Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 239 If you don't want to get beaten, then obey (Part 2)

The next morning around 9 a.m., Zhu Jue brought his men to the foundry in the northeast outer city to see the railcar.

Song Yingxing and his students had been working on it for several days, and they had already produced the simplest sample.

The railcar is actually not that complicated.

To put it simply, it's just about laying two rails on the ground and then making a car with iron wheels.

The rails do look a bit strange, but casting them is just a matter of creating a mold; it's not difficult at all.

As for the cart with iron wheels, it's not difficult to build. They already had pushcarts and horse-drawn carriages. To put it simply, the cart with iron wheels is just a pushcart with iron wheels replaced.

Although the iron wheel still had protruding edges at both ends, for them, who had already developed machine tools, it was just a matter of turning it a few times.

Therefore, railcars are not a problem at all for the Ming Dynasty at present.

Song Yingxing originally thought this thing was nothing special. If the current emperor hadn't attached great importance to it, he wouldn't have personally led the team to develop it.

Such a simple thing, he could easily send one of his students to develop it.

However, once the device was actually developed, he became very interested, as if he had discovered a treasure.

This was because the uses of this railcar far exceeded his imagination.

He originally thought this thing could only be used in ports and mines.

As it turned out, during the test drive, he discovered that this seemingly simple device could be used in many factories and could solve many of their problems!
When Zhu Jue entered the foundry, he was leading a group of disciples to continuously move pig iron ingots onto a flatbed railcar, pushing them back and forth as if they were having a great time.

A railcar is much more convenient than a trolley. A trolley can barely move a person if it has a few hundred kilograms on it, and it would take two or three people to move a thousand kilograms. If it has several thousand kilograms on it, it is simply impossible to move.

This railcar is different. It can be pushed by one person even if it weighs several hundred or a thousand kilograms, and it can be pushed by two or three people even if it weighs several thousand kilograms. No matter how many pig iron ingots they carry on it, it seems that they can push it!
Zhu Jue watched them push it for a while before stepping forward and asking, "How is it, Chang Geng? Is this track car easy to use?"

Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing quickly turned around, bowed, and nodded repeatedly, saying, "Yes, Your Majesty, this thing is so useful. We've added tens of thousands of catties of iron ingots, and it can still be pushed."

You have no idea how much cargo a train can carry. A regular freight car, not counting the cargo, weighs at least 20 to 30 tons, which is 40,000 to 50,000 jin. If it's carrying cargo, 50 tons is considered low, and 60 to 70 tons is no problem, which is over 100,000 jin!
Seeing that he was still ordering his disciples to carry iron ingots up, Zhu Jue shook his head and said, "Chang Geng, don't make them waste their energy. Let me tell you, this railcar can carry 100,000 jin without any problem. These iron ingots weighing 50 jin each would require more than 2,000 to be carried up."

Over 100,000 jin!

Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing couldn't help but exclaim excitedly, "Then we can definitely build bigger things! Even if we could cast something weighing several thousand kilograms, we still couldn't transport it for processing. That's because even if we could lift something weighing several thousand kilograms with a hoist, we still couldn't push it with a cart."

Now that's great! Even if we cast ten or more pieces weighing several thousand kilograms at a time, we can haul them for processing. We can even process and assemble them on a railcar, and push them in front of any machine tool without any problem. If we extend the railcar to the dock, then the processed goods can be used anywhere without any problem.

Furthermore, Meng Hou and his men were casting giant cannons, Liang Fu and his men were hauling large quantities of timber, and my elder brother was transporting large quantities of coal and pig iron ingots to the docks—all of these tasks required the use of these railcars.

Your imagination is truly rich.

That's how you come up with so many ideas.

I don't need to waste my breath on you.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly and said, "Yes, these can all be done with railcars. However, we mainly built these railcars to use them for hauling ore in the mines and for transporting goods between the inland sea docks and the capital."

Therefore, you need to add side panels to your railcar to make it into a frame; otherwise, if something falls off the road while you're pulling it, you'll have to go and pick it up.

You can temporarily reinforce this baffle with a steel frame, using wooden planks as the main body. This will reduce the weight of the railcar. Once we develop the steam locomotive, this weight won't matter, and you can use iron plates as the baffle. Steam locomotive?
Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing couldn't help but exclaim excitedly, "Your Majesty, do you mean to install the steam engine on the first railcar to pull the subsequent railcars?"

Judging by your attitude, if I were to ask you to develop a steam locomotive, you probably wouldn't care about anything else and would just dive headfirst into it.

Zhu Jue shook his head slightly and said, "That's the gist of it, but developing a steam locomotive isn't that simple."

Don't think about that for now. Wait until we have enough manpower and you have plenty of time before you start researching it. For now, let's focus on building the railcar.

Song Yingxing, still somewhat enthusiastic, said, "Your Majesty, the railcar has already been made. Adding baffles on all four sides is a minor matter; I can simply send one of my students to add them."

Zhu Jue shook his head slightly and said, "You have only made a simple sample. What I want is mass production. Do you know how many tracks we need and how many track cars we need?"
The distance from the inland sea port to the capital is over two hundred to three hundred li. Furthermore, there are at least dozens, if not hundreds, of mineral deposits in the Americas. Ideally, rail lines should be connected from the mines to the ports, requiring thousands of li of track, and we would need thousands of railcars.

Uh, why do you always spend thousands?
And it's over a thousand miles away!

Song Yingxing was taken aback for a moment before cautiously saying, "Your Majesty, the railcar itself is not a big problem, and the sleepers under the rails are not a big problem either."

The problem is these tracks. They use too much steel. A single track that's ten feet long weighs over a hundred pounds, so a mile would require thirty to forty thousand pounds of steel.

No, two parallel lines weigh 60,000 to 70,000 jin, so 100 li would be 6 to 7 million jin, and 1,000 li would be 60 to 70 million jin!
Even if we could produce over a million catties of steel per day, it would take two or three months of steel just to make thousands of miles of track. In addition, we need a lot of steel in other places as well. It is impossible to produce over a million catties of steel per day to cast track. It would be good if we could produce 100,000 catties per day.

In other words, if we don't increase steel production, it will take at least two or three years to build thousands of miles of railway tracks.

The problem is, we want to expand production, but there isn't enough open space in the capital to build a steel foundry.

This is indeed a problem.

There was simply no space left in the capital to build large factories.

Zhu Jue thought about it carefully, and then decisively said, "Then let's develop Jizhou Town. Right now, the Jurchens are too busy to take care of themselves and it's impossible for them to invade the capital region. Jizhou Town can be developed at the same time. We can develop the grain transport canal and the Luan River line at the same time. We can build special cities there to smelt steel and cast rails."

Furthermore, we will construct port terminals at the mouths of the grain transport river and the Luan River, and connect the steel mill, foundry, and terminals into a single system using railcars. This way, even if the capital region is frozen solid, we will not have to worry about steel or railcars.

Well, that makes sense, but the question is how much manpower and resources would be required?
Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing thought for a moment and then cautiously said, "Your Majesty, this development requires people, especially for building steel furnaces and foundries. Only skilled craftsmen can do this work."

"Right now, all the artisans in the capital are busy, and we simply can't spare any manpower to go to Jizhou Town. If we don't have enough manpower, we probably won't be able to build the steel mill and foundry there this year."

I had already considered the issue of manpower.

Zhu Jue nodded slowly and said, "Yes, the development of Jizhou Town does require a large number of artisans. I was originally planning to recruit artisans to develop the Americas, and this time I simply recruited the artisans who will develop Jizhou Town as well."

"I will soon instruct Grand Tutor Yuan to conscript artisans. Throughout the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty, all those registered as artisans, unless there is a specific local need, should be conscripted to prepare for the development of Jizhou Town and the Americas."

what?
You must conscript all the artisans of the Ming Dynasty!
How many artisan households were there in the Ming Dynasty?
This number is absolutely terrifying.

There were over 100,000 artisan households in the two capitals of the Ming Dynasty, and tens of thousands more in the thirteen provinces. Adding them all up, there were probably over a million households.

This is just the number of accounts; in terms of population, it's at least four or five million!

Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing was completely dumbfounded.

He couldn't even imagine how to settle so many artisans who had been conscripted.

(End of this chapter)