Chapter 67 Making Wedding Clothes

  Making wedding clothes

  Yao Feng said to Xu Jianyin: "In my opinion, let's go to the power plant!"

  "I heard from my business partner in the United States, Mr. Lawrence, that next year, 1876, at the World's Fair in Philadelphia, they plan to use a 600-ton Corliss steam engine to drive a generator, transmitting electricity through cables to all the exhibition halls, and then using electric motors in each hall to power over a thousand machines! At that time, they will invite US President Grant and King Pedro II of Brazil to start this central power source!"

  Xu Jianyin listened with envy and asked: "Brother Yao, is that 600-ton Corliss steam engine weighing 12 million catties?"

  "That's right."

  "What a big handwriting! Brother Yao, do you know how many horsepower that huge thing has?"

  "1,400 horsepower!"

  "Ah......" Xu Jianyin involuntarily cried out.

  "Brother Yao... our factory doesn't need such a large horsepower... Brother Yao, please take a look, this is the list of items I plan to purchase."

  Saying that, Xu Jianyin quickly flipped open the mechanical layout diagram on his desk and compared it with the procurement list to Yao Fan:

  "Brother Yao, look here in the workshop. I plan to put a belt-driven lathe, using a general-purpose model that can be modified for drilling and milling...I've calculated that with a 5-horsepower steam engine behind the lathe, it will be able to drive it...Look, this is the chimney, and I plan to open a small door here so that coal ash can be pushed out of the workshop after it's burned...Here, I plan to put a hand-cranked swing-arm lathe that can also use a belt, driven by a small steam engine..."

  After being shocked by Yao Wang's insider information, Xu Jianyin had already taken Yao Wang as an insider and revealed his own plans.

  Yao Fanshen took a look at this plan and found it was exactly the same as the historical plan of Shandong Machinery Bureau he had seen when searching for information.

  "Lao Xue." Yao Fang said with a smile.

  "Brother Yao speaks straightforwardly." Xu Jianyin replied with a flattered tone.

  "Brother Xu, you should know that the electric power generated by a steam engine driving a generator can be stored in a voltaic battery. However, since 1873, when scientists inadvertently connected a voltaic battery incorrectly to a generator at the Vienna World's Fair in Austria, they discovered that the electricity in the battery could actually drive the generator, turning it into an electric motor. From then on, the world began to transition from steam power to electrification."

  From now on, not only small steam engine-driven lathes will be outdated, but also large-scale steam engine-powered workshops will become obsolete, and the world's trend will shift towards the electric age.

  At this time, the factory you designed didn't even have a power plant, but instead used small steam engines directly in the workshop to drive it, which is really far behind the world.

  "Have you ever thought, with this approach, how poor the working environment in the workshop will be? The Qing dynasty's workers who use machine tools are already few and of low quality. Without a good working environment and excellent equipment, how can we guarantee product quality?"

  Yao Feng's words also moved Xu Jianyin.

  "Alas, Brother Yao, I'm also helpless! You mentioned electric motors, but I've never seen one before!"

  Let's take a step back, even if we adopt the design of an independent power plant, it would still require a huge amount of silver. Although Governor Ding fully supports the construction of the Shandong Machinery Bureau, at present he can only allocate 94,000 taels of provincial treasury silver, 72,800 taels of grain depot silver, and 20,000 taels of Linqing customs duty silver, totaling 186,800 taels of silver.

  With this amount of money, just setting up a coal mine and doing the civil construction of the factory would take up half of it. The remaining amount is less than 100,000 taels of silver, how can we afford to build a power plant? I'm afraid that even one large horsepower steam engine would cost tens of thousands of taels of silver, wouldn't it?

  Besides, I don't understand the transmission design of that power plant either! I haven't even seen a large-scale foreign factory! As for how the drive shaft should go on the roof of the workshop, and how the belt is connected, I've never seen any of those before! In my previous experience at Anqing Arsenal, all I saw were configurations with one machine and one bed.

  Xu Jianyin's frustration and helplessness moved Yao Fang. How he hoped that this China, even if it was the backward Qing dynasty, could establish advanced factories and mines, and hold its head high in the world.

  "Brother Xu, how much silver can you take out to purchase machinery?" Yao Fang asked.

  "One hundred thousand... no! One million two!" Xu Jianyin gritted his teeth and said.

  "Alright! I'll procure it for you at 110,000 taels. You just need to pay 50,000 taels as a deposit first, and the rest will be taken care of by me."

  In Yao Wenyuan's future plan, he put the Shandong Machine Bureau in a dowry position, but it is not clear whether Yao Wenyuan was making a dowry for the Qing Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty was making a dowry for Yao Wenyuan.

  "Xu brother, let me tell you about my plan." As he spoke, Yao Fan pulled out a pen and began to draw on a piece of white paper from the table.

  "Look, here, next to the coal mine, we'll build a thermal power plant... install a boiler... drive a steam engine... and then drive a DC generator... because the steam engine drives the generator, there will be fluctuations in the current, about 10-20 amps of fluctuation... add a rectifier and voltage stabilizer here... of course, I can also provide you with a generator with an excitation system for direct voltage stabilization... but never mind, that's too advanced... connect the cables and bring them over... after entering the factory, drive the machine tools..."

  "Brother Yao! Can you really buy all this equipment with 110,000 taels of silver? According to your plan, all the machines in the factory will be electric?" Xu Jianyin was amazed.

  Yao Fan has a belly full of bad water and won't say anything, he's completely treating this Shandong Machinery Bureau project as a power plant to operate, in the future if he starts something, as long as he takes down this power plant, it will be like adding wings to a tiger.

  In 1882, a power plant appeared in Shanghai, which was an English company called the Electric Light Company. At that time, the company started with only one horizontal boiler, plus a 16-horsepower steam engine, and behind it was a direct current generator with 800 revolutions per minute, which could light up 40 arc lamps.

  "Honestly, I don't dare guarantee that all the machines in our factory are electric, some of them are manual, but I can guarantee that the quality is excellent."

  For example, the foot-operated punching machine is used to punch the iron cap at the back of the bullet. For you, just stepping on it will do... I'll also give you a manual desktop lever press with a mold, and use manpower to press the lever. The copper-plated bullet shell should be no problem... Add a hand-cranked drilling machine for drilling teeth, attacking holes, and processing gun barrels... The quality of steel in the Qing dynasty is poor, although it's easy to drill into, but be careful not to crack that steel...” Yao murmured.

  "Brother Yao! Brother Yao! These are all manual and pedal-powered, what's the point of building a power plant?" Xu Jianyin listened in a daze.

  "Uh... I'll give you electric drive manual grinding machine, electric drive manual turret lathe, and electric drive manual honing machine. These are electric, just need to control the speed manually. Of course, low-level workers will inevitably produce wavy patterns during processing, but spraying cold water for cooling should help a bit... The heat treatment process before processing is up to you to figure out, without this step, the processing difficulty will be greater... Heat treatment... This is a trade secret, let's not mention it... Copper plating on the inner wall of the barrel... This is too advanced, even the major powers haven't adopted it yet, so don't consider it for now... The choice of rifling... You might as well continue to copy Henry Martini's internal seven-groove design, it's actually not difficult to process, just control the cutting process and time..."

  Xu Jianyin heard it vaguely, but from Yao Fan's words, he could deeply perceive that this person was simply a professional in mechanical processing!

  "Brother Yao! Is it really just 110,000 taels of silver?" Xu Jianyin asked in astonishment.

  "It's not enough for me to just stick around! As long as I can help Lord Ding get the factory up and running, the silver doesn't matter!" Yao Feng said solemnly.

  Actually, the price of the human-powered lathe that Yao Fan reported earlier was only a few thousand yuan, and the electric one was just over 10,000 yuan. Even if you add other steam engines, generators, and boiler equipment, how could it possibly cost 110,000 silver dollars! He's too greedy!

  Red ticket! Collect! Click! To catch up with the book in front, brothers work hard!