Song Dynasty: Yuan Dynasty, you didn't expect this, did you? I'm still alive.

The eleventh year of Cheng'an (1409).

Quanzhou Port.

Old engineer Zhou Shiheng squatted on the stone steps of the dock, gazing at the seagulls in the distance, his heart filled with complex emotions.

He had worked at a private shipyard in Luzon for thirty-four years, rising from junior engineer to chief engineer, and was responsible for the maintenance and management of all the shipyard's steam engines. Three months ago, he was ousted by a young man who graduated from a Taoist academy.

That young man could calculate and use calculus to derive thermal efficiency, but he had not received this kind of higher education.

The factory manager said very politely, "Master Zhou, times have changed. You're fifty years old now, it's time to retire and enjoy your retirement."

Times have changed. He chewed on those four words repeatedly, like chewing on a piece of old sugarcane that had been chewed for thirty-four years and had lost its flavor.

To be honest, with the money he's saved up over the years, he has no worries about his old age.

But so what if you're fifty? Fifty is the perfect time to take risks and explore!

He still has ambitions, so how can he be considered old?

He stood up, and his knee cracked.

"Master Zhou." Someone called him from behind, with a smile.

He turned around. A middle-aged man in a silk robe stood three steps away, with a round face, narrow eyes, and a smile like that of Maitreya Buddha.

Zhou Shiheng recognized him—he had seen this man frequently during his vacation in Quanzhou Port. He would call everyone he met "brother," treat them to drinks and music, and was so generous that he didn't seem like a proper businessman.

"You are..." Zhou Shiheng frowned.

"My surname is Shen, and my given name is Lian." The middle-aged man cupped his hands, his smile deepening. "Master Zhou, may I speak with you in private?"

In a private room at Zuixianlou, Shen Lian pushed a letter onto the table.

The letter was written by Ji Gang, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and was phrased with the politeness of someone inviting a distinguished guest. It stated: "The Emperor of the Great Ming has long admired the superb skills of the Song Dynasty craftsmen and wishes to treat them as national treasures. If they wish to travel north, they will be granted a residence, a thousand taels of gold, and the position of Director of the Arsenal."

Zhou Shiheng didn't read the letter; he was looking at Shen Lian.

"Are you a spy?"

Not only foreigners would spy on each other, but there were also commercial spies among the Song people who spied on each other's secrets.

The concept of espionage was frequently introduced in the factory.

Shen Lian didn't deny it, but his smile faded slightly: "Master Zhou, I've been in Quanzhou for three months, all for the sake of meeting you."

Zhou Shiheng picked up his wine glass and drank it all in one gulp. The wine was strong, and it burned his eyes until they turned red.

"Why should I go to the Ming Dynasty?" He put down his wine cup. "In the Song Dynasty, I was the technical director, earning forty taels of silver a month, plus a year-end bonus. What can you offer me in the Ming Dynasty?"

Shen Lian stretched out one hand, his five fingers spread wide.

"Five hundred taels. Monthly salary." He paused, "plus—the Minister of Works."

Zhou Shiheng's hand trembled slightly.

Five hundred taels. In the Song Dynasty, his annual salary plus bonuses amounted to no more than six hundred taels. Five hundred taels a month, that's six thousand taels a year. The Minister of Works—that's a second-rank official. In the Song Dynasty, his failure in the imperial examinations had always been a thorn in his side.

"Your emperor...can he really give me the position of Minister?"

Shen Lian took out a roll of yellow silk from his sleeve and unfolded it. It contained Zhu Di's imperial calligraphy, the characters as vigorous as if carved by a knife and axe: "If anyone can build a steam engine for my Great Ming, he shall be appointed Minister of Works, and his family shall be granted a hereditary title for three generations."

Zhu Di was a ruthless man who would eat pig excrement for the throne. What was a Minister of Works compared to a steam engine?

Zhou Shiheng stared at the rolled-up yellow silk for a long time.

Shen Lian didn't speak, but poured him some wine. It was imperial wine, sweet, but with a strong aftereffect. Zhou Shiheng drank three cups in a row, his eyes becoming even redder.

"Lord Shen," he suddenly spoke, "do you know what I fear most in the Song Dynasty?"

Shen Lian shook his head.

"I was afraid of being laid off," Zhou Shiheng said, his voice hoarse. "When I first joined the factory, the steam engine was just something Mr. Lü Te had drawn on paper. I learned from my master little by little, touching it with my hands, listening with my ears, and smelling it with my nose. I could tell what was wrong with any machine just by listening to it. But what happened later? Those young people in the academy could calculate, draw, and conduct experiments. The young people had more energy and more ideas than I did."

He drank another glass.

"It's not that I don't work hard. It's just that times have really changed."

Shen Lian remained silent for a moment, then pushed the rolled-up yellow silk in front of him.

"Master Zhou, in the Great Ming Dynasty, no one will compete with you using any points system. What the Great Ming Dynasty wants is your craftsmanship."

Zhou Shiheng looked at the rolled-up yellow silk, reached out, slowly rolled it up, and stuffed it into his bosom.

One month later, in Yingtian Prefecture, at the Military Equipment Bureau.

Zhu Di personally went to the dock to greet him.

Zhou Shiheng knelt on the ground, his forehead touching the cold stone slab, but what he was thinking was: if he could become the Minister of Works, it would be worth kneeling.

"Master Zhou, no need for formalities." Zhu Di's voice was gentler than he had expected. "I have been waiting for you for a long time."

Zhou Shiheng looked up and saw a middle-aged man wearing a bright yellow dragon robe, with eagle-like eyes and a slight smile on his lips.

"Your Majesty, I pay my respects," he said.

Zhu Di helped him up and patted him on the shoulder: "From today onwards, my Imperial Arsenal is yours."

Zhou Shiheng entered the workshop of the Ordnance Bureau, where Zheng Yong greeted him with a complicated expression. He had been overseeing the imitation of the steam engine for three years, spending over 100,000 taels of silver, but the machines he produced either didn't work or exploded. Zhu Di hadn't killed him, but the look in his eyes had changed from "expectation" to "endurance."

"Master Zhou," Zheng Yong said, bowing slightly, his tone neither warm nor cold, "please."

Zhou Shiheng didn't stand on ceremony with him. He walked to the replica machine, squatted down, and reached out to touch the inner wall of the cylinder. It was rough, with undulations invisible to the naked eye. He then touched the piston, feeling the curvature of its circumference with his palm.

"How much difference?" he asked.

Zheng Yong was stunned: "How much difference?"

"The clearance between the cylinder and the piston." Zhou Shiheng stood up, dusted off his hands, and said, "I felt it, and at the largest point it's off by three millimeters. At the smallest point it's almost completely flush."

Zheng Yong's eyes widened. Three strands—the thickness of three hairs. Something he hadn't been able to measure in three years, and this person could tell just by touching it?

"How did you...?"

"Hands." Zhou Shiheng stretched out his calloused hands. "In the Song Dynasty, this was called 'hand feel.' I've practiced for thirty-four years to develop it."

For the next three months, Zhou Shiheng did not rush to build new machines.

He took three things out of his toolbox—a micrometer, a standard gauge block, and a section of a hardened spline shaft. He had secretly brought these three items with him.

The micrometer was an old model phased out by the Luzon Shipyard, with an accuracy of only one micrometer. Gauge blocks were standard parts used to calibrate measuring tools. The splined shaft was a key component of the steam engine crankshaft; he ground it by hand, with a tolerance within five micrometers.

"From today onward," he placed three items on the table, "every part will be measured with this ruler. If it doesn't measure well, grind it. If it still doesn't measure well, redo it. If it still doesn't measure well—"

He glanced at all the craftsmen present.

"—Just quit."

The craftsmen looked at each other, then at Zheng Yong. Zheng Yong gritted his teeth and nodded.

Two months later, the first batch of qualified parts rolled off the production line. Zhou Shiheng personally assembled them and adjusted the clearances himself. He left an eight-micrometer gap between the cylinder and the piston—in the Song Dynasty, this was called a "cold gap." When heated, the steel expands, and the eight-micrometer gap becomes three micrometers, just enough to allow rotation without leaking air.

He used asbestos rope soaked in lead powder to seal it, and then wrapped it with a layer of raw material tape—the raw material tape was made by himself, using cotton cloth soaked in pine resin and tung oil, repeatedly stretched to make a tape as thin as a cicada's wing.

This thing was obsolete in the Song Dynasty; they used rubber sealing rings instead.

But the Ming Dynasty had no rubber, so he could only use primitive methods.

He modified the structure of the boiler.

The steam engines of the Song Dynasty used water-tube boilers, with steel pipes bent into a U-shape, resulting in a large heating area and high efficiency.

Since the Ming Dynasty couldn't manufacture seamless steel pipes, they modified it into a fire-tube boiler—a large cylinder with dozens of copper pipes inside, where the fire went through the pipes and the water went outside.

It's inefficient, but it can be manufactured.

These are all outdated technologies. If he were to use them in Luzon, he would only be laughed at, but they are just right in the Ming Dynasty.

On the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, heavy snow fell.

On the training ground of the Military Equipment Bureau, the steam engine was finally assembled. Unlike the sophisticated and compact machines of the Song Dynasty, it was heavy, crude, and covered with rivets and welds, like a monster pieced together from scrap iron.

Zhu Di came in person.

Zhou Shiheng knelt in the snow, holding a torch in his hands.

"Your Majesty, shall we light the fire?"

Zhu Di looked at him, then at the machine. He had waited three years, spent countless amounts of silver, and lost countless lives.

Hedong in thirty years and Hexi in thirty years.

"point."

Zhou Shiheng stuffed the torch into the furnace door.

The charcoal burned first, followed by the coal. The flames turned from red to white, and the water in the boiler began to boil. Steam hissed along the pipes, and a little white smoke seeped out as it passed through the seals, but there was no explosion or whistling.

The flywheel shuddered.

Everyone held their breath.

The flywheel shuddered again, and then—it started to spin.

It's slow. Like an old ox pulling a cart stuck in the mud, creaking and groaning. But it keeps turning, one circle, two circles, three circles... without stopping.

An incense stick has burned out.

Half an hour has passed.

The flywheel is still spinning.

Zheng Yong knelt in the snow and cried.

Why do I want to cry?

He doesn't know.

Zhu Di stood motionless in front of the machine. He watched the flywheel spin for half an hour, then turned around and said to Zhou Shiheng, who was kneeling in the snow, "Master Zhou, from today onwards, you are the Minister of Works of the Ming Dynasty."

Zhou Shiheng kowtowed, his forehead buried in the snow.

The snow was cold, but his heart was warm.

He thought: The Song Dynasty doesn't want me, but the Ming Dynasty does.

Fifty is the perfect time to take risks and explore.

He suddenly remembered what Shen Lian had said at Zuixianlou: "In the Ming Dynasty, no one will argue with you using calculus."

Zhou Shiheng looked up, and snowflakes fell on his face and melted.

He smiled.

"Your Majesty," he said, "this is only the most primitive steam engine. Give me three years, and I will build something much better."

Zhu Di also smiled.

"I will give you three years. Ten years. A lifetime. As long as you need it, the national treasury is yours to draw upon."

With the help of this steam engine, the Ming Dynasty established its first raw silk factory.

Compared to manual operation, efficiency has increased threefold. With hundreds of female workers working simultaneously, the factory's large-scale production and standardized control ensure stable quality and a significant improvement in overall product quality.

This was the first time Zhu Di had experienced the terrifying power of such a machine.

Compared to Zhu Di's optimism, Zhou Shiheng was somewhat apprehensive.

Those who are familiar with their own situation know that the steam engine of the Song Dynasty is no longer the same as when Lü Te first improved it. High pressure, multi-expansion and other technologies have begun to be applied, and its efficiency is four times that of the original Lü Te steam engine and eight times that of the rudimentary steam engine he built.

Of course, high-pressure technologies have higher requirements for materials and precision, and even if the Ming Dynasty had the blueprints, it would not be able to manufacture them.

After all, the limit of manual craftsmanship is millimeters. Even the most skilled craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty could only achieve a precision of 0.1 millimeters, while the precision in the Eastern Song Dynasty was generally around 0.01 millimeters. In the shipyard where he worked before, the precision of some high-requirement parts had reached two micrometers. He could not even imagine how much precision the top academy's laboratory had.

For the Ming Dynasty to catch up with these, it would need a complete industrial and educational system, and it would take another century.

Of course, Zhou Shiheng quickly adjusted his mindset and began to enjoy his position as Minister of Works.

As for the machine, we can improve it gradually.

He knew that helping the Ming Dynasty would be a betrayal of the Eastern Song Dynasty, but who could refuse the position of Minister of Works?

It's not a position in a barbarian country.

He was the Minister of Works of a powerful nation with the same language and culture.

Since he was born unable to have children and had no ties in the Song Dynasty, he might as well enjoy himself in the Ming Dynasty.

. . .

The news that Zhou Shiheng had been appointed Minister of Works of the Ming Dynasty was quickly spread to Xinxiang by some disgruntled Ming officials.

The news, once published in the newspaper, sparked public outrage.

The people of Song couldn't understand why anyone would choose to betray the Song Dynasty.

How can there be such a rare person in the world?

Is it true that the world is full of wonders?

When the Manichaean King Baoshu, who had come from Xinxiang to report on his duties, learned of this news, he was even more furious and directly declared in the newspaper that he would issue a sacred fire decree and hunt down Zhou Shiheng throughout the world.

This matter quickly alerted the imperial court, but that was all it was—just alertness.

The Song Dynasty's ten-year plan was no secret among high-ranking officials, and the Ming Dynasty's attempt to steal the technology was nothing more than a death throes.

Didn't the sultan of the Delhi Sultanate also devote all his national resources to developing firearms, only to end up benefiting the Song Dynasty? The technological gap is so vast, how easy is it to catch up?

Of course, they couldn't do nothing, so the imperial court quickly issued a policy to strengthen control over key technologies such as steam engines.

At the same time, a general survey was conducted within the territory of the Song Dynasty. Once a person like Zhou Shiheng, who had no ties, was found, he was immediately assigned a wife.

If someone is unable to have children, they will be given an adopted son.

same year.

Gewu Academy.

A major invention was born.

The inventor's ancestors ran a pharmacy, and his privileged family background instilled in him a deep interest in Taoism from a young age.

He was eventually accepted as a third-generation disciple by Faxiao Zhenjun, that is, a grand-disciple.

His name was Ximenzi, and he was also respectfully referred to as Ximenzi by later generations.

He successfully invented the self-excited DC generator, achieving stable power generation without relying on permanent magnets for the first time. It is the core prototype of the modern generator and marks the official opening of the technological prelude to the Second Industrial Revolution (the electrical age).