Nie Mao went out and saw Daddy's wife next to him carrying a big basket and hurriedly coming out. hurriedly raised her hand and saluted: "Sister-in-law is so early today." In a hurry, don't know where to go? ”

Lian's sister-in-law said, "I'll go over there to catch the car." I brought some pastries, candies and novelties from our here and sold them to Xiangcheng County to make some money to spend. When I came back in the evening, I didn't miss dinner. Now we have a lot of people here to sell goods in Xiangcheng. ”

Nie Mao was stunned for a moment before he said, "I see." It's not early, so I won't delay my sister-in-law. ”

The train opened, from Tiejian to Xiangcheng, one in the morning and one in the evening. The first to develop was a small merchant and hawker like Lian's sister-in-law. The big shops are not sensitive, although the train has been open for some days, no one has yet taken advantage of the convenient transportation to open a shop in Xiangcheng. However, the family members of the iron supervisor occasionally found that this was a way to make money, and it became a trend for a while, and many people, like Lian's sister-in-law, got up early to bring goods to Xiangcheng, and then took the evening bus back in the evening. In addition to travel expenses, you can also earn a few hundred wen a day.

Nie Mao walked on the road, and the barracks were obviously much more lively than a few days ago. There are people who go out to visit relatives and friends, and there are guests who come to their homes, and it is no longer the lonely days like the previous months. There are even people who take the train along the line every day off. However, the ticket price of a few tens of cents is nothing for the workers of the railway prison, and the family burden is light.

Finally, before the spring ploughing, the railway line was paved with the Tangzhou to Xiangcheng line, connecting the four counties of Miyang, Fangcheng, Yexian and Xiangcheng, stretching for hundreds of miles from north to south. Now the train is not fast, an hour of 100 miles, to 300 miles away from Tangzhou station, Miyang County, it takes half a day. Many people who like to wander around deeply regret that they can't get there for a day off. Xiangcheng County, a hundred miles away, only takes two hours to go back and forth, and it is the destination of many people. It is located at the wharf of the Ruhe River, not far from Xuzhou, and the train is connected, and the trade has developed rapidly.

Nie Mao has no interest in playing around, and these people, unlike ordinary workers, have more flexible working hours. Although today is a day of rest, there are still people who continue to work in the factory. When he got there, he had money to take, and Nie Mao wanted to save money while he was young, and went to the factory as usual.

With the expansion of the scale, the factory area of machinery manufacturing has been separated from steel, and it has become a different pattern. There are rail links between the zones, and whether it is ore or fuel, as well as raw materials such as steel, they are transported by rail. However, there are no trains in the factory area, all of which are driven by manpower, and the road seems quiet. After walking a short distance, Nie Mao saw a few workers pushing a cart full of steel ingots and bars, and knew that it was sent to his factory, so he said hello, jumped into the car, and grabbed the side of the car.

The track is iron and iron contact, the friction resistance is much smaller, and a few people can push thousands of catties. And once the car moves, it's not too strenuous. A few people pushing the cart talked and laughed with Nie Mao, and they arrived in their factory after a while.

After the steam engine matured, except for some workshops such as manual forging, the machines were made with steam power. As soon as I entered the area, the roar came, and it was particularly lively. Nie Mao got out of the car and entered the factory.

The most important product now, of course, is the steam engine. It's full power, and it's almost around the clock unless the machine is overhauled. Each worker brings at least two apprentices and explains to the apprentices while producing.

These apprentices have moved here from the Xiang Army, but most of them are recruited from the Xiang Army who arrived early in the Tuntian. Nearly 20,000 people came to the Iron Prison one after another, and in the past few months, for various reasons, such as gambling, disobedience to management, and failure to study, one-tenth of them have been dismissed and sent to local farming. For every one person who is opened, one person is added from the locality. The requirements for the supplement are high, young and smart, and they are willing and able to learn, and most of them have gone to technical positions.

This kind of small society is most afraid of self-isolation and becoming a stagnant pool. The iron supervisor has a high salary, of course, there are high requirements, and the most important regulation is to open the reform. After Kai Ge was released from the iron prison, he was incorporated into other chamber armies and went to the local camps.

Walking past a large area of machines, Nie Mao arrived at a large house at the end.

There are only a dozen machines in this house, and they are all huge. An octagonal bar is being cut slowly. The other, with steel pillars cut into circles, is slowly drilling.

Seeing Nie Mao come in, several people who had already arrived greeted each other.

Nie Mao looked at the steel rod that was drilling on the machine tool, and said to the young man standing on the side, "Brother Seven, is it still going well?" ”

You Qilang said: "Fortunately, from yesterday to now, this steel rod has not been broken." It's just that now the is hot, and it's not easy to spray water inside, so you can only drill and stop. ”

Nie Mao nodded, went to his cabinet, changed his coat, put on gloves, and began to check a few machines.

With such a thick steel rod, Nie Mao didn't know why he drilled holes in it. This matter was explained by Du Zhongxiao, and the iron supervisor specially selected Nie Mao to do it. These machines are specially built to drill holes for this size of steel rod, which is expensive.

The processing capacity of steelmaking is limited, and it can only be forged into octagonal steel rods to ensure uniform material. It is not difficult to turn the bar into an outer circle, and several machines can work continuously and cut little by little. It's hard to drill holes inside, this steel rod is too long, everything is normal at the beginning, drill a little deeper, and the inside will heat up badly. The water pipe used to dissipate heat cannot reach inside, and can only be sprayed through the opening, which does not have much effect.

At the beginning, Du Zhongxiao asked to drill a hole at one end, and after trying several times, it was impossible to do it, and he could only drill through the hole. Now the operation at both ends is equivalent to reducing the length by half, but it is still difficult.

Nie Mao thought of countless methods, and the only feasible thing now was to make the knife shaft hollow, with a water pipe inside, so that it could maintain enough water for heat dissipation at all times. However, the hollow knife tube is another difficult problem, and the solution is still far away.

The ideal way is to cast steel directly. The holes inside are not very demanding, as long as they can dissipate heat. However, in the steelmaking area, many methods have been tried, but they cannot achieve smooth forging after casting into steel pipes.

What Du Zhongxiao has to do is naturally the barrel. With such a scale and technical strength, it is impossible to continue to use copper to make cannons. Copper is too expensive and heavy, far less light than steel cannons. Now, plus the processing costs, the steel cannon will actually be much more expensive than the copper cannon. But the strength of the steel is good, which can greatly reduce the weight, and the same caliber is much easier to transport.

But Du Zhongxiao still underestimated the problem of steel rod drilling, and making a bunch of machines still couldn't solve the problem of drilling deep holes. If the steel pipe is cast directly, due to the limitation of steelmaking technology, there are too many pores inside, and you dare not use it when you look at it. can only be ruthless, pile up manpower and material resources, there is always a solution. The biggest advantage of the iron supervisor is that it can be mass-produced, and once the technical problems are solved, the cannon can be mass-produced.

As for the larger number of barrels, I don't dare to think of this method in the short term. The thick barrel cannot be processed, the barrel is thin and long, and it is even more impossible to drill small deep holes. The barrel is made and can only be rolled in iron sheets.