Warrior in Turbulent Han Dynasty

At noon, Guo Shao had a drink at Chen Jiali's residence, and was helped to a wing room for a nap.

After an unknown amount of time, Guo Shao suddenly woke up. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Chen Jiali was looking at him lovingly. Guo Shao let out a long breath and his chest was pounding. He felt that he was sweating profusely and his mouth was dry. When he turned his head to look, the charcoal fire in front of the bed was too hot.

"Am I talking in my sleep?" Guo Shao asked in a daze.

Chen Jiali said quietly: "I heard General Guo say 'Don't kill me', 'Don't kill me', did you have a nightmare where someone hunted you down?"

"It was a nightmare." Guo Shao wiped his sweat with his hand, and said thoughtfully, "It's not that he was hunted down."

Chen Jiali asked curiously, "What a nightmare it was, it scared you like this."

Guo Shao glanced at her and murmured, "I don't remember the previous one. It was probably when I was about to be executed at the end of the road. The opponent put a gun... something like a crossbow in my mouth, and then I waited to die; probably because struggling was useless and I couldn't move. I was very scared, thinking that the last blow might be very painful... I thought in my heart, endure for a while, and it will be over soon. After the end, I don't know the pain.

You may die at any time, but you don't know when it will come. But the man didn't shoot for a long time, and every snap of my fingers felt like a year had passed, which felt very long; at that time, all I could do was hope that the other party would hurry up. I finally heard the sound... with fear, it didn't seem to hurt very much, like being bitten by a mosquito, and then I gradually lost consciousness..."

Guo Shao took another long breath: "Then I woke up and found it was just a dream...that's not bad."

Chen Jiali said quietly: "I never thought that a person like General Guo would have such a terrible dream."

Guo Shaodao: "Maybe it's the sequelae of what I did before... I've seen too many bloody slaughters. But it's okay, it's just a dream, no one can easily push me to the end!"

Chen Jiali comforted her softly, like coaxing a child. Guo Shao gradually calmed down and felt better. He suddenly thought of a person he had almost forgotten: "Mrs. Chen's concubine who survived the persecution, please treat her better. I suddenly felt how terrible it is to be threatened by violence. She must often live in nightmares."

"General Guo is really a caring person." Chen Jiali said softly, "You take a rest, I will accompany you, don't be afraid."

Guo Shao turned over and got up: "I have to go to the workshop in the outer city to see how they are making it...By the way, I haven't thanked Mrs. Chen for the place, money and people to help me make that thing."

"It's a trivial matter, don't worry about it." Chen Jiali said generously.

Guo Shao had designed the plan a month ago, but the yard at home was not enough for the venue, and it didn't seem too good to be in the inner city. So he asked Chen Jiali for help. She happened to have a yard used as a warehouse in a relatively remote place in the southwest of the outer city, and Guo Shao asked her to use it as a workshop for experiments.

So he hurriedly got up, dressed and set off, and Chen Jiali followed to the outer city.

...It is a very ordinary courtyard, and you can hear the knocking sound at the door. When Guo Shao went in, he saw blacksmith Huang hammering things himself, and Luo Jiye, the head of the craftsman, and so on. When they saw Guo Shao, they came to see him. Guo Shao said: "There is no need to be too polite, you are busy with your own affairs."

Several people saluted the woman next to him wearing a veiled hat, but most of them didn't know who it was. Although the place belongs to Chen Jiali, the current personnel are not hers, including Luo Jiye, the chief craftsman, who was recruited by the Jiafang Department of Arms Supervision, one of the "five supervisors" of the imperial court, and the craftsmen were also recruited by the government.

The houses in the yard had been smashed into disrepair. In one hall, a huge "grinding disc" took up most of the room. Guo Shao took Chen Jiali to watch, and saw some people grinding the edge of the "grinding disc" with files and whetstones. "Shushasha..." "Swish..." The noise is endless.

The center of the grinding disc is made of thick solid wood, and the bearings are cast iron, polished smoothly. The edge is also inlaid with cast iron, and it is nailed to the wood with rivets; there are iron teeth on the edge...it looks like a big gear. There is also a "grinding disc" of similar shape in the corner, but it is much smaller than the main milling disc in the middle.

The transmission belt combined with wood and iron sheet between the two grinding discs is like connecting large and small waterwheels, but the transmission belt here is made stronger for load bearing.

Guo Shao pointed to the two millstones, turned to Chen Jiali and said, "Things like waterwheels are pulled by mules and horses in the cellar under the big wheels. They turn slowly and save effort; the small wheels over there turn faster and carry heavier loads."

Chen Jiali said softly: "Then General Guo can also use the water wheel, and it saves mules and horses."

Guo Shaodao: "First test whether this thing can be used, and then improve the power with water power."

There is a bent cast iron rod on the edge of the small millstone, and a chain is locked on the iron rod. But when the millstone turns, the chain will be pulled... The position of the iron rod is turned to the wall, and a part of the chain is released; when it is turned in the opposite direction, a part of the chain is pulled over. The chain passes through a hole punched in the wall and leads to the house next door.

Guo Shao took Chen Jiali to the next door, pointed to the hole in the wall and said, "That chain is what was tied to the wheel just now."

This thing was designed by Guo Shao himself, he didn't need to look at the pictures to know how to operate it, but Chen Jiali was very curious about it.

... After the chain reaches the house here, it rides on a fixed pulley and changes direction to up and down. When the wheel turns, the next end of the chain moves far and near, which will pull the end on this side to move up and down repeatedly.

There is a cast iron structure hanging on the head of the chain, and Guo Shao named it "chain head". The chain head is caught in a vertical cast iron groove to prevent it from swinging side to side, and the structure looks like a gate.

The head of the chain is hung on the "forging hammer" (a heavy cast iron lump) that weighs more than a thousand catties below. The principle so far is very simple: the chain moves up and down, and the forging hammer is pulled up and down to achieve the purpose of forging. But this alone is not enough... The chain can be pulled up slowly; when it is pulled down, it will also be connected to the chain due to the structure and synchronize with the rotation speed of the wheel, so it is impossible to forge things when it is pulled down slowly.

... Guo Shao also had a headache with this problem at the beginning, but now at least the problem has been solved in terms of design. When the forging hammer rises to the highest point, it needs to break away from the transmission structure and fall rapidly by gravity; then when it rises, it is connected to the chain transmission structure, so that it can be pulled up with the help of power.

Guo Shao's initial design was manual. After the forging hammer falls, people connect it; after it rises, people release it and let the forging hammer hit it... Later, I imagined that doing so would make the forging hammer very slow.

So he redesigned the opening and closing mechanism, which he called "semi-automatic" opening and closing. The connecting part between the chain head and the forging hammer is an "L"-shaped forged iron piece. When l is in its original state, it can hook the forging hammer; when it is pulled sideways, when it is tilted, the hook on the forging hammer will slide down from the slope of l, so as to release the forging hammer and let the forging hammer fall freely.

The thing that controls the opening and closing device also rotates and pulls the connecting parts with the wheels next door. When the forging hammer is near the apex, the l part will be deflected by the chain, and the forging hammer will be lowered... At this time, the hand next to it will shake another pulley to pull the l part again; after the chain falls, it will be reconnected with the forging hammer.

The entire mechanical device is very simple, but all the generals are purely handcrafted. It has not been completed for a month, and it is almost completed now. The charcoal fire in the house was burning vigorously, the bellows were whistling, and the blacksmiths were banging.

When Guo Shao stood there, he seemed to be in a relatively backward factory in modern times, or in a large blacksmith's shop.