.Dang Paiguo led the students of the Central University’s external teaching group to set off all the fireworks and firecrackers produced by the gunpowder workshop, and then pulled the team away the next day. Some students who were still unsatisfied only realized before leaving. Isn’t this gunpowder workshop guarded by heavy troops the legendary “Immortal Valley”?

In recent days, another rumor other than "future gods and immortals" seems to have appeared in Luoyang City:

It is said that there is an immortal valley surrounded by mist all year round in Beim Mountain, with thunder often sounds, and occasionally fire and thunder rising into the sky. It is actually a blessing in the cave where the "future man and immortals" party went to patriotic retreat and practiced. Now that the party and immortals came out of the mountain, they opened the ban on the immortal valley and put a lot of thunder and earth fire outside the valley. The intruders must be beaten to pieces by the banned immortal technique and will never be reborn.

However, the Party Gods and Immortals were merciful. In order to avoid mortals accidentally breaking, they sent imperial guards to guard the surroundings. Anyone who walked to the vicinity of the Immortal Valley would be persuaded to return by the Guard Guard. But there were also people with excessive curiosity who insisted on going in and trying to see if they could find a half-elixir missing by the Party Gods and Immortals, but they never came back in the end.

——Some students have heard their families say this well-like rumor, but they all take this rumor as a joke. They know more than anyone else about the Party Principal. Even if some of his abilities are indeed like gods, it is just a tool that they cannot understand temporarily, or they have applied some scientific principle that they do not know.

But now when I think about the rumors, it is really not a completely unfounded rumor. Although the story is indeed a thousand miles away from the truth, the experiments on gunpowder weapons and fireworks and firecrackers are carried out from time to time near this valley. The Party President has told them in person that all kinds of experiments were carried out on the test site where they set off fireworks.

Some sensitive students also thought about whether the Party principal deliberately released such rumors to prevent the people from approaching this place where powerful gunpowder weapons are being made. But in fact, the Party Patriotic really did not do this. Because he was not afraid that the news of his gunpowder was leaked, so naturally there was no need to bother to cover up anything.

Although the Party Patriotic does not intend to announce the technology of manufacturing gunpowder weapons to the public, the technology of manufacturing fireworks and firecrackers does not need to be particularly confidential. On the contrary, the Party Patriotic intends to encourage private capital to participate in the industry that manufactures fireworks and firecrackers.

This is not to cultivate the germination of capitalism or to liberate productivity from the constraints of the land, but to avoid the shrinking of gunpowder manufacturing in peacetime. Just as shipyards can build aircraft carriers and tractor factories can build tanks, factories that make fireworks can produce gunpowder that can be used on weapons by changing the formula.

Maintenance and updating war materials and equipment have always been an important project in national defense expenditure. Even if the country is big, war will perish; even if the world is safe, forgetting war will be in danger. If war materials and equipment are left to rot in the warehouse because of peace in the surrounding areas, and even stop manufacturing new weapons and locking up the factory, then one day when war must be fought, everyone will find that it is too late to rebuild factories and create weapons, and there may even be a situation where factories are built, but no one will create some kind of weapon.

For example, when Zheng He went to the West in the early Ming Dynasty, his huge fleet of Zheng He's treasure ships and blessed ships was really the world's number one invincible fleet. But later the shipbuilding drawings were burned down by "our own people" and the shipyard was closed by "our own people" - these people were not traitors, but sincerely considering that there were no opponents around, there was no need to maintain such a huge military expenditure, and the country's taxes should be used where they were needed.

Although these officials of the Ming Dynasty, just like the later generations who always proposed to disarmament and reduce the military budget, had good intentions and sufficient reasons. However, the drawings were burned, the shipyard was closed, and the craftsmen were dismissed. As a result, by the time the Japanese pirates and the Southern Barbarians' fleets came in the future, the Ming Dynasty could no longer build large ships.

Similarly, if all factories that make gunpowder are maintained by the state, maintaining a huge military-industrial system in peacetime will inevitably drag down other aspects of the country's development. However, the Party and the country know a good way - "military to civilians". In peacetime, the country only needs to maintain some core military-industrial enterprises and allow another military-industrial enterprises to use their original equipment and personnel to produce civilian products. Not only does the state not need to spend money to maintain those enterprises, but it can also obtain a lot of profits.

However, regarding encouraging the people, especially the aristocratic families behind the students of Central University, to invest in the establishment of fireworks and firecracker workshops, Dang Maiguo was not in a hurry to tell them. Before that, Dang Maiguo pulled the students away from the gunpowder workshops and began to go to the various factories located near Luoyang, using the help of the original villages and towns around Luoyang to visit.

Although there are many factories producing various items around Luoyang, most of them are just small factories in scattered areas, which can be read simply. The focus of the visit of the foreign teaching group of the Central University is the large papermaking factory located in the Kuan family, which is the largest factory built by the Dang Paiguo so far.

During the tour, the students were surprised by the huge and bulky paper making machinery:

For example, a large high-pressure steamer with a height of more than one person requires workers to stand on a very high auxiliary table to pour the material into it. However, for such a large pot, there is no need for people standing on the stage to bend back and forth and pour the raw materials raised from below into the pot. In order to facilitate feeding, Dang Aiguo used a conveyor belt to deliver the material into the pot. What the people standing on the stage need to do is to use huge wooden rakes to flatten the material in the pot from time to time, and command the people below to stop the conveyor belt after feeding.

This conveyor belt is very similar to the deformation product of the overturned car invented by Bi Lan. It is made of bamboo boards and wooden boards, and is not very strong, so the transmission speed cannot be too fast. However, because the power it uses is manpower, it cannot be turned too fast. Dang Yaguo originally wanted to use a water truck as the power of the conveyor belt, but later he considered that installing a water truck for such a small matter was not cost-effective, so it was changed to bicycle power.

The so-called bicycle power means that people pedal the pedal on bicycle-style fitness equipment that seems to be used indoors, and then use a rotating shaft to connect the bicycle wheel axle and the power axle of the conveyor belt. To be honest, although Dang Patriotic has installed differential gears on the bicycle, it still takes some effort to use this kind of bicycle to start the transmission belt. However, after the conveyor belt is turned, you can rely on inertia to save some effort.

After seeing the steamer's conveying and feeding machinery, Dang Aiguo led the students to see the mechanical pulping process.

There are three types of pulping machines, all of which are very simple in structure, and they only achieve extremely simple functions such as crushing, pounding and grinding, but their efficiency is much higher than that of manpower. Because these three machines are built together, the Party and the Patriotic Republic of China equip them with water truck power. If any machine needs to operate, connect its transmission shaft and the power shaft of the water truck together.

In addition, this water truck, which is used as a power source, is like a huge wheel - or a miniature high-altitude viewing car. It is also responsible for lifting water, and then sending water to various places in the paper factory through high-rise wooden water tanks to meet the large demand for water in all aspects of papermaking. Because the water truck does not rotate fast, Dang Aiguo also installed differential gears on the water truck.

As for the next few papermaking steps, Dang Paiguo and carpenters did not think of any machinery that could replace manpower to complete the work, so they still rely on papermaking workers to do manual work. But even so, because other steps have become faster and less manpower is needed, the efficiency of papermaking is more than several times higher than before.

Seeing the students' terrifying power of machinery and much higher productivity than manpower, Dang Patriotic said to them:

"Through the several papermaking machinery I just explained, you have roughly understood the advanced productivity represented by machinery, and you can see clearly the benefits of using machinery to replace manpower. You can think about where else can be used to replace manpower.

For example, the woodwork factory we will go to later, where we now use various machinery to cut wood, make utensils, and polish the surface. If the tools used in the woodwork factory are replaced with harder steel knives, these machinery can also be used to cut iron tools. In addition, some kind of tools will be used in agriculture, sowing, plowing, threshing, grinding, oil pressing and other work. If those simple tools are transformed, they can also be turned into better-purpose machines.

In this regard, one thing you should note is that I have prioritized the power source other than human and animal power when choosing power. People and livestock are tired, but machinery is not tired. A person and a livestock have relatively small strength, but a huge mechanical power is very strong. After the human and livestock have been put into use, they have to eat and drink water and consume additional materials. However, as long as the machinery consumes some manpower and materials at the beginning, it can be used.

Therefore, if the source of power of a machine is replaced by a certain living thing to a certain force in nature, it means that we rely on our own wisdom to let nature contribute to us. As many forces that nature can use, we can find ways to make as many machines as we can turn these forces into power.

For example, hydraulic power, we use water wheels to convert the power of the flowing water into the power of the water wheel axle, and then turn the power of the shaft into the power required by the machinery through a certain transformation form. And wind power, can we only open the sail and use it as the power for the boat to drive? I once said that air and water are flowing substances, and some of their characteristics are the same or similar. So with water wheels, you can naturally have windmills, which convert the power of the wind into the power of the windmill axle.

In addition to the above two common sources of power, there are actually some powers that are not widely used yet - such as steam. However, how to discover and apply these powers requires more knowledge to do so. If you are interested in this aspect, it is necessary to study and study them in depth."
Chapter completed!