A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 105 The Spark of the Old Times
Li Yu is indeed too advanced, and basically finished the first-year courses of psychology and pedagogy in more than half a month.

The Imperial University of this era is not a university in the pure sense, and often has to undertake consultations from the imperial court or other industrial and commercial personnel.

Tang Shaoyi of Tianjin Customs Road brought the two of them to the university hall to find Li Yu today.

"Mr. Li Yu, please stay safe." Tang Shaoyi said.

Li Yu had met Tang Shaoyi before, shook hands with him and said, "Tang Daotai, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Tang Shaoyi said, "If you have nothing to do, you can go to the Three Treasures Hall." He introduced the two people behind him, "They are Zhang Xinwu and Luo Jianqiu, businessmen from Tianjin."

The two of them were also very fond of Li Yu's name: "Mr. Li Yu, hello, we have admired you for a long time!"

Li Yu didn't know why, but he shook hands with them and greeted them.

Li Yu asked Tang Shaoyi: "What's going on at Tang Daotai today?"

Tang Shaoyi took out a cigar, lit it with a match, and said to Li Yu, holding up the matchstick in his hand, "There is indeed something to do, and we are here for this."

"Matches?" Li Yu asked.

"Exactly!" Tang Shaoyi said, "These two are preparing to restore the Tianjin Fire Bureau."

Well, in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, people really didn’t care about physics and chemistry, as long as they knew you knew Western learning, they would come to you for any questions.

Li Yu smiled and said, "I don't know if I can help."

Zhang Xinwu said: "Mr. Li is too modest, you have such great knowledge, how can a small match find you hard."

Tang Shaoyi smoked a cigar and said, "That's right! Brother Li Yu, I've seen your skills. Even Governor Yuan admired you very much. I don't believe that little Yanghuo can find the stars in the sky sadly."

Li Yu felt a little dizzy: "That's not the case..."

"It's fine if it's not like that! Anyway, with your help, I don't think there's anything that can't be done. After all, I'm asking about western learning. I've already asked Mr. Zhang before I came to the university. When he heard that he was asking about chemistry, he immediately let me Looking for you, Mr. Zhang really trusts you." Tang Shaoyi said.

If you really think about it, although Li Yu's chemistry level is not particularly high, it seems that in the late Qing Dynasty, no one knew better than him.

And in theory, chemistry and physics can explain each other at the micro-theoretical level.In fact, all chemical phenomena can be explained by the interaction of the outermost electrons, and the field of atoms also belongs to physics.

Others came all the way, so Li Yu could only say, "Then I'll try."

Luo Jianqiu said happily: "You just need to try casually to solve our problem."

Li Yu said with a smile: "If I can solve it, I will naturally spare no effort."

Both Zhang Xinwu and Luo Jianqiu will be the founders of China's match industry in the future. Although they are just small matches, it is actually a rather difficult road.

"Waste to waste" is very suitable for China at the beginning of the [-]th century. There is really no modern industry at all, not to mention large heavy industries, even small ones such as the production of matches and pencils are huge problems.

Tang Shaoyi proudly said: "Let me just say, it is most suitable to come to the capital to find Li Yu. Even if you hand over a few thousand taels of silver to foreigners, they may not teach you."

Li Yu asked, "What difficulties do you have?"

When it came to business, Tang Shaoyi immediately became serious: "Of course it is for our own match industry. 15 years ago, Li Hongzhang and Li Zhongtang founded the Tianjin Fire Bureau in Tianjin, specializing in the production of matches. But it didn't take long for it to start production. Products from Swedish and Japanese match companies poured in. It has to be said that their matches are indeed safe, reliable and more usable, and the price is very low. As a result, the products of Tianjin Tap Fire Bureau continued to be unsalable, and within a few years It closed down."

The earliest safety match in the world was invented by the Swedes, and the first to enter the Chinese market was the Swedish match.Later, the import volume of Japanese matches was also very large, and even Japanese matches once occupied more than 85% of the match market in China.

Although matches are not as large as other industries, even in the late Qing Dynasty, the scale reached tens of millions of taels, and it was not a niche market.

Moreover, the tens of millions of taels of silver are all net flows, and most of them flow to Japan.

This situation did not improve until the national match industry developed 30 or [-] years later.

Li Yu said: "If the price is not competitive or the quality is not good enough, it will be really difficult to compete with match."

"That's right! What they want to do now is to improve the product level. Tianjin Fire Bureau had already ordered a lot of equipment. Although it was old, it was still usable. The initial equipment investment was not large. Falling behind," Tang Shaoyi said to Zhang Xinwu, "You show me a box of products."

Zhang Xinwu took out a box of matches from the package and handed it to him. Tang Shaoyi put the matches produced by the Tianjin Fire Bureau together with the Swedish matches he used to light the cigars in front of Li Yu, and said, "Can you see the problem?" ?”

Li Yu looked at it for a while, "It seems that the color is a bit wrong, and one box has no friction surface on the side."

Tang Shaoyi laughed loudly, "It really is Mr. Li! You can see the problem at a glance."

Li Yu frowned, it was not a small problem.

Tang Shaoyi said to Zhang Xinwu: "Professional questions are up to you."

Zhang Xinwu pointed to the matches produced by Tianjin Fireworks Bureau and said: "Mr. Li must have noticed that we produce yellow phosphorus matches, but Swedish matches use red phosphorus matches."

Li Yu nodded: "The difference of one word makes the difference of heaven and earth."

The "yellow phosphorus" and "red phosphorus" mentioned by Zhang Xinwu are actually the unified names of white phosphorus and red phosphorus in modern chemistry.If you have seen white phosphorus, you will know that white phosphorus is actually yellow in many cases.

White phosphorus and red phosphorus are the most typical examples of "allotropes" in high school chemistry.

Although their atomic composition is P, the atomic structure of white phosphorus is a regular tetrahedron, while that of red phosphorus is a chain structure.

The composition of the microcosm directly affects the properties of the macrocosm.

White phosphorus is extremely flammable, it will spontaneously ignite even in the air, so it can only be stored in water, and white phosphorus is highly toxic.

But red phosphorus has a much higher ignition point, is not flammable, and is basically non-toxic.

The reason why the Swedish matches are called "safe matches" is because of the use of red phosphorus and the abandonment of white phosphorus.

Zhang Xinwu said: "The yellow phosphorus (white phosphorus) matches we produce are inferior to Swedish matches in terms of craftsmanship. Now the price of Swedish matches has also been reduced to 70 cash per box, which has a great impact on us."

What startups fear most is being attacked by industry giants.You can imagine the feeling of being targeted by Boss Ma just after starting an e-commerce company.

Li Yu picked up two boxes of matches. Although the price was as low as 70 renminbi, it was not cheap. There were only 12 matches in a box.Ordinary people can't afford it at all, and it's usually the dignitaries who are willing to use matches to light a fire.

Li Yu understands the situation of Zhang Xinwu and others: "The problem now is that not only the product is not good, but the brand is not as good as foreign matches, and even the safety is a big problem."

Luo Jianqiu said: "Yes, what's even more frightening is that some people have committed suicide by swallowing our yellow phosphorus matches. There have been several murders, and even the government has been eyeing us. If Tang Daotai didn't come forward, I'm afraid we would have been seized again .”

Most of the officials of the Qing court did not understand modern industry, coupled with the pressure from foreigners behind their backs, they would almost directly kill the national industry with a stick indiscriminately.

Li Yu understood their situation: "It is indeed a technological innovation."

Tang Shaoyi said: "That's exactly the case. The equipment is already in place, but the key point is that it is still technically unreachable. If Mr. Li Yu can solve the technical problem and put safety first, I think the other difficulties mentioned just now can be solved. "

Li Yu thought about his chemistry knowledge back then, and then said, "I understand, I'll let you take a look."

"Great!" Zhang Xinwu and Luo Jianqiu were very excited, "If you don't take action, I'm afraid there won't be another person who can help you in the whole of China."

Zhang Xinwu once studied in Beiyang Academy in Tianjin, and also studied Western learning.

But just like the Beijing Normal University, the newly opened universities basically assumed the tasks of primary schools in Western countries.And most of them pay more attention to foreign languages ​​and politics and law, and have little involvement in the field of science.

Zhang Xinwu is a hot-blooded young man. Although he doesn't know much about chemistry and has never heard of "allotropes", he has to do it with all his heart.Even though we know that the matches of foreigners are better, we still want to make our own national products to compete with them!
Such people were not uncommon in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and Zhang Xinwu was engaged in a relatively meaningful chemical industry. In any case, Li Yu should help him.

Together with Tang Shaoyi, Li Yu found Zhang Baixi, the Minister of Management.

Tang Shaoyi's Tianjin Customs Road has only a fourth-rank official rank, but since its birth, the Customs Road has been a super-powerful department. They manage the customs duties of the Qing Dynasty, and their status is actually second only to the local feudal officials.

So once Tang Shaoyi came out, Zhang Baixi had nothing to say.

Zhang Baixi said to Li Yu earnestly: "I didn't expect you to take on such an important task as soon as school started. I know that foreigners' things are not easy to study, but you are different! I believe you can do what Li Zhongtang couldn't do well back then. If it can be successfully completed, I will reward you on behalf of the university!"

Li Yu said solemnly: "I will definitely live up to the name of the university."

In the era when Li Yu lived, the halo on him was more given to him by Peking University.Now that I have the opportunity to boost the reputation of Peking University in the early days through my own efforts, I must have spared no effort, and there is nothing to say.

Tang Shaoyi guards such a big vacancy on the customs road. Although he is not greedy, he is also very rich.The four of them went to Tianjin with the Beijing-Tianjin train tickets bought by Tang Shaoyi.

When he came to Tianjin Fire Bureau, Li Yu saw a new sign hanging beside it: "Danfeng Match Company".

Needless to say, it must be the name of the new company founded by Zhang Xinwu and the others.

In addition to many male workers, Zhang Xinwu also hired some female workers to paste matchboxes.

In this era, there are too few factories that can recruit female workers, which can be regarded as solving the employment problem of many low-level toiling people to a certain extent.

The equipment in the factory is indeed relatively old, but the current matchmaking process uses machines in addition to the processes of rotating slices, cutting stems, arranging stems, and unloading stems. Drying, pasting, boxing, packing and packing are all done by hand.

Therefore, the production pressure of the equipment is not great, and the old ones can also be used.

Zhang Xinwu also built a special laboratory, complete with flasks and containers, but he is not very good at using them.

Li Yu walked around for a while, and after asking, he understood that the match factory now uses the white phosphorus match production process that was eliminated 70 years ago in the West.

This kind of match is convenient to use. There is white phosphorus in the head of the match, and it can catch fire just by rubbing it. There is no need to strike a fire on the friction layer like the safety matches of later generations.

But the problem is that it is too sensitive to fire, which is very easy to cause fire, and white phosphorus is not only highly toxic itself, but also very likely to be highly toxic during the production process.

Li Yu looked at the bottles in front of him and immediately understood their difficulties: "It is difficult for you to produce red phosphorus now."

Zhang Xinwu said sincerely: "Yes, not only that, we also have no way of knowing the matching ratio of match heads."

"The ratio is not a problem. It is nothing more than an experiment on the ratio of sulfur, potassium chlorate and manganese dioxide. This can be tried exhaustively." Li Yu touched the flask and said, "As long as the source is available, there is no fear of wasting experiments later."

Potassium chlorate and sulfur are not difficult to find in Tianjin now. These two things are important raw materials for making gunpowder. Tianjin is also the base of the Beiyang Army, so there is no shortage of these.

And there is nothing mysterious about potassium chlorate. An important experiment in high school chemistry is not to prepare oxygen from potassium chlorate.

Zhang Xinwu also knew potassium chlorate and sulfur, but he really didn't know that the same element could have two different forms.

Whether it is in the laboratory or in industry, the dangerous white phosphorus is prepared first, and then the red phosphorus is prepared.

The method is not complicated, it is heating, of course, is to isolate the air for heating.

The laboratory was relatively simple, so Li Yu changed into a suit of clothes and started experiments with Zhang Xinwu and Luo Jianqiu.

Li Yu showed them how to heat, how to collect red phosphorus, and so on.

After only four or five experiments, Li Yu was very proficient at preparing red phosphorus from white phosphorus, and then taught it to Zhang Xinwu and Luo Jianqiu.

The red phosphorus can then be made into a friction layer on the sides of the matchbox.

Although it seems very simple, it has stumped the two of them for a long time before, and the Swedes and Japanese did not tell the method at all.

Anyway, this thing is not a patent, and the blame can only be blamed on the Qing Dynasty being too backward, and high school chemistry has become a bottleneck for industrial development.

Then Li Yu worked with them to experiment with potassium chlorate, sulfur, and manganese dioxide to make matchheads. In fact, they controlled the ignition temperature through experiments.

After all, Li Yu has received a modern education and knows the experimental strategy for easing the transition from high temperature to low temperature, that is, from "excessive safety" to "normal safety". After dozens of experiments, the preliminary ratio was completed the next day.

None of them are complicated chemical problems. Although the accuracy of the preliminary ratio is still not enough, but the method has been developed. Zhang Xinwu only needs to do some more ratio experiments in the future.

With these processes, white phosphorus can be completely eliminated, that is, safe matches can be produced.

Zhang Xinwu carefully wrote down Li Yu's experimental steps in his notebook, and he was very excited: "I didn't expect Mr. Li Yu to provide us with these precious secrets for free. There is really nothing to repay. When our factory is in operation, we will definitely give it to you." You pay."

Li Yu said with a smile: "Efforts are nothing! If you can find a way to improve product quality, lower the price, and successfully open the match market, that is the greatest thanks to me."

Zhang Xinwu bowed to the end: "Mr. Gao Yi, I really admire him!"

(End of this chapter)