In the Song Dynasty, there was no law or order.

"Cai Zhisi, the director is here."

Wei Huanzhi saw Cai Zhi still hammering at the machine, so he stepped forward to remind him.

However, Cai Zhi seemed to be immersed in it and didn't hear it.

Until the worker next to him pushed him, he came back to his senses, and then turned around to look at everyone, revealing a face stained with oil.

When he saw Zhao Jun, he was surprised at first, then remembered something, and hurriedly threw down the hammer in his hand, grinned, showing his white upper teeth, and said with his hands folded: "The subordinate greets the director."

"Cai Zhisi is much darker than the last time I saw him."

Zhao Jun turned his head and joked to everyone: "The white-faced scholar in the past has now become a black-faced Zhang Fei."

There is no record of Zhang Fei's specific appearance in history, but the water puppet show was popular in the Sui and Tang Dynasties to create images, and gradually the prototype of a big bearded old man appeared.

For example, Li Shangyin wrote in his poem "Some tease Zhang Fei's beard, some laugh at Deng Ai eating."

After that, storytelling became popular in the Song Dynasty, and the image became more three-dimensional. It was not until the Ming Dynasty "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" that it was completely formed.

Therefore, the image of Zhang Fei did not appear until the Ming Dynasty, but gradually became a story passed down orally during the Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties. Later, Luo Guanzhong compiled and adapted it, and then the four great classics were created.

This is not only true for "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

The image of Sun Wukong in "Journey to the West" is also the same. There have been legends about monkeys from the Han Dynasty to the Northern and Southern Dynasties. At that time, it was just a half-human, half-beast monster in people's stories.

In the Tang Dynasty, the details of this image and legend became richer and more three-dimensional.

For example, in the Tang Dynasty legendary novel "Legend of the White Ape in Bujiang", the monkeys in it have culture, magic, martial arts, can fly, and even have an indestructible body, which has added some divinity to the previous monster image.

In the Song Dynasty, the prototype of Sun Wukong basically appeared and was called Monkey Walker.

The widely circulated story is that Monkey Walker was subdued by the gods because he robbed women or stole food, and then turned from evil to good and became a god.

During this period, the legend of Master Xuanzang's journey to the West became popular, so the story of Monkey King changed to that he was demoted to the mortal world for stealing peaches in his early years, and finally escorted Xuanzang to the West to obtain scriptures.

Even the people of the Song Dynasty, based on the common knowledge at that time that Monkey King had magical powers such as "indestructible", "going to heaven and earth", and "changing in many ways", fabricated the saying that he was conferred the title of "Steel and Iron Bones Great Sage" by Emperor Taizong of Tang.

Later, in the Yuan Dynasty's Yuan Zaju, the image of Sun Wukong was almost perfect. When Wu Chengen wrote "Journey to the West" in the Ming Dynasty, there was the Monkey King Sun Wukong that we are familiar with in later generations.

So in addition to "Water Margin" and "Dream of Red Mansions" among the four great classics, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Journey to the West" actually had their prototypes in the Tang and Song Dynasties.

Zhao Jun said that Cai Zhi was a black Zhang Fei, which came from the water puppet show in the Tang Dynasty and the image creation of storytellers in the Song Dynasty.

"Hahahahaha."

Hearing Zhao Jun's joke, everyone laughed and said it was very funny.

Cai Zhi smiled and said, "Although I am the company's director, I have the expectations of the court above, and there are so many workers to eat below, how can I just stay in the government office and enjoy the fruits of others' labor?"

He then remembered something and said, "Before, the director said that he would come, and I was going to greet him, but I didn't expect that something went wrong with this thing, so I kept repairing it and forgot about it. Please forgive me, Director."

"Well said."

Zhao Jun heard his words and gave a thumbs up and said, "The court needs officials like Director Cai who work hard, so how can I blame him? If all officials in the world are like this, why worry about the country not being able to prosper."

"I am ashamed, I am just fulfilling my duties."

Cai Zhi said hurriedly.

Zhao Jun turned his head to look at the machine and asked, "Okay, tell me, what is this?"

"This is a steam engine that I developed with several workers."

When mentioning this machine, Cai Zhi suddenly became excited and pointed at the machine and said, "Please look, the court has brought a lot of steam engines to the steel plant. These steam engines often break down. I wanted to study the internal structure, so I dismantled a few steam engines. After dismantling them, I was surprised by the precision of them, so I devoted myself to studying them for several years. Last year, I suddenly had an idea and developed this machine."

He introduced: "This machine will be much smaller in size, and its internal structure is completely different from that of large machines. The officer is at this position. "

He knocked on the upper outer wall of the machine and said, "This position is the heart of the machine. I made a hollow design inside and a plug below. Then there are air inlets and outlets here. When steam enters it, it will push the plug below to rotate continuously. "

"And here, I made some springs. They will rise and fall with the flow of gas in and out. In this way, they inhale, press down, rise again, and exhaust, forming a continuous cycle. "

Cai Zhi fumbled around and pointed at the upper and lower ends of the machine. Since the outside was steel, he couldn't understand the design inside at all, so he naturally didn't know what he was talking about.

Zhao Jun stood there stupidly, wanting to say, Master Cai, don't read it, don't read it.

But he could only be confused, and he bit the bullet and pretended to understand and nodded and said, "Then what?"

"Then the plug will drive the lever below, connected to the turntable outside, and the turntable has a steel shaft. I was thinking if I installed a few wheels outside, then I could run with it. "

Cai Zhi gestured and said, "It's just like a train, except that it's much smaller than a train, but it should be more convenient to use."

Okay.

This time Zhao Jun understood.

Steam car?

Couldn't this thing be an internal combustion engine?

Zhao Jun stared and said, "Can you explain in detail how it works?"

"It's very simple."

Cai Zhi patted the middle of the machine and said: "It uses steam to push the plug below, and the lever connected to the plug will move. When the steam is drained away, the plug will rise again, and then push the steam, and the plug will move. When it falls down again, the steam is released, and when it comes up again, just like when a person exhales and exhales, it can burst out with power and drive the wheels outside to rotate. "

"stroke?"

Zhao Jun asked tentatively.

"What is a stroke?"

Cai Zhi was confused.

They have no professional knowledge and no naming in this area. They only know how to generally introduce the operation of the machine.

As for terms such as "movement", "compression", "work" and "stroke", I don't know at all.

"nothing."

Zhao Jun held his forehead and felt that his scalp was itchy and he was about to grow a brain.

He remembered the physics class in the third grade of junior high school.

As Cai Zhi explained, the knowledge of mechanical energy in the first chapter of third-year junior high school physics that he had almost forgotten came to his mind.

Recalling it vaguely, this seems to be the compression stroke in mechanical energy.

Unfortunately, when he was in junior high school, his proficiency in mathematics, chemistry, and physics was very average. In high school, he was divided into arts and sciences and went to the liberal arts class.

Moreover, I wasn’t very good at mathematics in high school. I only got 96 in the liberal arts and mathematics in the college entrance examination. I relied entirely on liberal arts, Chinese, and English to get into the National People’s Congress.

If we had worked harder on the mathematics, physics and chemistry knowledge in junior high school and studied it carefully, how could it be possible that we only remembered this bit of knowledge now, or even had only a partial understanding of it, and could not understand it clearly?

"I don't know what a stroke is, but I just know that it can drive the steel shaft, and the gas inside will make the shaft below move."

Cai Zhi said and sighed: "The only problem is that after trying it several times before, the steel shaft below sometimes breaks down, and it moves very slowly, slower than a train. It doesn't seem to have enough power."

"Talk about it"

Zhao Jun thought for a while and said, "I have an idea."

"oh?"

Cai Zhi became interested and asked, "Does Zhiyuan think there is anything wrong with my design?"

"no."

Zhao Jun said: "I just thought that if the steam inside was replaced with other gases, would it be more powerful and run faster?"

Cai Zhi thought to himself: "What Zhiyuan said is not gunpowder. I have thought about it before, but I am afraid it will not be easy to realize."

"It's not gunpowder, it's gasoline. Forget it, I will send someone to deliver it to you when the time comes."

Zhao Jun said: "You can try it with that thing."

His eyes were filled with anticipation.

If Cai Zhi really builds a car, something big will happen.

As a history major, Zhao Jun actually doesn’t know much about engineering.

But thanks to the world history course, I have a clear understanding of Western history, including some inventions and details of the Industrial Revolution.

Before Watt improved the steam engine, steam as a power source had already been recognized in the West.

For example, in 1680, Newton once imagined using steam as jet power and inventing a car that would travel by jet, but he gave up because it was difficult to implement.

In 1670, Huygens had a whimsical idea that gunpowder could be used as a propulsion, and invented a machine that used gunpowder to burn and expand in the cylinder to push the piston to do work, that is, the "internal combustion engine".

Therefore, the actual steam automobile and internal combustion engine were not products after the Industrial Revolution at all, but existed before the Industrial Revolution.

However, due to the limitations of the materials at the time, although there were ideas in this regard, it was difficult to implement.

It was not until 1769 that Frenchman Nicolas Gounod built the world's first steam car, nine years after the start of the first industrial revolution.

It can be seen that what people often lack are not wild ideas, but the materials to make the ideas become reality. Just like the steam engine existed before Watt improved it, but Watt used rubber to change the key lead ring, which perfectly solved the sealing problem. triggered the first industrial revolution.

Cai Zhi's genius idea excited Zhao Jun.

If he really invented the internal combustion engine like Huygens did in history, he only needed to replace the steam material with petroleum and solve the spark plug problem, wouldn't there be a car?

If you think about it carefully, when others were still in the era of feudal primitive society, the Song Dynasty had trains, cars, and ships. What a dimensionality reduction attack it would be.

"It would be great if Zhiyuan had something that could replace steam as a source of power."

Cai Zhi said.

"Well, your innovation and invention are very important, and the court attaches great importance to it."

Zhao Jun said: "In this way, I allow you to form a research and development team yourself. You can find skilled technical workers to research and develop together. The funds will be borne by the group's profits. And don't use these poor quality scrap materials. Use the best steel to build it." , strive to perfect this machine as soon as possible.”

"Thank you Chiyuan!"

Cai Zhi was overjoyed. It took him a year to come up with this defective product. It was not because of his inability, but because of many reasons.

First, he often can only deal with the affairs of the company group and can only come over to study in his spare time.

Second, the R\u0026D team is weak and can only find some interested workers every time. Other workers are either unavailable at work or just want to rest after get off work and are unwilling to come.

Third, the materials are not up to standard, and they are all scrap materials eliminated from the steel plant. If this kind of material is used for high-pressure operations, it will naturally not last long.

Therefore, Cai Zhi's research and development progress has not been very smooth. At present, he has only developed this thing and has not conducted loading experiments yet.

Now with Zhao Jun, he can devote more resources to participate.

"Okay, then I won't disturb you."

Zhao Jun warned: "You have to pay more attention to this matter. I believe its role and potential are very great. If the experiment can be successful, it will take five, ten or twenty years. Do you understand?" ?”

"Yes, please rest assured, if it can run successfully, I will build a car that can run on the ground as soon as possible."

Cai Zhigong cupped his hands and said excitedly: "If it can run on the ground as I thought, I will drive it myself to Bianliang and let the magistrate have a look. The official has lived up to the trust of the court."

"very good!"

Zhao Jun nodded with satisfaction, not paying attention to the mess on the other person's body. He patted his dirt-covered shoulder and said, "I'm optimistic about you."

He smiled and turned to leave.

Looking at his leaving figure, Cai Zhi's eyes were full of excitement and touch. He was excited that he could show off his talents, and he was touched that Zhiyuan trusted him so much.

You must know that the cost of this research is definitely not small. If there are no results, it will be a waste of finances.

It can be said that the magistrate would rather waste money than trust him.

This trust is naturally touching.

Everyone here gathered around Zhao Jun and left.

After walking out of the factory, Wei Huanzhi asked in surprise: "Zhiyuan, Cai Zhisi's research is probably going to cost a lot of money. What if it is of no use?"

"It will be useful."

Zhao Jun smiled.

Wei Huanzhi scratched his head and said: "I don't think it's of any use, since there is a train, why bother to do anything else? Even if that thing is made, how can it be as convenient as a train?"

"You don't understand. Its importance is far beyond your imagination. It even determines the future destiny of the country."

Zhao Jun put his hands behind his back and looked into the distance with a smile.

A train is a train and a car is a car. They cannot be generalized.

Many inventions throughout history may seem useless at first, but time will tell.

We don’t know what Cai Zhi’s invention is yet, but if it is really an internal combustion engine, it would be great.

Zhao Jun naturally knows how important the automobile industry will be in later generations.

Germany and Japan, the two defeated countries in World War II, have always occupied the third and fourth positions in the world's GDP by relying on their automobile industry.

Therefore, even if it is not certain whether Cai Zhi is researching internal combustion engines, or it may even turn out that Cai Zhi's invention is useless, Zhao Jun must gamble even for the one in ten thousand chance.

This is related to the future of the Song Dynasty, and it is also related to the rapid rise of the Song Dynasty within a few decades and the completion of Zhao Jun's strategy of dominating the entire East Asia within a hundred years and becoming the eastern pole.

So this has nothing to do with anything else, it is simply that the Song Dynasty needs such a pioneering spirit to walk on the right path and determine its future destiny.