My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 624 The Miracle Created by Huang Yueying's Pile Driver
Within a few days after Zhuge Liang learned about the personnel situation of officials in Jianwei County from Yang Hong, a decree on how to rectify and expand the production capacity of well salt and gas in Jianwei County was issued from Chengdu to Jianwei.

It is still the end of April and the busy farming season has not yet passed, so large-scale corvee labor will certainly not be conscripted at this time.

Small-scale construction would only take place after the summer grain harvest, the end of the double-harvest period, and before the autumn harvest. As for the large-scale conscription of tens of thousands of people, it would have to wait until after the autumn harvest and the entire winter farming off-season.

However, the technical solutions that Zhuge Liang was about to come up with had only been tested in the laboratory by him and his elder brother Zhuge Jin, and there was no condition for actual production. Therefore, it was very necessary to let local officials conduct small-scale trials to adjust the technology and cultivate the craftsmanship of craftsmen before conscripting corvée labor.

Only by accumulating the skills and construction experience of the craftsmen, when large-scale conscription of corvée laborers is completed, can we command and expand production with ease, so as to avoid temporary chaos and inefficiency, and avoid wasting the conscripted manpower.

And because of Yang Hong's recommendation, Zhuge Liang's latest "technical pilot policy" fell on Zhang Yi and Wang Lian, who were responsible for presiding over these tasks first.

If they progress quickly enough and do their work effectively, they will naturally get excellent grades in this year's performance evaluation, and it is only natural that they will be promoted to important positions in Jianwei County later.

But if they messed up or were obviously ineffective from the beginning, Zhuge Liang would not be partial. He would naturally handle the matter impartially and hand over the task to other candidates to take over as soon as possible.

……

On the eighth day of May, Han'an County, Qianwei Prefecture.

Wang Lian, the magistrate of Han'an County, and Zhang Yi, who had just rushed over from Jiangyang County further south, met Yang Hong, who was temporarily serving as Zhuge Liang's messenger, in the county government office.

Zhang Yi was the elder, so he took the initiative to ask, "Brother Ji Xiu, I haven't seen you for a long time. I wonder what the envoy's order is?"

Yang Hong: "I hope you will know that the envoy has already made a specific plan to build a large-scale construction project in Qianwei County. At present, there are some skills and techniques that need to be tested on the spot before large-scale corvée.

The envoy has reviewed the resumes and past achievements of the officials in Qianwei County and believes that you two may be qualified for this position."

As Yang Hong spoke, he took out Zhuge Liang's official document and explained the situation in detail.

Zhuge Liang ordered Wang Lian to lead the exploration and deep excavation of well salt in Han'an County, and let Zhang Yi specialize in the development and utilization of fire resources. If Wang Lian found fire when digging ordinary salt wells, he should also hand it over to Zhang Yi for unified disposal.

In order to facilitate the work, Zhuge Liang also provided some simple technical drawings and some written operating procedures.

It records how to dig deep vertical shafts, how to seal and transmit fire, and finally how to build matching furnaces for boiling and smelting.

In short, according to Zhuge Liang's division of labor, Wang Lian's focus is on well digging and exploration, while Zhang Yi's responsibility is luck and burning utilization.

The two of them are experts in their own fields and only focus on one niche area, so they can achieve results as quickly as possible and implement the technology application.

Wang Lian roughly read the information given to him, and he felt that his horizons had been opened and he was amazed:
"I have heard for a long time that when you were in Guandong, your strategy and divination were unparalleled in the world. When you were in Yuzhang County, you were able to use the magic of turning iron into copper and copper into gold, which increased the output of Yuzhang copper mine tenfold. After that, you used countless magical skills to benefit the people, which are beyond description.

I didn't expect that after arriving in Shu, there would be a magical method to benefit the people of my area. It is really a blessing for the people of Shu. It's just a skill of finding underground brine veins and digging wells, which is magical. "

At the same time, the technical information in Zhang Yi's hand was more difficult to understand, and the details were more complicated. He couldn't understand it for a while, but when he heard Wang Lian's exclamation, he couldn't help but come over to take a look.

After all, Zhang Yi's technology involves more material science, sealing, and airtightness issues, which cannot be understood intuitively by just looking at the mechanical structure. In comparison, Wang Lian's well digging technology is much more straightforward.

Yang Hong, who delivered the letter, had not opened the blueprint that Zhuge Liang asked him to bring. Before it was handed over to Wang Lian, the wax seal on the bamboo scroll was intact.

They gathered together to satisfy their curiosity.

"This method looks like using a huge hammer to hit the bottom of the well, but I don't know if the machine that lifts the hammer can lift the boulder fast enough and drop it so accurately. After it hits the bottom, how much of a crushing effect it can have on the hard rock at the bottom of the well."

"I'm afraid we can only know these things after we build them according to the drawings. Fortunately, it's not difficult to build the first trial well-drilling machine first."

Several people were discussing it, but they didn't know that the inspiration for this new well-drilling machine actually came 100% from Zhuge Lingjun's eldest brother, Zhuge Jin. When he was discussing well salt digging technology with his second brother, he naturally thought of the hammer pile drivers often seen on construction sites in later generations.

Of course, Zhuge Jin only provided an idea. After the idea came up, Zhuge Liang needed to use his brain to think about how to design the specific mechanical structure.

After Zhuge Liang figured out the implementation method, the final steps of checking for omissions and improving reliability were handed over to his wife Huang Yueying.

Huang Yueying was also good at craftsmanship and was interested in these things, so of course she didn't find it tedious.

This time, in order to ensure the smooth progress of the project, Zhuge Liang also approved Huang Yueying to go to Qianwei County in person to relax and provide on-site guidance.

However, as a female relative, Huang Yueying did not hold an official position, so it was not convenient for her to issue orders directly. The officials of the Yizhou Mufu helped to pass on the orders, and the specific work was carried out by Wang Lian, Zhang Yi and others.

……

Wang Lian and Zhang Yi naturally followed the envoy's orders.

So after just ten days, Wang Lian's first well-drilling prototype was successfully built.

Wang Lian did not choose to explore a new well. He only wanted to test the machine as quickly and safely as possible to ensure that there were no technical errors and the machine could be used. Therefore, he directly chose the largest and deepest fire-free salt well outside Han'an County that was already in normal production. He instructed the salt workers to prepare for the shutdown in advance, and then erected the machine directly above the old well.

On the day of the test, the officials of the Yizhou Mufu had guards escort a carriage to the construction site. In the carriage sat a woman in her twenties, with a veil on her knees, as if she was ready to put on the hat at any time so that she could get off the carriage for inspection.

This woman was naturally Huang Yueying. These days, the well-drilling machine in front of us was also built under her personal advice.

At this moment, this vertical shaft, several meters high, with huge wood frames and reinforced with thick iron bars, stands right above an old salt well.

The appearance of the machine is similar to the pile drivers used to drive foundations on construction sites in later generations, but it is a bit more crude and not as high as the professional pile drivers of later generations.

The technology of "fragmented well-drilling method" seems to be difficult to implement in ancient times, but in fact, in history, in Zigong, Shu in the late Northern Song Dynasty, craftsmen had developed a similar method of well-drilling.

However, there was no steam power in ancient times, and the sledgehammer used to drive piles was lifted by a mechanical structure similar to the one used to lift the counterweight of a trebuchet. The speed was very slow, and the weight lifted was not too large.

In this life, the Zhuge brothers invented an early counterweight trebuchet several years ago, and made many contributions in the battles of siege and capture. The early model was first put into actual combat when attacking Jiangxia County guarded by Huang Zu eight years ago.

It has been eight years. With the wisdom of Zhuge brothers, it is only natural to move the structure of squirrel cage crane to pile driver by slightly changing the pillars. It is not difficult at all.

In comparison, detailed technical issues such as "how to limit the trajectory of the heavy hammer as it falls to prevent the heavy hammer from flying around and smashing the machine frame" are more difficult.

Huang Yueying looked through the thin car curtain, recalling the hard work of the past few days and the twists and turns in the research and development and trial production process, and was distracted for a while.

In just a short while, the sturdy man in charge of stepping on the lifting rat cage had already pulled up the flat-headed solid cast iron hammer tied with an iron chain on the frame to a height of ten or two feet.

The cast iron hammer is about several feet in diameter and nearly half a foot in height. According to the density of iron, the hammer is at least half a cubic meter and weighs four or five tons, which is equivalent to 20,000 Hanjin.

The bottom surface of the hammer is relatively smooth, and the center of gravity and the horizontal line are also relatively accurate. Make sure that the bottom surface is basically parallel to the ground when hanging, so as to prevent it from being knocked crooked when hitting.

There is a hollow hammer ear on each side of the hammer, and two thick steel rods wedged into the ground just pass through the "ear holes" of the hammer, which can also ensure that the hammer does not fly around when it falls.

These technical details seem easy to later generations, but in the Eastern Han Dynasty, they cost Huang Yueying a lot of brain cells.

Right below the hammer, there was a steel wedge pile whose top surface was basically in line with the bottom surface of the hammer. With a shout from the clerk in charge, the strong men on the cage crane immediately unlocked the limit mechanism of the heavy hammer that had been raised to the top.

The heavy hammer, weighing several tons, fell rapidly along the limit steel rod that passed through the ear hole. It trembled slightly left and right during the fall, but was blocked by the limit steel rod, and rubbed against the limit steel rod to produce some sparks.

"Bang!" With a loud bang, the big iron hammer slammed into the giant wedge made of cast steel, just like a hammer hitting a nail, driving the nail deep into the ground.

The hard stone structure at the bottom of the old salt well was smashed by such a huge hammer and shattered in an instant. The steel wedge was directly inserted into the rock more than a foot deep.

After the smoke and dust cleared, Wang Lian was the first to excitedly run to the well and asked the craftsmen to actually survey the situation. Knowing that just this hammer had such power, Wang Lian was naturally surprised.

"With one hammer, you can break more than a foot of rock at the bottom of the well? Madam Zhuge, I'm so happy! I've been dealing with well salt for a year or two, and I've never seen a well being dug so quickly!

In the past, it would take at least several days to chisel a foot-deep rock, or learn the water-fire method, repeatedly burning it and then pouring cold water on it, waiting for the rock to crack by itself due to the alternating hot and cold. Now, it seems that each hammer blow takes half an incense stick of time to lift the giant hammer, but one hammer blow is equivalent to several days of manual shoveling in the past!"

When Wang Lian announced the good news to Huang Yueying through the car curtain, his tone was full of sincere awe.

After all, the work of just one hammer is equivalent to the original several days of construction progress. This is too scary. With such a magic weapon, the rapid expansion of the well salt industry is definitely just around the corner!

Of course, the original use of manpower to dig with shovels and spades would require fewer people. Because the bottom of the well is narrow, it can accommodate at most three or four people working at the same time. Some wells are deeper and can only accommodate one or two people digging at the bottom of the well.

The current model of using a vertical shaft frame and a crane pile driver requires at least a dozen people to work on the entire construction site. If the machine is enlarged and the cage crane part is also enlarged, it will be no problem to accommodate more treadle crane operators.

So in terms of manpower input, the new machine does require a lot of hard work. But this is definitely a good thing for Wang Lian - in the previous old model, even if you want to invest more people to speed up the progress, you can't. There is only enough space for this amount of labor, and if there are more people, they will be idle.

Therefore, digging wells usually requires full-time well diggers who do this work all year round. When the government levies corvée during the slack season, it brings in many temporary workers who often have no conditions or skills to join in.

But it is different now. This new model is very suitable for "using a large number of temporary workers during the slack season". Anyway, operating a crane requires no technical skills and anyone with absolutely no basic knowledge or training can operate it.

For each machine and each construction site, as long as there are two or three people who are responsible for overall management and operation and command and understand the technology, the other manual workers do not need any technology.

Once "corvée laborers" can flow into the salt well mining industry, wouldn't the accelerating effect on this industry be like a blowout?
Wang Lian and Zhang Yi's admiration for Zhuge Liang and his wife naturally reached an unprecedented level.

They have completely and blindly believed that if the envoy says he can do something, he can definitely do it.

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PS: I promise there will be a second update today, but it will be late. Maybe late at night, but I promise it will be there.

(End of this chapter)