At the end of March, Li Mingxun stood in front of the dock of the military shipyard of Bangka Island. The dock is more than 90 meters long, twenty-five meters wide and seven meters deep. The two internal and external gates are separated from the sea surface. The bottom is built by giant strips of stone imported from Palembang Sudan. It is surrounded by military standard brick and stone building, booms, support columns, wood processing rooms, iron workshops, marinades and other marine facilities are assisted by the Naval Shipyard, the most powerful base camp. There are four similar dry docks on Bangka Island, two of which have been completed and two will be completed before June. After completion, Bangka Island has to maintain and repair four warships of more than 1,000 tons at the same time. Even if leaks are blocked, overhaul is not a problem.

There are 842 craftsmen in the military shipyard, including various types of work. In addition, there are 1,300 workers, including 120 engineers, management and important craftsmen from the two major shipyards of Krabi. The rest of the workers are all from the Malay Peninsula. In the several sultan countries destroyed by the United States, many of them have shipbuilding capabilities. These skilled craftsmen were used here, which also allowed them to embark on the road to freedom.

In the 17th century, only Britain and France had shipbuilding dry docks. Most countries, especially the Netherlands, used shipboards to build ships. Slides were set up on the coastline or on the flat ground by the river, processed the wood bit by bit, and then went down the slides along the slides. Most shipboards in the world were like this. A little better, but they were just to build a shed to improve their working ability in rainy and snowy weather.

The main reason for restricting the use of dry docks is drainage. The original "ship pit" can be used to make some small boats. However, the water consumption of large ship docks is too large. Tens of thousands of tons of water, animal power and human drainage machinery are not enough to support it. However, the United States is different. When Pan Xuezhong became the latest veteran of the United States, it means that the highly anticipated steam engine has entered the state of engineering use. As early as three years ago, the first prototype was manufactured and tested and improved in the Jinguashi copper mine. The first batch of large-scale use was the gold mine area of ​​Jincheng.

In the large workshop next to the dock, two steam engines are working. The twelve-meter-high walls made of bricks have become the support point for the steam engine lever. The top is supported by a cast iron beam, with arc-shaped arched parts on both sides. The huge boiler is under the beam. This is a huge barrel-shaped cooked iron boiler, which is riveted with rivets. In fact, the boiler is ordered for a self-owned workshop. The workshop has always provided brewing barrels for several domestic breweries. The boiler of the steam engine is only larger, with higher air tightness and firmness.

The top of the boiler is a cylinder, which is made of high-quality iron smelted from Hainan ore. The polishing process is carried out. The United States Gunpowder Ordnance Factory has been committed to the development of boring artillery, but the current technology can boring diameter is not enough to make a large enough cylinder. The reason is that hydraulic machinery cannot provide sufficient accuracy, and the diameter of man-made boring will not be higher than twenty centimeters. Therefore, it can only be allowed to grind the cast cylinders by skilled craftsmen. The final cylinder diameter reaches 85 centimeters. In the steam engine during the engineering application stage, the gap between the piston and the inner bore does not exceed one centimeter. For handicrafts, this is the highest accuracy, and Europe cannot have similar accuracy, because they do not have as many steel tools as Chinese craftsmen have.

In fact, there is no need to create more precise cylinders. Pan Xuezhong once gathered the best craftsmen to create a high-precision cylinder. The result was that the seal was too good and the boiler pressure exceeded one atmospheric pressure, causing the boiler to be damaged. Fortunately, it was only damaged and only burned a few craftsmen. If the boiler exploded, Pan Xuezhong might have.

The arch head is connected by a chain and the piston, and the device on the other side is connected to the pump-acting link. After the steam enters the bottom of the cylinder, the piston rises to the top of the cylinder. An operator closes the steam valve and opens the water injection valve. The water vapor in the cylinder condenses and atmospheric pressure causes the arch head to lift it to complete a water lifting work.

"This is the first practical steam engine in the United States. According to the order of His Excellency Pan Xuezhong, it was named Pangu No. 1. It can stably output six horsepower and vertically increase a height of about seven meters by 100 kilograms of water. This is the most complete batch of steam engines. The power of the same batch is between five horsepower and six horsepower. Within one minute, it can lift about half a ton of water." The engineer in charge of this steam engine introduced to Li Mingxun.

Li Mingxun nodded, which means that there is no need to build a step water lifting device for this dock. You must know that in the shipbuilding docks and some mines at the base camp, two or even four step water lifting stations are needed to discharge the accumulated water.

Pangu No. 1 is the most efficient steam engine that human handicrafts can produce so far. Under the current technical conditions, no one can do it more efficiently. In order to improve work capabilities, the Chinese Machinery Company under the Ministry of Science and Technology is preparing to improve the cylinders and boilers in parallel. As for increasing the boiler volume and increasing the cylinder diameter, it requires the metallurgical level and mechanical processing capabilities to make progress.

This atmospheric steam engine is limited by its working method and can only be used to lift water. However, the huge impact it has done is worthy of its name and its meaning is almost comparable to Pangu Kaitian. This is the world's first type of firepower machine. Although it can only lift water, it provides permanent power for the United States industry.

Steam engines used for water lifting, plus reservoirs and hydraulic machinery, industrial power is no longer limited to God. This is the biggest progress, and it also means that China's factory buildings do not need to be built only next to rivers with gaps, and do not have to endure the threat of floods and mudslides. Although using coal as power increases costs, it seems not worth mentioning compared to the cost of building dams.

At present, the hydraulic machinery with the highest technical level in the United States maintains the power at four horsepower, which is twice the world average, because this batch of state-owned machinery uses a large number of high-quality and high-precision steel parts. If a steam engine is used to build a reservoir that can stably output water flow, the efficiency of its hydraulic machinery will reach six horsepower. This means that the accuracy of parts processed by hydraulic machinery will be comprehensively improved, and the improvement of parts accuracy will bring about an improvement in mechanical efficiency. In this way, mutual promotion and mutual improvement will be achieved. Sooner or later, a steam opportunity only used for drainage will develop a mechanical blowing machine. This machinery is used in smelting. Stable atmospheric ventilation will increase the furnace temperature to 1,600 degrees, which means that the large-scale emergence of liquid steel water will also enhance the metallurgy industry.

The advancement of metallurgy and processing capabilities will bring about crankshafts, eccentric wheels, watt connecting rods and planetary gear sets. Even if this process is unlimited investment and support, it will take thirty or even fifty years. However, the result of development is that watt steam engines and humans enter the industrial revolution!

This is the way the steam engine has to go. It took Westerners a century and a half, and Li Mingxun to complete it in half a century or even a shorter time. In fact, he just wanted to see the Watt steam engine before he died. However, the use of the atmospheric steam engine allowed the United States to find a head in the complex mass of threads and opened the door to the industrial revolution. This is the beginning of industry, the origin of handicrafts towards industry, step by step!

Li Mingxun has formulated a smooth path for the development of steam engines, that is, to promote research through production. China Machinery Company owns the invention patent for steam engines. The steam engines produced are currently limited to various state-owned textile, mineral and manufacturing companies. The cost of purchasing steam engines of these companies supports the next step of research and development. The first ones to try the lead are Navy and Jincheng Mining Company. As a violent agency, the former only pays attention to capacity but not efficiency. Steam drainage machines can support the construction of dry docks on the front line. Dry docks can be used to maintain battleships, heavy patrols and armed transport ships, so the Navy will buy them.

(It is a cheap way to stand the ship on a flat beach through tide difference, but not all places can be implemented. Due to the small wind and tide difference in the equatorial area, warships with more than 1,000 tons are difficult to strand. The navy is reluctant to do this. At least it cannot be proved that similar practices will not have any bad impact on the structure of heavy warships.)

Jincheng Mining Company also doesn't care about efficiency because it produces gold. No matter how low the efficiency is, it will not affect the high profits of gold. The investment of steam engines allows the rainy Jincheng area to quickly drain water, which increases gold production. The steam drainage machine is not efficient, but it is higher than that of manpower and animal power. The saved slaves can be used to do other tasks.

The water in Dock No. 1 was quickly drained. The Taipei, which had already entered it, steadily landed on the keel pier at the bottom of the dock. Workers got off the dock one after another, and the booms hung the support columns. The hull on the side of the support columns, craftsmen repaired the surface of the Taipei, and eliminated the aquatic creatures at the bottom of the ship. It would take about five days to brush the newly prepared oil on it. This severe cruise ship with mild injuries could be put into the battlefield.

Between Dock 1 and Dock 2, construction workers are building a large water tower. After it is completed, sixteen steam engines will lift the water into the pool on the water tower in two stages. The water flows down and provides power to the shipyard for processing wood and forging iron parts through the water truck. This means that the shipyard's ship repair efficiency and ability will be improved. When the war is over, the shipyard can also be transformed into a shipyard.

After leaving the shipyard, Li Mingxun rode a horse to inspect other supporting facilities, machinery repair facilities, grain warehouses, hospitals and forts on Bangga Island. Thanks to the strong investment of the navy, the facilities on the island have become large in less than four months. The island has already stationed more than 6,000 troops, nearly 8,000 sailors and as many as 25,000 slaves, but the huge construction still makes people not enough to use. In addition to hiring labor and purchasing slaves from the surrounding indigenous tribes, the Marine Corps also captured slaves on Bangga Island and several surrounding islands.

In the 17th century, all major and small regimes in the Nanyang region basically converted to the Tianfang Cult. A large number of sultanate countries flooded the main islands of the Nanyang. However, unlike later generations, in fact, the power of the Tianfang Cult did not fill every corner of the Nanyang region. The information obtained from the slave capture on Bangka Island and the military operations of the Malay Peninsula can be proved.

Most of the sultanate countries were established in trade ports and important mineral and spice-producing areas. In previous history, these places had frequent exchanges with the outside world, so they were first influenced by Hinduism and then by Tianfang religion. Of course, in the areas where colonists lived and actually controlled by colonists such as the Philippines and Java, a large number of indigenous people were also influenced by Catholicism and Protestantism. But in fact, most of the tribes in the Nanyang area did not believe in these foreign religions. Most of these tribes living in remote islands and deep in the islands believed in primitive religions, especially those with imperfect developments such as Sumatra and Borneo. The various Tianfang religion regimes could not control the tribes inside the islands. In fact, until the 21st century, there were still many tribes that communicated with the outside world who believed in their own traditional religions.

Therefore, the slave capture operation on Bangka Island was not opposed by the Sultan of Palembang. After a large number of gifts and trade compensation policies, the two sides finally agreed that if the United States achieved victory in the war against the Netherlands, then the Sultan of Palembang would lease Bangka Island to the United States as a whole. Of course, if it fails, the decisions of both sides would have no basis.

In fact, after the rise of the United States, the Palembang Sultanate was greatly affected. The pepper industry that originally relied on for its living was severely damaged. The Chinese and European colonists were different. Most of the colonists used the trade situation to buy pepper and then sold it to Europe. These people were traders and at most they would suppress the prices of pepper growers to increase profits. However, the United States was different. After obtaining the territories of Luzon and Peking University, the United States, which had an excessive agricultural population, began to promote pepper plantations. These small sultanate countries were unable to compete with the United States.

The United States produced and sold its own products. Although it did not monopolize the pepper industry, it made most of the profits of this industry fall into the hands of the United States, so that even the Dutch were reluctant to acquire pepper.
Chapter completed!