"Can you calculate the volume of the material for a cast iron barrel with a height of three feet, a diameter of one foot and nine inches, and a wall thickness of three minutes?" Hong Tao didn't want to be Shen Kuo's teacher, but such a good free helper can't be driven away, so he doesn't have to use it in vain.

Let him do something? The pankang will definitely not be able to help, so let's calculate the data of the cast iron stove. On the one hand, it satisfies his thirst for knowledge, and on the other hand, it saves his own troubles, the best of both worlds.

"Let me think twice, think twice......" Don't look at Shen Kuo as a great mathematician, but his previous thinking is still very different from modern mathematics, and he has to adapt to it for a while if he wants to apply the newly learned knowledge proficiently. This simple question made him a little blind, and while he was pulling his beard vigorously, he took out a small paper roll from his arms.

"Save it slowly, there are still a few questions here, and we have time." Seeing that Shen Kuo was forced to cheat on by himself, Hong Tao felt extremely comfortable in every pore on his body.

If you like it, then I'll satisfy you. In addition to the cast-iron stove, there were lead chimneys, pottery chimneys, molds for candle shaping, and a set of hydraure-powered stone mills.

There is no shortage of mills in the Song Dynasty, there are more than 10 mills in Bianliang City alone, the largest is the east and west water mills, all in the north of the new city, a Yongshun Fang and a Jiaqing Fang. The east is next to the Wuzhang River and the west is next to the Jinshui River, both of which use water to push the stone mill, and the task is to process grain and tea for the imperial court.

Xiwu Hongtao went there when he was wandering, Gao Cuifeng said that there were more than 100 water mills, even if this was a bit watery, but there must be 50 plates, and there was at least one mile along the banks of the Jinshui River, all of which were tall water wheels, rotating day and night.

The water mill to be made by Hongtao is different, it does not use the concentric shaft of the water wheel to directly drive the grinding disc, but adds a set of gear transmission system, through its distribution and conduction, theoretically a water wheel can drive several water mills, each water mill can be controlled individually.

"Although this thing can be driven freely, the mechanism is complicated, it is not easy to maintain, and it is not practical."

After reading the model that Hong Tao brought, Shen Kuo immediately switched from the mode of a mathematics elementary school student to the state of everyone in the institution, and gave a very clear evaluation, with advantages and disadvantages.

The drive designed by the colt is ingenious and the idea is not unusual, but the practicality is not as beautiful as it seems.

The water mill is a bulky machine, and what you want is the reliability of long-term operation, don't think about what is beautiful and precise, how simple and easy to repair.

These gears bite together, can make the power from the spindle change the direction, change the size, change the weight, it is indeed useful, but it has one of the biggest problems, that is, the maintenance is too troublesome, the general two people really can't play, and the wood used has hardness requirements, the cost must be very high.

What is the point of using such a set of equipment to replace the water mill with very mature and stable technology, in addition to looking fancy? There is no shortage of riverbanks with water wheels and grinding discs in Kaifeng City, and it is necessary to use a waterwheel to drive several stone mills. To put it mildly, the design idea of the colt is a bit suspicious of taking off his pants and farting.

"Sooner or later, it will be useful, Brother Shen calculates, I have my own clever plan......" Shen Kuo's analysis is very reasonable, and every sentence is to the point, but Hong Tao is still obsessed and insists on getting this system out.

Why? Is it self-serving? Definitely not, Hong Tao is still very in awe in front of knowledge, even if it is not Shen Kuo who is standing opposite, but Peng Da, as long as the truth is indeed right, he will not turn a blind eye because of the problem of face.

In fact, this gear system is not used for water mills, Hong Tao just found such an excuse to hide the real purpose.

Can the flower paste alone sweep through the Western Xia and Liao? On this issue, whether it is Hong Tao, the initiator, Emperor Shenzong, the supporter behind it, and the two prime ministers, they all have a very unanimous opinion, that is, they can't.

Herbal ointment is a chronic poison that is not lethal, and its effect is to disturb the socio-economic and moral standards of the enemy nation, while at the same time providing greater benefits at a fraction of the cost.

Economic order and morality are two things that cannot be seen or touched, but they have a great impact on daily life. Whether it is an agrarian country or a nomadic people, there is a relatively stable economic model, and if something suddenly pops up, which is neither a means of production nor a strategic material nor a valuable currency, but people cannot rely on reason to refuse, it is very harmful to the national economy.

To put it in layman's terms, if the flower paste entered the market of Western Xia and Liao as a commodity, and had a relatively high value and strong market demand, then the people of the two countries would need to pay real goods to exchange.

But the flower paste cannot produce any benefit, and every exchange is a one-sided profit. This is equivalent to the Great Song Dynasty snatching money, livestock, and everything useful from the people of the other two countries. And all the people of the two countries can get is a moment of spiritual pleasure, and all the efforts will disappear without a trace after a wisp of green smoke.

Its harm is not only there, behind the loss of interests, moral degradation is the most terrible. Regardless of the stage of a society, morality is the basic binding force, and if this line continues to bottom out, many contradictions will suddenly appear in the society, causing damage to stability.

What's even more terrifying is that morality and human nature are exactly the same, and it is difficult to learn bad and learn quickly. It often takes decades, hundreds of years, centuries to establish a set of ethical standards. It is enough to destroy it for a few years, and it cannot be recovered in a short time, and there will be a lot of downward inertia.

Let's ask who can continue to work and live with peace of mind in an environment where fathers and sons kill each other, husbands and wives turn against each other, theft and robbery are frequent, and there is a flower paste that is a father. There are not many people and phenomena of this kind, and it is not necessary for most people to smoke the flower paste, only a small number of people are enough.

Again, the eyes of this thing are always looking down, and once the moral bottom line is broken, everyone will automatically adjust their bottom line to adapt to the change. It's a vicious circle, the lower you adjust, the lower it gets, the easier it is to break through, and the cycle goes on and on until it collapses.

But even if Hong Tao has done all this, it is very unrealistic to wait for the two countries to collapse on their own, but it is very dangerous. As the saying goes, when these two countries realized the harmfulness of the ointment, the only way to save themselves was to fight. If they don't take back the lost losses, they will perish, no matter what the purpose, the southern invasion of the Great Song Dynasty is the first choice.

Once at that time, chronic poison is useless, what is needed is a fight with real knives and real guns, and for the Song Dynasty army that lacked cavalry, ordnance equipment is the magic weapon to win.

How to train the army Hong Tao is not going to mix, it is very dangerous to play this technique with a horse, and if you don't do it, you will die before you get out of the army.

Besides, the combat effectiveness of the forbidden army of the Song Dynasty is still good, even if you let yourself go to training, it is useless to have no modern equipment. I really don't know how to use techniques such as archery and horse archery, marching and arranging, and I can't play the ancients 100%.

Therefore, Hong Tao shifted his direction, not to specifically interfere with the Song Dynasty army, but to develop in terms of ordnance. This thing is relatively familiar to me, even if you can't move all the equipment of the Jinhe Empire back then, it is enough to learn from the Western Xia and Liao armies.

But it's still that question, this matter can't be put on the table for the time being and talked about with the emperor's ministers. The matter of the flower paste is already the biggest trust they have in themselves at present, and before they have done anything, they must not touch their already tight nerves again.

But just do it and wait, Hong Tao feels that time is a bit wasted, so he plans to mix the military industry with ordinary industry and commerce. Instead of working on the final product, we will focus on equipment research and development and training of skilled workers.

As long as the corresponding equipment and skilled workers are available, iron-making or steel-making, casting stoves or cannons, building axles or making crossbows, in fact, it is a matter of changing drawings and changing formulas, and a large number of large-scale workshops can be copied in a short period of time, and then mass production.

This set of gear transmission is an important part of his plan, without this thing, smelting, forging, machinery, processing, etc. can only stay in the handicraft stage, no matter how high the technology is without production, it is useless.

This is not the time to play the navy, a well-equipped and technologically advanced warship can stir a country together day and night. The army is fighting for scale, training, and logistics, and without quantity, there is no combat effectiveness.

A lone hero who can kill seven in and seven out, a magical military advisor who can watch the unpredictable prophets of the sky, and an invincible tiger general who can take the head of an enemy general will only appear in stories and romances.

In the face of a well-equipped, well-trained, step-by-step orderly army, any hero is an ant, any military advisor is futile, and any tiger general is cannon fodder.

Of course, the premise is that it is well-equipped and well-trained. The latter Hong Tao can't help, and the former can help too much.