Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 356 Heluo Wind and Thunder 9
Yang Menglong's eyes glowed green, drooling, eyes straightened, like a pervert who has been holding back for ten years and suddenly meets a stunning beauty, looking at the pile of strange things in front of him with lustful eyes .

This pile of gadgets that made his eyes drool and salivate was not seductive at all. It was nothing more than a pile of monsters made up of wood and steel, with screws, screw rods, knife heads, and a lot of unsightly things on it. , The ghost thing that is not fun at first glance, the more you look at it, the uglier it is, I really don't know how he fell in love with these ghost things!
Father Robben shook his head and pointed at the pile of iron lumps and introduced them one by one: "This is a boring machine, specially used to polish the inner bore of cannons... Dear Yang, don't doubt its power. As long as the water power is sufficient, it only needs In two hours you can polish the inner bore of any artillery piece so smooth that a fly will fall over if it lands on it!"

Han Peng muttered: "We can grind the barrel of the gun so smooth with our hands!"

Yang Menglong stretched out his hand to touch the sharp and well-made knife, and nodded repeatedly: "It's really a good thing!"

Father Robben pointed to the other one: "This is a drill press, specially used for drilling gun barrels. If there is sufficient hydraulic power, it can drill a four-foot-long barrel in only two hours, and the scrap rate is extremely low! "

Han Peng muttered: "We can also drill a very good barrel by hand!"

"This is a planer. Have you seen this extremely sharp planer? Yes, it is used to cut metal! With it, General, the surface of your cannon will be smoother than ice!"

"This is a threading machine tool, just start it, put the parts in, creak --- in the blink of an eye, circles of threads will appear on the extremely hard steel, whether it is an internal thread or an external thread Thread, it can easily handle!"

Although these machine tools are all made by hand, they are very simple, and the reliability is not much higher, but... this is a machine tool anyway. With it, machines can be used to produce machines. How can this significance be overestimated? Not too much!Yang Menglong patted the boring machine vigorously and said, "They are all good things! But why are there no grinding machines and milling machines?"

Father Robben and the Dutchman behind him were obviously stunned: "Grinders and milling machines? What the hell?"

Yang Menglong gestured with his hands and said: "The milling machine is a machine tool that uses milling cutters to mill the workpiece. In addition to milling planes, grooves, gear teeth, threads and spline shafts, the milling machine can also process more complex profiles. It is a machine tool used to grind metal, simply put, it is used to grind milling cutters! These two types of machine tools are very important, why didn’t you bring them here?”

The foreigner who was ordered by the church to pull a whole ship of weird goods from the Yangtze River all the way north to Nanyang shook his head, saying that he had never heard of such a machine tool.In fact, today's drilling machines, boring machines, planers, and threading machine tools are all handmade, and the precision of the machined parts can only be described as "terrible". Even in Europe where they were invented, they are not widely used now. , Europeans have not yet realized the importance of machine tools.After the steam engine technology was popularized in Europe, the machine tool really ushered in a period of rapid development. Since then, it has been out of control. Milling machines, grinding machines, drilling machines, planers, boring machines... One after another, precision machine tools are constantly being used by machines. The production opened the curtain of European industry's 200-year domination of the earth.These crude hand-made machine tools provided the necessary technical support for the European Industrial Revolution, and the great achievements of the European Industrial Revolution in turn produced a full range of machine tools with superior performance, grinding machines and milling machines are the first industrial revolution As a result, if Yang Menglong wanted to get them, he had to travel through another time and move back to the United States 200 years later.

Yang Menglong was a little disappointed that two important machine tools were missing, but he immediately cheered up. They don't have them in Europe, so why can't I make them myself?If I rely on others for everything, can I still be a fool?Thinking of this, he held his head high and said: "These machine tools are very good, I bought them all!"

The foreigner also simply said: "One set for 1000 taels, there are eight sets in total, 8000 taels, no credit!"

After listening to the translation, Han Peng stared wide-eyed: "It's just such a simple thing, and it still costs 1000 taels of silver? Are you robbing?"

The foreigner blushed and said, "It's for the sake of the church that I do this business with you! If the church hadn't come forward, why would the devil be willing to go all the way to the mainland of China for such a small amount of money!"

Han Peng shouted: "You————"

Yang Menglong waved his hand and said, "Isn't it just 8000 taels of silver? I can afford it! I'll give you the money later... Where are the flax seeds? Did you bring them?"

The foreigner pointed to another boat, and a group of foreigners with red hair, blue eyes and thick beards were humming and unloading the heavy sacks from the boat.Yang Menglong opened a sack casually, and a bag full of flax seeds appeared in front of him. The grains were abnormally plump, needless to say, they were all high-quality flax seeds.A bag of 360 catties, a total of [-] bags, [-] catties, enough to plant three to four thousand acres of land.Yang Menglong inspected the bags, even took out a few flaxseeds and chewed them in his mouth. He was very serious. He didn't want to be fooled by foreigners with a pile of boiled flaxseeds.Fortunately, these flaxseeds are very fresh, and no foreigners have tampered with them. It seems that these foreigners still have a bit of integrity.In addition to linseed, there are also some potatoes, wheat and beet seeds, and Yang Menglong accepts them all.

"These machine tools are specially manufactured by us for the general, and the seeds are also carefully selected by our farms in Europe. We have suffered a lot in order to send them to Asia..." The foreigners were still bragging. , to put it bluntly, I hope Yang Menglong can reward him with a few more coins.In fact, these machine tools were purchased by Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai. Because the Denglai rebellion was not put down for a long time, and Sun Yuanhua lost his life because of it, no one cared about these machine tools.Flax seeds were shipped to Indonesia for trial planting. Originally there were 81 kilograms, but the first planting test used [-] kilograms. The results were very tragic: nine out of ten acres of flax planted by Indonesian natives were completely wiped out. , not a single seedling has grown; the pests in Indonesia are so insanely numerous, and even more ferocious, that when a few seedlings finally grow, a group of pests fly by, and in the blink of an eye they are chewed into toothpicks!Finally, there are only two typhoons in Indonesia a year, one for six months. The flax went through [-] hardships and finally grew to more than half a meter tall. However, a strong wind blew and wiped them all away... This time The painful lesson made the Dutch East India Company give up its intention to plant flax in Indonesia. It would be better to just plant sugar cane, bananas and other crops that are easier to maintain. There is definitely no hope for flax!But these tens of thousands of kilograms of flax seeds cannot be wasted like this. There is also a cost to transport them to Indonesia. They have to get their money back, right?I heard that someone in China wanted it, so they happily sent it over.Of course, even if they kill them, they will not tell Yang Menglong that no one actually wants this batch of goods. They must brag that they are specially prepared for him, so that they can sell them at a good price!

Thirty-six thousand catties of flax seeds, plus a pile of miscellaneous crop seeds, directly demanded 1000 taels of silver from Yang Menglong. The hearts of these foreigners are really darker than ink.

Han Peng was very dissatisfied with this transaction. In his opinion, those crop seeds were worth some money. As for those machine tools, they were worthless. Yang Menglong spent so much money to buy a pile of scrap copper and rotten iron, it was crazy!

There are not a few people who hold the same opinion as Han Peng. Everyone thinks that it is not worthwhile to spend so much money on these machine tools.Probably to see what the Chinese were thinking, after receiving the payment, the foreigners sent a few people to help assemble these machine tools and connect them with the hydraulic transmission system that had already been built. Slow with speed.At this time, a foreigner picked up an iron pipe and cut it into two sections, put one on the external thread cutter head of the threading machine, and fixed the other on the external thread cutter head. Thick and thin iron filings kept falling, and soon the threads were processed. The foreigners took out the two pipes and twisted and twisted them in front of everyone. In three or two strokes, the two iron pipes were twisted into one. .Wang Tiechui was about to come over, and tried desperately to pull it away, but how could he pull it away?He was still not convinced, so he asked Xu Meng to help. The two big guys held onto one side each, and tried their best to suck it, but how could they pull it a little bit?Yang Menglong laughed loudly: "Don't waste your energy, even if your strength is ten times stronger, you will never try to pull them apart!" After twisting the pipe a few times, he didn't see how much force he exerted, so he pulled it away. The iron pipe was easily twisted into two sections.He pointed to the circle of threads and explained to everyone: "This is the thread. The threads of the two pipes can be perfectly connected. Turn them clockwise and counterclockwise to tighten them. Once tightened, eighteen cows will pull They can’t be opened, but they can be easily unscrewed by turning clockwise, isn’t it amazing?”

Hearing his explanation, everyone felt that this machine tool was not useless, at least the thread was very useful.

Another foreigner said nothing, and put a piece of wrought iron on the rapidly rotating turning tool, and saw iron filings flying up one by one. Soon, the high-speed turning turning tool cut it into a cylinder. It proves that "cutting iron like mud" is not a legend.Then put the iron lump on the drilling machine, start the drill, and a round hole was drilled with a strange chirping sound, then change the boring machine to smooth the round hole, use a screw knife to tap out the internal thread, and pick up the drill to drill the external thread. The threaded iron pipe was twisted a few times, and a hammer was done.

Han Peng, Wang Tiechui, Xu Meng... all the fierce generals stretched their necks and stared, dumbfounded and speechless.

Yang Menglong took the hammer and found a piece of iron and struck it hard several times. It was pretty good and very strong.He smiled and said to Han Peng: "Now you know why I spent so much money on these machine tools, right?"

Han Peng scratched his head and said repeatedly: "Evil door, evil door!"

Yang Menglong threw the hammer to a craftsman who was also dumbfounded, and said: "These foreigners will stay here for two months. During these two months, you should concentrate on learning from them the use and maintenance of machine tools. I have a thorough understanding of every part of the machine tool, and in the future we will not only manufacture the same machine tool, but also use the machine tool to create a better machine tool!"

The craftsmen all responded with a nod, and then showed fawning smiles on the foreigners who could operate the machine tools... This is clearly the rhythm to squeeze them dry!
As for the crop seeds, Yang Menglong naturally didn't need to worry about them, they were all taken to the experimental field for planting.Having got everything he wanted, Yang Menglong was in a good mood, and hosted a banquet for these foreigners, and no matter if it was the captain or ordinary sailors, everyone gave a few taels of gold as gifts.This group of foreigners was so excited that they immediately became like brothers to him and toasted him in turn.The captain killed a catty of potato wine in one breath, squinted his drunken eyes, and said to Yang Menglong: "General, you are the most peculiar Chinese I have ever seen! Except for a few outstanding figures such as Sun Yuanhua and Xu Guangqi, there is no one in the world. Which Chinese is as interested in machinery and European science and technology as you are! I have been traveling on Asian routes for 20 years, and there have been a lot of cargoes, but the business of machine tools has only been done twice …”

Yang Menglong asked curiously: "Aside from me, who else has bought a machine tool?"

Father Robben answered for the drunk guy: "Master Sun Yuanhua bought a batch of boring machines and planers a few years ago."

Yang Menglong became more and more curious: "Why did he buy these things?"

Father Robben said: "Of course he is making guns! Not only did he buy these machines, he also hired a large number of skilled workers from the Netherlands and Portugal to help him make guns. He was one of the few officials in the Ming Dynasty who understood industrial technology. With his efforts, Dengzhou built many cannons with superior performance, dozens of them. The quality of Dengzhou's muskets is also much better than that of other places! It's a pity that because of those damn rebels, he He was killed, and the results of so many years of hard work were in vain to benefit the rebels! I don’t know how his hard work was wasted by the rebels!"

Yang Menglong's complexion changed drastically: "You mean, those machines are still in Dengzhou?"

Father Robben thought he was retarded: "Yeah! This thing is very heavy. The rebels captured Dengzhou and they can't move it even if they want to."

Yang Menglong asked: "Then, what about those skilled workers?"

Father Robben said: "Some escaped before the city of Dengzhou was destroyed, but at least half of them were trapped in Dengzhou, and their lives and deaths are uncertain...May God bless them!"

Yang Menglong gritted his teeth, suddenly jumped up, and roared: "Why hasn't anyone told me about such an important matter? Why!!!"

(End of this chapter)