Traveling through history leaving a name

Chapter 53 Locomotive
"Prime Minister, that is a two-way four-lane railway."

Cao Cao's question did not last long, and soon Li Bai answered his confusion.

"railway?"

But even if Li Bai talked about the railway, he didn't know what the railway was for.

"Prime Minister, have you seen the four long things on the top? They are rails, all made of steel." Li Bai pointed to the two rails on the railway and said to Cao Cao.

"It's all made of steel, so how much iron does it need?" Cao Cao was very surprised when he heard Li Bai's words.

"This is a railway my teacher spent money to build. It is more than 200 kilometers from Luping to Quanzhou Port, and it is estimated to use 8000 million catties of iron." Li Bai explained.

"8000 catties?"

Hearing this number, Cao Cao felt his scalp go numb.

During the peak period of the entire Han Dynasty, the country's annual iron production was only 500 million catties.

But now Youzhou has to use 8000 million catties of iron just to build a railway, which is simply crazy.

8000 million is not a small amount, forty thousand tons.

According to historical records, the annual iron output of the Tang Dynasty was less than [-] tons.

"Why did you build this kind of railway?" Cao Cao asked Li Bai, suppressing the shock in his heart.

"Because there is too much iron smelted in the steel factory, if it is not used, it can only be piled up and rusted, so my teacher thought of building a railway." Li Bai explained.

"Too much? How much?" Cao Cao asked.

"Now there are three blast furnaces in Luping Steelworks, which can produce 12 tons of iron every day... Oh, that is, 360 jin of iron, 4000 million jin of iron per month, and about [-] million jin of iron per year." Li Bai explained.

"This..." Cao Cao was startled when he heard this.

A few years ago, when Cao Cao went to the Luping Steelmaking Workshop, the Luping Steelmaking Workshop used the pouring method to make steel, and the steelmaking had to buy ready-made iron for smelting, so the annual output of steel was only dozens ten thousand catties.

Even so, he attached great importance to it. Not only did he promote Li Bai, he also sent an old man Liu Ping who had been with him since he started his army to assist Yang Shen in managing the steelmaking workshop.

Unexpectedly, in the past few years, the Luping Steelmaking Workshop has developed to this point.

Although he had also received Liu Ping's report on the Luping Steel Plant in the past two years, he didn't pay attention to it. He has been busy with military affairs in recent years, so he has no time to pay attention to it.

"Inspector Li, what's the use of building this railway?" Cao Cao continued to ask Li Bai.

"Return to the Prime Minister, after the railway is repaired, there will be a specially made steam engine locomotive pulling something like a carriage box to run on it."

Li Bai said: "According to my teacher, this train can pull hundreds of thousands of catties at most at a time, and it can run up to [-] kilometers per hour at the fastest... Well, it's faster than riding a horse anyway."

"Can it pull hundreds of thousands of catties? Faster than riding a horse?" Hearing Li Bai's description, Cao Cao couldn't imagine what kind of scene it was.

The data Li Bai said was exaggerated by Zhang Qingfeng, at least after the railway is completed, it will definitely not be able to do so much.

"Prime Minister, in fact, there is a railway of more than ten miles built in the Kuangping Iron Mine. There are already some small steam locomotives used to transport ore. They can transport tens of thousands of kilograms of iron ore at a time. The Prime Minister can go and see it then. Look." Li Bai said to Cao Cao.

"Then I must go and have a look." Cao Cao nodded, and then shouted loudly: "Give me an order to stop, I want to go down and see what the railway looks like."

Cao Cao ordered to stop, he wanted to go to the railway to see.

Afterwards, the convoy stopped slowly, and Cao Cao immediately jumped out of the carriage and walked towards the railway under construction not far away under the protection of a group of guards.

Soon, Cao Cao came to the edge of the railway, his guards protected him tightly, and the railway workers were all driven aside.

"This is really iron."

Cao Cao touched the rails on the railway and said in surprise.

Then, he tried to lift a five-meter-long rail, and it took a lot of effort to lift one end.

"It's so heavy!"

Cao Cao said to Li Bai: "I believe now that you said that 8000 million catties of iron will be used to build this railway."

"What, 8000 million catties of iron?"

Hearing Cao Cao's words, the civil servants and military generals who followed around to watch the excitement were immediately startled.

"Look, what is that?"

Suddenly, someone exclaimed.

Everyone looked at the person who exclaimed, and saw that this was one of the guards protecting everyone, and he was pointing in one direction, dumbfounded.

Everyone looked in the direction he pointed, and saw a big guy with black smoke coming rumblingly on the railroad track in the distance.

"Everyone, don't panic." Li Bai quickly explained: "Prime Minister, my lords, generals, this is a steam locomotive running on the railway, specially used to transport the rails."

After hearing Li Bai's explanation, everyone felt relieved, but even so, everyone retreated more than ten meters away from the railway.

Under everyone's gaze, the big guy in the distance is getting closer and closer, and soon everyone can see its whole picture clearly.

This is a small steam locomotive transformed with a machine tool and a steam engine, which is incomparable with a real steam train.

This kind of small steam locomotive has limited capacity, and it can only pull thirty rails to the sky at a time.

Soon, the steam locomotive activated the brakes when it was a few hundred meters away, and finally came slowly by inertia.

Finally, after two railway workers put down the auxiliary brake device on the rails, the steam car slowly stopped a dozen meters away from the finish line.

Seeing the steam locomotive stop, Cao Cao immediately moved forward curiously to have a look, and his guards hurried forward to surround him in fright, and more guards surrounded the steam locomotive.

On the other side, when a few people who operated the steam locomotive saw a group of high-ranking officials coming with a large group of guards with knives, they were immediately frightened and overwhelmed.

"Don't be nervous, this is Prime Minister Cao." Seeing that several workers were a little nervous, someone said quickly.

"Cao, Prime Minister Cao, the villain has met Prime Minister Cao." Several people hurriedly saluted.

"Don't be too polite." Cao Cao raised his hand and said.

Then he pointed to the steam locomotive and asked several people: "I ask you, what is this?"

"Back, back to Prime Minister Cao, this is a steam locomotive." A worker quickly replied.

"Without the ox and horse pulling it, how can it run on it?" Cao Cao continued to ask.

"This..." Hearing Cao Cao's question, several people suddenly didn't know what to say, and finally they could only say: "We don't know, we just drive this kind of car according to the method taught by Mr. Xiao."

"Li Bai, do you know?" Cao Cao turned around and asked Li Bai.

Hearing Cao Cao's words, Li Bai said, "This is a machine made using the principle of steam expansion."

After a pause, Li Bai said: "When we boil water in a kettle, when the water boils, there will be air to push the lid open. The steam engine uses this principle."

"The top lid of the kettle has a little strength. It can pull such a big iron cart. It is estimated that dozens of people can't push this cart?" Some people questioned Li Bai's words.

"Of course a kettle won't work, but a steam engine is bigger than a kettle, and it burns more than a kettle, so it has more power. I'm just giving an example to explain the principle of this steam engine." Li Bai explained.

(End of this chapter)