Steel Steam and Flame

　　 There was a heavy snowfall last night, and the haze gathered in the gray sky finally vented clean, so today we finally have a rare good weather. The air was cleaned so that it no longer had the pungent smell of the past, and the black smoke of the steam boiler plant was completely covered by snow. The black and gloomy town of the previous day suddenly became bright and beautiful today, with a layer of white clothing. Standing on the street, the blue sky is like a bottomless lake. From the horizon, you can clearly see the towering snow-capped mountains. Occasionally, huge gray-blue airships tear open the huge sky. The cold air flows slowly across the mountainside, and then there are several loud siren sounds

　　 "These hateful merchants are not afraid of causing an avalanche on Lilac Mountain!" An angry voice came from the side.

　　 The people who got up early to shovel on both sides of the wide road laughed. They finished shoveling the snow and started to finish work.

　　 Cassia shook his head and smiled, shoveling the little snow on the road in front of the house with a few shovel, patted a few times to compact it, stepped on the rubber-soled cheap boots that were already full of snow, and took the shovel to the house behind him.

　　 put the shovel in the door, Cassia took off the rubber shoes, gently opened the wooden door panel that was quite old in front of him, stepped inside softly, and closed the door with his backhand.

　　The thick dark curtains cover the windows, and no natural light can penetrate through the cloth. The room was very dark, only the silently burning stove in the middle of the house contributed a weak light source and heat, coating this narrow residence with an imperceptible yellow light.

　　 There are heating pipes in the house, and a non-stop lullaby is played gently with the large pendulum bronze clock.

　　 Cassia’s mother slept deeply on the side of the stove, breathing evenly. Because the empire is about to be relisted, all factories in the small town are working overtime, and the textile factory where Cassia’s mother is also working hard over the past few days. The time his mother came back these days was late at night. The noble lords who manage the textile mills will not pity the productivity of these lowly and lowly civilians. In their eyes, the lowly civilians, like the countless steam machines that flood the empire, are just for their wealth and should never stop. Work until the machine is scrapped.

　　 No one would expect that those standing in the upper ranks of the empire would do favors to the civilians at the bottom. The empire itself is the same as most nobles, and the common people themselves are the same. Their extravagant hope is that these factories can give them the reward they deserve on time, and they don't find all kinds of weird reasons to deduct part of it.

On the other side of the stove, under the thick quilt, the petite body of Cassia’s sister Lilia was also bulged. In front of the neat pillow, a pair of black and smart eyes were staring at Cassia, as deep as the night without dawn. Purity is like a frozen lake in early spring, but at this moment, it reveals the hazyness of not getting enough sleep. Because she was afraid of the cold, she pulled the quilt tightly with her two little hands, letting the warm quilt wrap herself tightly, leaving only a pair of eyes and a pair of curved eyebrows above, and a mess on her forehead. His hair is exposed outside the quilt.

　　 Cassia made a silent gesture, motioning for her sister to continue sleeping. Lilia nodded, her black eyes blinked and fell into a haze again.

　　 Lightly walked into his small room separated by the side of the room, Cassia pulled the heavy dark blue curtain, and then lit the gas lamp in front of the table. There are several thick books on one side of the table. They are basically books about the history of steam mechanical transmission and theology. The shabby traces on them show that they have been read countless times.

　　 On the other side, there is an admission notice written in large gold letters, which reads:

　　 "Cassia Tussos, congratulations on being accepted by the Imperial Heavy Industry School, an affiliated school of our school. Please report to our school on February 12, 1096."

　　 was signed: "St. Dorag Military School!"

　　 Military School, the output point of the empire's highest military force, is also the largest source of the most elite soldiers in the empire. It is the only school in the empire that can be as famous as St. Dorag Theological Seminary. If the seminary represents the empire’s highest level of technology, commanders, politicians, merchants, agents, ,,, then the military school represents the empire’s highest level of military force, soldiers, generals, assassins,...

　　 And Empire Heavy Industry is one of the affiliated schools of the Military Academy, majoring in mechanical heavy industry and various types of machinery manufacturing. Simply put, it is the science of weapon manufacturing. Firearms, cold weapons, heavy trucks, light and heavy battle armors, airships, cruisers, boats, electrical appliances,,,,,,, whether it is equipment that has already appeared in front of people, or military secret war preparation storage, Most of the parts on the equipment are marked with the logo of Imperial Heavy Industries.

　　 This is the strength of Imperial Heavy Industries, and it is also the reason why it is called the factory of the second era of the Empire. With the history of the empire for more than eight hundred years, the foundation and strength are unquestionable.

When Cassia received this heavy admission letter from the postman, he already understood that this is not only an opportunity for her to become a big winner, but more importantly, it is also a way for her mother and sister to live a better life. Opportunity.

　　 His father died on the front lines of the battlefield five years ago. The father of Cassia, who was originally a second-level warrant officer, deserves a very generous family pension. But from the news that his father died in battle, to the time when the money was distributed by the empire, passed through the hands of layers of agencies, and arrived at Cassia and the others, there was only a little bit of oil left in the extremely rich pension. They are a group of despicable and shameless blood flies that live by carrion. As long as they are creatures that pass through their territory, they will swarm over, stretch out their ugly mouthparts to take a bite, and then fall intoxicated on the resting place with the compound eyes that are crowded. It is full of misty colors.

　　 And it turned out that the residence distributed by the second warrant officer of Cassia's father was forcibly taken back when his father died.

　　 The dead cannot create a little value for the empire. Only when they are alive can they enjoy the rights and wealth of their positions. When they die, everything is overthrown, and what remains is just a simple stroke in the records of the empire’s military department.

　　 And this record is just the storage capacity of the five small gears in the super analyzer storage.

　　 Cassia’s father’s life was turned into five gears made of copper, finely polished, processed, and plated with silver.

Cassia can still clearly remember that when he was driven out of the house by several officials five years ago, the residents of the entire floor were holding their children tightly, and they came out quietly watching the three of them pack their luggage and walk out of the floor. Until they were engulfed by the building and disappeared. These people's eyes were deeply imprinted in the young Cassia's mind, with sympathy and intolerance, but more of them were through their eyes and reaching the bottom of my heart. Because their husbands are also on the front line. What happened to Cassia and the others, I don't know when it will come to them.

Then Cassia followed her mother with a huge suitcase. Her mother was carrying a heavy suitcase and holding the tearful Lilia in her arms. The three of them tossed to the rear of the empire. This is the frontier of winter and summer. , In the small town at the foot of Lilac Mountain.

　　 Cassia felt the weight of life for the first time, while continuing to study in the local school, while working in the small town steam machinery factory. From the most basic hard work to hard work, to the use of knowledge from books to become a young mechanic, five years have passed in a flash.

　　 is like the alternation of winter and summer on Lilac Mountain, silent and without a trace.

　　 picked up a few slices of bread, swallowed them in the cold water Hulun last night, put on simple work clothes made of coarse cloth, and Cassia quietly went out to work. Lilia was already in deep sleep.

　　 The huge chimney of the steam factory never stops emitting thick black smoke. Two shifts of work in the morning and night make the factory the longest living creature in the small town.

The factory has never been a clean and tidy place. The roar of huge gears, the air filled with hot steam and smoke, the dark and humid ground under the feet, the steam machinery with all kinds of gears hung on the huge and heavy shafts, is intricate. , The surface has been attached with a layer of rust, the rusty metal pipes that can stain the entire palm with a touch of hand, the various valve interfaces that are still spewing with hot air, and the dazzling red glow all the time, disturbing There are countless indicators of people’s minds, and more importantly, the cursing mothers who can always linger in the ears,,,,,

　　 This is the power and heart that supported the undefeated prosperity of the empire. The popularization and development of industry has reached an unprecedented level. The manufacture of various machinery is the greatest guarantee for the citizens of the empire to survive and multiply in countless difficult natural environments. It was also after the start of the "Creation War" that the Saint Dorag Empire could rise rapidly in the Postphase Continent in just a few decades, quickly annexing the territories of dozens of neighboring countries with unparalleled momentum, and entered the Postphase in one fell swoop. The propellant of the powerful countries on the continental plate, the huge development of industry has an indispensable driving force.

　　The factory where Cassia is located is one of the tens of millions of steam factories on the Empire Continent.

The small factory is a matchbox-like building, wrapped in layers of refurbished iron skin sprayed with blue paint. The steel frame door is greatly opened, and the surging heat turns into white smoke at the door, mixed with heavy engine oil. The smell and rust smell rises up into the sky.

Workers under the iron sheet are in full swing. Cassia wears a yellow safety hat. The small head of the factory is called Vixie. He stands naked beside a forging machine with his iconic big head, and calculates the work that should be done today with the product notebook in his hand. Yield.

"Cassia, I'm going to Manoma in a few days, don't hurry up and help this old factory that is dying of death!" Vixie saw Cassia come in, so he freed up one hand and picked it up. Put the number plate on the forging machine, and then throw it at Cassia.

　　 Cassia took the sign, walked and smiled and revealed a row of white teeth. The die forging machine next to it fell heavily at this time, and the whole factory shook with it. Although there is an anti-vibration device more than ten meters deep underground under the huge machine, the strength of the iron block weighing tens of tons lifted by the steam turbine is indeed not completely offset by the human machine.

　　 Then a few thick white mist sprayed from the valve, as if the pressure of the deep sea made it spray several meters away before it stopped. The steam turbine started, and the huge iron block was lifted. Dozens of people immediately surrounded it. Several adult thigh-thigh iron chains lifted a huge gear that had been roughly formed and moved slowly to the next step of the machine.

　　 After fine processing and finally flame treatment to eliminate internal stress, this gear can be shipped to the front of the Empire as a standard part.

　　 Cassia dexterously shuttled between several machines, and finally came to the bottom of the factory. There was no huge machine standing there, and there was almost no vibration, and some were just a piece of light.

Before coming to his post, Cassia put on thin white gloves, took out the key hung on his neck and opened the locked drawer. Inside were densely packed fine tools and a code inlaid with hundreds of precision gears. card.

　　 Uncovering the soft white cloth covering the table, underneath is a perpetual calendar mechanical watch that has not yet been assembled, and there are 13 small parts short of the watch.

　　 was in contact with watchmaking when Cassia still remembered his father. As a second-level warrant officer, my father has a basic military-made perpetual calendar watch that can be used to check the date, month, year, direction of the central sea, and astrology at any time. The astrology can roughly infer the weather trends in recent days, and it is very important information for merchants and troops navigating with airships. Because the airships that opposed the forces of nature eventually turned into wreckage.

　　 At that time, when his father came back, Cassia would use a magnifying glass to observe the densely packed and wonderfully working gears on the dial with interest. Later, several books on watch precision science accumulated all Cassia's knowledge of watch assembly.

　　 I can get this easy and well paid job, and my childhood interest really helps.

　　 The installation of thirteen gears took Cassia nearly a day, and Cassia did not complete the final assembly until the dusk of the town was about to fall.

Finally, I was able to wipe the fine sweat leaking from his forehead. Cassia had no time to rest, and then took out the password card from the drawer, pulled out the steam outlet connected by the rubber tube beside the table, and inserted the copper interface into it. In the interface of the password card.

　　 The condensed gear in the code card turned rapidly at the moment it was connected to the steam outlet, as if it had endless vitality. Then Cassia inserted it into the card slot in front of him. It was a zero-differential machine, the last type of differential machine in the empire. The computing power was at the peak of the differential machine, and then it was placed under the feet of any analytical machine. But for such a small factory, the performance of the zero-differential engine is completely sufficient.

　　 A calculation branch of the zero-type differential engine is activated, and the password card is loaded with a program for the perpetual calendar watch to adjust the accurate time, month, year, and star current. The artificial adjustment of time will reflect a large error, and this error will be naturally infinitely magnified~www.readwn.com~ Therefore, the adjustment of such fine clocks has always been replaced by reliable procedures.

　　The machinery in front of the table started to operate. The six golden hexagonal copper pillars were in the azimuth of the six-pointed star. Cassia picked up the watch, and the six transmission pillars were inserted into the clock without any gap, and then began to rotate slowly. The display on the clock began to change.

　　 The precise adjustment of a watch takes about one night, and there is no accumulation of work at the moment, and Cassia is going back to accompany his sister Lilia.

　　 just repeat this quietly for a few days.

　　 A few days later, the atmosphere in the factory never changed. Cassia was using a magnifying glass to install a gear with tweezers in his hand.

　　 The metal instruments stacked on the tabletop suddenly began to vibrate, and then made the sound of rubbing against each other. Then the vibration did not disappear, and the amplitude gradually increased. In the end, the entire plant was quiet at this moment, and only the sound of high-pressure gas gushing from the gas valve sounded alone.

　　 The vibration with a certain peculiar pattern spread to every corner of the small city through the ground veins, and truly spread to everyone's body through the earth.

　　 So, after this moment of silence suddenly fell, the quiet atmosphere of a small town that turned into a still life painting finally regained its vitality in an extremely high and clear, like a whistle that could penetrate the air and tear through countless buildings. The whistle sound was like lightning in a black stormy night, illuminating the entire town in an instant.

　　 The people in the factory began to cheer and scold their mother, and the residents in the small town began to cheer and celebrate.

　　 The empire relisting, the only time in a year, has finally arrived. In this quiet afternoon on January 2, 1096~www.readwn.com~, you are welcome to visit and read. The latest, fastest and hottest serial works are all at ~www.readwn.com~ For mobile users, please visit read.