My Daming New Empire

Although there is now the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies and the Navy specially set up by Zhu Zhanji, most of these titles are false, with titles but no titles.

Except for leading the army in battle, the Ministry of War is in charge of almost everything.

This is very bad, because the layman leads the expert, and often there will be problems in the end.

Zhu Zhanji's impression has been blurred, but he still remembers reading history books, saying that Qi Jiguang called Wenchen his grandfather in order to train soldiers.

I don't know if this is true or not, but by the late Ming Dynasty, military generals had completely become vassals of civil servants, which is a fact.

In order to maintain the independence of the army, Zhu Zhanji must also be reorganized.Logistics, weapons, and military orders, of course, these aspects are still in charge of the Ministry of War, and the generals are restricted.

However, the military registration and training should be in the hands of the five armies and the navy itself, and the civilian officials should not be stuck around the generals' necks.

Of course, he won't be in a hurry about this matter, just sort it out slowly and spend a few years to complete this work.

Staying with Huang Fu for lunch, Zhu Zhanji asked him to attend the morning court tomorrow, and then let him go home from the palace, and he also set off for the Mechanical Research Institute.

Compared with installing a steam engine on a ship, installing a steam engine on a car is incomparable in terms of time and effort.

To install a steam engine on a ship, you only need to strengthen the deck and connect the rollers.

But it is not an easy task to install it on a car, just to create a car that can withstand a steam engine.

Here, the most critical issue is the wheels.

The weight of the steam engine is several hundred catties, plus the interlocking gears and pneumatic equipment, it weighs more than one thousand catties.

Coupled with the weight of the car itself, it is unrealistic to use such a car to load goods or people.

An ordinary carriage often breaks the wheels, so much weight, coupled with greater speed, will only make the wheels fall apart.

Therefore, Zhu Zhanji asked the craftsmen to first consider the train.

Not because of anything else, just because the wheels of the train can be cast out of iron.

Regardless of the complex structure of later generations of trains, just like mine carts transporting ore in mines, the structure is actually very simple.

Because these mine carts are four wheels supporting a car body, there is no need for a complicated structure.

Moreover, the earliest trains were not rails, steel rails, but wooden tracks, and then a layer of iron was added to the wooden tracks.

Zhu Zhanji has seen such a "historical relic" with his own eyes, so with his guidance, the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry quickly realized Zhu Zhanji's intention.

The track is very easy to build, just need the carpenter to cut out the standard square wood with a hydraulic saw according to the drawing, and then inlay a layer of anti-wear iron on the square wood.

And the construction of the train itself has not encountered too many difficulties, because now the wheels can be cast directly, and then with the lathe, wheels of the same standard can be manufactured.

There are bearings and wheels. After several months of exploration, the Machinery Research Institute finally produced the first prototype car.

When Zhu Zhanji arrived at Xiamaqiao, not only people from the Machinery Research Institute had already gathered at the testing site of Xiamaqiao Farm, but even many people from other research institutes came to watch the excitement.

Before the steam locomotive was built, the people at the Machinery Research Institute started laying tracks.

This fact cannot be hidden from anyone, because the wooden rails are manufactured from the very beginning, then dried and treated with bitumen for corrosion protection.In addition, laying the track later requires a lot of manpower.

The wooden track is laid in the south of Xiamaqiao Farm, starting from the south of the research institute and the north of the residential area, and encircling the entire residential area.The length of this circle is about three kilometers, which is enough for an experimental track.

Today's trains are of course not in the shape of later generations, they look very shabby.

The front of the car is a flatbed car, the first half of which is equipped with a steam engine, and the rear half is full of coal.

In front of the steam engine, there is a space about one meter wide, which is the driver's position.He can slow down and accelerate by adjusting the gears, but braking is still a big problem.

Zhu Zhanji didn't do much research on the braking system, and what he saw most was the disc brakes of cars.But don't say that a qualified disc brake rotor has been manufactured, he doesn't even know what the material of the brake pads is made of.

As for air brakes, he didn't know much about them, so today's steam car brakes use very backward frictional deceleration.

What is friction deceleration?In fact, there are two people in each car, and they will operate a plunger in their hands.

When the front driver shifts into neutral, the auxiliary driver next to him will raise the flag, and the person behind will pull the plunger.

One end of the plunger is above the carriage, and the other end is close to the wheel. After being pulled, it will rub against the wheel and then play a role in reducing the speed.

In short, this test vehicle is still very primitive, and it has only four compartments.The carriage doesn't even have a roof, only rows of seats, and you can fall off the car if you are not careful.

At this time, the most embarrassing ones are the craftsmen of the Machinery Research Institute, sitting in the carriage one by one under the envious eyes of others, extremely proud.

The arrival of Zhu Zhanji also officially started the trial run of this test vehicle.

There are still many people who are not afraid of death. When Ma Zhicai announced that everyone can sit on it as long as they have a seat and enjoy a free trip, the carriage was full of people in a short while.

This carriage is about the size of a minibus in later generations, with ten rows of seats, it can only accommodate 40 people, but each carriage is crowded with at least 60 people.

Zhu Zhanji sat under a temporary tent and announced the official start of the drive. The driver in charge of driving excitedly closed the control lever, waited for the car to start slowly, and then pulled the gear lever to the first gear.

Although today's transmission is still mainly driven by gears, chains and belts, including clutches, have also begun to appear.

The clutch was developed when the steam engine was first manufactured.The current clutch is of course not the kind of later generations, but the working principle is the same.

Because the steam engine is used in coal mines, no matter whether it is started or stopped, it cannot be done by force, which will only break the gears.

The researchers designed a set of closing devices through belt drive, which can basically solve the problem of gear shifting.

On steamships, this device is also used.Although this device is easily damaged due to the material, it is better than nothing.

With four carriages at the front, it started slowly, and everyone in the car screamed excitedly.

In the Ming Dynasty 600 years ago, it was no less miraculous than a miracle that people could be carried away by machines instead of horse-drawn horses.

The car ran faster and faster, and the thick smoke burning on the front of the car was drawn into a horizontal line by the wind, and the people sitting behind were drowned in the thick smoke.

But no one cared, Zhu Zhanji even saw craftsmen greedily closing their eyes and smelling the smoky smell.

Zhu Zhanji is not worried about this, he is only worried about the load-bearing structure of this car, whether it can turn after loading more than 200 people.

Because apart from the linkage part, this is the real technical problem in the compartment.

The load-bearing structure and wheelsets were the biggest technical problems when the train first appeared.

On the one hand, the design concept has not been perfected, and on the other hand, the hardness and toughness of the material are not enough.

The train disappeared from sight, and Zhu Zhanji's worries had not been let go, and after a while, the messenger who followed the train on horseback came to report.

"Your Highness, it's not good, the car overturned in front."

Chapter 85 Motors

The people waiting for the train to return at the starting point immediately boiled over, but because of Zhu Zhanji's presence, they remained calm.