Steel Dynasty - Chapter 10

[Chapter 10 Shoulders of Giants]

Chen Wenlong’s words are very vague, but this is indeed the actual problem Xiao Ming is facing now.

Prince Qi’s palace has no money, and it is difficult for a clever woman to make a living without rice. It is impossible to force a strong man, otherwise the sky will be angry and the image he has just established will collapse again.

“The matter is yours, the money is mine.” Xiao Ming gritted his teeth. He wanted to integrate the equipment company even though he was trying to sell it. This was his only chance to turn around.

Otherwise, due to the poverty of this fiefdom, even if Yao and Shun were reincarnated, he would have to die under the butcher’s knife of the barbarians in two years.

Chen Wenlong looked at Xiao Ming, who was frowning and thinking hard, and was puzzled. This equipment department had never been taken seriously in Dayu Kingdom, and King Qi didn’t know what he had done today.

However, remembering the surly character of King Qi in the past, he did not dare to ask more questions. He thought that King Qi might just have a whim, but since he gave the order, he could only reply: “As you command, Your Highness.”

Chen Wenlong told Chen Wenlong to take care of the carpenters in the city. The blacksmiths gathered together, and Xiao Ming thought about how to raise money all the way back to the palace.

Calling Qian Dafu, he asked: “Dafu, how much silver do we have in Prince Qi’s Mansion?”

“Back to Your Highness, plus the silver taels that Concubine Zhen asked Aster and Lulu to bring, we still have about one thousand taels of silver in Prince Qi’s Mansion. “A thousand taels?

“

Xiao Ming frowned.

In the past, Xiao Ming didn’t have the ability to make money, but he did have the ability to spend money. He used the money from Concubine Zhen’s relief to spend a lot of money, and he knew the prices of things in Qingzhou City very well.

Generally speaking, one tael of silver in Dayu can buy two stones of rice. According to his experience, one stone in Dayu is equivalent to one hundred and twenty kilograms in modern times.

One tael of silver can buy 240 kilograms of rice, and the average price of a kilogram of rice in modern times is basically two yuan and a half.

So one tael of silver is basically equivalent to 600 yuan in modern RMB.

This thousand taels of silver may seem like a lot, but it is only enough to cover the expenses of the palace. After all, the servants, grooms, and cooks in the palace all need to be paid.

For example, if Qian Dafu is rich, his salary for a year will be twenty taels of silver, and his pothos and aster will also cost him fifteen taels. Add in food and drink expenses, and the remaining money will be limited.

“Give me five hundred taels.” Xiao Ming stretched out his hand.

“Your Highness, this is the new year’s silver issued by the empress this year. I have brought it all to you. You should save some money.”

Qian Dafu was stingy, fearing that Xiao Ming would squander the money again like in previous years.

“This king is doing business this time, and I am not looking for flowers.” Xiao Ming curled his lips.

After Qian Dafu heard this, he hesitated and took out five hundred taels of silver notes and gave them to Xiao Ming.

After receiving the banknote, Xiao Ming said to Qian Dafu: “I’ll take care of the pen and ink. I want to send a letter to my father.”

Qian Dafu had become numb to Xiao Ming’s weird behavior in the past two days, so he asked his servants to prepare the pen and ink immediately. Paper inkstone.

Of course, he did not write this letter to reminisce with Xiao Wenxuan, but to cry out about poverty. The letter probably meant that the land was in poverty and the people would not be able to eat.

Even so, he still has to spend money and strength to resist the barbarians. He just captured thirty barbarian cavalry yesterday and suffered heavy losses. The Equipment Department has no money to make arrows and hopes to provide some assistance.

“Send to Chang’an quickly!” Xiao Ming glanced at the eloquent, thousand-word essay on crying the poor with satisfaction and threw it to Qian Dafu.

If Xiao Wenxuan still cares about his family ties, maybe he can allocate some money. If Xiao Wenxuan is heartless, this letter will be regarded as disgusting him.

Xiao Ming had basically thought of ways to raise money, and the only one left was the local wealthy family.

However, these people will definitely not be willing to dig into their pockets. They wish that Prince Qi’s palace was half dead so that they could be at ease.

But Xiao Ming will not let them go. Nowadays, these wealthy families are like fat sheep. Xiao Ming is a man who can’t pluck his feathers, let alone fat sheep.

After thinking about it, I guess I can’t get it by force, but it’s very easy to make them cough up money. These wealthy families are either officials or part-time businessmen. As long as there are products they are interested in, they are not afraid of not spending money to buy them.

In the next three days, Xiao Ming stayed in the Equipment Department all day. Five hundred taels of silver made the Equipment Department unprecedentedly wealthy. The wood, coal cakes, and iron ore purchased every day came in and out, changing the desolate appearance of the past.

In the Equipment Department, thirty craftsmen were sitting on the floor, and Xiao Ming stood in front of them and kept talking.

These thirty craftsmen are basically all the craftsmen in Qingzhou, mainly carpenters and blacksmiths. What Xiao Ming is telling them now is something they have never heard of – a lathe.

After analyzing the knowledge in the technology library and combining it with the experience of the first industrial revolution, Xiao Ming believed that the basis of the industrial revolution was lathes. These lathes include boring machines, milling machines, grinders, drilling machines, gear processing machines, etc.

On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, it was the birth of these tools that produced precision mechanical parts, and the precision mechanical parts produced qualified steam engine cylinders.

The steam engine further automated lathes, and more sophisticated spare parts appeared, making more machinery possible.

During the Warring States Period, primitive lathes appeared in China. These lathes were generally used to cut logs for waterwheels, and this craft has remained.

It’s just that the lathes of this period had a wooden structure and were powered by pedals, and the machine tools were not firmly fixed.

A real lathe requires high-quality steel so that the machine tools can be fixed and process various equipment parts.

As the saying goes, if a worker wants to do his job well, he must first sharpen his tools. This refers to the tools of the craftsman.

The lathe, as the accumulated result of craftsmen’s skills, was also the basis for inducing the industrial revolution.

What Xiao Ming has to do now is to first let the craftsmen make various tools.

Now that he is standing on the shoulders of giants, he does not need to follow the long steps before the industrial revolution, but goes straight to the point.

Of course, before making the lathe, Xiao Ming had to do one more thing, which was to teach these craftsmen how to make steel.

Xiao Ming observed the steps taken by these craftsmen to build weapons. Strictly speaking, these craftsmen were still using the traditional steel filling method. The steel refined by this method could still be used in machine tools.

But originally he wanted to teach them the crucible steelmaking method, but no one here knew where the material for the crucible, graphite, was.

However, through the science and technology library, Xiao Ming learned that Shandong was originally a province of graphite mines in the modern era. By pinpointing the location of the graphite mines, he could have people search for them.

At that time, he can fire crucibles and realize large-scale crucible steelmaking.

It is now the end of the seventeenth century, and the country of Chongqing is just like the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties and is completely unaware of the changes in the outside world.

Because of the lack of information, Xiao Ming didn’t know.

But he knew that the Mongolian conquest of Europe did not seem to have happened in history. If Europe had achieved a stable period at this time, he could not predict the extent to which European civilization would now reach.

(End of chapter)