My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 625 Interlocking
Having witnessed the power and efficiency of the "pile-driving well digging machine" designed by Zhuge Liang and Huang Yueying, officials such as Wang Lian and Zhang Yi are now full of confidence in expanding the well salt production capacity of Jianwei County on a large scale within this year.

It is the laymen who watch the excitement while the experts watch the doorway. Huang Yueying, who personally participated in the improvement of this product, is calmer than these people.

"This well digger is not stable enough, not level enough. Every time I put down the heavy hammer, the iron rod that limits the hammer's trajectory rubs against it and sparks fly... How can this be? And the more times I hammer, the more intense the sparks become?
That's right! It must be that the wooden frame of the well digger itself was not sunk deep enough. The ground here is shallow and loose. After hammering for a long time, the base is loose and tilted. Next time I dig a well, I have to drive piles under the frame to stabilize it. It's really a case of sharpening the knife before cutting wood..."

Huang Yueying relied entirely on her years of experience studying mechanics with her husband to quickly figure out the problem, and while whispering to herself she worked out possible solutions.

The design of the machine was already quite complete when it was in Jiangzhou and Chengdu, and the Zhuge couple had also conducted experiments elsewhere. So when it was moved to Han'an County, Qianwei County, for practical use, new problems immediately arose.

People who know how to control variables and conduct group inspections will easily think that the specific geological conditions at the construction site are not good, and they need to improve the construction process in light of the local actual conditions.

Of course, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were definitely not many people who knew how to control variables and group troubleshoot fault factors. But everyone in the Zhuge family knew how to do it, including the women who married into the Zhuge family.

This kind of scientific and engineering thinking was subtly popularized by Zhuge Jin in his family for more than ten years. Even if the family members did not formally learn it, they gradually developed this thinking habit after being influenced by it for a long time.

Huang Yueying still vaguely remembers that many years ago, when her husband was studying how to efficiently mine and smelt copper in Yuzhang, there were many newly developed technologies that worked well in one mining area but not in another. They worked well in the mining area of Tongling County but not in Poyang County.

My husband was still young at the time, not yet twenty, and he had not thought about the problem comprehensively, so he was puzzled for a while.

Later, when my husband and his elder brother were discussing and learning from each other, they drank a little wine. When he was a little tipsy, his elder brother gave some very concise teachings. He said, "To investigate the cause of the problem, we must start from the 'man-machine-material-method-environment', and investigate one angle at a time, without missing any blind spots."

My husband didn’t understand what he said at first, so he asked for his advice. His elder brother said, “For the same technology, if it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, we should first look for the cause from the craftsman’s improper behavior. If we can’t find the cause, we should look for the cause of the machine itself. If we still can’t find the cause, we should look for the material, such as ore. If we still can’t find the cause, we should check the process, and finally the environment.”

These teachings played a role in her husband's many innovative domestic construction and water conservancy projects. Huang Yueying herself also kept them in mind and did not expect to put them into practice now.

……

Thanks to Huang Yueying's personal efforts to improve and adjust the process according to local conditions, the salt well excavation work in Han'an County went very smoothly during the remaining days of May.

Although the number and depth of the salt wells dug were not worth mentioning, at least they had a clearer understanding of how to construct, how to install the pile-driving well digging machine, and how to manage production. When the large-scale corvée labor was levied during the slack season, they could naturally expand production quickly and speed up the work.

Of course, Huang Yueying only pointed out a few technical issues here. The specific management and coordination must still be the responsibility of local officials such as Wang Lian.

Wang Lian was also responsible for the expenditure of money, food and manpower, and the thorough investigation of accounts during the entire trial production process.

Zhuge Liang was very fair in employing people. He said he would test them fairly, and he would not give special treatment to anyone. If Wang Lian and Zhang Yi did not do a good job, Zhuge Liang would still let Huang Yueying guide the technology and not ask about other things. He only looked at these specific officials to see who could do things other than technology well.

After all, scientific research management and engineering management are also very complicated jobs that require technical officials to handle.

Traditional civil servants in the Han Dynasty did not know how to manage "R&D losses". They might spend a lot of manpower and material resources, but in the end nothing was researched out. The key point was that the accounts were not clear, and it was unclear what the excess materials and manpower were used for.

As for Zhuge Liang, on the one hand, he was very good at management and was good at investigating fraud. On the other hand, Zhuge Liang in this life also learned a lot of experience and common sense of scientific research management from his elder brother over the years.

Therefore, when Zhuge Liang asked his subordinates to plan and improve the technology, he always required very clear accounts. Even if the product was not made, the number of failed experiments and the amount of materials consumed in each failed attempt had to be clearly recorded, which was like "if the person is alive, we must see the opportunity; if the person is dead, we must see the body."

Based on this point alone, other civil servants in the Han Dynasty would certainly not be able to achieve "scientific research management".

If Wang Lian and Zhang Yi dared to falsify the accounts of "overconsumption due to failed R&D", Zhuge Liang, with his level of ability, would definitely be able to see it at a glance.

This was also one of the parts of Zhuge Liang's performance evaluation of his subordinates.

However, Wang Lian and Zhang Yi were quite sensible. Throughout May and even June, the R&D accounts were always honest and they tried their best to be detailed. They strictly followed the requirements of Zhuge Liang.

It can be seen that, firstly, there is no problem with his attitude, and secondly, he has a solid foundation in mathematics. As a responsible official, he can personally inquire about and self-check the relevant accounts and make them clear at a glance.

Zhuge Liang would inquire about the relevant situation every ten days, and after learning the results, he was quite satisfied with these people.

If nothing unexpected happens, by this winter, after the large-scale expansion of the newly dug salt wells and the gas wells for boiling salt and smelting iron is successfully completed, Zhuge Liang will be able to successfully promote Zhang Yi and Wang Lian.

...Throughout May and June, Wang Lian's new salt well construction technology was well-adjusted.

Zhang Yi encountered a little more trouble. However, with his step-by-step efforts and strict compliance with the drawings and ideas provided by Zhuge Liang, everything was progressing slowly.

Zhang Yi's main task is to collect the natural gas coming out of the deep wells, transport it in a centralized manner, and then use it for incineration and heating.

At the beginning, Zhang Yi found it incredible to transmit gas in a sealed manner over such a long distance. People of this era generally did not even have the concept of air pressure, nor did they know what a vacuum was. Their concept of gas transmission was at most the level of using a water pump to blow air.

Therefore, after reading the drawings provided by Zhuge Liang and the relevant materials mentioned in the text description, Zhang Yi could only think according to his own understanding that Zhuge Liang wanted to build a leather bellows with a very long exhaust duct.

He asked someone to cut down some bamboos that were unique to Shu and had particularly long joints, and then cut off the middle joints to form an empty tube several feet long. If it was still not long enough, he would continue to cut mortise and tenon joints between multiple bamboos, then seal them with glue and other materials, and then slightly dry them over fire to tighten them. Finally, he would paint the outside of the bamboo tube with glue paint.

In addition to the airtight transmission pipeline, Zhang Yi also asked people to figure out how to seal the wellhead of the gas well to prevent gas from overflowing from the edge of the wellhead, how to separate the wellheads that emit gas and brine... and many other technical details, which do not need to be elaborated one by one.

Anyway, the Zhuge brothers had discussed the major issues before and had outlined plans. The minor details would depend on them to slowly figure out through actual practice.

These minor problems were easy to solve. By June, Zhang Yi had finally successfully collected the fire gas produced by the fire gas well and was able to use it in a centralized manner.

However, when trying to ignite the fire, some minor accidents still occurred for the first time. It may be that the pipe that stores and leads out the fire gas has unstable air pressure, and the air refluxes and mixes with the natural gas. When ignited, it was equivalent to a direct "backfire", causing a very small explosion.

The explosion blew up several bamboo gas pipes that were affected by the backfire, and also killed and injured several firemen. When Zhang Yi heard about it, he felt blood rushing to his head, and he hurriedly rode back to Chengdu to report to Zhuge Liang and apologize.

Zhuge Liang had not expected such an accident to happen. He immediately provided compensation to the casualties, and then encouraged Zhang Yi not to be afraid of the technical accident, but to work hard to explore and correct it.

After all, Zhuge Liang had been trained by his elder brother for many years, and his basic skills in natural science thinking were very solid. When he encountered this accident, he pondered for a long time, and suddenly remembered a sentence of instruction from his elder brother when he invented the steel pouring method with him.

At that time, Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang concluded: The reason why the pouring steel method is faster in steelmaking than the frying steel method is because the pouring steel method uses completely liquid molten iron, which can penetrate more pores than the iron filings fried in the frying steel method, has more comprehensive contact with the wrought iron rods, and reacts faster.

From then on, Zhuge Liang also formed this kind of thinking: the faster a reaction is to be, the more thoroughly the substances involved in the reaction must come into contact and mix...

"Brother once said that explosion is just a much faster form of combustion. This explosion of fire is naturally an accelerated form of fire combustion... In this way, we can also apply what Brother said back then about 'why pouring steel is faster than frying steel'.

The less the fire gas comes into contact with the air, the slower it burns, just like when the bellows are not blown, the flame will become smaller. The more the fire gas comes into contact with the air, the faster it burns, and when it is too fast, it will explode... In this case, we must find a way to prevent the fresh air outside the well from flowing back into the fire gas pipeline..."

Zhuge Liang was able to draw inferences from one instance to another and guess the reason for his elder brother's outburst of anger based on the few words about chemical thinking that he had condensed when he was working on the steel-casting method.

Of course, this is just speculation. Given Zhuge Liang's cautiousness, he would not jump to conclusions before proof.

But it was also easy to prove. With Zhuge Liang's brain, he thought of how to design the experiment almost instantly.

He then instructed Zhang Yi: "After you go back, make a few more air ducts. This time, remember to install a blast bellows used in blacksmith shops before the air outlet. If the fire gas surges out in large quantities and blocks the air outlet, the bellows will inevitably expand.

In the future, you only need to light a fire when the fire well is swollen before and after the air is released. If the fire well is blocked, it means that too little air is coming out of the fire well, and the fresh air on the ground is flowing back. At this time, you must not light a fire. "

Zhang Yi didn't understand the principles behind these technical ideas at all, but when he saw that the envoy explained them in a clear and logical manner and categorized them clearly, he felt relieved for no reason.

After Zhang Yi returned, he followed Zhuge Liang's instructions and continued to work hard. Although it took more than a month longer than Wang Lian to produce results, he still managed to repair the first few gas-fired salt-boiling factories and gas-fired iron-smelting furnaces.

When the fire was officially used in production, Zhang Yi was soon shocked to find that the heat generated by burning this substance was far greater than that of burning peat and charcoal.

When using fire to heat the iron smelting furnace, it is even possible to completely melt the wrought iron into molten iron.

"This fire-heating method is so effective. If it can be promoted, it would be a great achievement..."

Zhang Yi felt full of strength. He must use the extremely high temperature of the fire to refine some high-quality steel that would be praised by the lord and the envoy as quickly as possible. In this way, as long as he took these results to ask the lord to increase the investment of resources, the lord would definitely approve.

(End of this chapter)