Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 176 Tai Chi Monkey Show: Which One is the Monkey? (Part 2)

Zhang Xianzhong was blocked east of Luzhou Prefecture and could not advance an inch. He could only turn around and go to Huoshan and Yingshan, which were inaccessible by ships, and then flee to Huangzhou Prefecture in Huguang.

He thought that this would allow him to shake off the naval warships equipped with a large number of firearms.

Little did he know that his whereabouts had been thoroughly investigated by the soldiers of the Beijing Garrison using binoculars.

Moreover, Huangzhou Prefecture in Huguang is located in the Yangtze River basin, and there are more waterways there than in Luzhou Prefecture.

As a result, when Wang Laiping arrived with thirty ships and more than seven thousand musketeers from the Beijing Garrison, this guy had just emerged from Yingshan.

Now, he was not only blocked, but also attacked. The territory of Huangzhou Prefecture is crisscrossed by rivers.

He was so badly beaten that all he wanted to do was turn around and go back to Yingshan and Huoshan, and return to Luzhou Prefecture.

However, that would be pointless. If he returned to Luzhou Prefecture, he would still be blocked, and he would have already robbed most of the local tyrants and gentry there, so there would be nothing left for him to eat.

He had no choice but to obediently flee north back to Runing Prefecture.

There was no way around it; being hit by a musket bullet hurt, the pain was unbearable.

For some reason, the naval warships would chase after them and shoot them whenever they got close to a larger river.

His bandits were so badly beaten that they were terrified of any large river they could cross by boat.

Zhang Xianzhong failed to walk his dog properly and ended up being blocked for nearly a thousand miles, which was really frustrating.

Zhu Jue was in high spirits upon receiving the news.

Zhang Xianzhong finally scurried back with his tail between his legs, and Song Yingxing also finished making the machine for processing porcelain blanks.

Around 9 a.m. that day, he had just finished reviewing the memorials and couldn't wait to take Zheng Zhilong and Wang Chengen to the porcelain factory.

By this time, the factory had changed completely.

The rows of foot-operated billet presses have disappeared. There are only two machines in the huge factory: one is a mixer the size of half a boiler, and the other is a row of self-rotating billet trays.

Zhu Jue stepped forward to take a look and was speechless.

The mixer's casing was actually a modified half-boiler, with a clay outlet and a pull-out baffle added to the bottom. The mixing shaft was inserted directly into the vent.

Upon seeing the group enter, Song Yingxing quickly stepped forward, cupped his hands, and bowed, saying, "Your humble servant greets Your Majesty."

Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "How is it, Chang Geng? Have you tried it? How was the result?"

I have certainly tried that.

Song Yingxing nodded repeatedly and said, "I've tried it, I've tried it, and the effect is surprisingly good. The speed of processing porcelain blanks is also surprisingly fast."

That's good.

Zhu Jue waved his hand without hesitation and said, "Let them get to work, I'll take a look."

Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing immediately waved his hand to summon all the craftsmen around him, urging them to get to work.

At the beginning, they were still mixing clay or mud, but instead of stomping on it with their feet, the craftsmen simply carried baskets of clay and poured them into the mixer.

After the clay was poured in and turned around for a while, a craftsman brought over a thick wooden board with many round holes.

Immediately afterwards, a craftsman pulled out the iron plate under the mixer.

With a soft thud, a large pile of clay fell onto the thick wooden board.

Several craftsmen quickly carried out the wooden planks, lay down on them, and shoved them with their hands. Then they used a long wire bow to scrape them, lifted the thick planks upside down, and banged them against the thin planks next to them. The hundreds of uniformly sized mud cakes fell onto the thin planks.

Upon seeing this, Zhu Jue couldn't help but show a hint of surprise on his face.

This is just like making mooncakes, except that mooncakes are made one by one, while these clay cakes are made in batches of one hundred.

Seeing this, Song Yingxing said somewhat awkwardly, "Your Majesty, the method you mentioned of squeezing mud into a pillar is not easy to execute, and when cutting with a wire rope, you have to measure and draw a line, which takes a bit of time. Therefore, I made it like this, which is much faster."

Okay, in later generations, the mud pillars were actually placed on a conveyor belt and transported at a constant speed. The steel cable was also driven by a motor, and the interval between its up and down movements was uniform. No one needed to manage it or measure it, which is why the speed was fast.

There's no conveyor belt or motor right now, so it definitely won't go fast.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly and said, "Yes, that's not bad either. As long as it's fast and efficient, you don't have to completely follow my ideas."

By this time, several craftsmen had already carried the hundreds of clay cakes to a large table next to the rotating clay molds, while others brought over stacks of ceramic molds. Ten craftsmen were already standing and waiting beside the rotating clay molds. They quickly picked up a ceramic mold, then grabbed a clay cake and stuffed it into the mold. They then clamped the mold onto the rotating clay mold, placed a small scraper with a fixed handle over the outside of the mold, and pressed down on the copper mold above. The excess clay was instantly squeezed out and quickly scraped off by the scraper. A porcelain blank was thus completed.

The entire process, from beginning to end, probably took less than half a minute.

The ten craftsmen released the clamps, picked up the ceramic molds containing the porcelain blanks, placed them on the wooden board behind them, and then quickly grabbed an empty ceramic mold and stuffed a clay cake into it. They repeated this process, and in less than a quarter of an hour, a hundred porcelain blanks were finished.

Meanwhile, the clay mixing team had already finished making a hundred clay cakes. Several craftsmen carried away the hundreds of ceramic molds containing porcelain blanks, while other craftsmen brought over the empty ceramic molds and clay cakes.

By continuously repeating this process, three hundred porcelain blanks can be made in a quarter of an hour!
However, there is still room for improvement in this efficiency.

Zhu Jue looked at it for a while, then raised his hand and gestured, "Chang Geng, you need to make a batch of small carts."

For example, when it comes to collecting clay, it's quite difficult and troublesome for several people to lift a thick wooden plank and put it under the mixer. You could make a low cart, place the thick wooden plank under it, and attach ropes to both ends of the cart. This way, they can easily pull the thick wooden plank under the mixer by pulling the ropes, and it's also very convenient to pull it out.

You can also place a small cart about waist-high under the thin wooden board that holds the clay cake, so you don't have to lift the clay cake over; you can just push it over. After the clay cake is processed into porcelain blanks, you can also use the cart to push it to dry.

You can even use trolleys instead of thin wooden boards, that is, one trolley for every hundred ceramic molds. You can have them stack the ceramic molds under the trolleys in advance, so that you don't have to move them around.

Also, you can make a wooden frame for the clay cake dumping area. The frame should be slightly higher than the clay cake cart, and you can make four semi-circular grooves on it, which will correspond to the four handles on both sides of the thick wooden board.

"That way, all they have to do is wedge the two handles into the two semi-circular grooves on one side, then lift it up and flip it over, turning the thick wooden board over. Then they can smash the other two handles into the two semi-circular grooves on the other side, and the clay cake will probably all fall off, without needing to be hammered."

Push cart!

Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing's eyes lit up, and he nodded repeatedly, saying, "Your Majesty is wise, I understand."

As they were talking, the ten craftsmen making porcelain blanks suddenly stopped moving, and the ones making clay cakes also stopped making them.

Upon seeing this, Zhu Jue asked in surprise, "What's going on? Are you out of ceramic molds?"

Song Yingxing nodded rather awkwardly and said, "Yes, this method is fast for making porcelain blanks, but it also uses up a lot of molds. Thousands of ceramic molds will be gone in no time."

Making ceramic molds takes time, and I've had the craftsmen in the factory next door making them. They should be able to produce five or six thousand a day without any problem.”

Five or six thousand molds a day is far too few.

The problem is that they cannot allow the ceramics factory to stop production and have all the artisans make molds.

If we make molds at this slow pace, how long will it take to increase production?
If we produce 10,000 dan of porcelain a day, we would need more than 2 million molds. If we can only make 5,000 to 6,000 molds a day, wouldn't it take about a year and a half to increase the output to 10,000 dan a day?
Zhu Jue frowned and pondered for a while, then pointed to the machine that was rotating the clay pot and said, "Chang Geng, you can use this machine to make ceramic molds directly."

You can let the craftsmen in the factory next door make ceramic molds by hand. Your machine can produce 20,000 to 30,000 ceramic molds a day, right?

If you ask the craftsmen in the factory next door to make 20,000 to 30,000 ceramic molds in four or five days, then one set of machines can make 20,000 to 30,000 ceramic molds a day.

You'll definitely need to continue making machines, and the craftsmen in the adjacent factory can also continue making ceramic molds. You can make one set of machines every four or five days, and they can make twenty or thirty thousand ceramic molds in four or five days.

In a month, your ceramic mold production can reach at least 100,000 per day. Making three to four million ceramic molds in two months wouldn't be a problem. By then, our new factory will be finished, and porcelain production will jump to over 10,000 dan (a unit of weight) per day.

Another advantage of this method is that the ceramic molds produced by the machine are all identical, resulting in identical porcelain pieces that are easy to stack and transport.

Yes, this machine can be used not only to make porcelain, but also to make ceramic molds.

Song Yingxing nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty is wise, I understand."

As they were discussing, Fang Zhenghua suddenly strode in, carrying a memorial, and bowed, saying, "Your Majesty, Governor Yang Sichang of Yansui has sent an urgent report from eight hundred li away."

Yang Sichang?
The rebels won't go and attack Yansui Town, will they?
Zhu Jue took the memorial and looked at it; his face immediately turned solemn.

Yang Sichang reported that many civilians from Yansui Town who had been making a living in the Guihua City area had fled back, and that Huang Taiji had led the Jurchen cavalry into the Hetao region!

With no hope of invading the Ming Dynasty from the south, Huang Taiji has turned his attention to attacking the various tribes of the Northern Yuan Tatars.

Ligdan Khan of the Northern Yuan Tatar tribe was no match for Huang Taiji. The Jurchen cavalry had reached the Ordos region so quickly!

This is not a good thing.

Once Huang Taiji annexed the various Tatar tribes, the number of cavalry would likely double.

Furthermore, since this guy has already reached the Hetao region, he'll most likely go back to the mountains of Shaanxi to launch a raid.

Zhu Jue frowned and pondered for a while, then decisively said: "Ruoyu, approve the order, ordering Yang Sichang and Yang He to gather the garrison troops in the three border areas of Shaanxi and move them towards the cities and fortresses along the border. Once Huang Taiji attacks, all the garrison troops and their families should be ordered to evacuate to the cities and fortresses to hold their positions."

(End of this chapter)