On December 26, the sixth year of Qingli, Wang Shouzhong came to the Constitutional Institute in the morning and reported to everyone the good news that the rubber was done.

Zhao Jun was overjoyed and went to the back garden with many prime ministers to observe the finished product.

Zhao Zhen introduced to everyone that the finished products were processed by him, and 90% of them were rubber raw materials.

He then added about 0.5% egg white, 1.5% resin, 8% petroleum, carbon black, clay, stone powder, sand, glue, etc. as fillers.

By mixing and mixing various materials, the rubber is cooled to create a rubber that is durable, strong, heat-resistant, and frictional.

After watching various experiments, everyone was full of praise for Zhao Zhen's great invention.

Although Zhao Jun believes that its quality is still a certain gap with the rubber tires of later generations, this is already very good.

You must know that this is an ancient society with no mechanization, no chemical capabilities, no professional knowledge, and the scientific system has just been perfected.

Zhao Zhen's operation was as fierce as a tiger, which was tantamount to exploring a way out in the dark, which was already commendable.

At least the current rubber is much stronger than the rubber that has just been used in industry in history.

At that moment, Zhao Jun immediately sent someone to send the rubber to the Institute of Physics, and at the same time sent the formula prepared by Zhao Zhen to the Institute of Chemistry to see if they could improve it better on this basis.

After the Physics Research Institute got the finished rubber, it quickly began to cut and polish the rubber, and then made rubber rings to act as sealing rings for steam engines.

In the morning, after Zhao Zhen showed everyone his new invention, it didn't take long for him to leave.

He was a little tired and went back to sleep.

In the afternoon, Zhao Jun took the prime ministers to the Institute of Physics in the north of the palace to see their progress.

At this time, the Institute of Physics was quite lively, and many researchers heard that they had finally found a material that perfectly solved the tightness, and they put down their research and ran out to see the excitement.

The research institute is very large, and it used to be the mansion of the Ten Kings, and there is a huge school yard, which itself is a place for experimenting with various inventions and creations.

Including the steam engine, which has been experimented on this school field before.

There is even a long track on the school grounds, which has now been dismantled and partially used for samples to be sent to the suburbs to build the railroad tracks for the upcoming exhibition.

When Zhao Jun came over with many prime ministers, Dean Guo Zheng was leading people to carry out the final debugging.

They saw that there were about 200 people on the school grounds, which were three floors away from the third floor at this time.

Among them are some doctors, professors, and academicians of the School of Physics. There are also some newly admitted jinshi, clerks or handymen who are responsible for helping them.

Everyone surrounded the track in the center of the school yard and craned their necks to see if the experiment could meet the standard.

"Let one go, let one let go, the court and the same knowledge are coming."

Someone outside the crowd shouted.

Hearing that the prime ministers were coming, many research-oriented officials hurriedly got out of the way.

Zhao Jun walked in with Lu Yijian and the others.

"I've seen the Zhiyuan, and I know the same thing."

Guo Tan, Su Song and other officials who were debugging inside immediately came over and saluted.

"Excuse me, you go on, don't care."

Zhao Jun waved his hand.

He looked up at the field.

At this time, there was a huge steam engine on the railroad tracks of the school yard, and five iron carriages were pulled behind the steam engine.

Rails and iron cars are not difficult to make, and the carriages need to be said to be the first to make the mold of the train wheels, and then the mold of the rails, so that the wheels and rails can be tightly stuck together.

Then lay sleepers underneath, and then nail the rails one by one with iron nails on the top, connect the sleepers to the rails, and lay them on the ground, which becomes the track.

The difficulty in building a steam locomotive is whether the steam engine that pulls the car in front can provide enough power.

The Institute of Physics has done experiments before, and if the copper ring and lead gasket are used for sealing, the sealing is seriously insufficient, and the power generated is not enough.

At first, it can reach speeds of more than 30 kilometers per hour, but over time, the speed will decrease. It can only run seven or eight kilometers per hour with an iron car, which is no different from the speed of a human trot.

This is the same speed as the steam train that started in history.

Although Watt improved the steam engine in 1765, his initial improvements were mediocre.

It was not until 1769, 1776, 1782, and 1785 that the efficiency of the steam engine reached its peak, and it was three times more efficient than before.

And even in 1785, when Watt's steam engine was basically perfected, it was not widely used in England at that time.

It was not until after 1860 that Watt's steam engine became completely popular in Britain, rising from more than 500 machines at the beginning to more than 7,000 machines in the country.

But the steam train was invented in 1814, and when it was first invented, it could only run 8 kilometers per hour.

It wasn't until 1825 that the steam engine was improved with Watt reached speeds of 25 km/h. By 1840, it could reach 40-60 kilometers per hour.

This shows how significant Watt's improvement of the steam engine is.

Nowadays, the improvement of the Institute of Physics has been thoroughly perfected, including a separate condenser, an insulation layer outside the cylinder, an oil-lubricated piston, a planetary gear, a parallel motion linkage mechanism, a centrifugal governor, a throttle valve, a pressure gauge, a safety valve, and so on.

The efficiency has increased, so that when you first start running, the steam engine can reach the speed of the steam engine after Watt's improvement.

After running for a period of time, the copper ring will be in a high-temperature steam environment for a long time, thermal expansion and contraction, and a large number of cracks will appear on the surface, which will make the steam engine leak seriously.

The same can happen to lead pads, which can also lead to leaks and even explosions due to uneven pressure.

Therefore, the safety of the steam engine using copper rings and lead pads in the early stage was not reliable, and the sealing and power were seriously insufficient.

Even if you improve the internal structure of the steam engine, the fatal problem of tightness is here, which makes the steam engine unable to be mass-produced and put into use.

Unless, as in the case of racing cars, the steam engine changes copper rings and lead pads every time the train runs to the next train station.

But that would be less costly and time-consuming than riding in a horse-drawn carriage, so it was an unsolvable problem until Watt improved it.

Now that the rubber has finally come to the Great Song Dynasty, the unsolvable problem of tightness has finally been understood.

At this moment, Guo Jian took Su Song and others to dismantle the shell of the steam engine, remove the rest of the copper ring and lead pads in the steam engine except for the high-pressure boiler, and install the cutting and polishing rubber rings and rubber pads.

The reason why in addition to the high-pressure boiler is because the temperature of the high-pressure boiler can reach more than 200 degrees, and the rubber is not resistant to aging easily, so the inside still needs to be supported by copper rings, and the rubber mat is used on the outside.

In this way, even if the copper ring is affected by thermal expansion and contraction and cracks appear on the surface, the rubber mat can ensure that the steam inside cannot escape and is still in the internal circulation.

It was only at this time that Zhao Jun and many prime ministers saw the internal structure of the steam engine clearly.

Its size is extremely large, just a locomotive reaches more than two tons, and the main parts in it are composed of several large parts such as reciprocating steam engine, high-pressure boiler, throttle valve, centrifugal governor, etc.

I don't know how many other kinds of pipes, cylinders, pumps, and iron chains there are, and the whole structure is extremely complex, and it looks dazzling, and it is completely incomprehensible to non-university science majors.

This also shocked many prime ministers, including Zhao Jun, with the power of industry, and also made them full of admiration for these researchers in the School of Physics.

Although the imperial court spared no effort to support the academy, basically the imperial court gave as much as they wanted, and what raw materials such as iron, copper, and lead were piled up.

Even Zhao Zhen directly found the structure and production method of the steam engine in history, which greatly saved their research time.

But it's like in the future, before the experts of Big Brother Mao Bear left, they left a lot of drawings. But without the interpretation of the experts, our experts could not even understand the meaning of these drawings.

It doesn't mean that you can recover it by finding a way to construct and make it from history, but it takes a lot of wisdom and countless attempts.

In just ten years, the scholars of the Institute of Physics have almost reproduced the complete steam engine, which is enough to show that the wisdom of the ancients is far more powerful than we think, and they are just not as knowledgeable as the later generations.

After about half an hour, they finally reinstalled the whole machine.

Many technical officials climbed down the ladder without caring about the oil or gray on their bodies, and after simply wiping them, a few more people climbed into the front of the train and began to work.

About twenty minutes later.

"Boom!"

As a large amount of coal was incorporated into the furnace, the hot water in the boiler soon began to boil, and then the steam overflowed.

"Toot toot toot."

It's a bit like the roar of a tractor, followed by more than a dozen iron tires below, pushed by the mechanical rod, began to slowly turn, and the locomotive slowly started.

"Okay!"

"It's started again."

"Every time I look at it, it's shocking."

The crowd of onlookers erupted in enthusiastic cheers.

The School of Physics often starts trains for experiments because it needs to constantly tune the performance of steam engines.

But every time they look at it, they still feel extremely shocked.

The terrifying beast of steel, the gray-white billowing smoke from the chimney above, the metal sparks of the iron wheels on the track when braking, and the loud noise, were all deeply enchanting.

Even for people like Zhao Jun, who was born in later generations and are used to seeing the Harmony that can reach more than 300 kilometers per hour, seeing this classical steampunk is still moving.

The first industrial revolution, which I learned about in history textbooks in middle school, was completely improved by Jenny spinning machine in 1765 and Watt in 1785.

At the time, I didn't feel much about it, I thought it was just history, too far away from my own life.

It's very touching to see that this kind of power can still work in reality. Every leap in science and technology is really shocking, and the thousands of trillions of people who have created these technologies are even greater.

Those princes and generals are just a flash in the pan, you sing and I appear, only the people are the creators of history and the subject of history.

"Bang bang bang!"

Zhao Jun took the lead and began to applaud.

This form is not popular in the outside world and only appears in the Constitutional Yuan.

But he applauded, and the prime ministers began to applaud.

Immediately after that, the surrounding crowd of onlookers began to clap their hands and applaud.

The locomotive slowly drove the carriage behind it to move, and the speed became faster and faster, from seven or eight kilometers per hour at the beginning, and soon climbed to thirty or forty kilometers per hour, and even went up.

The school yard was already very large, and the train ran farther and farther, and soon drove for a kilometer or two, and then slowly slowed down, turned, and slowly drove to the left front with the melodious sound of the whistle.

Trains can't make sharp turns, so the tracks are laid diagonally, turning slowly, and finally after passing through an area of up to a kilometer, they finally move back.

The sound of the wheels rolling "coo-dong" first goes from near to far, and then from far to near, and the buzzing whistle seems to be like a flute that flickers from afar.

"Whoosh!"

When the train came back, it passed in front of Zhao Jun and the others, and at this time on the straight road, it had reached the limit of power, almost forty or fifty kilometers per hour.

That is to say, the site granted by the imperial court to the Institute of Physics is large enough, and it is estimated that it is the size of more than a dozen football fields, especially the length must be three or four kilometers, and the width is also one or two kilometers, with a total length of twelve kilometers.

Otherwise, you really can't give the train a place to show its strengths.

The train is still moving.

Because this experiment is to test whether the rubber ring and rubber pad can ensure the tightness under long-term operation, it must not be stopped for a short time.

Zhao Jun and the others watched for a while, he turned his head to look at Lu Yijian and them, they were still staring at the train in the distance.

"Let's go."

Zhao Jun said: "There is still official business to do in the afternoon. ”

"Let's go."

Lu Yijian wiped the corners of his eyes and said.

Seeing this, Li Di laughed and said, "Lu Xugong still has a day to cry?" ”

"The old man is moved by this great cause."

Lu Yi said with a straight face.

Saying that, he was quite emotional, looked at the roar in the distance, and said softly: "Only by seeing this with your own eyes can you experience the greatness and shock of industry." ”

"yes."

Wang Zeng next to him rarely did not give his old opponent a stone, but sighed and agreed: "Who would have thought that we would also witness this day of traveling thousands of miles with our own eyes? ”

"At least it's enough to see that kind of shock before we die."

Zhang Shixun also sighed.

Today's steam trains are almost perfect, and if they go straight, they can travel nearly a thousand kilometers in twenty-four hours at forty kilometers per hour.

Not to mention traveling thousands of miles a day, even if it is two thousand miles, it can already be done.

That's the greatness of industry.

It is also a great proof of historical development.

Under the protection of the guards, the crowd walked out of the crowd.

The roaring train behind him was still ringing.

Zhao Jun turned around and looked into the distance when he was about to leave the Institute of Physics.

The roar of "woo-woo-woo" continued.

If the experiment is successful.

Then the industry of the Great Song Dynasty will officially set sail, and ride the dust, leaving the whole world behind.

(End of chapter)

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