Steel Dynasty - Chapter 299

[Chapter 299 The movement is forged]

After a spring rain, the weather gradually became warmer.

The roads in Qingzhou City have officially entered the construction stage. Cement workshops are busy producing cement day and night. At the same time, there are more private cement pipe workshops.

These workshops purchase cement from cement workshops and use molds to mix sand and cement to produce cement pipes.

After the underground pipelines were excavated in Qingzhou, the businessmen who contracted the construction of the pipelines in Qingzhou came to purchase these cement pipes every day, which actually made the shop owner of the cement workshop a lot of money.

After receiving another fifty taels of silver, Dai Zixing couldn’t help but smile happily. He is a local businessman in Qingzhou and one of the first batch of local businessmen in Qingzhou to join the Chamber of Commerce.

After road construction was put on the agenda, King Qi handed over the production process of cement pipes to the Chamber of Commerce. After learning the news, he immediately went to the Chamber of Commerce and spent a thousand taels of silver to acquire the process. At the same time, he also There are several other local businessmen who have mastered this craft.

During the construction of Qingzhou roads, King Qi paid special attention to local merchants, which really benefited him, Dai Zixing, and the local merchants.

Although he had to invest a lot to win this craft, the cost was quickly recovered after the workshop started, and he started to make a profit, which made him very confident in this cheap and practical product.

“Zhu Wuliu, I will accept this money.” Dai Zixing looked at Zhu Wuliu with a smile.

This young man from Zhujia Village has now become a celebrity in Qingzhou City. He borrowed three thousand taels of silver from the government office with the land deed and contracted the construction of ten residential streets and underground pipelines. This courage is not something ordinary people have.

“Shopkeeper Dai, this is very polite. I would also like to thank you for your willingness to give me credit some time ago, otherwise I would really have not enough money.” Zhu Wuliu said with a naive smile.

The people following Zhu Wuliu were all from Zhujiacun.

Since he contracted the road construction in Qingzhou City, he immediately returned to the village to hire people.

Each person earns 30 cents a day, and the young and old men in the village are vying to work with him. This leisure is also leisure. Thirty cents a day is almost one tael of silver a month.

Where can villagers find such good things?

“As you said, your brother is a great hero in our area. Based on your brother’s reputation, I can rest assured that I can lend you credit.” Dai Zixing smiled.

Zhu Wuliu recalled his brother’s heroic and handsome appearance in a dark green military uniform and felt proud. This time he was able to borrow three thousand taels of silver, and the King of Qi was particularly gracious to Zhu Sansi.

With emotion in his heart, Zhu Wuliu glanced at the setting sun in the west and said, “Anyway, thank you. I’ll invite shopkeeper Dai to the restaurant for tea another day.”

“Okay, okay.” Dai Zixing said happily, “That day It’s not too late. You should transport these pipes to Qingzhou City quickly.”

Zhu Wuliu nodded. This time he rented ten carriages to transport cement pipes, which also costs money.

He didn’t understand anything at first. The three thousand taels of silver he borrowed were spent very quickly, but King Qi gave him some advice.

From then on, he began to budget carefully, spend money to buy materials, rent carriages, and carefully arrange construction work. From then on, he slowly made money.

If the carriage cannot enter the city tonight, it will have to go the next day, and then there will be another day’s rent.

…

Inside Qingzhou City.

Xiao Ming rode towards the Equipment Department. When passing through every street in Qingzhou, he couldn’t help but take a look.

Due to construction throughout the city, the roads are now in a very messy state, with accumulated dirt everywhere.

Businessmen from six states are busy with the people, and cement roads have been laid in some places.

Generally speaking, paving a cement road is a relatively simple matter. Level the road, lay a layer of sand and gravel, stand up wooden boards 20 centimeters high on both sides, and pour concrete on top to flatten it.

Although this project is relatively large, it is more valuable because of the large number of people. Without machinery, Xiao Ming can only adopt the tactic of using a sea of people.

Therefore, in the past month, the roads in Qingzhou have been reduced to one-fifth, and the East City and West City, which are key construction areas, now not only have cement roads, but also paved cement floors.

In order to keep the two markets clean, garbage pools were also built next to the markets to allow vendors to dump their garbage into the garbage pools instead of littering everywhere.

While the roads are under intense construction, the production of cutting tools in the Instrument Department is not idle either. Today Song Changping brought news that he has refined spring steel.

The other members of the team have already forged the bolt parts, except for the main spring. Now that the spring steel has been successfully made, there is no problem with the bolt part.

When they arrived at the Equipment Department, Song Changping’s team was gathering together. Song Changping was holding the movement in his hand and was talking about something.

At this time, other craftsmen reminded him that Xiao Ming was coming, and he immediately turned around.

“Your Highness, look.”

Song Changping handed the mechanism of the flintlock gun to Xiao Ming.

Handing ready-made flintlock craftsmanship to these craftsmen means that these craftsmen directly skip the research and development stage and enter the mature production stage.

Therefore, it is not a difficult problem to forge the movement in one month.

The only problem was the spring steel on the movement, and this problem was solved by ferromanganese alloy.

“Your Highness, I have tested this iron-manganese alloy more than a hundred times before I can basically grasp the weight ratio of iron and manganese. The craftsmen have already forged the other parts of the movement.”

Xiao Ming nodded with satisfaction, and the spring The refining of steel can be said to have broken through an important node in flintlock technology, and the only thing left is the barrel.

Although the current technology is backward and the alloy produced has more impurities, it is more than enough for a flintlock gun. He does not pursue making spring steel meet modern standards.

“The movement is completed. Now install the movement on the gun stock.”

“Your Highness, what kind of wood is more suitable for this gun stock?” Song Changping asked.

“Both peach wood and walnut wood are acceptable. The wood of the gun stock must be fine in texture and have good toughness. Such wood has beautiful texture, good feel, is not easy to crack and deform, and is resistant to decay.” Xiao Ming looked at the machine and said.

The craftsmen have riveted the hammer, gunpowder pool, and spring buckle to the main structure of the movement, using traditional riveting techniques.

This method is very simple. It is to drill small holes in the accessories and the main body respectively, then insert nails, beat the two ends of the nails flat and deform, and attach them to the wall of the vessel, so that the parts can be combined together.

Song Changping nodded, “Your Highness, now that the movement has been forged, will we organize the craftsmen to divide the production?”

After working in the military workshop for a period of time, Song Changping naturally understands that the efficiency of division of labor is extremely high.

Like artillery, Xiao Ming is also planning to adopt a division of labor method this time. In fact, Europe also produced flintlock guns in this way during the era of flintlock guns. Otherwise, millions of flintlock guns would not have been produced during this period.

He said: “According to the current division of labor and cooperation of your team, now back to the military workshop, each craftsman will call several teams to be responsible for their respective parts, gun stocks, and assembly.”

(End of Chapter)