Steel steam and flame

There was a heavy snowfall last night, and the haze gathered in the gray sky finally vented, so today we finally have a rare good weather. The air was cleansed and refreshing, and there was no longer the pungent smell of the past. The black smoke from the steam boiler factory was completely covered by white snow underfoot. The small town that was dark and gloomy the day before suddenly became brighter and brighter today, dressed in a layer of white. Standing on the street, the blue sky is like a bottomless lake. On the horizon, you can clearly see the towering snow-capped mountains. Occasionally, there will be huge gray-blue airships tearing open the huge sky. The cold air flow slowly moved across the mountainside, and then there were several high-pitched whistles.

"These hateful businessmen are not afraid of causing an avalanche on Lilac Peak!" An angry voice came from the side.

People who got up early to shovel snow on both sides of the broad road laughed when they heard the sound. After they finished shoveling the snow, they began to finish their work one after another.

Cassia shook her head and smiled. She shoveled the few snow on the road in front of the house into a lump, patted it a few times to compact it, stepped on cheap boots with rubber soles that were already full of snow, and walked towards the door behind her with the shovel.

Putting the shovel at the door, Cassia took off her rubber shoes, gently opened the aged wooden door panel in front of her, stepped inside quietly, and closed the door with her backhand.

Thick dark curtains covered the windows, allowing no sliver of natural light to filter through the fabric. The room was very dark, with only the silently burning stove in the middle of the room contributing weak light and heat, coating the narrow residence with an imperceptible dim yellow light.

There are heating pipes in the house, and a large copper bell plays a non-stop lullaby.

Cassia's mother was sleeping soundly on the side of the stove, her breathing rising and falling evenly. Because the imperial reclassification is coming, factories all over the town are working overtime. The textile factory where Cassia's mother works is also working overtime with full energy in the past few days. These days, his mother comes back late at night. The noble men who manage the textile factories will not pity these lowly and humble civilian productivity. In their eyes, the lowly civilians are the same as the countless steam machines that are everywhere in the empire. They should work endlessly just for their wealth. It's just a machine that works until it breaks.

No one would expect those at the top of the empire to be benevolent to the lowest commoners. This is true of the empire itself and most of its nobles, and the same is true of the common people themselves. Their extravagant hope is that these factories can give them the remuneration they deserve on time, and not find all kinds of strange reasons to interfere with it and deduct part of it.

On the other side of the stove, the petite body of Cassia's sister Lilia also bulged under the thick quilt. In front of the neat pillow, a pair of black and smart eyes were staring at Cassia, as deep as a night without dawn. Pure but like a frozen lake in early spring, but at this moment it reveals the haziness of not having enough sleep. Because she was afraid of the cold, she held the quilt tightly with her two little hands, letting the warm quilt wrap herself tightly, leaving only a pair of eyes, a pair of curved eyebrows above, and a mess on her forehead. hair exposed outside the quilt.

Cassia made a silent gesture to signal her sister to continue sleeping. Lilia nodded, her black eyes blinked and fell into haze again.

Gently walking into her small room separated from the house, Cassia closed the heavy dark blue curtain and then lit the gas lamp in front of the table. There are several thick books placed on one side of the table, basically books on the history of steam mechanical transmission and theology. The worn marks on them show that they have been read countless times.

On the other side, there is an admission notice written in large gold characters, which reads:

"Cassia Tussos, congratulations on your admission to the Imperial Heavy Industry School, an affiliated institution of our school. Please report to our school on February 12, 1096 in the Holy Calendar."

The signature is: "Saint Dorag Military School!"

The Military School is the output point of the empire's highest military force and the largest source of the empire's most elite soldiers in history. It is the only school in the empire that is as famous as Saint Dorag Theological Seminary. If the seminary represents the highest level of technology, commanders, politicians, businessmen, and agents in the empire, then the military school represents the highest level of force, soldiers, generals, and assassins in the empire.

Imperial Heavy Industries is one of the colleges affiliated with the Military School, majoring in mechanical heavy industry and various types of machinery manufacturing. To put it simply, it is the science of weapons manufacturing. Firearms, cold weapons, heavy trucks, light and heavy armor, airships, cruisers, boats, electrical appliances... Whether it is equipment that has appeared before people's eyes or the secret war preparation storage of the military department, Most of the parts on all the equipment are marked with the Imperial Heavy Industries logo.

This is the strength of Imperial Heavy Industries and the reason why it is called the Imperial Next Generation Factory. With the empire's history of more than 800 years, its heritage and strength are unquestionable.

When Cassia received this heavy admission notice from the postman, she already understood that this was not only an opportunity for her to make a career, but more importantly, it was also an opportunity for her to make her mother and sister live a better life. Opportunity.

His father died on the battlefield five years ago. Cassia's father, who was originally a second-class warrant officer, should have an extremely generous pension for his relatives. But from the time when the news of his father's death in the war came, to the time when the money was distributed by the empire, passed through the hands of various agencies, and reached Cassia and the others, only a little bit of the extremely generous pension was left. They are just a group of despicable and shameless blood flies that live on carrion. As long as there is a creature passing through their territory, they will swarm towards it, stretch out their ugly mouthparts to take a sip, and then land intoxicated on the resting place, with compound eyes gathered together. It's full of confusion.

And it turned out that the residence distributed by Cassia's father, a second-level warrant officer, was forcibly taken back when his father died.

A dead person cannot create any value for the empire. Only by living can you enjoy the rights and wealth of your position. When you die, everything is overthrown. What is left in the end is just a simple entry in the records of the Imperial Military Department.

And this record is only the storage capacity of the five small gears in the super analysis machine's storage.

Cassia's father's life was finally transformed into five gears made of red copper, finely polished, processed, and silver-plated.

Cassia can still clearly remember that when she was kicked out of the house by several government officials five years ago, the residents on the entire floor held their children tightly and came out to watch the three of them silently pack their luggage and walk out of the floor. The scene until they were swallowed up by the building and disappeared. The eyes of these people were deeply imprinted in the mind of young Cassia. There was sympathy and intolerance in them, but most of them were the fear that penetrated through their eyes and reached the bottom of their hearts. Because their husbands are also on the front lines. What happened to Cassia and the others will happen to them at some point.

Then Cassia followed her mother with a huge suitcase. Her mother carried a heavy luggage and held Lilia full of tears in her arms. The three of them traveled together to the rear of the empire, a frontier with only winter and summer. , a small town at the foot of Lilac Peak.

Cassia felt the weight of life for the first time, while continuing to study in a local school and working in a small town steam machinery factory. From the most basic hard work as a coolie, to using the knowledge in books to become a small technician, five years passed in a flash.

Just like the alternation of winter and summer on Lilac Peak, it is silent and traceless.

Picking up a few slices of bread, swallowing them with last night's cold water, and putting on simple work clothes made of coarse cloth, Cassia quietly went out and started working. By this time Lilia had fallen into a deep sleep.

The huge chimneys of the steam factory are constantly emitting thick black smoke, and the two shifts of work in the morning and evening make the factory always the longest surviving creature in the small town.

The factory has never been a clean and tidy place. The roar of huge gears, the air filled with hot steam and thick smoke, the dark and damp ground under your feet, the steam machinery with all kinds of gears hanging on the huge, heavy and thick shafts are intricate and complex. , there is a layer of rust on the surface, the rusty metal pipes can stain the whole palm with just a touch of the hand, the various valve interfaces that are still spewing hot air intermittently, and the dazzling red light that is shining all the time, disturbing. There are countless indicator lights in people's minds, and more importantly, the curses filled with swear words that can always linger in the ears...

This is the driving force and heart that supports the undefeated prosperity of the empire. The popularization and development of industry have reached an unprecedented level. The manufacturing of various types of machinery is the greatest guarantee for the citizens of the empire to survive and reproduce in countless harsh natural environments. It was also after the "Creation War" started that the Saint Dorag Empire was able to rise rapidly in the Houxiang Continent in just a few decades, quickly annexing the territories of dozens of surrounding countries with unparalleled momentum, and entering the Houxiang Continent in one fell swoop. The great development of industry has an indispensable role in promoting China's great powers on the continent.

The factory where Cassia is located is one of the tens of millions of steam factories on the continent of the empire.

The small factory is a matchbox-like building, wrapped in refurbished iron sheets sprayed with blue paint. The steel frame door is wide open, and the hot air erupts into steam at the door, creating white smoke, mixed with heavy engine oil. The smell of smell and rust rises into the sky.

The workers under the iron sheet were in full swing. Cassia put on a yellow safety hat. The head of the factory was named Vixey. He stood beside a forging machine with his trademark big head bare, holding a product record book in his hand to calculate the work that should be completed today. Yield.

"Cassia, we are going to Manoma in a few days, why don't you hurry up and contribute more to this old factory that is about to die!" Vixie saw Cassia coming in, so he freed his hand and picked up the Place the number plate on the forging machine, and then throw it to Cassia.

Cassia took the sign and smiled as she walked, showing a row of white teeth. The die forging machine next to her fell heavily, and the whole factory shook with it. Although there is an anti-shock device under the huge machinery that is more than ten meters deep into the ground, the force of the dozens of tons of iron lifted by the steam turbine falling down cannot be completely offset by human machinery.

Then several lines of thick white mist were sprayed out from the valve, as if the pressure of the deep sea caused it to spray several meters away before it stopped. The steam turbine started, and the huge iron block was lifted. Dozens of people immediately gathered around it. Several iron chains as thick as an adult's thigh lifted a roughly formed giant gear and slowly moved it to the machine for the next process.

After further fine machining, and finally flame treatment to eliminate internal stress, this gear can be shipped to the front of the empire as a standard piece.

Cassia dexterously shuttled between several machines, and finally came to the bottom of the factory building. There was no huge machinery standing here, and there was almost no vibration. There were just patches of indicator lights.

Before arriving at her post, Cassia put on thin white gloves, took out the key hanging around her neck and opened the locked drawer. Inside were densely packed precision tools, and a password inlaid with hundreds of precision gears. card.

Lifting the soft white cloth covering the table, underneath is a perpetual calendar mechanical watch that has not yet been fully assembled. There are still thirteen small parts before the watch is complete.

Kasia came into contact with watchmaking when she still had the memory of her father. As a Warrant Officer II, my father owned a basic military-made perpetual calendar watch, which he used to check the date, month, year, central sea currents, and astrology at any time. The astrology can roughly deduce the weather trends in recent days, which is very important information for merchants and armies who use airships to sail. Because airships that fight against the forces of nature end up turning into wreckage.

When his father comes back at that time, Cassia will use a magnifying glass to observe the densely packed and wonderfully working gears on the dial with great interest. Later, several books on clock precision accumulated Cassia's entire knowledge of clock assembly.

Being able to get this job that is easy and well-paid, my childhood interests definitely helped.

The installation of the thirteen gears took Cassia nearly a day. It was not until dusk fell in the small town that Cassia completed the final installation.

Finally able to wipe the fine sweat from her forehead, Cassia had no time to rest. She then took out the password card from the drawer, pulled out the steam outlet connected to the rubber tube next to the table, and inserted the red copper interface into it. In the password card interface.

The gears condensed in the password card began to rotate rapidly the moment they were connected to the steam outlet, as if they had endless vitality. Then Cassia inserted it into the card slot in front of him. It was the Type Zero Difference Engine, the last model of the Empire's Difference Engine. Its computing power was at the peak of the Difference Engine, and it was placed at the foot of any analytical engine. But for such a small factory, the performance of the zero-type differential engine is completely sufficient.

A calculation branch of the Zero Difference Engine was activated, and the code card contained the program for the perpetual calendar watch to adjust the accurate time, month, year, and astrological currents. Artificial adjustment of time will cause a large error, and this error will be infinitely amplified naturally. Therefore, the adjustment of such fine clocks has always been replaced by reliable procedures.

The machine in front of the table started to operate. Six golden inner hexagonal copper pillars were oriented at the tip of a hexagram. Cassia picked up the watch. The six transmission pillars fit into the clock without any gaps, and then began to rotate slowly. The display on the clock began to change.

The precise adjustment of a watch takes about one night. There is no accumulated work at the moment, and Cassia plans to go back to spend time with her sister Lilia.

A few days passed quietly like this.

One afternoon a few days later, the atmosphere in the factory never changed. Cassia held tweezers in her hands and was installing a certain gear with the help of a magnifying glass.

The metal instruments stacked on the table suddenly began to vibrate, and then made a rustling sound of rubbing against each other. Then the vibration did not disappear, and the amplitude began to gradually increase. Finally, the entire factory became quiet at this moment, with only the sound of high-pressure gas gushing from the valve.

Vibrations with a certain strange pattern spread through the earth's veins to every corner of the town, truly spreading through the earth into everyone's body.

So, after this moment of sudden silence, the quiet atmosphere of the small town, which had turned into a still life painting, finally regained its vitality in the sound of an extremely high and clear whistle that seemed to penetrate the air and tear apart countless buildings. The sound of the whistle was like lightning on a black stormy night, lighting up the entire town in an instant.

People in the factory began to cheer and curse, and residents in the small town began to celebrate with cheers.

The only imperial rearrangement of the year has finally arrived. On this quiet afternoon of January 2, 1096 of the Sacred Calendar.

There are several later chapters that have been blocked and are still being processed. They are not available here at Qidian. You can go to other websites to read the blocked chapters. . . . .