xymnovel Chapter 50 Steam Engine
Chapter 50 Steam Engine
"No wonder Lord Yuan summoned the students in such a hurry; it turns out the Marshal has arrived!"
The young man in the blue cloth and short brown robe bowed respectfully to Zhu Ming.
"Chief Engineer Shen, there's no need for formalities!" Zhu Ming gestured with his hand.
The young man straightened up, but before he could say another word, a large hand had already been placed on his shoulder.
"Oh! Isn't this young friend Shen Tingyang? Why are you being so polite to the Marshal?" Shen Yourong leaned closer, her tone warm but tinged with a hint of displeasure. "I've been looking for you these past few days, but you've been ignoring me!"
Zhu Ming stood to the side, his eyebrows twitching slightly behind his mask.
Not content with digging into her own life, Shen Yourong has also set her sights on Shen Tingyang.
Shen Tingyang, a maritime expert and anti-Qing patriot in history, was a student of the Imperial Academy in the second year of the Tianqi reign.
Born into a wealthy merchant family in Chongming, whose ancestors were engaged in maritime trade between the north and south, accumulating a substantial family fortune.
The dozen or so large ships that Wang Tiqian used to sail to Southeast Asia last year were provided by Shenjia Shipyard.
When Zhu Ming got Shen Tingyang out of the Imperial College, he arranged for him to be the chief shipbuilding engineer at the Weihe Shipyard.
"General Shen, I am working for His Majesty!" Shen Tingyang was clearly not the first time he had been pestered like this. He simply cupped his hands in a respectful but not arrogant manner and replied.
"Young friend Shen, look, I, this general, am also working for His Majesty, and you are also working for His Majesty!" Shen Yourong's eyes darted around, and her tone immediately shifted, "Serving in my army, rounding down, isn't that also working for His Majesty...?"
"Ahem!" Yuan Keli coughed lightly, interrupting the scuffle from the side. "Old Shen, can't you stop for a moment? The commander-in-chief has come from afar; important business is at hand."
He turned to Zhu Ming, cupped his hands in greeting, and said, "General, Old Shen is just like that! Please don't take offense!"
Zhu Ming nodded without saying anything. He was relieved that the veteran still had such energy.
"Everything's arranged!?"
"Yes! It's all arranged!" Yuan Keli said. "This way, Commander."
Zhu Ming stepped onto the stairs, and the corner of his mouth under the mask twitched almost imperceptibly.
Shen Yourong's words were abruptly cut off, and she shut her mouth in annoyance, but her gaze remained fixed on Zhu Ming and Shen Tingyang's backs as she plotted how to get her hands on the two of them.
After taking a couple of steps, he suddenly paused, his brows furrowing as if he had thought of something, but he shook his head and followed.
The main hall of the Supervisory Office has changed its appearance.
Several craftsmen were busy at work, while two ship models lay quietly on a long table in the center.
As Zhu Ming stepped across the threshold, his gaze first fell on the boat.
A ship with mottled paint and an ancient design, without sails or masts, with a deck as flat as a floating platform, and a hull nearly half the width of an ordinary seagoing vessel, with a hidden groove at the stern, the groove's opening deep, as if it were to house some kind of mechanism.
The other boat was still relatively new, with a narrow and long hull and a low, flat deck. It also had no sails or masts, and an iron box protruded from the stern. Behind the iron box were two wooden impellers with brand-new rivets that gleamed with a cold metallic sheen.
That was the improved version of Zheng He's treasure ship and the model of the world's first steam warship that Zhu Ming had obtained in his dream a month ago.
It is now a 1:100 replica in the government office of the Weihe Shipyard.
"Your humble servant, Song Yingxing, pays his respects to Lord Yuan and the Commander-in-Chief!"
A man in his early thirties stepped forward. He was half a head taller than Shen Tingyang, with fair skin, wearing a scarlet official robe and a silver belt.
This person was Song Yingxing, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works, a third-rank official.
It would have been almost impossible for someone of that age to reach this position before the Wanli era.
But the Tianqi Dynasty was different. The Tianqi Dynasty had an emperor who did not follow the rules in appointing people, and that was the Tianqi Emperor Zhu Ming.
When Zhu Ming transferred Song Yingxing from Jiangxi to the capital, some people in the court objected, saying that how could someone who had only passed the provincial examination but had not even passed the imperial examination be appointed as a vice minister in the Ministry of Works?
Zhu Ming ignored the voices.
He had read the manuscripts that Song Yingxing had written during his field research, which contained records of the forms of agricultural tools, looms, water conservancy, and boats.
Nobody took those things seriously at the time, but Zhu Ming knew that those manuscripts contained something far more substantial than any memorial to the throne.
Six months ago, on the day Song Yingxing arrived in the capital, Zhu Ming summoned him at the Qianxi Wusuo and told him, "I want you to record all the crafts of the world and write a book to pass down to future generations. It will be called 'Tianqi Shengong Kaiwu' or 'Tiangong Kaiwu' for short."
This idea coincided perfectly with Song Yingxing's.
He then devoted himself to working for the Ministry of Industry and even assisted the Ministry in producing a gravure printing machine.
A month ago, after Zhu Ming copied the blueprints of the warships and treasure ships he had obtained in his dream, he sent him to the Weihe Shipyard to assist the shipbuilding chief engineer, Shen Tingyang, with the shipbuilding work.
So now Song Yingxing is at the Weihe Shipyard, watching the craftsmen make models, draw drawings, and process wood every day. He also systematically records the boat and vehicle manufacturing techniques, including boat structure and watertight compartment technology, and compiles them into core documents for the study of shipbuilding technology.
"Mr. Song, no need for formalities!" Zhu Ming nodded, then walked past Song Yingxing to the long table and circled the two ship models.
After a pause, he asked, "It seems you've finished building the model. How's the research going? Is it possible to replicate it?"
"It's not difficult to replicate it!" Shen Tingyang stepped forward, cupped his hands, and said, "The keel, deck, gun positions, watertight compartments, material ratios, mortise and tenon joints, and waterproofing treatment can all be enlarged exactly as they were."
He paused for a moment, then changed the subject, "But the student has a problem; there are some things about these blueprints that the student can't quite understand."
"explain!"
"If I'm not mistaken, this should be Zheng He's treasure ship!" Shen Tingyang walked up to the model of the ancient ship. "According to my family's records, Zheng He's treasure ship had nine masts and twelve sails, but this model is neither sail nor mast?"
"That's right!" Zhu Ming said, standing in front of the improved version of Zheng He's treasure ship. "This is indeed Zheng He's treasure ship."
"I was just saying that too. Zheng He's treasure ships, world-famous giant ships, how could they not have sails? How could they sail on the sea without sails?" Shen Yourong asked.
"I consulted the archives of the Ministry of Works and searched through all the files on ships from the Yongle to Zhengde periods. Among all the drawings marked 'Zheng He's treasure ships,' not one was without sails."
Song Yingxing spoke slowly from the side, his voice deep and steady, "The only record mentioning 'moving without wind power' appears in a miscellaneous record from the Chenghua era, and it's only a few words long. But a large ship can't move without sails!"
As a scholar of natural philosophy, he was also well aware of the history of shipbuilding and the principle that a large ship cannot move without sails!
"That's indeed a saying!" Shen Tingyang said slowly. "There is a record in the student's family notes that 'the dark wheel turns and then moves on its own,' which can make a giant ship move without sails. This dark wheel must be some kind of power mechanism!"
Shen Tingyang truly lives up to his reputation as a shipbuilding expert; he even came up with the mechanism for power generation.
"Yes, it must be some kind of mechanism that can do it, isn't that right, General?" Song Yingxing asked, realizing what was happening.
"Yes! The Ministry of Industry is researching this kind of power mechanism!" Zhu Ming said calmly, "and plans to test it on these two types of sailboats!"
"Oh! No wonder we felt something was missing when we were making the model!" Shen Tingyang exclaimed, suddenly realizing, "It wasn't the masts and sails, but that missing space on the hull!"
"Haha! I thought it was a storage room!" Song Yingxing said. "I was wondering if His Majesty had drawn the blueprints wrong!"
"General, could you tell us what exactly this power mechanism the Ministry of Works is researching?" Shen Tingyang then asked.
"Steam engine!" Zhu Ming said slowly.
As a time traveler, Zhu Ming knew that to enter the Industrial Revolution, the key foundation of core technology was the need for an improved steam engine.
The practical application of steam engines was first and foremost on ships!