into two parts, one is the boiler that produces steam, the other is the cylinder and piston, and the connecting rod, the crank and the runner are the key to ensuring that the front and back movements become circular motion, which has been solved on the looms of the Song Dynasty, which is very smooth.

The key is the power of steam, in fact, in December last year, craftsmen built a steam engine according to Fanning's drawings, but there were two problems, one is that the power generated by the steam cylinder is too small, at least five of the first seven steam engines are because of insufficient steam, resulting in insufficient power and failure, the solution can only be to make it bigger, the sixth steam engine was once built to three stories high, extremely large, water and carbon consumption are very amazing, steam use efficiency is too low.

At the same time, a second problem arises, such a steam engine can be used on land, but there is simply not so much fresh water consumption at sea, and Fanning's drawings do not solve this problem.

Later, a craftsman discovered that most of the steam was wasted, and he proposed to add cylinders so that the steam could be reused.

Another craftsman proposed a recycling scheme that allows the steam to return to the boiler instead of draining the condensate directly.

The craftsman negotiated repeatedly and installed the reversing valve, so that the waste steam after a use could enter the second cylinder and the third cylinder, and then the steam in the three cylinders expanded and pushed the piston respectively, which greatly improved the efficiency of steam use and greatly increased the power.

At the same time, the craftsmen created a fence-like copper condenser and a copper condenser tube to allow the steam to cool quickly and return to the boiler, which was especially important on seagoing vessels, otherwise there would not be so much fresh water to consume and would have to be recycled.

But the third new problem came out again, how to ensure that the power of the three pistons can be used in a coordinated manner, the craftsmen continued to debug, to create three gradually increasing cylinders, the piston area of the three cylinders was doubled, and then the linkage rod was transformed to make it a composite linkage rod, so that the power changed from a one-step linkage to a three-step linkage, and successfully solved the problem of insufficient power.

Eighty craftsmen spent a whole year to build eight steam engines, and at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, the eighth steam engine finally succeeded, pushing the runner strongly.

The steam engine spun all night, always keeping the power strong, the axles were spinning, and the craftsmen cheered with excitement and hugged each other tightly.

Of course, this marine steam engine is still very primitive and bulky, weighing two thousand catties, the steam engine is not big, but the boiler is two stories high, and there are many places that need to be further improved, such as the invention of the high-pressure boiler, which really solved the defects of the bulky early steam engine.

However, the invention of high-pressure boilers also needs to solve the explosion problem, which requires the use of control valves and low-melting metal plugs, which take time to slowly explore and accumulate.

In addition, there is a more thorny problem, that is, the amount of carbon consumption is too large, although the Song Dynasty has widely used coal, there is no problem with using a steam engine on land, and coal can be replenished at any time, but if you sail on a long sea, how to solve the coal problem.

The craftsmen had no choice but to consider carrying a coal supply ship, or resupplying at the ports along the way.

The news of the successful test of the steam engine was first published on the front page of the Hong Kong Economic Journal, and this news was not very felt by ordinary people, but it was undoubtedly a huge sensation for all the large workshops that tried to improve the efficiency of spinning.

The large textile machine driven by it has a daily output of 300 catties of cotton thread, which is twice that of the water-powered large textile machine.

But the significance of the steam engine is not to greatly increase the output of cotton threads, the hydraulic textile machine itself has replaced manpower with water, but it is more restricted, must be used by the river or at the foot of the mountain, but the steam engine can be used anywhere.

However, the steam engine is used in the textile industry, at least for the time being, it is not very realistic, the output of a pig iron is not large, pig iron is more used in the military, in addition, its use cost is also very high, the coal of the Song Dynasty is also relatively expensive, although the effect is a little higher than the hydraulic textile machine, but the overall cost is much higher, but it will increase the price of cotton cloth, so the "Hong Kong Economic Journal" published the invention of the steam engine, and soon disappeared.

It will take at least 10 or 20 years to develop and promote.

The main role of the steam engine is still to sail the ocean, liberating hundreds of manpower, and in addition, the horsepower is strong, and the ship is faster.

Zhu Yuanfeng used a large ship of 3,000 stones to transport the steam engine to the Zhu shipbuilding workshop in Jingkou, and the craftsmen began to build more steam engines on a large scale in Chenliu.

..........

Fan Ning and his entourage returned to Quanzhou in mid-September, and after resting at their home in Quanzhou for ten days, Fan Ning took Mingren and Mingli into Jingmai Island, at this time, Fan Ning did not know the news that the steam engine had been manufactured, and Zhu Yuanfeng was building the first steam ship of the Great Song Dynasty in Jingkou.

The Fan brothers converted into inland boats on the Qiantang River and went north along the canal, first going to Mudu's hometown to sweep their father's grave, and then going north to the capital.

Early that morning, the passenger boat they took sailed into the territory of Wujiang County, Fanning stood on the bow of the boat and looked at the scenery on both sides of the river, the scenery was no different from those back then, or those bridges, or those houses, but he was already twenty-nine years old, and he had a feeling that things were wrong with people.

"A-Ning, do you regret deciding to buy the island?" Akihito asked with a smile on his side.

They inspected the North Island for a month, and the majestic nature, the absurd wilderness, the vast land, and the long distance all made them deeply feel the difficulty of building this large island.

Fanning shook his head, "It has been my dream for many years to open up overseas, this is by no means my personal preference, but I want to do something for our future generations, we obviously have the ability to occupy these vast continents, but we pretend to be high and ignore them, disdainful of them, and finally a few hundred years later, they are occupied by Westerners who travel thousands of miles to occupy them, at that time, our children and grandchildren will blame us." ”

Akihito nodded, "Maybe you think ahead of us, but no matter what, we will support you, and when we buy the island, we will start recruiting volunteers to go to the North Island to open up a new home." ”

Fan Ning grabbed Akihito's shoulder and said with a smile: "It's still my brother who can be relied on!" ”

"That's it, you have to rely on your own brother to fight the tiger!"

At this moment, Fanning's eyes were suddenly attracted by a small cargo ship of 500 stones, which was very strange, it was not a rocking oar, but two men standing at the stern of the boat and pedaling.

There are also many such cars and boats in the river, but the problem is that Fanning did not see the paddle wheel.

"Akihito, look at that ship, isn't it weird?" Fanning pointed to the ship's pathway.

Akihito looked at it for a moment and said, "It's a little weird, I didn't see the bright wheel." ”

"Let's take a look!"

They immediately asked the boatman to stop the cargo ship in front of them, and the two ships approached, and Fanning and Akihito jumped onto the opposite boat.

Akihito clasped his fists and smiled: "Your ship is very surprising, we wanted to come and take a look, but I bothered!" ”

The owner was a little unhappy, but let them look at the stern of the boat.

"This is a new ship that was only bought this year, a new ship from the Jingkou Zhu Shipyard, which does not need to rock, one person is at the helm, two people pedal, and it saves five people compared to the previous boat."

Akihito asked strangely, "Since it's a pedal, but I don't see where the wheel is?" ”

"It's a wheel, too, but it seems to be placed horizontally."

Fanning leaned down at the stern of the boat and looked down for a long time, he got up and said, "I see, it's not the paddle wheel, it's the propeller." ”

Akihito also lay down and looked at it, and said with a strange expression: "How can you advance in this way, it's still so small." ”

Fanning asked the owner again: "What are the advantages of this propeller and what are the disadvantages?" ”

The owner shook his head and said: "The advantage is to save the boatman, and the speed is a little faster, but there are too many disadvantages, it is easy to damage, there is something in the river, it will break when it hits the paddle, and the seal is not good, it is easy to enter the water, and it is even worse to be entangled in aquatic weeds every three or five times, I really regret buying it." ”

Akihito whispered to Fanning, "I don't know which idiot invented this kind of thing. ”

Fanning glared at him fiercely, "Back to the ship!" ”

As soon as he jumped onto the boat, Akihito had some recollection, could it be that this thing was also invented by Aning?