The daily life of the science master's book-wearing group

Chapter 480 Steam Press Machine

The twelfth lunar month is supposed to be the time to prepare for a happy new year, but in the mansions of officials, gentry, and even big merchants from all over Shanxi, there are voices of children crying and howling in every household!
There is no other reason, but the king of Jin wants to choose a companion for his young son!
It is required to be under the age of eight, regardless of status, gender, and it is said that admission will be based on test scores, and a total of 19 people will be selected.

It is said that ten of them will be selected from various Zhaoyue primary schools in Shanxi, and the remaining nine places will be open to other sectors of society.

This is an opportunity to cultivate brotherhood with Xiao Shizi since childhood!

If it's a girl, if she has cultivated her childhood sweetheart feelings since childhood, she might become a concubine in the future!Even if you can't be a concubine, it's not bad to be a side concubine.

Now or never!
The baby lumps in the family, no matter how pampered they are on weekdays, are now being hugged by their parents temporarily by their ears.

What's more, they had crooked thoughts and wanted to sneak the child into Zhaoyue Primary School.The requirements issued by the Wangfu to each elementary school are as follows: each principal can recommend three people to come to Fucheng for the exam, and the cost of traveling to and from Taiyuan Fucheng is fully covered by the Wangfu.

If selected, the family members can come to Taiyuan together, and the palace will try to find a way to make a living.

Since it is a recommendation system, doesn't this give those people an opportunity?

What's wrong with joining the local Zhaoyue Primary School temporarily?
Some families with strong financial resources directly promise the principal to cover the school's food expenses for a whole year!

Now the principals of each Zhaoyue primary school are in trouble.

The concubine and empress never said that the children of landlords and squires cannot go to school.

They are all people, so it is inevitable that someone will collect money directly, especially those principals in rural villages. There are not many children in their classes, and their standards are quite poor. It is not impossible to give up one of the quotas.

But among the more than 100 rural principals, there are also a dozen who are particularly upright and unwilling to accept money. Three of them ran back to Taiyuan to file a lawsuit, saying that the local landlord harassed them.

After Song Qingyue heard about this, she thought about it and decided to sell the quota with a clear price!
Just run another elite school.

Anyway, this kind of thing is inevitable.

After New Year's Day, the principals got the latest instructions from the Wangfu: first, the candidates recommended by the principal must be the original students at the school, not temporary admissions; , 50 taels of silver for one examination quota, no upper limit.

Song Qingyue was looking for a house to build a school in Taiyuan Mansion again.

There are too many people in the palace, so we might as well build a separate school.

No, upon hearing that the concubine wanted to build a house, the well-known Dong family in Taiyuan Mansion came to her immediately.

The Dong family was originally a coal boss in Taiyuan Mansion. A year ago, they exchanged coal mines with King Li Zhao of Jin for salt, and transformed themselves into the largest salt merchants in the locality, earning only more than when they sold coal in the past.

Naturally, Song Qingyue would not receive Boss Dong in person, the first thing Boss Dong saw was Dongping.

"What's your name for this girl?" Boss Dong saw that this girl was dressed very well, so he knew that she had a high status in the mansion, so even when facing such a young girl, he didn't show the master's airs at all.

Dongping saw that he was acquainted, so she also treated him with courtesy, and said very politely: "Mr. Dong, you don't have to be polite. The name of this servant is Dongping, and she is the first-class servant girl next to the princess. Just tell me if you have anything, and I will definitely treat it like it is." Tell your wife."

"It turned out to be Miss Dongping, the villain is so polite!" He said and handed over a silver ingot.

Dongping seemed to be used to it too, took the money, sat down, and asked: "Don't mind, Mr. Dong, let's go."

"It's like this. Dong's family has a courtyard in the east of the city. It has excellent geomantic omen and is vacant all year round. I heard that the empress is looking for a house to build an academy. It would be a waste to be empty. The young one wants to... dedicate this house to the empress. !"

"Dedicated...to the empress?! You mean...to lend it to the empress?"

"No no! It's for the empress! The younger one even brought the title deed! If the empress doesn't dislike it, the younger one can transfer ownership today!"

Rao Dongping, who was used to seeing the world, was also shocked by Boss Dong's generosity!

She cleared her throat, suppressed the shock in her heart, calmly exchanged some polite words with Boss Dong, and immediately ran to Wufangzhai to find Song Qingyue!
Song Qingyue was shocked when she heard this.

After thinking about it, she asked Dongping to go back to Boss Dong, saying that she was not feeling well today, so she would definitely invite him to drink tea at the house some other day.

Boss Dong was a little disappointed when he learned that the princess did not agree immediately, but he firmly believed that the princess would not be tempted.

When the time comes to use his house, can you not give him a few places for the children of the Dong family?

Song Qingyue was really moved. She was dozing off now and someone handed her a pillow. It was a matter of mutual benefit, so why not do it?However, a house is too generous, Song Qingyue couldn't make up her mind for a while, and wanted to discuss it with Li Zhao before making a decision.

Li Zhao went to inspect the arsenal again today.

He now divides the arsenal into the first factory, the second factory, and the third factory.

The competition between the three factories, whoever can build the ideal machine first, will get all the year-end bonus of 3 taels to that factory.

At the end of the year, the steam stamping machine has made progress!It was the first to be produced by the second factory, which can adjust the stamping frequency and the thickness of the finished product.

Originally, Li Zhao just wanted to install a durable bayonet on the flintlock.

To make this kind of bayonet strong and durable, it needs to be made of pig iron and wrought iron in a certain proportion.

In the past, it was done manually, and it took three or four days to ship a bayonet. Now with the steam stamping machine, each machine can produce four bayonets in an average of one hour.

And making bayonets is just a small use of the stamping machine, and using this thing to make bullet casings is a must!
In the past, the pouring method was used to make the bullet casings, and the burrs had to be manually deburred after demoulding. Now it is directly pressed with an iron plate, and it is formed at one time, basically without burrs.

The efficiency is so high that there is spare energy for civilian use.

Agricultural tools such as shovels could only be made by soil mold pouring method. With this punching machine, the semi-hot iron sheet can be directly pressed into the desired shape, greatly increasing the manufacturing efficiency.

On the other hand, the aluminum smelter has also made progress.

The bauxite resources in Shanxi are already very rich. Originally, these bauxites were used to make porcelain, but now they have a new use-aluminum smelting!
One of the biggest advantages of aluminum is that it is light in weight, and it is as resistant to falling and smashing as copper and iron.

It is very suitable as a marching lunch box for the army, and it can also be used as an iron pot directly on the fire.

Nowadays, the output of aluminum is still very low, and all of it is used to make lunch boxes and pots for the army. When there is no stamping machine, everyone can only use the pouring method.The perfusion method costs abrasive tools, has low efficiency, and also wastes materials.

Let’s just talk about the lunch box. There is no need for such a thick one, but the thickness of the lunch box made by the infusion method cannot be thinner. Isn’t it a waste of materials?Now there is a punching machine, which can directly press an aluminum plate into a lunch box, without the step of reheating, which is not only fast, but also saves coal and materials!
Now there are five steam stamping machines in the factory, two of which are for military use and three are used to produce agricultural tools for civilian use.

It's not that Li Zhao doesn't want to make more bayonets and shell casings.

Let’s just talk about bullet casings. The supply of gunpowder is not enough. If there are too many bullet casings, they will rust if they are piled up in the warehouse.

As for the bayonet, in order to ensure the quality, they all use Fujian iron.

The so-called Fujian iron refers to the iron refined in southern Fujian.

Because of the climatic conditions in southern Fujian and the rapid growth of trees, the local iron is basically refined with charcoal, while the local iron in Shanxi, because it is refined with sulfur-containing coal, is of a lower quality than Fujian iron, which is used to make Farm tools can meet the requirements, and can be used to make bayonets that need to be hacked on the battlefield. Basically, they have to be scrapped after one use.

Li Zhao didn't want the army to use inferior weapons, and now that they had surplus productivity, they simply used them as farm tools.

The agricultural tools made by the steam stamping machine can meet the needs of the local army in one month, and the remaining production can be used to benefit the people of Shanxi.

With the labor cost saved, the price of farm tools and iron pots can be reduced to two-thirds of the original price. If the iron tax handed over to the court accounted for one-third, the price could be even lower.

Those old blacksmiths in the arsenal were worried at first, they were all summoned to the arsenal by the prince, what would happen if the people in the city needed farm tools and iron pots.

In fact, after Li Zhao came to Shanxi, due to the establishment of the arsenal, there was a shortage of blacksmiths in the local area. The labor costs of blacksmiths did rise sharply for a time, and Li Zhao even introduced a subsidy policy for this.

But now that the steam stamping machine comes out, the situation is different.

When Li Zhao arrived home, he was still very excited about the steam stamping machine. Song Qingyue told him that there was a Boss Dong in Taiyuan City who was going to give him a house. , just give it to him. A house, don’t want it for nothing.”

"Really?"

"What's the matter, what else can a businessman turn up?"

"Okay. Listen to you."

(End of this chapter)