I founded a heavy industry group in the late Ming Dynasty.

Chapter 158 The Apocalypse's Shocking Explosion

Chapter 157 After seeing off the Tianqi Emperor's fleet, Chen Ying stood on the dock for a long time. The sea breeze whipped his robes, and in the distance, the setting sun dyed the sea a dark red, as if it were covered with a layer of molten copper. He turned around and strode towards the industrial area.

To be fair, Chen Ying was not good at fighting, nor was he an outstanding general. In fact, his command of war was inferior to that of an ordinary military academy student in later generations. He had never received professional training in this area. Whether Emperor Tianqi appointed him as the commander of Da Ning or the commander of Shahe Guard, it was only a temporary measure. He did not believe that an outstanding general could solve all the problems of the Ming Dynasty. In fact, even without the Jurchens, the existence of the Donglin Party and the gentry class of the Ming Dynasty would not have improved the situation.

Many of the problems of the Ming Dynasty are actually the same problems of the Great Pyeongchang, and they are deeply rooted. Even without external threats, the Great Pyeongchang is already riddled with problems. The essence of war is the economy. Once the Ming Dynasty's economy is improved, will the Ming Dynasty lack capable generals? The answer is definitely no.

Every dynasty faces a common problem at its end: a decline in talent. But the Ming Dynasty was the opposite. It had an abundance of talented people. Among the military generals were Man Gui, Zhao Shuaijiao, He Kegang, Zu Dashou, and the two Caos. Among the civil officials were Lu Xiangshan, Sun Chuanting, and Hong Chengchou. These figures were not given important positions or were hindered by various issues. Take Sun Chengzong as an example. If it weren't for the interference of the Donglin Party and the eunuch faction...

His presence in Liaodong at least stabilized the situation there, preventing it from collapsing. It's like a company where a branch has worked hard for over three years to finally turn a profit, only to have the entire branch shut down by a single order from the board of directors.

This branch company cost over 20 million taels of silver to set up. To cut it off so abruptly—what a load of crap! Although Emperor Tianqi wanted to get involved, Chen Ying seemed to have ruined his plans. Let's make a bold assumption: if Emperor Tianqi succeeded, rebuilt the slave system, and also found evidence of the Donglin Party's treason, would he be able to eliminate the Donglin Party?

The answer is no. Furthermore, the Donglin Party was merely a front for the Jiangnan capital group. Looking at the entire Ming Dynasty, this group, from its founding to its fall, engaged in numerous underhanded tactics over two hundred years. For example, the Japanese pirate raids during the Jiajing era were their doing. There's an old Chinese saying: "Without internal traitors, you can't attract external devils!"

In essence, whether it was the Jurchens, the Japanese pirates, or the roving bandits, they were all manipulated by people for the purpose of profit. In a country that traditionally despises merchants, no matter how rich they are, they would never touch power. However, capital disagrees. They wanted to emulate Lü Buwei, but they failed miserably.

Chen Ying still decided to solidify the foundation. As long as the industrial base was solid, he could seize the surplus labor force from the capitalist groups. At that time, not only the Jurchens, but the whole world would kneel before them and sing praises of conquest.

Fire Ox, that's the name Chen Ying gave to the steam engine. With its cast iron frame, densely packed rivets, and crisscrossing pipes, it resembled a crouching behemoth. It had been running for several months, but it was still not up to par.

Low thermal efficiency, steam leakage, unstable piston movement, and inconsistent saw blade reciprocating speed—the craftsmen tried dozens of methods but failed to solve the problem. Chen Ying knew most of the solutions, but the problem was that he had been tied down in Yongning for the past few months, his energy diverted by the military conflict.

"Greetings, Commander!"

When Chen Ying entered the new site of the Fire Bull project's R&D department in Lushun West City, more than twenty craftsmen were gathered around the machine. Some were measuring cylinders, some were checking pipe joints, and some were squatting on the ground drawing blueprints. The leader was an old craftsman in his fifties named Hu Dayou. Hu Dayou was a veteran of the Yongcheng Agricultural Implements Manufacturing Bureau. He had spent his whole life dealing with machinery and had an extraordinary sensitivity to it. When Chen Ying handed the Fire Bull project over to him, he was so excited that he couldn't sleep for three days.

"General!"

Upon seeing Chen Ying, Hu Dayou quickly came to greet him: "What brings you here? You haven't been getting enough rest lately, you need to take care of yourself!"

Hu Dayou was speaking from the heart. He had lived for over fifty years and worked for six different employers, but none of them had ever been treated like human beings by an employer like Chen Boying. Chen Boying not only gave them the highest salaries but also the best treatment. Now, Hu Dayou not only enjoys a sixth-rank military position, but all four of his grandsons and two granddaughters have also entered school. Perhaps in the future, the Hu family will produce a scholar.

Chen Ying waved his hand, walked to the ox, and reached out to touch the outer wall of the cylinder. It was hot, but not ridiculously hot. This in itself explained the problem. The cylinder of a steam engine should be hot, but the pipes and valves should not be. Hot means that heat energy is lost.

"Master Hu————"

Chen Ying cut to the chase: "What progress have you made these past few days?"

Hu Dayou sighed and pointed to a mark on the drawing: "General, we tried increasing the thickness of the cylinder wall to reduce heat dissipation, but the machine is too heavy and the flywheel is difficult to turn. We also tried wrapping the pipes with asbestos, which had a slight effect, but it was not obvious. The most troublesome thing is the piston rings. They deform when the temperature is high, and steam leaks out from the gaps, so the pressure cannot be increased."

Chen Ying nodded. Many time-travel novels have touched upon the issue of steam engine manufacturing. In fact, ninety percent of liberal arts students only know the principles, not the construction. If he hadn't seen the laboratory model and learned the key to Watt's improvements to the steam engine—the separate condenser, the parallel four-bar linkage, the throttle valve, the centrifugal governor, and most importantly, the precision-machined cylinder and piston—that would have been the 18th century. This was the 17th century. There were no boring machines, no precision measuring tools, and even qualified sealing materials were hard to find. He could handcraft a refining furnace because the materials for that were already readily available in the Ming Dynasty. The problem was that manufacturing a steam engine required very complex engineering materials; at least for sealing rubber, he currently had no way to do it and could only use substitutes.

"Don't rush!"

Chen Ying crouched down and carefully examined the connection between the piston rod and the cylinder head, saying calmly, "Let's take it one step at a time. First, let's talk about the steam leakage problem. What material are your piston rings made of?"

Hu Dayou said, "It's made of cast iron. After it's cast, it's polished by hand. But the polished ring is never perfectly round; there's a gap between it and the cylinder wall."

Chen Ying thought for a moment. This involved professional knowledge about the coefficient of thermal expansion. The coefficient of thermal expansion of cast iron rings is different from that of the cylinder wall. When the temperature is high, the ring expands more slowly than the cylinder, and the gap becomes larger, making problems inevitable. He asked in return, "Have you tried using copper rings?"

Hu Dayi was taken aback: "Copper? Copper is softer than cast iron, won't it wear down too quickly?"

"meeting."

Chen Ying explained, "But copper has better sealing properties. And copper rings can be replaced when they wear out, but if the cylinder wall wears out, the whole machine is ruined. You should try copper rings first. The thickness is 20% greater than that of cast iron rings. Cut a groove in the inner ring, insert asbestos rope, and use steam pressure to press the ring against the cylinder wall."

Hu Dayou's eyes lit up, and he grabbed a charcoal pencil from the drawing and quickly wrote it down.

Chen Ying then walked to the cylinder and pointed to the exhaust pipe: "Have you noticed that the steam coming out is still very hot?"

Hu Da nodded: "Yes. The steam that comes out can burn people."

What does this mean?

Chen Ying glanced at everyone and said, "This means that after the steam does work in the cylinder, it still carries a lot of heat energy. This heat energy could have been used to heat the boiler water and improve thermal efficiency. But you just discharged it directly, which is a waste."

A young craftsman asked cautiously, "General, what should we do? We can't just force the steam back into the boiler, can we?"

Chen Ying smiled and said, "It's not about pushing it back, it's about letting it flow back on its own. We'll add a preheater between the cylinder exhaust pipe and the boiler inlet. This will allow the exhaust steam to heat the boiler's feed water before it's discharged. With a higher feed water temperature, the boiler will burn less coal, and the same amount of coal can produce more steam."

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Hu Dayou gasped.

He had never even dreamed of such a solution.

"Furthermore," Chen Ying continued, "your current operating method is to spray cold water into the cylinder to condense the steam and create a vacuum, so that the piston is pushed back by atmospheric pressure. This method wastes heat energy and is slow. It should be changed to a double-acting system."

Steam alternately enters both ends of the cylinder, driving the piston back and forth. No condensation is needed, atmospheric pressure is not required, and efficiency is doubled.

Hu Dayou's hands were trembling. He suddenly knelt down and kowtowed: "General, how—how did you come up with these thoughts?"

Chen Ying helped him up and laughed, "It's not that I thought of it; it's that you presented the problem, and I naturally came up with the answer by following the problem. Alright, stop kneeling and get up to work."

For the next two weeks, the craftsmen at the Fire Bull project team worked at a frenetic pace. Following Chen Ying's ideas, they tried, experimented, and improved upon each step. They started by producing copper piston rings. Copper rings are softer than iron rings, making them easier to machine. Several experienced fitters worked day and night, polishing the rings until they finally produced a batch of perfectly round copper rings. After installation, steam leakage decreased by 60%. Although there was still some leakage, the pressure inside the cylinder increased significantly.

The second step involved adding a "preheater" to the exhaust pipe. This was essentially a metal water tank through which the exhaust pipe passed. The boiler's inlet pipe first passed through this tank before entering the boiler. The exhaust steam heated the water in the tank, raising the inlet water temperature from room temperature to 60-70 degrees Celsius. This made the boiler burn much faster; the same amount of coal could now burn for an extra 25 minutes. The most difficult part, and also the most challenging, was the dual-action modification.

The original steam brute had only one steam inlet and one steam outlet. Steam entered from one end, pushing the piston to the other. Once the piston reached its end, the worker manually opened a valve to release the steam, and the piston was then pushed back by atmospheric pressure. This method is called "single-acting," which is slow, inefficient, and requires manual operation.

Chen Yingyao's "double-acting" design involves alternating steam intake at both ends of the cylinder, with each piston movement propelled by the steam. It requires no condensation, no atmospheric pressure, and no manual valve operation. This necessitates an automatic valve system that switches the steam intake direction. The principle is very simple, and Chen Yingyao understands the construction. However, the problem is that he can't keep feeding the craftsmen forever. There are some things he can't do for them, like childbirth. No matter how difficult, no one wants someone else to give birth for them.

Chen Ying is in the same boat now; he can't bring the Fire Ox into the world for the craftsmen. The craftsmen themselves need to solve these problems. Hu Dayou, along with a dozen or so craftsmen, drew hundreds of blueprints and ruined over a dozen molds. They tried sliding valves...

Neither the rotary valve nor the lifting valve is ideal. They either have poor sealing, are not sensitive in switching, or are easily damaged by steam.

Chen Ying was also stumped. He remembered that later steam engines used slide valves, but slide valves required extremely high precision in manufacturing, which was impossible to produce with current conditions. Just when everyone was at a loss, a young craftsman named Xiao Shunzi raised his hand and said, "General, could we use a flip-over mechanism? Like the water buckets of a waterwheel, the steam would rush over and flip the plate over, switching it to the other side."

Chen Ying's eyes lit up: "Draw it and let me see."

Xiao Shunzi drew a sketch on the ground. It was very simple: a balanced flap with steam inlets at both ends. Steam came out of the boiler and rushed towards one side of the flap, causing it to flip over and block that side, allowing steam to enter the other side. When the piston reached its end, the exhaust port opened, and another stream of steam rushed in from the other side, pushing the flap back. This process repeated automatically.

Chen Ying looked at it for a while, then smiled: "Good! This method is called a swing valve. It's simpler than a slide valve, easier to manufacture, and has a better seal. Xiao Shunzi, you've done a great job."

Xiao Shunzi scratched his head and smiled sheepishly.

Five days later, the swing valve was finished. It used a cast iron shell, a brass flap, and an oil-soaked leather gasket to seal the joint. When it was installed and tested, steam rushed out of the boiler, the flap snapped forward, and the piston lunged forward; when the piston reached its end, the exhaust port opened, the flap snapped back, and the piston lunged backward. The reciprocating motion was seamless and required no manual intervention.

Hu Dayou was so excited that tears streamed down his face: "It's done! It's done!"

Chen Ying stood to the side, his face calm, but his heart was in turmoil. He knew that this power transformer still had many problems: the sealing wasn't perfect, the speed was unstable, and the thermal efficiency wasn't optimal. But if the direction was right, the path would only widen.

The fire engine underwent its first formal test. The water in the boiler boiled, steam rushed into the cylinder, and the piston began to move. The flywheel spun faster and faster, and the belt drove the saw to split a log in half. The entire process took fifteen minutes, twice as fast as before.

Hu Dayou, holding a charcoal pencil and paper, squatted beside the machine, recording data. Half an hour later, he raised his head, his voice trembling: "General, the thermal efficiency—has increased by more than 30%! At least 30%!"

The craftsmen cheered. Some took off their shirts and threw them into the air, some hugged each other, laughing and crying, and some knelt on the ground, kowtowing to the fire ox.

Chen Ying stood outside the crowd, watching this scene, a smile appearing on his lips.

The sun was beginning to set, and the sky was ablaze with the crimson glow of the sunset. Night was approaching, but the Ming Dynasty was ushering in a new dawn. This newly improved steam engine had achieved the thermal efficiency of the first-generation steam engine and could be put into commercial use. At least trains and ships could try it out.

Many people believe that the advent of machine guns led to the demise of cavalry. However, this statement is not entirely accurate. The key factor that led to the demise of cavalry was the railway. The railway eliminated the speed advantage of cavalry. Even a train traveling at 30 kilometers per hour could cover 600 kilometers in 20 hours a day, while a warhorse could only cover a maximum of 200 kilometers in 24 hours. Otherwise, the warhorse would have been exhausted to death.

The sky was beautiful, and the night in the distance grew deeper and darker. Chen Ying knew very well that the future of the Jurchens, like the night sky, was hopeless.

Just as Chen Ying was lost in thought, Wang Tiezhu suddenly ran over in alarm: "General, something has happened in the capital!"

"The capital city?"

A key phrase instantly popped into Chen Ying's mind: "The Apocalypse Explosion?"

"How could I have forgotten about that!"