From Propulsion City To Multiverse

Passenger ships head east along the Yangtze River.

As you get closer to the Yangtze River Delta, you can see more and more steam ships along the way, or steam cranes emitting smoke.

About 80 kilometers upstream from the passenger ship, there is also a fleet of ships going down the river, which is the envoy team from Li Tang.

In order to show Li Tang's strength, Li Yuan also tried his best to build three five-toothed warships imitating the Sui Dynasty, and installed non-bronze cannons on them.

That's right, it's a bronze cannon.

Obviously, the firearms technology of the Human Revolutionary League is too oppressive for all parties, and it is also forcing them to develop firearms.

With a small amount of rifles that flowed out, Li Tang organized a huge amount of manpower and material resources. After doing his best research, he finally developed the front-mounted bronze artillery.

However, their technology is relatively backward, and there is no way to produce safe high-performance explosives. They can only use black powder developed by alchemists.

But this technology is also very scary, because there are imitators, Li Tang's artillery development route directly enters the level of rifling, fixed propellant, and flowering ammunition.

Even because there is no qualified production technology for bullets and shells, they adopted sub-barrel technology, which is similar to shells integrated with ammunition, but has a relatively simple and primitive technology.

The emergence of this technology allowed Li Tang to quickly gain a certain amount of strategic deterrence, especially against Tuyuhun who had no firearms, Liang Shidu and Liu Wuzhou who were in the northern separatist regime, and even Dong Tiele, the overlord of the grassland.

Of course, the bronze cannon is not so easy to play, because the bronze cannon consumes too much copper, even if Li Tang takes out a large amount of copper coins in stock, and with the support of Cihang Jingzhai, there is no way to mass-produce it.

According to Black Yiwei's information, Li Tang has produced a total of 67 bronze cannons so far, and this time the envoy team's five-toothed ship is equipped with 12.

At the same time, 24 artillery pieces were installed on both sides of the Three Gorges waterway in Padang County, forming the Padang line of defense.

The remaining cannons were all thrown into the Northern Expedition. Li Shimin personally led the Tiance Army to attack Liu Zhouwu who occupied Jinyang.

Obviously, Li Tang knew very well that once the Human Revolutionary Union digested and completed the new territory, the war to unify the world would soon come.

Don't take advantage of this spare time,

Eliminating Liu Zhouwu and Liang Shidao who have been threatening the Guanzhong Plain, and at the same time beating up the Tiele people who spied on the Central Plains, Li Tang has no way to deal with the RPLU with all his strength.

On the flagship of Li Tang's mission, the heroic Li Xiuning, the titular son-in-law Chai Shao, and the concubine Xuan, who disguised as Li Xiuning's personal bodyguard, were standing on the ship tower, looking at the rolling Yangtze River.

Li Xiuning held a binocular in her hand, the lens on it was polished with transparent crystal, and she watched the boats coming and going on the river.

"I don't know the principle of the technology on the steamship."

Shi Feixuan, whose alias is Qin Chuan, said with a smile, "According to my disciples' investigation, the amazing skill on the steamboat is a technique of burning coal, boiling water, and using steam to drive machinery."

"It sounds like this technique is not difficult!" Li Xiuning said in surprise.

But Chai Shao, who has been in contact with many technical imitation projects, smiled wryly: "My lady, the principle is very simple, the problem is the material."

"..." Li Xiuning immediately came to her senses.

The material problem is indeed a feeling. Although they imitated the artillery, the artillery of the Human Leather Union is light, durable, and very powerful.

The bronze cannon they imitated weighed more than three thousand catties and could only be installed on large ships or city walls.

The technology involved in steam engine technology, in addition to machining accuracy and mechanical design technology, is a matter of materials.

The high-strength alloy steel and the sealing rubber ring used for sealing are definitely difficult to make people's scalp tingle.

Especially for the classical era when the accumulation of technology was not completed, without decades of painstaking research, coupled with huge manpower and material support, it is simply wishful thinking to obtain a practical steam engine.

Gu Yu

After successfully liberating the entire middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Longsha quickly organized exploration personnel to enclose wild eucommia trees in the Dabie Mountains, Wuling Mountains, and the east side of the Qinling Mountains.

On the one hand, local people are organized to collect the bark, leaves, and seeds of Eucommia ulmoides, because these can be used for rubber refining.

On the other hand, a large Eucommia forest farm was established in Wuling Mountain.

At present, Human Leather Union can produce about 150 tons of eucommia gum per year, and with the dandelion farm in Liuqiu Prefecture, it can produce 60-80 tons of dandelion gum per year.

At the same time, in Qilu Prefecture, tens of thousands of acres of dandelion farms have also been opened up. Next year, the production of dandelion gum can be increased by another 200-250 tons.

With the expansion of production in the Eucommia forest farm in Wuling Mountain, the production of natural rubber will increase rapidly.

Longsha is also researching the use of coal tar to manufacture artificial rubber and plastics, but for these two things, even if they are developed, they will not be put into civilian use.

After all, artificial rubber and plastic are difficult to degrade, and it is easy to enter the ecological cycle through domestic waste.

According to Zheng Sen and Longsha's plan, artificial rubber and plastic will only be used in industrial equipment manufacturing, special industries, and military fields.

In the civilian field, if natural rubber can be used, natural rubber should be used as much as possible.

Low rubber production of Eucommia and Dandelion?

The big deal is to strengthen variety improvement. Some of the excellent eucommia trees in later generations can reach an annual yield of 40 kg of raw rubber per mu with the help of chemical fertilizers and agricultural technology.

As for the improved dandelion rubber, with the support of chemical fertilizers and agricultural technology, the raw rubber can produce 12-15 kilograms per mu, and two to three crops can be planted a year, with an annual output of about 24-45 kilograms.

It takes 6 to 8 years for the well-known rubber tree in later generations to reach the rubber tapping period, and the annual yield of raw rubber is about 100 to 150 kilograms per mu.

It seems that it is not impossible to surpass, especially dandelion gum, which has great potential for variety improvement and has the advantage of large-scale mechanized production.

After all, the difficulty of improving arboreal plants is much higher than that of improving herbaceous plants. Since there are high-yield hybrid rice and hybrid wheat in the future, why can't there be hybrid dandelions?

As for the poor heat resistance, abrasion resistance, and ultraviolet resistance of dandelion gum, Eucommia gum can be used as compensation, and rubber trees can be planted in Southeast Asia in the future.

Form the industrial layout of temperate zone - dandelion, subtropical zone - Eucommia, tropical zone - rubber tree.

Why can't the eucommia gum and dandelion gum industries develop in later generations?

In fact, it is not entirely a matter of the difference in gelatin.

It is a strategic game involving various forces. Southeast Asia and South America in later generations are basically the sphere of influence of America. Naturally, they do not want strategic materials such as natural rubber to be controlled by other forces.

The output is too low, the cost is too high, and the rubber tree is difficult to compete with the Hevea tree. Coupled with the impact of free trade, the eucommia industry in East Asia and the dandelion industry in Central Asia are rapidly declining.

Now the Human Revolutionary Federation has no idea of ​​developing free trade, and the problems of yield per mu and production cost can sometimes be offset by institutional advantages.

Therefore, the Human Leather Federation will continue to invest in Eucommia forest farms and dandelion farms, and launch a variety improvement plan.

Let the public use safe natural rubber products as much as possible instead of hard-to-degrade artificial rubber and plastics.

On the waterway of the Yangtze River, Li Tang's mission was still going with the flow to Yangzhou City.

At present, Yangzhou City is the temporary capital of the Human Revolutionary League.

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