Under the leadership of Zhuge Jin, Guan Yu took a quick look at the flowers and visited dozens of miles. He came outside Du'an County, northwest of Pi County, and finally saw the largest water truck project that Li Su had tinkered with.

Du'an County is the Dujiangyan City of later generations, and naturally it is also the location of the Dujiangyan water conservancy project.

The marquis Li Su is a fief in Pi County, but who made him powerful? He is both Liu Bei’s number one confidant and the prefect of Shu County. So he came to the prime location at the entrance of Dujiangyan to buy land for testing fields, but no one dared to obstruct him. After leaving the gate of Du'an County, he would do whatever he wanted.

As long as Li Su pays for it, the locals will obediently sell the land to him. Besides, before Liu Yan died, a large number of "Liu Bei's internal advisers" were killed, and there were no big clans left around Chengdu. Large areas were all homeless lands to be distributed, or they could be directly dealt with at a low price to self-cultivated farmers.

The water truck-powered facility requires the most stable and turbulent water flow. So Li Su is not far below the Feishayan and Baopingkou. When the water head is slightly stable, he built many large water trucks. They were all constructed by Zhuge Jin within half a year from the twelfth lunar month last year to the present.

The cost is actually not high. The main thing that costs a lot is the loss of tools and materials. As for wood and labor, it is easy to say.

Manual labor is temporarily levied at a low price, and people will come to work if they eat a bite. Because Yizhou does not need to be transported out of the court, there is still a lot of grain stored in the official warehouse. As long as you don’t have to fight for years, you can eat it for many years.

The wood is easier to solve - after passing Dujiangyan and going upstream to the Minjiang River, Qingcheng Mountain is on both sides. The endless big trees on Qingcheng Mountain are just a waste of axes and saws.

In the future, Li Su planned to build an industrial base for tea trees, pepper trees, mulberry trees and fruit trees around the Chengdu Plain, including Qingcheng Mountain in the northwest, Emei Mountain in the southwest, and Longquan Mountain in the east... to find a way out for the surplus labor force in the Chengdu Plain, so even if the big trees are cut down, they are just used.

Qinlong and Shu have been the main production areas of big trees and giant trees since ancient times. Qinlong’s big trees gradually dried up until the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, while Shu’s big trees were mined until the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

"It's really a big project. Thanks to the wealthy Shu County, it is known as the Tianfu. After the war, a group of wealthy households were cleaned up, otherwise there wouldn't be so much civilian power." Guan Yu looked at the largest rows of water trucks and shook his head sighed.

Zhuge Jin led him into the largest water wheel, and Guan Yu saw a huge and clever mechanism inside, which transformed the circular movement of the water wheel into a high and low reciprocating motion through some wheel axles and connecting rods.

There is also a tooth chain transmission structure in the middle to achieve acceleration and deceleration and retarding force, and ultimately drive an extremely heavy, smooth hammer head that is far from being able to carry by humans to hit the anvil. There is also a piece of red hot iron plate forging on the anvil, but it seems that it is still in the test period and is not really forging things in batches.

This series of structures is a bit abstract, but in fact, it is easy for modern people to understand it by just making an analogy - the transmission mechanism of a steam engine actually converts the reciprocating movement of the cylinder into a circular motion through the flywheel. The hydraulic forging hammer is in turn, turning the hydraulically driven water wheel into the reciprocating movement of the other end of the connecting rod.

Therefore, even though Li Su was a liberal arts student in his previous life, he had watched so many videos and also seen the basic principles of steam engines. Although he could not create a steam engine, it was still easy to imitate the transmission mechanical structure. He explained his ideas and asked the craftsmen to try it out for a few months.

However, the reciprocating of a "flywheel-connecting rod" turns into a circle, and the circumference becomes reciprocating. In the eyes of people like Guan Yu, the first glance is definitely full of visual impact.

"Are you shocked? I was even more surprised than the general when I saw it for the first time. In fact, even if I saw it now, as long as I stared at it, I would still feel the clever thoughts of Brother Boya after watching it for a long time." Zhuge Jin poked his elbow with his elbow and said some words of sighing and comforting before bringing Guan Yu back to reality.

Guan Yu came back to his senses, pointed to a thin, red-burned arc-shaped iron plate under the hammer, and asked, "What is that forging? Is it armor? This is a matter of ease, but it is a matter of trouble. I am afraid that later generations can't even move. No matter the size of the black armor, the size of the armor piece, one or two inches, or three or four inches, this piece of iron piece is probably more than two feet long."

Of course, cold forging is better forging, and the strength and stress of hot forging are not as good as cold ends. For example, during the Song Dynasty, the famous Qingtang wart armor of the Xixia people was cold forged with hammers and hammers, and was said to be unable to penetrate within fifty steps of the strong crossbow. If you want to talk about the origin, it is not far from Yizhou today. The "Qingtang Qiang" in later generations was the barbarian area where Liu Yan recruited "Qing Qiang soldiers" and "Southern soldiers".

However, cold forging requires better steel embryo materials. In the late Han Dynasty, high-quality steel was insufficient, and the pig iron was cracked and smashed directly by cold forging. Therefore, when Li Su planned, he did not consider it at first, so he would rather burn the iron material red first and then forge it.

Whether hydraulic cold forging can be carried out in the future depends on the accumulation and running-in of technology. Because cold forging also requires higher structure and force of the hammer, it is best to have a high pressure like a hydraulic press, and the hammer head slowly presses down instead of relying on impact force. Fierce rushing will break. Li Su estimated that his current technology will produce a hammer of only 20 to 30 tons of forging force, and the maximum in the future will not exceed 50 tons. At best, it is the industrial level of the Age of Discovery after the Western Renaissance.

The hammer is bigger, and there is another problem that it is not suitable for forging small pieces with a large number. It can only be used to forge large pieces in a extensive shape to reduce the number of processing times. This is why the strange arc-shaped large iron armor that Guan Yu saw.

Zhuge Jin explained: "Brother Boya said that this is called chest plate armor, referred to as chest plate. If it is worn by infantrymen, it is still a bit cumbersome and has difficulty moving. However, it is used by heavy cavalry who only charge on horseback, but the protection effect is very good.

The water hammer is forged with great strength, and the forged iron armor is extremely dense and solid. The iron piece can be two parts thick, and the crossbow can't penetrate even if it reaches twenty steps. Unless it is a bed crossbow, it must be within fifty steps."

The whole breastplate piece displayed by Zhuge Jin was actually designed by Li Su, imitating the armor of Western breastplate cavalry in the 17th and 18th centuries.

At first, Li Su had actually imagined using hydraulic forging hammers to forge the full-body plate armor of the 16th century, which is the Milan full-body armor of the late Renaissance. But later he found that it was too complicated. The small deck of the large forging hammers with subtle and final sections was not efficient at all, and the shape and craftsmanship were not good. No craftsmen could build flexible joints like plate armor.

That's why he decided to get breastplate second. Although the whole breastplate appeared one or two centuries later than Milan's full-body plate armor in history, its craftsmanship was greatly reduced, which was very convenient for mass production.

The rise of breastplate is due to the popularity of black powder and collide guns. Even if the traditional full-body armor weighs 30 kilograms and has a thickness of two or three millimeters, it cannot withstand musket bullets, and if it is thickened, it cannot walk.

Therefore, the princes of Western Europe gave up comprehensive protection and changed to only protecting the chest and abdomen of heavy cavalry, but adding the thickness to five millimeters can prevent pistol bullets from the same period. Just like a steel plate on the chest, it weighs nearly 15 kilograms.

Li Su doesn't need to face a pistol now. As long as you defend against the crossbow and the waist-induced crossbow, you can be a little thinner. A piece of breastplate is about 40 kilograms (10 kilograms)

"So that's how it is used. But there are those that have been furnished and cold. Let me try it." Guan Yu was very excited and immediately asked to take a piece of cooled dressing.

Zhuge Jin found him a test piece next to him. Guan Yu felt very uncomfortable after putting it on. However, since it was said that it was used by cavalry, he decided to get on the horse and test it thoroughly. This time he felt that it was a little better.

Zhuge Jin quickly explained: "After all, this piece is not suitable for the general, and temporary binding is not good. In the future, it will be divided into several batches of sizes, and the shoulders are tied with belts, or directly embedded outside the leather armor, which is equivalent to a magnified heart protection mirror several times, which will make it more comfortable."

Guan Yu dismounted and shook his head: "That can only be used by cavalrymen who charge with guns. Those who want to bend their bows and shoot arrows immediately will definitely be in the way."

Although Guan Yu is not very good at riding and shooting, he is still very good at understanding.

"So I won't use it for the Wuhuan cavalry, but for the heavy cavalry in melee." Zhuge Jin explained with a smile, "When Brother Boya thought of this method, he said that he would free up all the iron armor of our heavy cavalry. The generals still wore black armor, and the heavy cavalry wore iron breast armor, and gave the iron armor used by the heavy cavalry to Gao Shun, and expand the trap camp in the future.

Brother Boya said that he could not significantly reduce the cost of Zhajia. Fortunately, before our army entered Sichuan, there were one or two thousand iron Zhajia. Later, during the Ten Generals' Rebellion, Brother Boya took Wu Zhonglang and others out of Beijing and obtained two thousand iron armor from the arsenal of the capital. I heard that the general returned from his bid for Dong this time, and also seized a batch of elite armors from Hu Zhen and Lu Bu's army, as well as the equipment of Hua Xiong's heavy cavalry.

Brother Boya estimated that the upper limit of the camp that our army can expand in the future is about four or five thousand people. All money, food, people's strength, and steel in Shu must be used on the blade. In the future, those things that are expensive and inefficient in the production may not be produced. With 800 people as a battalion, there is only one battalion, and four more, the total is four thousand people. The lord hopes that the general and Gao Shun will be trained within two years."

Don’t underestimate the camp of these thousands of people. It seems that the equipment has been gathered all at once. This was because Liu Bei’s army repeatedly plundered and obtained a total of 40% of the iron armor reserves of Luoyang’s arsenal, so that they have such capital.

Now, except for Dong Zhuo, the princes of Kanto have no capital. Yuan Shu gathered the arsenal reserves of the entire army and could only gather more than 3,000 pairs of iron armor that could be equipped with the camp. Yuan Shao had to farm well and slowly produce and catch up.

After the cavalry troops replaced all the current one or two thousand pairs of armor, they forged another five thousand pairs of breast decks in the past two years and attached them to the traditional leather armor. All five thousand direct Youzhou heavy cavalry brought to Sichuan could be replaced. Anyway, the cavalry was sitting on the back of horses and covered by horses, so many parts were not easily injured.

If the hydraulic forging hammer production capacity is still oversupply, it will be good to use it to forge all-steel weapons, saving manpower. For example, the horse-slashing sword required to expand the trap camp, traditionally using the Hundred Refining method to repeatedly forge human force is extremely consuming. With hydraulic mechanical forging, the cost can be reduced a lot at once. The Hundred Refining weapons used by the generals can also be customized.

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Chapter completed!