Daqin Engineers

From this, even Ying Zheng was panicked.

As the saying goes, "food is the heaven for the people", if you put it in modern times or don't understand it deeply.

But in ancient times when productivity was extremely backward, it was really "heaven", because not having enough food meant starving to death, and it was still starving to death in patches.

Yingzheng immediately called the cluster ministers to discuss countermeasures.

However, what can be done with insufficient labor?

Can you still recruit the heavenly soldiers to open the land?

On the other hand, Chu Wangqi, who had rushed to Dongting by starry night, was also waiting for this moment.

Taking a lot of labor out of Huaibei is actually related to him. Previously, Xiang Yan only moved labor to Ruyin.

The reason is that the fief further south belongs to the nobles of the Chu Kingdom. Wouldn't it be cheaper to bring labor to the south?

But when Chu Wangqi was still Emperor Changping, he suggested:

"Deploying these many labors in Ruyin will consume a lot of food and grass, and secondly, if Ruyin is lost, shouldn't they become prisoners of the Qin army and use it for the Qin army if they are slow to act?

"Now the Qin army will attack Rushui only in one day or two days, and it is not impossible to move the labor force south to be raised by the nobles."

"The nobles are jealous of me and the generals. I am afraid that these labors will not be able to enter their magical eyes."

Xiang Yan thought it was right.

What's more, with the powerful perseverance of the king of Chu, there is no problem in regaining his labor.

So he transferred most of his labor to the south.

At this time, when they fled to Dongting, they brought these labors to the south...Dongting area is a wild land, and it is necessary to open new land.

At this time, Lord Changping can be said to be hesitating or waiting.

If the Qin State fails to solve the problem of insufficient labor in Huaibei, large areas of the Chu people starve to death... To be precise, the Chu people in the land occupied by the Qin army starve to death.

Then King Qi of Chu can raise his arms and shout:

"Jiang Qin ended up like this."

"Anyway, it's all death. If you fight with Qin Jun, you will die or die..."

So Chu Min will soon gather under the banner of his new king of Chu.

At that time, even the nobles will have to fight against Qin with him due to the situation.

The reason is very simple. The popular support is the most important thing. If the nobles are not popular, then the people will oppose them. Then the nobles will die in the hands of their own people.

Second, it was these nobles who were the first to face the Qin army at this time, and it was them who wanted to unite against Qin.

Xiang Yan still has more than one hundred thousand troops in his hands, and the nobles still have more than two hundred thousand horses, and then they can make up another four hundred thousand troops.

Qin Jun only had more than two hundred thousand.

Coupled with the fact that the Chu people in Huaibei were starved to death in large numbers, and the people were under the same hatred, Chu might not be able to make a comeback.

But Changping-jun frowned without saying a word.

Xiang Yan could not help but wonder:

"Why is the king frowning?"

Chu Wangqi replied:

"The general doesn't know something, and the widow has some personal acquaintances with that Shen Bing. This person is resourceful and creative."

"With him, I am afraid if I want to defeat Qin Jun..."

Xiang Yan's face became cold when he heard Shen Bing's name. He had been defeated by Shen Bing several times, but he didn't know how powerful Shen Bing was.

But this time Xiang Yan was not as worried as Chu Wangqi.

Xiang Yan said:

"What the king said is that his subordinates also know that Shen Bing is an extraordinary person."

"However, this trip is due to lack of labor in Huaibei, so Shen Bing has three heads and six arms, can he still produce labor?"

Chu Wangqi nodded slightly in agreement.

He thought so too, but he was still a little worried.

So they sent spies to Huaibei to investigate and monitor Shen Bing.

News from all parties spread from all directions to King Qi of Chu, and the news reported was the same:

"Shen Bing is asking the soldiers to make the waterwheel."

"The wheat seeds transferred by Yan Guo have reached Shouchun, but they have not yet been cultivated."

...

Hearing these news, Chu Wangqi felt a little relieved and said:

"Shen Bing is also strange, Shouchun is not short of water, what is the use of Shen Bing rushing to build a large number of waterwheels?"

That's what Chu Wangqi said.

The Shouchun area is the Huai River water system, and many irrigation facilities have been built not to mention the tributaries. In addition, there is no drought like Zhao, and most fields do not need waterwheels.

This is also one of the reasons why waterwheels are not popular in Chu. Only some special areas such as fields higher than the water source originally abandoned planting. After the introduction of waterwheels, these high fields can be planted.

However, what Chu Wangqi did not expect was that this waterwheel was precisely the most useful.

In the past few days, Shen Bing first made a waterwheel to use water power to blow the wind.

This is a very simple thing for Shen Bing.

In fact, it is not simple to say simple, because this requires a "cam mechanism".

Simply put, if the lever is directly mounted on the waterwheel...Although it can be pushed, the angle of the lever itself changes when the lever is pushed because the waterwheel rotates roughly at a constant speed, so the thrust is inconsistent.

This will cause the wind power to be different and the loss of the lever and the bladder will increase in series, especially if the hydraulic power is insufficient, it is easy to get stuck when the lever angle is the largest...

Therefore, the rotation of a "cam mechanism" is needed to make the lever push by a constant force in the same direction.

The problem of pushing is solved, and the problem of pulling is simple. You only need to use the same lever in the other direction to pull it back with hemp rope.

So when the waterwheel rotates, the thing called "" is evenly blown into the blast furnace one after another.

This scene only made Bian and Xiao two people froze and didn't react for a long time.

In fact, it was not just the two of them, all the other workers in the iron smelting workshop looked at this thing in surprise with half-opened mouths.

It took a long time before Yan realized that he repeatedly praised:

"Things will make this thing great."

"In this way, the blasting issue has been solved, and even I can make a bigger waterwheel to push a bigger scoop."

"then……"

As he spoke, even Ben's eyes widened, and then he asked Shen Bing suspiciously:

"Vice general, is the quality of iron smelting by this method better than that of the platoon?"

Shen Bing secretly praised in his heart.

This is quite capable, knows how to infer.

It is necessary to know that in the past, manual air blowing would have insufficient wind power and different sizes, so the temperature in the blast furnace during ironmaking is difficult to rise and the carbon is fully oxidized, resulting in high iron and carbon content.

Now it is changed to the water-powered "water drain"... the human blast is called the "personal platoon", and there are also "horse drains" and "steaks" that use horsepower and cattle power.

This means that as long as the hydraulic power is large enough, a larger scoop can be pushed.

Of course, it also has a limit. If you blindly pursue the wind and increase yourself arbitrarily, the skin will break easily.

The water drain can blow in more wind, and then there will be a higher furnace temperature and the probability of carbon oxidation.

Although it has not been possible to produce high-quality iron, some improvement is necessary.