Iron Dynasty

Qingzhou, which is about to enter June, is already a little hot, and the bright sun is scorching the concrete road and it is steaming.

Xiao Ming returned to the palace to have lunch and waited for Lu Tong in the imperial study.

In the afternoon, when the clock hand of the pendulum clock pointed to two o'clock, Lu Tong arrived outside the imperial study room on time, along with a young man in his thirties.

The young man was wearing a white gown from Qingzhou University, holding a bunch of things that Xiao Ming was very familiar with in his arms.

See Your Majesty.

Entering the imperial study, Lu Tong and the two saluted Xiao Ming.

After getting up, Lu Tong introduced to Xiao Ming: Your Majesty, this is a student of Qingzhou University, his name is Liu Chuanzhi, and the lower official gave them the rubber.

Liu Chuanzhi? A good name. Xiao Ming said with a smile.

Thank you, Your Highness, for your compliment. Liu Chuanzhi was trembling as he spoke, obviously very nervous.

Xiao Ming has a smile in his eyes. These people who are devoted to scientific research have not dealt with outsiders for a long time, so their characteristics are similar.

He said: You don't have to be nervous, I'm not a man-eating tiger, these are all rubber products you made?

Liu Chuanzhi only remembered the rubber in his arms at this time, and said quickly: Yes...Yes, Your Majesty, according to the information provided by the Emperor, Caomin successfully mastered the method of vulcanizing rubber, and with the metal mold provided by the Equipment Division, he has now produced a batch of rubber products.”

Xiao Ming nodded. The rubber sent by the Dutch can only be called raw rubber. This raw rubber is very sticky and easy to break, so it cannot be used in industry.

The vulcanized rubber is called cooked rubber. This type of rubber has no problems with raw rubber, and has high elasticity, heat resistance, tensile strength, and will not dissolve in organic solvents. Contemporary rubber products are basically All are vulcanized rubber.

Looking at Liu Chuanzhi's arms, Xiao Ming's smile became more intense. In fact, it is not very difficult to shape rubber, because rubber will become liquid at high temperature, which is similar to molten steel.

The molten steel can be shaped using iron molds, and the rubber can also be shaped using iron molds. This is also the way to shape Xiao Ming today.

The only thing that needs to be done is to vulcanize the rubber before shaping it.

This kind of vulcanization requires the use of a substance as a crosslinking agent, which is sulfur, and different qualities of vulcanized rubber can be produced according to time and temperature, and there are many vulcanization methods.

Your Majesty, this is a tire, this is a hose, and this is a piston... Liu Chuanzhi took out all the products he brought.

Xiao Ming took them from him one by one, looked at them repeatedly before putting them down.

For him, rubber is a vital part of industrial development, the soles of shoes, warm water bags, and elastic bands used in daily life.

Medical gloves, blood vessels and various tires used in transportation, conveyor belts used in industry, irrigation and drainage hoses used in agriculture, sealing equipment used in scientific experiments, military aircraft, tanks, cannons, etc. Do not open the rubber.

The West can pull the East far away in technology, largely because they control the rubber, but unfortunately, like the present, the rubber of this era is still controlled by Europe.

Although he got some rubber tree seeds from the Netherlands, it takes a long process to get from seeds to trees.

Of course, he still has a solution, which is rubber grass, but according to the data, the origin of rubber grass is in Yili, Xinjiang, and in this era, rubber grass is obviously still under the control of barbarians.

The rubber grass can't be planted in this area until he drives out the barbarians, but getting this place and holding it seems like a problem.

Therefore, the most suitable way for him at present is to buy rubber from Europeans.

As for the occupation of South America, he still has a long way to go. Even if he has an ironclad fleet now, he also needs a fixed port to provide fresh water and coal between Da Yu and South America, otherwise his fleet will not Arriving in America will be paralyzed halfway.

Great, great. Faced with one rubber product after another, Xiao Ming was inevitably excited. With rubber, many machines can be realized.

And he believes that one of the most important problems to solve at present is the traffic problem.

This era gave Xiao Ming the deepest experience that if you want to get rich, you need to build roads first. Only with convenient transportation can the exchange of various resources be fast.

Lu Tong and Liu Chuanzhi looked at Xiao Ming's excited look at each other, with a thick smile on their faces.

Xiao Ming put down rubber products such as medical transfusion tubes and said, What reward do you want?

Your Majesty, this rubber is just a little effort. It relies on the information provided by the Emperor, and the lower officials dare not ask for a reward. Lu Tong laughed.

Xiao Ming ignored him and said, You don't want it, neither does Liu Chuanzhi?

Lu Tong scratched his head and laughed, while Liu Chuanzhi looked embarrassed, opened his mouth and finally said nothing.

Seeing this, Xiao Ming said: Liu Chuanzhi, from now on, the rubber of the Great Yu Kingdom will be handed over to you, now you naturally don't have to be polite, so, in order to allow you to concentrate on the production of rubber, this time I will reward you with a thousand taels of silver. , how about giving you another fifty acres of farmstead?

Thank you, Emperor Longen! Liu Chuanzhi's body trembled with excitement when he heard the words.

Before that, he was just a poor scholar. The reason why he entered Qingzhou University was because he had no money left at home for him to take the exam in Beijing, but he did not expect that this decision would bring him another chance.

Xiao Ming helped Liu Chuanzhi, who had bowed to thank him, and said, I am not a stingy person, as long as you can do things in a down-to-earth manner and make contributions to the Great Yu Kingdom, title, land, and money are not a problem. The army has seized a large tract of land outside the customs, and you don't have to worry that I have no land to reward.

Liu Chuanzhi nodded deeply.

After asking them some questions about rubber, Xiao Ming asked them to go back for the time being.

After the two left, he immediately sat down and picked up the pen.

Now this pen can only be dipped in ink while writing. Now that he has rubber, he can finally have a pen that can absorb water. After this matter, he plans to recommend the pen to all officials of Dayu State for office work, saving the need for writing brushes. Time also saves paper waste.

Taking a blank piece of paper, Xiao Ming drew a diagram of the structure of a bicycle. Unlike the western bicycles with strange shapes at the beginning, Xiao Ming directly designed a mature self-confidence bicycle with 28 bars, which is the early days of the founding of the contemporary state. Beam Bicycle.

This kind of bicycle has a triangular stable lever structure in the middle, which can bear more weight.

The reason why he designed the outdated bicycle with this structure was mainly considering the current practical problems of bicycles. After all, the bicycles at this time were used as means of transportation, and the emphasis was on being strong and capable of carrying people and heavy objects.