Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 763: Technological Breakthrough on the Battlefield
"Father, my son is back."
"Oh, you're back. Have you eaten yet? Well, I've gotten used to it over the years, always asking you if you've eaten. Now I remember that the food in your lab is much richer than at home."
"Father, what you said is true. No matter how sumptuous the food in the cafeteria is, you will never tire of the food at home. Because I knew I had to go home tonight, I deliberately didn't have dinner in the cafeteria."
"That's great, old lady. Hurry up and heat up the dinner."
As an academician of Fangshan Academy of Sciences, Zhu Kuiyou, the current head of the Academy of Sciences Internal Combustion Engine R&D Laboratory, also has a three-story courtyard with a separate entrance, just like other academicians. In this courtyard, his parents, wife and children all live together.
The mother went to heat up the meal for her son. Her face was full of wrinkles and her complexion was dark. Her hands were covered with thick calluses. It was obvious that the father had suffered a lot in his early years. He took a puff of his cigarette and said, "You haven't been home for half a month again. What's wrong? Did you encounter difficulties at work?"
"Yes, the emperor asked my son to lead a working group to develop an internal combustion engine, which is a machine that burns fuel inside the machine and then uses heat energy to generate power. My son's previous research direction was wrong. After the emperor's guidance, he still didn't understand the four-stroke engine that the emperor mentioned. The battle that will determine the fate of the country is about to begin, but my son's research is still stuck. I really can't afford to relax at all."
"That's right. This battle is crucial to whether our Zhu family can prosper for another 500 years. As a member of the royal family, you should work harder. Oh, by the way, what is a four-stroke?"
Zhu Kuiyou's father, Zhu Jingda, had a hard life in his early years because of many restrictions on royal family members, such as not being allowed to work as an official, farming, or doing business. Although he could not read a single word, the old man had a lot of experience in the underworld. So Zhu Kuiyou did not despise his father's ideas at all. After the old man asked about the four-stroke, he patiently gave his illiterate father a detailed explanation.
"Tsk! I thought it was something so profound and mysterious, but it turns out to be just this. You little brat, it took you so long to figure out such a simple thing?"
"What does father say?"
"In my opinion, the four-stroke process, to put it simply, is to first let the oil-gas mixture enter at the same time, and then seal the space. And there should be an ignition device at the top of the space that can ignite sparks without human operation, so as to ignite the oil-gas mixture in the closed space. After the mixture is ignited, it will become hot and expand, and there should be a movable piston at the bottom of the space to be pushed by the ignited gas to do the work. After that, the other side of the closed space will be pulled open as the piston moves, allowing the exhaust gas to escape from the other side. Yes, air intake, ignition, work, exhaust, isn't the four-stroke process done?"
At this point, Zhu Jingda's interest was fully aroused. He asked Zhu Kuiyou to bring paper and pen and started drawing on the white paper.
The illiterate blacksmith could not write, and his drawing skills were very average. But in any case, what he drew was close to the most primitive internal combustion engine cylinder in later generations.
"Oh, why didn't I think of connecting the piston to the exhaust device so that the exhaust can be done automatically? No, I can also connect the piston to the intake device at the same time. In this way, the intake, work, and exhaust can be completely automated. As for ignition, hey, I can get an electric ignition device, calculate the time, and ignite it every few seconds! Father, you are really an expert , how did you come up with this idea?"
"Hey, you were born a little late. When you were about to go to school, the emperor had already ascended the throne and changed the ancestral system of the royal family. So you didn't do all kinds of illegal jobs to survive like our generation. Therefore, in terms of thinking, your breadth is actually far less than ours."
After the old man talked about reminiscing about the past, he took a deep puff of his cigarette and said, "I used to be a blacksmith. At that time, in order to have higher problems in the furnace, I had to use a bellows and a piston. You see, the furnace we blacksmiths used to burn looked like this... It also needed a bellows to blow air in, and then let the exhaust gas out... The emperor has clearly pointed out the four-stroke engine. It's actually very easy for those of us who have been blacksmiths to think of it."
"I see. Thank you for your advice, father."
"What are you doing! Are you leaving again? Your mother just heated up the meal."
"I won't eat anymore! How can I eat this now? Father, mother, when I make the internal combustion engine, I will invite you to have a feast at Nanyue Authentic!"
It was already March 1647. Zhu Youdong certainly didn't know that the internal combustion engine that Fangshan and his group had been struggling to develop for nearly a decade was finally broken by an illiterate old man. At this time, he was reading Richelieu's letter over and over again.
As the war approached, the silk, porcelain and tea smuggling route from Ming Dynasty to Ottoman Empire to Europe was increasingly restricted. But the more so, the more crazy people who relied on this route for their livelihood became: once the war started, the Silk Road would be completely cut off. They had to make a fortune before that.
Due to this pressure, smugglers changed their previous method of transporting goods by horse-drawn carriages and on foot. They bribed officials on a large scale and directly transported goods by train. Therefore, the time from Paris to Yili was compressed to less than three months.
After arriving in Yili, Richelieu's letter was sent to Shache by the local Jinyiwei at the fastest speed, and then telegraphed by the Xinjiang Provincial Administration. In this way, Zhu Youdong was able to obtain such important intelligence before leaving.
The deployment of European forces and the initial battle plan were not very significant: the Indian campaign was almost a show of strength for the Ming, Ottomans, and Europe. The terrain of India was like that, which meant that both sides had few options at the strategic level.
What he really cared about was that Richelieu mentioned that Europe had developed radio!
The appearance of this thing is really too important. Apart from other things, the battlefield agreed upon by the three parties in this war, India, is far away from their own homeland. Therefore, logistics and transportation are the basis for victory in the war. And to achieve fast and large-scale transportation, it is necessary to rely on sea transportation. Therefore, whoever controls the sea power will win this battle.
Judging from Richelieu's letter, due to the participation of the Ottoman Navy, the Ming Dynasty had a 7:9 advantage in battleships, which was slightly disadvantageous. But this gap was actually within Zhu Youdong's expectations - in fact, the gap was a little smaller than he originally thought. But if the other side had radio, in a battle between battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers on both sides with more than 300 warships, the enemy's advantage would be too great - you can't let Zhu Youdong learn from Cao Cao and string together the more than 100 warships of the Ming Dynasty with telegraph lines to create a chain of warships, right?
In the past, when naval battles were limited to double-digit numbers, it didn't really matter whether there was radio or not: all the warships would line up in a line and follow the flagship. But now everyone has more than a hundred warships, spread out on the sea, and the array is probably tens of kilometers long. With radio, the European and Austrian joint fleets can be commanded in a unified manner, but the Ming fleet can only fight on its own - what's the point of fighting!
This letter has arrived just in time. It seems that some plans need to be changed slightly.
"Square."
"The servant is here."
"Call the Prime Minister, the Vice Prime Minister, the two Privy Ministers, and Fu Shan from Fangshan Academy of Sciences and have them come to the Palace of Heavenly Purity immediately."
"As you wish."
…
"Everyone, the original document should still be on the way. This is the text of the telegram. I asked the eunuchs under Fang Zhenghua to copy several copies. You can take a look first."
After everyone finished reading Richelieu's letter, they all looked solemn, and they did not feel the slightest bit of joy at having learned about the other side's troop deployment in advance.
"Your Majesty." Ma Shiying stood up and said, "This wireless telegraph, can I understand it this way? It is a telegraph that does not require physical wires. It can send and receive information directly in the air."
"What Ma Xiang said is very accurate."
"Hiss~ This is troublesome." Privy Councilor Yan Siqi jumped up and said, "When I was commanding the fleet, I dreamed of having something like this. Now, the Western bandits have actually made it?"
"With the advent of electricity, the emergence of wired telegraph is inevitable. And with the advent of wired telegraph, the emergence of wireless telegraph is also a matter of time. I have anticipated this a long time ago. Therefore, when the wired telegraph just came out, I asked Fu Qingzhu to take the lead in establishing a special research and development team."
As soon as the emperor finished speaking, all the high-ranking officials in the room turned their eyes to Fu Shan.
Fu Shan, who had just turned forty this year, stood up with a wry smile and said, "Your Majesty, fellow officers, through the hard work of the Radio Research Laboratory in recent years, we have perfected the theory of electromagnetic waves and determined the wavelength and speed of electromagnetic waves. The current difficulty lies in the transmitter and receiver. To be more specific, it is mainly the oscillator and modulator. These things require repeated testing, and this is what takes the most time."
"Mr. Fu, I don't understand these specific things. I just want to ask you, when can our radio be installed on warships for practical use?"
“It depends on luck.”
"luck?"
"Yes. Prime Minister, the longer the antenna is, the higher the frequency is, and the farther it can be transmitted. But we can't build an antenna that is hundreds or thousands of meters high, right? So, how to convert low frequency to high frequency, and then how to match the high frequency with the existing antenna length. When it reaches the receiver, how to convert high frequency to low frequency, and how to match the receiver's antenna length with the frequency. All of these require constant repeated attempts. If you are lucky and the proportions are just right, then it will work. If you are unlucky, then you can only keep adjusting the data until it matches. Besides, the Western bandits now have radios. If they really go to the battlefield, how to distinguish the enemy's signals from our own is also something that needs to be studied..."
"Luck." Yan Siqi jumped up in annoyance. "We have hundreds of thousands of navy soldiers. We can't rely on luck for their lives, right?"
"Prime Minister, please calm down." Zhu Youdong waved his hand to calm Yan Siqi down. Then he said to Fu Shan, "In this war, control of the sea is the key to success or failure. If the Western bandits have radio technology and we don't, we are doomed to lose control of the sea. Therefore, I cannot make up my mind to go to war without radio on board. But now, millions of troops have all been mobilized. I can't just say no to the war. Therefore, radio must be installed on board within the next six months!"
"Your Majesty, when it comes to science, your decree may not always work."
"I know. Listen to me." Zhu Youdong took a deep breath. "From what you described, you have already started trying to send and receive messages. The problem now is that the communication distance is not very far, right?"
"Uh, yes."
"That's it. I don't want you to produce a radio device that can transmit directly from Beijing to Singapore. What I need now is to ensure that the naval commander can effectively command every warship on the battlefield when the navy is fighting in large groups. As for this distance... Yan Siqi, how long do you think it is at most?"
"Your Majesty, Inukai and I have conducted many simulated war games. When three hundred warships from both sides fight together, the width and length of the battlefield will not exceed fifty kilometers."
"Did you hear me, Fu Shan? In an emergency, let's not do any theoretical research for now. I want a radio device that can be produced in a short time and can ensure that the signal can be transmitted within 50 kilometers. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand. If it is just this kind of machine, then I will issue a military order to produce a finished product for the military to try out within three months."
"Well, it's settled. Okay, it's settled. Fang Zhenghua, serve the food. I'll treat everyone to a meal."
"Your Majesty, Mr. Zhu Kuiyou from the Academy of Sciences just arrived and is waiting outside . Uh, I don't quite understand, but from what he said, it seems that there has been a major breakthrough in the research of internal combustion engines!"
