Wang Xinyu chatted with Chen Shuijie, Dai Cang, Claire and Dai Zi in the blacksmith workshop until noon, and Dai Zi also improved the sketches drawn by Wang Xinyu and turned them into real drawings.

At noon, Wang Xinyu returned home, had lunch with his mother, sister and future brother-in-law Zhang Yan, rested for a while, and went to the artillery factory in the afternoon.

On the way to the artillery factory, Wang Xinyu remembered that when he met the Governor of Macao in Macao, he forgot about a great event: he proposed to the Governor of Macao to lease the southernmost island of the Sultanate of Aceh called Puluozhong.

Located at the southernmost tip of the Sultanate of Aceh, Polozhong Island juts out of the Strait of Malacca and faces the Sultanate of Aceh across the Strait of Freeu. On the opposite side of the island is the Dutch-occupied island of Jinzhou. The meaning of the name of Puluozhong is that when the Song people arrived in the Strait of Malacca, they asked the local Forou people, and the Forou people said that it was the southernmost island of the peninsula. According to the transliteration, the Song people called the name of the island Puluozhong. During the Ming Dynasty, Polozhong Island was occupied by Javanese people from Jinzhou, and according to the Javanese transliteration, it was also called Temasek, and it was also called Sin Chau Island.

Wang Xinyu decided to lease Polo Zhong Island to the Portuguese and build a city here, called the Lion City, according to the meaning of Sin Chau Island, also called Singapore, which can also be called Singapore.

"When we go back, let's go to Macao again and ask the Governor of Macau about it. Such a small island, giving the Portuguese a little more benefit, was rented. Wang Xinyu muttered to himself.

Singapore's location was very important, not only to obtain a large amount of oak from the Sultanate of Aceh opposite, to build a naval shipyard, but also to turn Singapore into a fortress, and to station battleships here would kill the necks of the Dutch and Spaniards! Even if you fall out with the British in the future, after having your own battleships, you don't have to be afraid of the powerful British Navy.

As for the idea of the battleship, Wang Xinyu also thought about it, and he decided to combine the advantages of Chinese and Western ships to build his own sea giant. The hull of the battleship was Western-style, with a multi-tiered gun deck, and the same soft sails were used. However, the bottom bilge of the battleship adopts an oriental-style compartment structure to ensure the anti-sinking of the battleship.

Originally, Wang Xinyu planned to occupy Singapore after driving out the Dutch, but considering that the oak wood used to build a battleship would take at least three years to dry, plus the time to build a shipyard, the time to cut down the oak and the time to build a shipbuilding, which means that the earliest battleship can be built will be five years later. So we have to take Singapore as soon as possible and build a fort. Before building their own battleships, they had to buy cruisers of the fourth and fifth ranks from the British.

When he was thinking wildly, he heard Li Rui, the captain of the pro-soldiers, say: "My lord, we have arrived!" ”

Wang Xinyu dismounted with his group, and as soon as he walked to the gate of the gun factory, he saw Zhu Jing coming out with a group of officials and workers to greet him.

"Lord Wang is back! The lower officials have lost their welcome, and they still hope that the adults are Haihan! Zhu Jing bowed his hand.

Wang Xinyu turned his head and said to the soldiers: "Let's go, let's go in and have a look!" ”

When I walked into the gun factory, I saw that the gun factory had already started. The pig iron that Wang Xinyu bought from the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the British was sent to the gun factory by truckload and temporarily stored in the warehouse.

It can be clearly seen that the carts and coolies carrying pig iron are all captured Qing soldiers, although the braids have been cut, but the hair has not yet grown, it is obvious that they are prisoners. These captives included the Green Battalion Qing soldiers, as well as the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners Qing soldiers. These Qing soldiers, who were usually arrogant, were now trained to be honest and worked hard under the whip of the Ming soldiers who supervised them. Anyway, these captives don't need to be paid, as long as they can be fed and don't starve to death.

The captives had a full supply of sweet potatoes every day, a soup made of rotten vegetable leaves at noon, and a porridge made of wheat bran and rice bran in the morning and evening. Those who work hard and perform well can be promoted to team leader and squad leader, and can also be rewarded with white rice, white flour buns and braised pork.

Under the reward system, the captives worked very hard.

"Wait for half a month before I go to sea, and I will take these captives away." Wang Xinyu said.

When Zhu Jing heard that Wang Xinyu was going to take away the captives, he really felt very reluctant, because these captives did not pay for them, and they were obedient, and they worked harder than one another. But Wang Xinyu wants to take them away, and he has to spend money to recruit people.

Looking at Zhu Jing's face, Wang Xinyu knew that he was a little unhappy in his heart, so he said: "There are many people who have fled from other places on Xiamen Island, many of them have no land to plant, no boat to go to sea to fish, and no soldiers, and now they can only rely on the alms of Yanping Wang's porridge shop to make a living. The king of Yanping gave them alms, and it cost them money and grain, so it was better to let them work in the artillery factory. ”

Zhu Jing said: "These people will be taken to Dongfan to open up wasteland in the future, and now we recruit them to work, then they will go to Dongfan, what should I do here?" ”

"It's going to Dongfan Island next year, and by then, maybe the gun factory will also move to Dongfan Island. When you get there, you can recruit local natives to work as coolies, and there are many natives on Dongfan Island anyway. Wang Xinyu replied.

"Will those natives come and work as coolies?"

"What's not to like? They can build castles for red-haired ghosts as coolies, why can't we be coolies? And our life is much easier! ”

Walking to the bottom of the dam, I saw the river flowing down from the dam, pushing a huge water wheel.

Originally, the waterwheel was connected to two sides, one side was a blower, and the other side was a machine tool. But because the machine tool is not yet in place, this waterwheel is only used to push the blower for the time being.

The thrust of the waterwheel is driven by wooden variable speed gears to drive the blower to rotate at high speed, sending fresh air to the blazing blast furnace.

The coolies were responsible for moving the pig iron out of the warehouse and loading it onto the wagons. After that, the workers pushed the cart into the blast furnace room, and used a human crane to pour baskets of pig iron into the iron pool above the blast furnace.

After the pig iron is melted into molten iron, workers put plant ash in the molten iron for slag removal. There are also workers who use bellows to send fresh air to the molten iron, so that the carbon, sulfur and other impurities in the molten iron are fully combusted, and then the molten iron flows through a filter made of mesh ceramic, through a ceramic tank, and then through a steel tank. Finally, the molten iron that flows out is solidified, and the wrought iron of reliable quality is obtained, and after the molten iron precipitated under the steel groove is solidified, it is a good steel.

After wrought iron is smelted, some of the wrought iron is used to make other weapons, and the wrought iron used to cast the cannon is poured into the blast furnace where it is graphitized and then poured into an iron mold. Because of the new refractory bricks, the new blast furnace, plus the fresh air sent by the blower, the extremely high temperature can ensure the graphitization of iron.

The treated molten iron is poured into the artillery iron mold, and then the iron mold is quickly put into the incubator next to the blast furnace, so that the molten iron in the iron mold will not cool too quickly and cause the cast gun to turn white. The incubator next to the blast furnace is actually on the periphery of the inner wall of the blast furnace, adding a layer of bricks to build a small room, which is used to place the iron mold of the molten iron from being cast, so as to prevent the temperature of the molten iron in the iron mold from decreasing too quickly. If there is no heat preservation program, then the iron mold is much faster than the clay mold because of the heat dissipation, and the molten iron in the iron mold will cool down quickly, resulting in the white mouth of the cast iron cannon, which is hard but very brittle, and it is easy to explode. After heat preservation treatment, the cannon cast by the iron mold can be used with confidence.

After the iron mold in the insulation room is slowly cooled, the iron mold is taken out, placed in the workshop, the iron mold is opened, and when the cast gun is not completely cooled and the barrel is still red, the ignition hole is drilled in the tail of the gun with a steel drill, and then placed there to cool naturally, so that a reliable iron cannon is completed.

However, the iron cannon made cannot be completely regarded as a finished product, and the inner wall of the iron cannon must be manually polished, and after grinding it smooth, a cannon is completed. Because there is no boring machine to polish the inside of the iron cannon, it can only rely on manual labor.

The efficiency of the iron mold cannon is much higher than that of the clay mold cannon, and it originally took a month to make a clay mold, and a clay mold can only make one cannon. The current iron mold can be reused, and it only takes two days to cast an iron cannon. A variety of different iron molds, which can cast guns of various calibers.

In fact, in real history, foreigners in the early nineteenth century did not think about the convenience of iron mold casting cannons, they also considered iron mold casting cannons, but could not solve the problem of white mouth of the cannon due to the rapid cooling speed of the iron mold, they found that such artillery was easy to blow up, so foreigners gave up iron mold casting cannons, but adopted the method of casting solid iron blocks, and then punching out with boring machines to make cannons. Building a holding room outside the blast furnace is such a simple way that foreigners have not thought of.

In fact, many ways are very simple, for example:

After Columbus discovered the New World, some people provoked him and laughed at him, and that land was over there, and whoever went to sea could find it. So Columbus took out an egg and asked who could stand it up. Naturally, no one can do it. Columbus himself partially broke the egg's air chamber and then erected the egg.

The guests argued with strong words, saying that the egg was broken, can it be counted? Christopher Columbus replied, "When I first set the conditions, did I say that you were not allowed to break eggs?" I can think of things you can't think of, and that's where I outshine you! ”

In fact, many ways are very simple, the key is whether you can think of it!

After leaving the gun factory, Wang Xinyu went to Zheng Xingying's house. He was carrying two boxes in his hand to give gifts to his future father-in-law and fiancée. Although Wang Xinyu's history is not very good, he knows that his future father-in-law is not a small person, and he is the first prefect of Taiwan in Chinese history! His gift to his future father-in-law was a pair of flintlock handcuffs made of stainless steel with a barrel made of silver, and the flintlock machine and trigger were made of gold, and the handle was also inlaid with precious stones. This pair of short guns was still a trophy stolen from one of the Dutch captains. What was given to Miss Zheng was a pair of exquisite Italian glass vases, which were brought back from Chennai by the Englishman Albert, and were ruthlessly confiscated by Wang Xinyu, and after being packaged, they were given to Miss Zheng. At that time, Wang Xinyu also said to Albert in a hearty manner, this kind of thing is nothing rare, and I will make it myself in the future, and I will send you ten or eight!

As soon as I arrived at the door, someone went to report: "Master! Uncle is here! ”

Walking into the Zheng Mansion compound, Wang Xinyu looked around a little unwillingly, as if he was looking for someone.

"Miss is not here, she has gone to Uncle Kinmon, and she will not be back until tomorrow." Zheng Xingying walked out.

"Uncle, the little nephew just came back from outside and gave a gift to my uncle." Wang Xinyu handed over two gift boxes.

Zheng Xingying looked at the two gift boxes and didn't understand a little, how to give two gift boxes?

Wang Xinyu hurriedly handed over one of the gift boxes: "This is a gift for my uncle." ”

Zheng Xingying opened the gift box, only to see a pair of beautifully made flint short guns decorated with gold, silver and precious stones lying inside, he knew that this thing was very valuable, so he accepted it with a smile.

Wang Xinyu handed over another gift box: "Uncle, this is a gift for Miss, please ask Uncle to pass it on to Miss." ”

Zheng Xingying opened the gift box and took a look, only to see that it was a crystal clear and transparent glass vase, knowing that this thing was very valuable, so he nodded: "The virtuous nephew has a heart!" The gift for Yun'er, the old man must be handed over to her! ”

Wang Xinyu said goodbye to Zheng Xingying: "Uncle, the younger generation will leave first." ”

"Why don't you have dinner here before you leave?" Zheng Xingying wanted to leave Wang Xinyu to eat at home.

Wang Xinyu arched his hand and said: "Thank you uncle for your kindness, the younger generation will have dinner with a few brothers in the evening." ”

"Alright, there you go!" Zheng Xingying smiled, "The old man knows that Yun'er is not here, and you don't have the heart to stay and eat together." ”

Wang Xinyu was about to turn his head and leave, but saw a girl in a green dress running over like a gust of wind outside the gate. He took a closer look, who was this not Zheng Yun!

"Miss Zheng!" Wang Xinyu was overjoyed and greeted him.

"Childe!" Zheng Yun blushed and shouted, "The concubine heard that the princess was back, so she deliberately rushed back in advance." ”

Zheng Xingying asked with a smile, "Does the virtuous nephew still want to leave?" ”