Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 759: Ming Dynasty's Internal Combustion Engine
"One, two, one, two, one, stand still, look to the right!"
It was March of the 28th year of the Tianqi reign (1646). In the chilly spring, in Changping Prefecture, northwest of Beijing, countless newly enlisted soldiers were undergoing the most basic drill training under the guidance of their instructors.
“Did you take the photo?”
"Well, I took the photo, but these soldiers are constantly moving. I'm afraid the photo won't be very good when it's developed."
"What should we do? If we can't take good quality photos, I'm afraid Brother Mizhi won't forgive us when we return to the newspaper office."
"I can't do anything about this. How about, Brother Chaozong, you go and discuss this with the officer in charge of training? After all, your father is also a member of the imperial court."
"If my father knew that I was working under his name, I would be beaten half to death when I got home. Well, it would be more terrible to fail the mission and be stared at by Brother Mizhi in silence. Well, I will go meet the colonel now."
After the young reporter said this, he walked towards the officer who was standing in the center of the venue, watching the formation of new recruits that had been trained into a proper formation by the veterans.
"This colonel invites you."
"Oh, who is this?"
"My name is Hou Fangyu, and I am currently an editor at the Yanjing Daily. This time, I was sent by our editor-in-chief Fang Yizhi to take photos of the high-spirited new recruits of our Ming Dynasty. However, I have been busy here for a long time, but the soldiers are constantly moving around. I am afraid that the photos I took will not turn out well after being developed. So, can you please help this colonel and ask a group of soldiers to keep a certain posture still during training, so that it will be convenient for us?"
"I thought it was nothing, it's a simple matter. Editor Hou, please rest assured, this is to promote our military, we will definitely cooperate with you without affecting the normal training progress."
…
The next day, Hou Fangyu, who was only 28 years old, went to meet Fang Yizhi, the current editor-in-chief of the Yenching Daily. Before he even entered the editor-in-chief's office, he started yelling, "Old Fang, come and take a look at the photos. You can't say that my subordinates can't take photos this time, right? Hey, who is this, Mao Pijiang, where are you coming from?"
Of the four great princes of the late Ming Dynasty in this historical dimension, except for the oldest Chen Zhenhui, the other three are all gathered at this moment.
"Chao Zong, are you back? I was just talking to Mi Zhi about you. As for me, I just arrived in Beijing yesterday."
"Well, then we must welcome Brother Pijiang tonight." After saying this, Hou Fangyu threw a stack of photos in his pocket towards Fang Yizhi: "Is this okay this time?"
"Hmph, I'll make do with it this time."
"What? Just make do. Hey, Lao Fang, after you became the editor-in-chief of the Yenching Daily, you wrote to me again and again asking me to come out and help you. But after I came, you always found fault with my work. Did you do it on purpose?"
"If it was before, the quality of your photos would be fine. But now." Fang Yizhi took out a stack of photos from the side and arranged them in order: "Look, this is the kangaroo that Mao Pijiang took in Australia. What do you think?"
"Huh?" Hou Fangyu, who was originally unconvinced, stared at the photos for a while and found the clue: "This is the complete action of a kangaroo jumping continuously."
"Yes!" Fang Yizhi stacked the twenty-odd photos together, and then quickly flipped through them starting from the first one: "Try this again. This way, the kangaroo seems to be alive!"
"Hey, interesting." After doing the same thing, Hou Fangyu suddenly became excited: "Brother Pijiang, how did you come up with this idea?"
"Haha, no problem. The camera has been around since celluloid appeared. I've always been interested in this thing. In these years of field research in Australia, my main job is photography. But animals in the wild are not so obedient. Sometimes I can't take a satisfactory photo even after waiting for several days, let alone capture the complete action. Later, I thought, if one camera can't do it, what about ten? Twenty? Then I asked for thirty cameras from China, lined them up in a row in the vast wilderness, connected the camera shutters to silk threads, and tied them to the wooden stakes at the other end. Then I caught a kangaroo and let it jump repeatedly between the camera and the stake. It tripped the rope and pulled the camera..."
"After I heard about Pijiang's method, I thought of a new way to report."
"Yeah, with a little bit of refinement, we can capture people or things in full motion."
"That's true. Chaozong, the imperial court will march into India next year. If we can have a machine that can film all the people in action and then project them, then the military reporters from the other five major newspapers will have no choice but to watch us..."
"Hahaha, Brother Mizhi, such a scene is really beautiful just thinking about it! Well, then Brother Mizhi, I will resign first, and then go to Fangshan Academy of Sciences to retake a year, focusing on optics and electricity. While retaking the course, I will gather graduate students in Fangshan Academy of Sciences who are interested in this, and work together to develop this machine."
"As your Hou family is so wealthy, it wouldn't be a big problem for you to quit your job and start over. But you are 28 years old, and you just married Xiangjun, so the expenses are not small. So, at tomorrow's president's meeting, I will apply for paid study for you."
"Haha, that's great. Thank you, Brother Mizhi."
Not to mention that these three young masters found the way to get started in filming by accident. It was Fangshan, where Hou Fangyu was about to return, and it was also a place where Zhu Youdong often went during this period.
Thanks to Zhu Youdong, the medicine of the Ming Dynasty was unrivaled in the world. After Zhu Youdong ascended the throne, although he had many affairs and rarely gave instructions in person, he laid the foundation after all, so in recent years, the medical research of the Ming Dynasty has continued to achieve results.
"Your Majesty, in terms of poison gas, in addition to sevoflurane for simple anesthesia, our Fangshan can already mass-produce chlorine gas and mustard gas. At the same time, we have also developed a gas mask that can effectively isolate the above gases. As long as the enemy dares to use poison gas in the future war, our Ming Dynasty will definitely be able to fight back."
"Well, very good. Don't worry, everyone. Large-scale use of poison gas is indeed harmful to the harmony of nature. As long as the enemy does not use it, I do not want to use it either."
"That's true, so our laboratory is going to provide a certain amount of poison gas bombs to the military this time, but their use must be limited."
"Okay, that's enough about the poison gas. Ladies and gentlemen, what about the others? Because of our profession, we doctors are indeed the best at killing people. But our job is to save people."
"Your Majesty, regarding antibiotics, we have recently developed a new type of lactam drug that has inhibitory and killing effects on a variety of bacteria. Although its killing rate for pneumococci and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which are common in the military, is slightly lower than that of the cephalosporins developed last year. However, we have conducted clinical trials on tens of thousands of people using this antibiotic and have not found a single case of allergy."
That's aztreonam. Very good. The biggest advantage of this antibiotic is that it has weak immunogenicity and rarely causes human allergies. In the 21st century, skin tests are not required for aztreonam injections. With this, the lives of the wounded soldiers of the Ming Dynasty have been further protected.
Of course, the Ming Dynasty itself had a great advantage in medicine. The post-mortems of various wars in the past two or three decades showed that about 70% to 80% of the wounded soldiers of the Ming Dynasty survived, and half of them were able to return to the battlefield - this alone gave the Ming Dynasty a great advantage over the European Union and the Ottoman Empire.
Therefore, Zhu Youdong did not stay in the medical laboratory for too long. Soon, he was transferred to the power laboratory.
"Greetings, Your Majesty."
"No need to greet you two."
"Your Majesty." Although he was a member of the royal family, Zhu Kuiyou, who was used to doing scientific research, did not hesitate to get straight to the point: "The research on the internal combustion engine has now made some progress."
"Oh? How far has it progressed?"
"Yes, Your Majesty, the internal combustion engine currently made by our power laboratory uses electric ignition to compress gas into the cylinder for combustion, and uses heat energy to drive the machine to work. In this sense alone, the internal combustion engine can actually be considered a successful research and development. However, this internal combustion engine, in general, still imitates the mechanical structure of the steam engine. Not only is it large in size, but the key is that the thermal efficiency is still very low. After a lot of data calculations, I found that the thermal efficiency ratio of this internal combustion engine is less than 4%. Your Majesty, you need to know that the thermal efficiency ratio of the top steam engines in our Ming Dynasty is close to 10%. The volume has not been reduced, but the thermal efficiency ratio has decreased. Such an internal combustion engine has no practical value."
"Hmm... Have you ever tried to mix fuel and air directly and burn it in the cylinder?"
"I have tried it, but the temperature inside the cylinder is too high, and the cylinder structure is prone to deformation, and it cannot maintain its workmanship for a long time. At the same time, there are too many residues after the fuel is burned, and the cylinder is prone to clogging."
"I see." After thinking for a while, Zhu Youdong said, "The former is a problem of materials science, and the latter is a problem of oil purification. This requires the assistance of the materials laboratory and the chemical laboratory."
"I thought so too, so I recently submitted an application to Dean Fang to form a joint research and development team. Dean Fang has approved it, and the relevant personnel will be in place tomorrow."
"Well, Zhu Kuiyou, I don't know much about engineering, but I vaguely remember that the working principle of the internal combustion engine is a four-stroke cycle. Intake, compression, combustion, exhaust. This cycle is different from the working principle of the steam engine. So, I suggest that you redesign the internal combustion engine according to this four-stroke cycle."
"Uh, Your Majesty is so sure?"
Of course, I am a time traveler. Although I don't know what the internal combustion engine looks like, I do know the famous four-stroke cycle. You use the steam engine principle to fit the internal combustion engine, which is obviously wrong. But with me here, it's hard to say whether the technology tree will climb fast or not, but at least it won't go astray.
"I am very sure that the real internal combustion engine must be this four-stroke cycle. You should work in this direction. I don't know when the results will be achieved, but I know that this path is not wrong."
