Wang Xinyu walked to the steam locomotive parked on the small railway, looked at the locomotive with satisfaction, and saw that the locomotive had a pair of front guide wheels, behind the front guide wheel was the cylinder, the cylinder piston was connected with the piston rod, the piston rod was connected with the rocker through the crosshead, the kinetic energy was transmitted to the driving wheel through the rocker, and the driving wheel and the driven wheel were connected together with a connecting rod. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 The INFO rocker is connected to a valve actuator lever to control the automatic opening and closing of the valve.

The steam locomotive has a pair of driving wheels and a pair of driven wheels, and there are two pairs of slave wheels on the coal water wheel behind it, which are used to support the weight of the coal water wheel, and when reversing, the slave wheel plays the role of a guide wheel.

Xue Fengzuo said with a smile: "This is our improved steam locomotive, the original steam locomotive only has two and a half horsepower, and there is no reversing valve and safety valve installed, now these problems have been solved!" This locomotive has more than 30 horsepower, and it can run for three hours in a row! ”

"Let's get in the car!" Wang Xinyu said.

It's just that Wang Xinyu doesn't know how many accidents have happened for this improved steam locomotive, and many workers have been killed in the steam engine boiler explosion accident, and the most dangerous one, Xue Fengzuo himself was almost killed. After countless people paid the price of blood, sweat and even their lives, this simple steam locomotive was born.

Wang Xinyu, Xue Fengzuo, Mei Wending, Liu Feng, Dai Cang, Xu Zhengming and Dai Zi went to the locomotive cab. There were seven people crammed into the small cab, and it looked crowded all at once.

"It's the big handsome here today, or the students are here to drive." Xue Fengzuo once again took on the role of driver.

Wang Xinyu let out an "um" and asked, "Can you drive?" ”

"Wait for the signal!" Xue Fengzuo replied.

After a while, a worker in front of him played a signal light, and when he saw the signal light, Zeng Shirong, who was wearing a red and white military uniform, waved a small green flag and sent out a signal that "you can drive".

In those days, there were no telegraphs, let alone radios, so only a railway worker every few hundred meters could only turn on the signal light. There were even railroad soldiers on horseback, running back and forth, responsible for communications along the railway.

Seeing the signal, Xue Fengzuo changed the car. The small steam locomotive, which weighed only more than 7,000 kilograms, let out a long whistle and pulled three carriages of primary wood color and started slowly.

The power of this steam locomotive has been increased to more than 30 horsepower, which can pull a train with a total weight of more than 200,000 catties and travel on the track at a speed of more than 30 kilometers per hour. This speed was already very fast back then.

The train was speeding on the tracks, and as he passed, Wang Xinyu saw that Dongfan had begun to enter industrialization, with black smoke coming out of steel mills, and various hydraulic machinery running under the action of water, driving all kinds of machinery and equipment. Outside the factory, trucks loaded with goods are parked at a small station where the products produced are loaded onto the docks and shipped to various places.

Dongfan is positioned as a heavy industrial base, which is mainly responsible for making steel, producing machines, and making weapons. Once the steam engines were in mass production, a large steam engine factory would be built to produce a variety of steam engines for steam locomotives, ironclads, steamships, and industrial steam engines.

"The railways here are different from the gauge on the mainland, and we also need to build locomotive factories in Foshan, Zhuzhou and Suzhou. Here it is enough to produce spare parts for the locomotive factory. Wang Xinyu pointed to the steam engine factory under construction.

At present, Zhuzhou is still a small county seat, called Jianning County, located on the east bank of the Xiangjiang River. Since this is the connection between the Hengyang Basin and the Jianghan Plain and the Northern Jiangxi Plain, the planned Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway and the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway will intersect here. This is determined by the topography of Zhuzhou, why the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway is not connected to the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway in Changsha, the reason is to avoid the mountains.

The train left the Tainan Plain and entered the hilly terrain. Along the way, on both sides of the railway line, there are railway soldiers running back and forth on horseback, in charge of communications, and there are also railway workers holding signal lanterns and holding red and green signal flags on their waists.

The steam locomotive spits white smoke and gallops towards the mountains of central Taiwan, the wheels colliding with the rails, making a rhythmic sonorous sound, and the car drives very smoothly. Due to the availability of steam locomotives, the planks that had been laid in the middle of the railway line for mules and horses to walk on had been removed, leaving only sleepers and ballast.

In Taiwan in May, the weather was already very hot, and in the locomotive cab, the temperature was even higher, and the people in the cab were sweating, but no one complained, and everyone was happy with their results.

The train passed through a small station, and on the side of the station was a wagon ready to go in the direction of the seaside industrial area, and a steam locomotive spitting white smoke was parked on the siding, and three cars hung behind the locomotive, and the carriages were marked with danger signs. It was a train transporting gunpowder and explosives, and the sulfur acid plant upstream had been put into operation, and at the same time as the sulfur acid plant was built, the gunpowder factory that had been in the seaside industrial area was moved upstream.

"The sulfur suan plant has already begun to be put into operation, and with sulfur suan, nitrate can be produced, and with these two things, it is already possible to start mass production of new gunpowder and explosives." Xue Fengzuo said.

"In this way, the cost of our new gunpowder can be greatly reduced, and we can gradually change all guns to use smokeless propellants, which will not only increase the power, but also will not affect the gunner's vision because of white smoke." Wang Xinyu said.

Dai Cang replied: "There is no way to change it all, if you change the propellant, the strength of the wall tube of the gun will increase, otherwise the new propellant will easily lead to explosion, and it can only be improved step by step." Moreover, at present, the output of sulfur suan and nitrate suan can only meet the demand for flowering bomb charges, and there is no way to use it for mass production of propellants for the time being. ”

"The propellant is not in a hurry, it can be improved slowly! With our current weapons, we can already crush the Tartars! As long as the charge, grenade charge and rocket charge are replaced, the power is already quite large. Wang Xinyu said.

At present, the flowering shells, grenades and rockets of the Qiongzhou Army are still filled with black [gunpowder], and the power is indeed not great enough, as long as they are replaced with new charges, the power will be greatly increased. And because the two acids have begun to be industrially produced, the manufacture of lei gong is no longer a problem, with lei mercury, lei guan can be made, and the cost of lei tube is also reduced at the same time.

The train arrived at the gunpowder factory and stopped, Wang Xinyu stepped off the train, and the first thing he saw was Song Yingxing's two sons, Song Shiyi and Song Shihui, who had been standing at the door for a long time.

"Dashuai!" The Song brothers came up and bowed.

Wang Xinyu returned the salute with a fist: "The two of you have worked hard!" In the future, the Central Plains will be recovered, and the two of them will be the great heroes of my Ming Dynasty! ”