Great Tang princess

Chapter 816 Cost Reduction
The loud noise startled everyone present, and Li Xian even took a step back subconsciously.

Wei Lian'er even exclaimed directly, and only raised her hand to cover her mouth a second later.

Many people behind them subconsciously raised their hands to cover their hearts, trying to calm down their frightened mood.

The main reason is that since Li Yuechen came up with grenades and cannons, these people have become more sensitive to loud noises.

After all, if something goes wrong with this dangerous weapon in one's own territory, the consequences will be quite serious.

After calming down, everyone looked down at the two hemispheres that had fallen to the ground.

The diameter of this thing is only more than thirty centimeters, which is not too big, but no one could have imagined in advance that it took eight horses to pull it apart.

Li Yuechen walked over slowly, picked up two balls from the ground and handed them to Li Xian.

"Brother, have you seen it? This is the so-called atmospheric pressure! This is only on land, there is only one atmospheric pressure, and it will not crush this iron ball. If it is in the deep sea, this ball will be directly crushed!"

"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I really wouldn't believe it. The air has such a huge power." Li Xian took a hemisphere and observed it carefully.

Wei Lian'er next to her also nodded, and then asked, "Then can this thing be used to make weapons?"

"I can't do it anymore. Let future generations solve this problem." Li Yuechen smiled.

To be honest, even if she could do it, she would never do it again, because it was meaningless.

Now Datang's weapons and equipment are enough to crush the world, there is no need to continue to upgrade.

Li Yuechen will write all kinds of weapons such as machine guns in his own book and let future generations study them slowly.

What needs to be improved now is not military level, but productivity and economy.

……

This experiment was an eye-opener for everyone, and it also told them the fact that science can often be proven.

Air is something that cannot be seen or touched.

The reason why everyone believed in the existence of atmospheric pressure before was because it was what Li Yuechen said.

But now she has personally proved its existence, so that more people can have a clear feeling about this matter.

What Li Yuechen wanted was not for everyone to treat themselves as gods, but to have the spirit of exploration.

Including the telephone problem that Pei Bishu has been studying.

She didn't know how to make this thing, but she was still willing to support him and let him study it slowly.

When going back, Li Xian specially asked the sisters to go back together in his own car, and chatted about what he was curious about in the car.

"Speaking of which, it proves that the atmospheric pressure is useful for anything else?" Li Xian was curious about this.

Although it does prove its existence, it does not seem to have a great impact on people's lives.

Li Yuechen smiled: "Brother, don't underestimate these. Only by proving the existence of atmospheric pressure can we lay a little foundation for making submarines in the future. At the same time, it can also provide more information for future aircraft and other vehicles. The basic conditions of..."

"Fly...chicken?" Li Xian raised his eyebrows.

"It's a machine that can fly into the sky."

"Isn't there already?"

"It's different from airships, it's another kind of machine." Li Yuechen smiled and shook his head, "Today's airships can only be regarded as vehicles at best, while airplanes are weapons in the sky!"

Princess Xuancheng also said: "Chen'er said before that airplanes are much faster than this airship."

"Faster than an airship?" Li Xian leaned back in his chair, "Then from here to Qingdao, wouldn't it take five or six hours?"

"Faster!" Li Yuechen laughed.

Wei Lian'er asked, "How fast?"

"That's hard to say. The first generation of aircraft should not be too fast, but with the development of technology, it will always get faster and faster."

In the future, civil aviation airliners can generally reach a speed of [-] to [-] kilometers per hour, but now that the internal combustion engine has come out, what Li Yuechen plans to do is only a Wright-type aircraft, and it will definitely not be able to reach that fast.

In the final analysis, the speed of the first-made aircraft can reach [-] per hour, which is already terrifying.

Even if you don't consider the problem of the route, flying in a straight line can already save a lot of time.

Of course, mature routes do not fly in a straight line.

Because the earth is round, the shortest distance between two places will definitely not be a straight line, whether it is for an airplane or a ship.

Although she used to have an airplane driver's license, it was only a small airplane driver's license, and she had never piloted a passenger airplane.

She really doesn't know about things like test routes.There is neither a test method nor a specific method.

……

After returning to the palace, Li Yuechen got up and left after chatting with his elder brother in Jixian Temple for a while.

Li Xian originally wanted to keep her for lunch, but he planned to go to the Ministry of War today, so he didn't stay.

When he arrived at the Ministry of War, Li Yuechen received the news that the conscription for each military region had already started.

Li Yuechen needs to ask the Ministry of War to send someone to check and register to prevent things like empty pay from happening.

After the people from the Ministry of War have passed, they will make soldier certificates and cancel their household registration for the confirmed soldiers.

Their household registration will be temporarily transferred to the Ministry of War. In terms of locality, it means that this person has temporarily disappeared.

This household registration will not return to the place until after he is discharged from the army, and this person will appear again.

In recent years, the military policy has also become more and more perfect.

After dealing with these matters, Li Yuechen decided to get up and go home after seeing that he had nothing to do with himself.

For a majestic princess, skipping a shift is considered a privilege, as long as there are no problems.

But at this moment, someone knocked on the door and came in: "Your Highness, there is a letter from the Supreme Emperor."

Li Yuechen took it and opened it to look.

In the letter, my mother said that she is now on the boat and will arrive in Zhenzhou in a short time.

Talking about the customs and customs I saw along the way, I said that I am in a very good mood.

With the fourth child by my side, I don't feel bored, everything is fine and so on.

After reading it, Li Yuechen smiled slightly and asked Xiaodong to remind himself to wait for his mother to arrive in Zhenzhou before writing back to her.

After all, he is still on the boat now, and it is not clear where he is, so let's wait until we get there.

……

A month passed in a blink of an eye, and it was October.

During this period of time, Li Yuechen suddenly discovered a problem, and felt that there were suddenly a lot more bicycles in the city.

Walking on the street, you can see a lot of dudes with a bunch of dog legs swaggering past on the street on bicycles.

There's nothing doubtful about a dandy being able to afford a bicycle, but it's really a problem if he can afford one for each of his henchmen.

On the night of the third day of October, after returning to the Princess Mansion, Li Yuechen asked Pei Qingwan, "Sister-in-law, has the price of bicycles been reduced?"

"Ah, speaking of which, His Highness doesn't know yet." Pei Qingwan nodded, "The main reason is that the price of bearings and screws has dropped, and even the price of bicycles has dropped a lot."

"Bearings and screws?" Li Yuechen muttered softly.

Then I went to the Academy of Engineering the next day and asked what was going on.

Speaking of this, Pei Bishu got excited and led her to a smaller laboratory.

After entering the door, I saw that the internal combustion engine built last time was connected to two machines.

The roller on the machine on the left is spinning rapidly, and at the same time, there is a sound of "cracking" in the roller, just like a musical instrument with sand inside.

Not long after, the scroll wheel stops spinning.

A staff member used to lift up the back of the roller, and countless small steel balls rolled out from it, at least a few thousand at present.

"Your Highness, now this new machine is used to make bearings, and it can produce more than a thousand per day. The other machine is a machine for making screws, with a daily output of about [-]! Therefore, the price can be reduced a lot..."

After listening to his explanation, Li Yuechen finally understood.

The production method is actually quite simple, that is, cut the steel into thumb-sized irregular pieces and put them into the roller.

There are grooves engraved inside the roller, which will be drilled and rotated rapidly under the action of the internal combustion engine, and the materials inside will be ground into steel balls.

Of course, although these steel balls are polished to a round shape, they are of different sizes.

At this time, as long as the wooden boards with holes of different sizes are used to screen, bearings of different sizes can be made.

The screw is also used in a similar way, cutting the red-hot steel rod into sections.

Then rotate it close to the carving knife, and a screw can be made in a little more than a second.

The only downside is that there is no fully automatic machine, and someone needs to take it off with pliers and replace it with a new one.

But even so, it is possible to produce [-] screws a day, which can be described as a speed that was unimaginable before.

It's just that it is semi-manual after all, so the scrap rate is a bit high, almost reaching more than [-]%.

But looking at such a terrifying output, this doesn't seem to be a problem.

Li Yuechen inquired specifically, and now the price of a bearing has dropped to fifteen Kaiyuan Tongbao, and a screw plus matching nut only costs ten Kaiyuan Tongbao.

Although it is still a bit expensive for commoners, they don't usually use this.

At least for dudes, buying a bicycle for each of their lackeys is no longer a big deal.

Even with the price reduction, there are things like roller skates, which can be regarded as an extra game for the dudes in Dongdu and Chang'an.

Li Yuechen even thought about taking this opportunity to build a roller skating rink.

This thing is the memory of many people back then. In the era when computer games were not developed, the roller skating rink was a place where many young people gathered on weekends.

And it's simple, just get a bigger open space, pave it with cement, and then add a roof to keep out the rain.

Back then, roller skating rinks in many cities had this configuration, and the ones with wooden floors were all high-end venues that appeared later.

Now that the price of bearings and screws has been reduced, it should be quite profitable to open such a place.

After all, even at this kind of time, those who can afford to play are all dandies, the kind who spend money like water.

But it doesn't matter, after a few years at most, at least in big cities like Dongdu and Chang'an, civilians will have the ability to enter the roller skating rink.

After thinking about it, Li Yuechen went home directly and asked Pei Qingwan to find a place to open a roller skating rink, and told her about the decoration style by the way.

"When the time comes, there will be a bar counter here, where we can sell tea or Sushan..."

Listening to her explanation, Pei Qingwan asked curiously: "However, Your Highness, this kind of venue is easy to be imitated by others, do you want to..."

"No need!" Li Yuechen shook his head, "This business is just a sample, so others can imitate it if they want to."

Li Yuechen is not willing to make Datang look like the chaebols of the West Eight Kingdoms in the future. The bibimbap on the roadside is basically run by the chaebols.

Such a society will make it extremely difficult to start a business and solidify the class.

I didn't think about making money from this at first, it's better to give ordinary people more opportunities.

With Li Yuechen's current ability, it is still very easy to build a roller skating rink.

In just one month, at the beginning of November, the roller skating rink outside the city had already been established.

When it opened, many dudes came here admiringly.

At the beginning, I just wanted to show face to the princess and come here to support her.

But after starting to play, I suddenly found that playing here is indeed more interesting and more comfortable, so I decided to come here more often in the future.

On the day of the opening, there were quite a lot of people who came, except for those who usually play roller skating, other dandies also came to have a look.

And it's not just included, because of curiosity, Li Chongrun also brought Lu Yao over to have a look.

At the bar, Lu Yao watched a group of dandies gliding in various poses, turned her head and asked, "Does Your Highness know how to play this roller skate?"

"Yes, yes, but the technique is not very good." Li Chongrun smiled, "Speaking of this thing, the one who knows how to play is sister."

They were a bunch of kids who grew up in a military academy and had been exposed to all kinds of sports.

Li Xianhui's roller skating skills are indeed the best among this group of children.

Lu Yao smiled slightly, turned her head and asked, "Your Highness, don't you plan to go in and play?"

"Forget it, everyone will come to say hello when you go in, and you won't be able to have fun." Li Chongrun shook his head slightly.

The emperor's son is the focus no matter where he goes. Now he is standing with Lu Yao. Outsiders know that the two have just got engaged, so no one comes to bother him.

But if he went in to play and the two separated, it was guaranteed that a bunch of people would gather around.

Although the two people's wedding date is set in the next year, but in the eyes of outsiders, they are already husband and wife.

Originally, I planned to take a look and leave, but there was a burst of shouting in the roller skating rink. After a closer look, it turned out that two dudes were fighting.

It's actually quite normal to fight. The Tang people have a bad temper, and it's normal for them to strike at the slightest disagreement.

But the problem was that the two of them were wearing roller skates, and they couldn't control their balance very well. They both fell to the ground and rolled together when they hit it, making the people around them burst into laughter.

Li Chongrun couldn't help laughing too, but he stopped smiling immediately to prevent his image from collapsing.

Then he got up and left with Lu Yao, afraid that the way he couldn't help laughing would be photographed.

This is no joke, cameras are a lot cheaper these days than they were when they were first made.

Coupled with the shortened time for taking pictures, many people brought them with them when they came here today.

It can be said that with the successful development of the first internal combustion engine, many things have reduced costs invisibly, and began to appear on a large scale.

(End of this chapter)