In the afternoon of this day, in one of the courtyards of the Wensi Academy, a large group of people were huddled into a tight circle, and everyone craned their necks to look at a cast iron utensil fixed to the ground in the middle.

Xu Anchen stood nervously next to this strange-looking instrument, and introduced the principle and function of this instrument to the surrounding crowd.

He couldn't help but be nervous, and now the people standing around to listen to his introduction were no longer his former classmates from Yenching University and his co-workers at the Wensi Academy, but a researcher from the Royal Academy of Sciences and a cadre from the Wensi Academy.

“… If an iron pipe is put into the underground water source, the pipe is sealed, and then the air in the pipe is pumped out, and the pipe is almost a vacuum environment is formed, and then the underground water source will be pulled up by the vacuum.

Although this principle was proposed at the beginning of the year, it took us more than half a year to really turn this principle into reality. If it weren't for the strong support of Your Majesty and all of you, I'm afraid we would have had to give up halfway through.

Although the principle quoted by this appliance is simple, the most difficult part of making it a reality is how to seal the tube and how to extract the air in the tube to make it vacuum.

In the end, after countless experiments, we finally came up with the current structure, with a reciprocating plug on top of the tube, which we called a piston.

A valve is set under the pipe, and this piston and valve are both valves pointing in the same direction, so that the air goes up and not down.

When the piston goes up, the valve below opens, which can pump the air from the lower tube into the upper cavity; When the piston goes down, the valve closes, and air comes out of the side of the piston, and so on and so on, it draws a vacuum into the tube below..."

Li Zhizao, Li Tianjing, Tang Ruowang, Luo Yagu and others stood in front of the crowd, listening to Xu Anchen's explanation and live demonstration with relish. Everyone watched Xu Anchen pour a scoop of water above the pipe, and began to press it up quickly, an iron rod sticking out of the pipe, and then quickly rushed out of the water outlet on the other side of the pipe.

Many people around were very curious about this effect, so they stepped forward to squeeze Xu Anchen away, and personally operated and tested it, even Li Zhizao and Li Tianjing stepped forward to test it.

Soon the large wooden barrel under the pressurized well overflowed with water, flooding the surrounding ground into small puddles, and many people in the crowd got their shoes wet, but the excited people did not pay attention to this.

After Li Zhizao stepped back, he said to his colleagues with a smile on his face: "This thing is really good, the surface water source in the south is abundant, so the soil water content is too large, and it costs a lot to dig a usable drinking water well, and ordinary people have to go to the river to fetch water to drink." But there are too many dirty things in the river, and in spring and summer, it often causes epidemics. Now that we have this thing, it is very beneficial to the common people. ”

Li Tianjing interjected while holding the cuffs that had been wet with his hands: "What the predecessor said is good, but Yu thinks that this pressurized water well has a greater function in the north.

This year's drought in Gyeonggi is severe, but the amount of water in the river has decreased due to the lack of rain, but there is no shortage of underground water. In many parts of Gyeonggi, hundreds of wells were urgently dug between fields to survive the drought.

However, the demand for manpower to carry water to irrigate the fields is too great, and a well that does not stop lifting water day and night for irrigation is only seven or eight acres of land at most. If this kind of pressurized water well is replaced, even if it is watered ten acres of land, it will only be half a day.

If this pressurized water well can be popularized, even if it encounters drought and no rain in the future, it will not be as helpless as before..."

Opposite the group where Li Zhizao and Li Tianjing, Chinese officials talked, Jesuit missionaries such as Jinnige, Tang Ruowang, and Luo Yagu also praised the pressurized water well in front of them.

Jinnige looked excited and said to the Jesuits behind him: "The guess of atmospheric pressure put forward by His Majesty the Emperor is indeed correct. I think we should record all the previous tests and the current pressurized water well, and report them to the Holy See. ”

Several Jesuit missionaries couldn't help but nod in agreement, originally they followed Jinnige north to the capital, following the path opened up by Matteo Ricci and other Jesuit pioneers. By disseminating the most advanced natural sciences in Europe to the Chinese scholars, they were recognized by the Chinese scholars and doctors, and thus they were given the right to preach freely in China.

The newly enthroned Chinese emperor invited them to Beijing, which was once considered by these Jesuit missionaries to be a great victory of God's cause in the East, and the best proof that European natural science research was ahead of these self-enclosed Chinese.

But when they entered the capital and came into contact with the emperor of China, they were stunned to find out. Once they thought that the Chinese, who were accustomed to self-isolation in their minds, once they let go of their shackled hands and feet, the speed of research in natural science was like wings.

If a year ago, they could have introduced European natural sciences to these Chinese as teachers. So now, most of the time they have been in an equal relationship with the Chinese.

Although since the Renaissance, the rise of humanist ideas in European countries has also made the natural sciences starting with astronomy begin to gradually form a new knowledge system.

And the state of small European states also ensured that this new knowledge of natural sciences would not be forbidden by some king who hated natural sciences. The Holy See, which had imprisoned the minds of Europeans for hundreds of years, was no longer able to take high-pressure measures against the natural sciences because of the dispute between the old and new doctrines, so that Europe is now in a stage of great development of the natural sciences.

But the decentralization of royal power and the loosening of religious ideas gave the natural sciences a state of free germination. However, there has always been a lag in the exchange of natural science research across Europe. The scientific principles of the same phenomenon are often studied in several places at the same time.

This kind of repetitive research competition is in fact a waste of the lives of several geniuses of this era, and a large amount of material at the expense of it.

And although the aristocrats and intellectuals in Europe are still using Latin as the carrier of writing, the awakening of the consciousness of various European nationalities brought about by the Renaissance has made European countries begin to use their own national languages as communication languages.

In this situation, the natural sciences, which were written in Latin, were naturally alienated from the lower classes of Europe. In other words, although it is a period of great development of natural science in Europe over the past few hundred and thousands of years, the discoveries of natural science at this time have little to do with the lives of ordinary people.

This was not the case in China, when the newly enthroned Chinese emperor summoned Jesuit missionaries and established the Royal Academy of Sciences and Universities to study and study the natural sciences, modeled after Europe. Soon, these natural science discoveries were grouped together, and they began to use the natural science principles of these discoveries to improve the lives of ordinary people, thus linking the development of natural science with the improvement of ordinary people's lives.

The way the Chinese treat natural science in this way is obviously different from the purpose of European scientists studying natural science in this era. Europeans study these natural sciences in order to better understand the world in which they live; The second is to use the practice of natural science to refute some absurd claims of the Holy See, so as to resist the Holy See's ideological imprisonment of the people.

Although the Jesuit missionaries did not admit the latter statement, they could still feel it in their hearts. It's just that by sticking to their own beliefs, they have discarded this idea in their minds.

Outside of China, Jesuit missionaries would only spread the Bibles in their hands, not any European natural science. It was only in China that these Jesuit missionaries had to use European natural sciences to impress the Chinese scholars' thirst for new knowledge before they could proclaim the existence of God to them.

Under these circumstances, the Jesuit missionaries who were able to enter China were the most knowledgeable figures, and the ignorant missionaries could only stay on the American continent and preach to the natives.

For the missionaries of Kinney Court, they may not yet be able to gauge who can go further in the way the natural sciences are studied in the East and the West.

But they did get a lot of surprises in the capital, whether it was the cowpox technique to prevent smallpox, or the measurement of weights and measures in accordance with natural science, the contour drawing method in topographic surveys, and the pressurized water well in front of them that applied the principle of atmospheric pressure.

While these missionaries spread the natural sciences of Europe to China, they also believed that the new knowledge they had seen in China should be fed back to Europe, so as to raise the new understanding of the natural sciences among Europeans.

The only thing they regret is the long distance between China and Europe, which makes communication between the two sides extremely inconvenient. They are now a little worried about whether the exchange of natural sciences between Europe and China will become a one-way transfer of knowledge in three or five years' time.

For the earnest whispers of his colleagues, Tang Ruowang didn't listen to it, and his whole attention was focused on the pressurized water well in front of him. He was more interested in the piston structure of the upper part of the pressurized water well than the principle of atmospheric pressure that his colleagues were interested in. He always felt that this piston structure should be able to be used more often.

Fu Fanji suddenly sighed and said: "Such a pressurized water well can be used in many places in Mexico. Unfortunately, without cement and cast iron fittings, the natives would not have been able to build such a simple appliance.

If we can spread this pressurized well among the indigenous Mexicans, it will certainly benefit our missionary work in Mexico. ”