New Shun 1730

The craftsman repeated the strategic significance of this thing to the dynasty's rule with the truth he could understand.

His confidence within "twenty years" came from reality.

The steam engine was not difficult for the technology at that time. The only difficulty that Dashun had to face was the boring machine for boring cylinders, which had been completed.

As for trains, steam locomotives and the like, they were just a branch of the steam age.

The steam age was a bit similar to the gunpowder age.

At the beginning of the gunpowder age, there were many kinds of firearms, such as multi-barreled guns, bowl-mouthed guns, Hussite hand cannons, leather cannons, swarms, divine arrows, fire dragons coming out of water, etc., and many of their ideas even broke through the imagination of later generations.

However, after practical tests, it was finally discovered that the flintlock with field artillery was the right way, and the rest was just trial and error in the era of letting a hundred flowers bloom.

The steam age was similar.

The steam engine was not invented by Watt.

In history, ten years before Watt improved the steam engine, the French had already come up with a steam locomotive with their imaginations - that is, more than 20 years later, in 1769.

The actual steam locomotive is still there. And in 2010, it can still be started after a simple repair. The maximum speed is 60 kilometers per hour and the maximum load is 8 tons.

This thing actually runs on the road, not on the rails.

But just like those gunpowder weapons such as multi-barreled guns, fire dragons coming out of water, swarms of bees, and divine arrows, it is destined to be just a kind of imagination when a hundred flowers bloom. In the end, the right way is still the way Watt took.

The monster created by Nicolas Joseph Cugnot 20 years later is destined to be just a corpse under the cornerstone of the enthronement of the steam age.

Without Watt's condenser cylinder separation idea, the inefficient heat energy utilization rate makes it have a speed of 60 kilometers per hour and a load of 8 tons, but it can only run for 15 minutes and have to stop - Kugnot saw the trouble of feeding horses to pull cannons, but the thing he made created even greater trouble - it is true that there is no need to feed horses, but it has to eat half a cart of firewood in 15 minutes. The horse herders are saved, but they have to be equipped with several times more firewood carriers, and a canal must be dug along the "Fazhi Road" to facilitate water addition at any time.

Before the advent of a new era and new technology, it is always necessary to let a hundred flowers bloom and then try and make mistakes.

The day when the new era really comes must be far behind the day when the new era begins. After trial and error, those who are eliminated, the bones are all the foundation soil.

Just like the steam engine was raised by Watt and has been quietly pumping water in British mines for 70 years; when Albalat used steam tractors to plow the land, Cugnot's steam tractor for towing artillery had been lying in the French Arts and Crafts Museum for 100 years.

Just like Europe experienced a brutal war of equal strength, which accelerated the time of "survival of the fittest", so the multi-barreled guns, breech-loading guns, and sub-guns common in the 16th and 17th centuries gave way to simple and effective flintlocks and muzzle-loading guns.

Liu Yu is not a technical genius, but his existence has a great significance.

"Prophet", without trial and error, knows what is the right direction.

As long as the direction is right, even if you are a turtle or a snail, you can always crawl.

As long as you are willing to spend money, as long as you are willing to persist, as long as you don't waver in direction, the twenty years that the craftsmen think is not a lie.

Because there are only two results for this matter. Success or failure.

But in fact, normally there is a third possibility: it is made, but like the multi-barreled gun and Cugnot's steam car, the direction is wrong, so is it a success or a failure?

The third possibility of normal evolution is the norm.

Dashun bypassed the historical norm of technological progress, and crossed the river by feeling the way of Britain in another time and space, rushing forward in an absolutely deformed abnormal state until there was nothing left to touch.

Of course, the wrong path taken by France on steam locomotives is also closely related to France's social reality.

Thoughts, consciousness and ideas are not created out of thin air, but must conform to material foundations and social conditions.

The strange steam tractor towing the artillery vehicle that Cugnot made 20 years later originated from the following material foundations and social conditions.

First of all, the French Finance Director who talked to Liu Yu about technology introduction launched a whole set of French road network construction in his era, and formulated policies for regular labor service and road construction indicators in various provinces. Later, he stepped down, but the policy continued.

As a result, 20 years later, France had the best road network in Europe. It can fully withstand a load of 8 tons. Many of the strange designs of the French artillery are based on this road network.

Then, the weather in France is very good, unlike the rainy weather in the UK, and it has the best plains in Europe. Considering the national environment, the importance of roads rather than railways has increased, and it is indeed difficult to think in the direction of railroads.

If France did not have a road network foundation, or if the French climate was rainy and the soil was yellow mud in the Yellow River flood area, it would be impossible to design such "advanced" and strange things.

Finally, the French artillery has a system, and it really attaches great importance to artillery. It has always relied on artillery to fight wars, and it has a heritage. The importance of artillery has been reflected, so there are more civilians among artillery officers, because the aristocrats certainly do not have a large base of civilians in mathematics, and it is easier for talents to emerge. Relatively speaking, although the French artillery also has the situation of seniority, its innovation is much higher than other branches of the military, and it is relatively the most encouraging innovation and the most concerned about science.

For example, during the French Revolution, the names of the authors of artillery textbooks, such as Cauchy, Fourier, and Laplace, would be enough to support the mathematics department of a university in the future. A large number of civilian science students, coupled with the mechanical materialism of the French Enlightenment, made the French artillery particularly enthusiastic about new technologies and encouraged them. They also realized earlier that steam engines were not as good as cattle and horses, but they had unlimited potential. They still invested money to support them, even though they knew the many weaknesses of this broken thing.

The above points are all important reasons why the French steam car went astray.

The same story, placed in Dashun, the core of the story remains unchanged, but the material basis and social conditions have changed, and the conclusions must be different.

First of all, Dashun has a vast territory and has long recognized the importance of transportation. This can be regarded as the social consciousness brought by the Grand Canal to maintain the connection between the north and the south.

The previous places where troops were deployed were indeed as the craftsman said. The difficulty is logistics. If there is a stable, reliable and efficient transportation line, the war with Russia involving thousands of people can really be solved by officers at the level of lieutenants.

Secondly, the war of the Dashun army against Japan made the emperor realize the strategic significance of naval transportation.

The Dashun navy did not have much tactical significance in the war against Japan - there was no large-scale naval battle, and the Japanese ships shrank in the strait, which frightened the warships built by the Dashun army with a lot of money and dared not go in, fearing that they would create the myth of fire attack ships.

However, strategically, using the advantages of warships in sea transportation, a field force of 10,000 people dragged the 300,000 Japanese samurai to the point where they could not defend.

This is the strategic significance.

If we really want to talk about it, if the Marine Corps is not counted, what results did the Navy have in the war against Japan? A total of three or five small boats were sunk, which is not a result at all, but the first credit belongs to the Navy, and no one can take it away.

The third is the huge pressure brought by the population growth, and the Dashun army is very clear that the basic base of a feudal dynasty is self-cultivating farmers.

There is vast land in the Northeast, but immigration is a big problem. The Song-Liao watershed across the river has caused the population of Liao to grow in recent years, but few people have crossed the watershed.

Moreover, the emperor has also heard from Liu Yu about the situation of the government soldiers along the Songhua River.

Grain cannot be transported out, and sea transportation has to go around the Korean Peninsula. If there is no transportation line like the Grand Canal, immigration will be difficult and centrifugal forces will be easily generated.

Dashun is actually divided internally. The landlord manor economy in Jiangnan and the small peasant self-cultivating economy in North China. If Dashun wants to last for thousands of years, it must find a way to stabilize the self-cultivating peasant class and expand the base.

At this time, the development of the Northeast has lost its original meaning of guarding against barbarians, but has turned to a more important meaning of prolonging the life of the Dashun Dynasty.

Under this social foundation, Liu Yu's "Grand Canal that does not require water and boatmen" is indeed "a feat that cannot be compared with the conquest of Beipingxi" in the eyes of the emperor.

As for whether it can succeed, it is not a lie. With the trust built by Liu Yu's previous experience of pacifying the Junggar's army and conquering Japan, the emperor felt that things that seemed like magic and nonsense were probably achievable if Liu Yu thought they were right.

Flying into the sky, something that was once unthinkable, is now not something that many people in the capital are looking forward to in the future, saying that a hundred years later, every rich family might have a hot air balloon.

The emperor couldn't understand the little he had learned about technology, so he simply didn't ask. But he was good at thinking about national policy.

If it really worked, it would be a win-win situation.

Once the Nanyang expedition was successful, Li Gan was determined to abolish the Grand Canal. The ancestral tomb of Dashun was not along the canal, and now there was sea transportation to solve the food problem... Liu Yu didn't participate in the discussion about abolishing the canal and changing to sea transportation, but it didn't mean that he didn't support it. He just understood that he had to go to Nanyang first to eliminate the threat from the sea.

Once the threat from the sea was eliminated, there would be no worries about sea transportation, and the problem of the Yellow River taking over the Huai River to the sea, which had been unsolvable since the Song Dynasty, would be solved.

Why not use the river workers of the canal to build these things?

By the way, a large number of people in the Huanghuai area can be relocated to the north; the Huaihe River can be regulated to make the Huanghuai area return to the essence of the world before the Song Dynasty, no longer the gangrene of the empire; and a large number of self-cultivating farmers with a basic base in the northeast region can be obtained...

If it is really done, it will really be a famous achievement for all ages.

At least in Li Gan's view, it is definitely at the same level as the excavation of the Grand Canal, the construction of the Great Wall, the opening up of the Western Regions, and the reform of the land system in the southwest.

It just so happens that if we go to Southeast Asia, we can really profit from the taxes of three or five Henan provinces, and there will be fewer places to fight in the future. Isn't this money just used for this?

The county system of North Korea and the northern part of Annan can be left to future generations. As long as this matter can be done before death, let alone the posthumous title, it should not be a problem for future generations to compare with Han Wu and Tang Zong, right?

Thinking of this, he felt a passion that he had not felt for a long time, and said to the attendant beside him: "I wonder where the Whale Marquis is now? When can he return to the capital?"