I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 393 Family Arrives in Beijing
"Have you tried the batch of Eucommia gum that I sent to you last time?" Zhu Houxun suddenly thought of something.

"We've tried it and found that the sealing of the cylinder can be improved a lot by using Eucommia gum, but the working temperature of Eucommia gum cannot exceed 80 degrees," said a researcher.

Zhu Houxun frowned and nodded.

An important technical indicator that affects the performance of a steam engine is the air tightness of the cylinder.

In order to improve the airtightness of the cylinder, Zhu Houxuan wanted to look for rubber at the beginning, but then he thought that Magellan had not completed his voyage around the world at that time, and the rubber tree is a native plant in South America. With the current navigation technology conditions, there would be no way to obtain rubber on a large scale in the next 10 to 20 years.

Since rubber could not be obtained in a short period of time, Zhu Houxuan turned his attention to the rubber substitute, Eucommia ulmoides gum.

Eucommia gum is a type of natural rubber. It is produced from the Eucommia tree, which belongs to the Eucommia family. It is a specialty of China, and more than 95% of the world's Eucommia resources are in China. Eucommia is also the world's most widely adaptable and high-quality rubber source tree species with the greatest development potential. Eucommia gum has a unique "rubber-plastic duality".

Eucommia ulmoides is one of the traditional Chinese medicinal materials, and the Eucommia tree is widely found in Shaanxi and Sichuan, so Zhu Houxuan asked people to collect a batch to see if it could be used, and the result is what we have now.

Zhu Houxuan quickly searched for knowledge about rubber in his mind. He paid little attention to it in his previous life, but he still thought of something.
He found a piece of paper and wrote the words "vulcanized rubber" on it. He knew that this was a way to increase the working temperature of rubber, but he didn't know how to do it.
"Let's offer a reward! The reward is for a method to increase the working temperature of Eucommia gum, which can be used to increase the air tightness of the cylinder. Let's set the reward amount at 10 silver coins." Zhu Houxuan said.

The researchers around were not surprised by this. They skillfully confirmed the relevant details with Zhu Houxuan and also recorded the research direction provided by Zhu Houxuan.

The Royal Group has mastered some basic chemical knowledge, and the word "sulfurization" can still provide some direction.

In fact, for a long time after the steam engine appeared, there was no rubber seal. The lower-level ones were oil-soaked hemp ropes, and the higher-level ones used metal (copper sheets in the early days, and most of the modern ones are aluminum alloys) gaskets plus lubricating oil for sealing. Many modern steam turbines also use metal mechanical sealing.

The current technical route taken by the Royal Group is also the metal gasket plus lubricating oil route, but this route requires relatively high processing precision, and it is still relatively troublesome to produce with the Royal Group's current technical capabilities.

If rubber could be used for sealing, the cost and difficulty of manufacturing the steam engine of the Royal Group would be reduced, and the performance would be improved, so Zhu Houxuan cared so much about the use of rubber.

In fact, the steam locomotives produced by the Steam Locomotive Research Institute can now meet the needs of commercial operations, but the key components of those steam locomotives are polished by the masters of the institute with their hands. Human hands are more precise than you think. Many industrial mother machines in later generations are polished by hand by masters in the last step.
But the steam locomotives manufactured in this way are bound to be very expensive. In addition to continuing to improve the performance of steam locomotives, the current research direction of the Steam Locomotive Research Institute is also studying how to improve the yield rate of mass-produced steam locomotive parts and reduce the failure rate of mass-produced steam locomotives. There is no other way. The flat North China Plain is too suitable for laying railways. The mileage of railways operated by the Ministry of Railways has been increasing. What the Ministry of Railways needs is not a few steam locomotives manually made by masters, but hundreds or even thousands of steam locomotives to meet the demand. In addition, several times this number of spare parts are needed. Such a large number of steam locomotives cannot be manufactured by masters bit by bit, but must be manufactured by industrialized mass production.

Therefore, the mass-produced steam locomotives of the Royal Group have not been finalized because the yield rate is not high and the failure rate is not low. If they are put into operation hastily, it may affect the operation.
Zhu Houxuan spent two full days at the Steam Locomotive Research Institute, and the final result was that the reward wall had more than ten new signs.
After finishing his visit to the Steam Locomotive Research Institute, Zhu Houxuan began to inspect other factories and mines in Tangshan, while also paying attention to the education of Mongolian prisoners.

With the advent of the grievance conference, work in this area has advanced rapidly.
"I suggest that visiting the steel plant be used as a part of educating the Mongols. An ordinary Mongolian herdsman is very poor and lacks iron. Many of their arrowheads are still made of bone. The biggest wish of many people is to have an iron pot of their own. The daily iron output of Tangshan Steel Plant is many times that of the Mongols in a year. Let those Mongolian captives take a good look at how we produce steel." Zhu Houxuan was standing on a high place in Tangshan Steel Plant, pointing to the open furnaces below.

"I believe that after they visit the steel plant, many people will lose the courage to be our enemy," Zhu Houxuan said with a smile.

The people accompanying him quickly wrote down Zhu Houxuan's words, which would be turned into orders to be implemented.
This is a microcosm of Zhu Houxuan's inspection, but a piece of news made Zhu Houxuan end this eastern tour ahead of schedule. However, most of the purposes of this eastern tour have been achieved.

Concubine Liu led her family from Qizhou northward and had already arrived in Tianjin along the canal, preparing to take the Ma-Lenin train from Tianjin to reach the capital.

This is the reason why Zhu Houxuan ended his eastern tour early.

He was overjoyed when he got the news, but after thinking it over, he decided not to go directly to Tianjin, but returned to the capital. Not long after he returned to the capital, Concubine Liu and her family arrived in the capital, and Zhu Houxuan and his men were already waiting for them at Chongwenmen Station.
After three years of separation, the family met and asked about each other's well-being and shared their innermost feelings.
Zhu Houxuan's two sons were also very curious about their legendary father, but their curiosity was mixed with a bit of fear and unfamiliarity.

Fortunately, Zhu Houxuan had been a father in his previous life, and he knew what little boys of this age liked most. With a little trickery, he quickly became familiar with his two sons.
After bringing the family to the Nangong, which had been cleaned up long ago, Zhu Houxuan continued to play with his two sons. As a result, the two little guys actually found a comic book. They didn't know how to read, but they were very interested in the pictures.
Zhu Houxuan simply told his two sons the story in the comic strip.
"Father, who is this mighty general?" Zhu Zaihao asked in a baby voice while sucking his fingers.

"I am the mighty general! I am the mighty general!" A somewhat proud voice suddenly came over.
Thank you all for your monthly tickets.

During the May Day holiday, monthly tickets are doubled. I’m so shameless as to continue to ask for monthly tickets!

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(End of this chapter)