Out of the cage

In the ruins of Zhujiaojiao, about 100 kilometers away on the east side, there is a human settlement here, which is also the closest human settlement to the cluster.

The name of this place of residence is Ji'an City, and this name has nothing to do with the names of cities associated with people before the Great Destruction. Instead, after the people in a village successfully rescued themselves during the Great Destruction, they found a place with river traffic and hills to build such a city.

Now the entire city is surrounded by a three-meter-high city wall, and there are high platforms everywhere on the city wall, and the black muzzle looks down from the platform. This artillery technology is barely breech loading, steel rifled barrel, the wall of the barrel is very thick, and brown gunpowder is used as the propellant. Relying on the base roller on the turret, the surrounding area can be controlled. Generally speaking, this is probably the Krupp steel gun technology in the mid-nineteenth century.

Civilization has regressed to the present, social systems have begun to passivate, and many technologies can no longer be maintained.

Such as chemical industry! Technically, after preparing potassium nitrate, it is then mixed with hydrochloric acid to nitrate glycerin, or gun cotton.

Every step is actionable! However, many intermediate products are extremely unstable!

In the 21st century, formal chemical factories need academic qualifications, discipline and good management to recruit people. Those technicians in small workshops with low levels of education can also be cautious and reluctant to prepare some chemicals at the risk of being imprisoned and driven by interests.

But now, in a situation where some people monopolize resources and most people have lost their ascending channels, it is still necessary to maintain the production of hazardous chemicals with many key steps, and it will be a matter of time before a major accident occurs! So, it’s not that people have forgotten knowledge, but society determines production relations, production relations restrict productivity, and high explosives cannot appear, so artillery chamber pressure does not need to be high, and the military industry is gradually sacrificing performance for stability.

In small and medium-sized city-states like Ji'an City, the overall reliable military technology has been reduced to the twentieth century, and a few craftsman-level technologies, such as fine gears, wires, and optical glass production, barely reached the workshop level in the middle of the twentieth century.

...

Now, in the center of this artillery rampart city.

The city center is in a building like the Great Wall Tower.

The windows on the four walls of the building are very small, and three sets of skylights are opened on the top to transmit light. Steel plates can be pulled down on the skylights and wall windows to make the room completely airtight.

In the building, there are electric fans, incandescent lamps and other equipment. The light hanging from the skylight happened to shine on several potted plants, two of which were potted kumquats, and the small oranges on them were still green.

On the wooden chair, lay an old man in a white coat, like a researcher in the 21st century. In this era, it is very unusual to be able to keep clothes from hundreds of years ago, because human beings have lost cotton materials, and most people are already using flax fibers to make clothes.

This is Zeng Longmu, the owner of Ji'an City. He looked at the report provided by the person in charge of the culture room, which showed that there was an abnormality in the fungus in the culture dish. The owner of the city opened a book and turned to a page, which recorded the reason for this phenomenon: a major change in the genetic community in the surrounding area.

He turned around and came to another glass window cabinet, and took out a box of signs, which recorded the names of the beast masters under his command. He first picked up a brand of his own children, then picked up another brand, and then hung the two brands on the potted kumquat beside him, smiling kindly.

...

It has been nearly 40 days since Wei Keng crossed here, and the construction of this territory is getting more and more prosperous.

In the residential area, the local method blast furnaces have been built one by one, reaching a height of five meters, all using bricks dug out of the ruins of the city. For a blast furnace of this size, the gas blowing work is by no means sustainable by manpower. Well, mainly It was Wei Keng who felt sore.

Therefore, Wei Keng specially blocked the small river, and used the principle of leverage and the rotating wheel to make the blower of the blast furnace reciprocate, continuously pushing the hot air into it.

As the hot air blown into the hot charcoal turned into a jet flame, the temperature of the furnace reached a level that could melt steel, and the metal objects dug out of the ruins finally melted at this temperature.

This indigenous steelmaking technology wasted a lot of resources and produced a lot of useless steel scrap in the 1960s. Therefore, after the 1980s, when some literary intellectuals mentioned this era, they mentioned this steelmaking method with contempt.

But in fact, this steelmaking method can produce relatively usable steel. Back in the 1930s, in the local anti-aggression war, weapons were obtained by relying on this method.

The premise that it can be used is that in the 1930s, those who used this method to make steel were science and engineering students who had returned from studying abroad. Although it was an indigenous method, all standards were met.

In the 1960s, farmers who did not have the awareness of industrial production were the ones who smelted steel. They could not understand the meaning of each indicator for the tasks assigned by the above. The strength is not enough, and even the furnace temperature is not reached, so what is smelted is scrap steel, and there is no technical summary.

Generally speaking, it is not a problem of methods, but a lack of qualified talents in industrial production. ——Wei Keng: So a bunch of Wenqing are scolding, do you have the quality of steelmaking?

Wei Keng now wants to make steel, which is useful to him, and all related processes have entered the summary state.

The copper and iron dug out of the city are sorted, the steel goes into the big furnace No. 1, and the copper goes into the small furnace.

After the steel is smelted, it flows directly from several outlets into the shell casting area for casting! The other outlet flows into the forging area. After the forging is formed, it is drilled with a drill bit, and then squeezed, and finally becomes a 30 cm long iron can that is thicker than a mineral water bottle, and then the bracket is welded underneath. Oh, and forget about the angler. There is a visual ballistic marking system provided by the system. This is ~ grenadier! Simple steel pipe, cast iron powder charge iron block. Easy to use!

After confirming that these explosion-resistant iron frame steel pipes were produced in batches, Wei Keng immediately announced: "I don't want to use the sling sonar thing anymore."

As for the copper smelted in the small furnace, it is forged into copper skin while it is hot, and then cut into specific specifications.

Squeeze after heating to become a copper pen holder and a copper pen tip. The copper pen tip needs to be filled with lead liquid with a counterweight.

These rattling things were sent into the boring machine by the measurement team to try to push them, and then they were taken out and tried to process with a file.

These brass caps are filled with black pellets, inserted into the "tip", and squeezed against the front with a large stapler-like stand to keep the nib from falling out.

In fact, the most complicated technology is the thing at the bottom of the copper and steel sleeve. The tutorials provided by the system are complex.

Fortunately, there are hot springs and sulfur in this place, and sulfuric acid can be produced with sulfur, and hydrochloric acid can be produced from table salt when sulfuric acid is produced, and hydrochloric acid and pyrolusite can be heated to produce yellow-green gas, and this yellow-green gas can be oxidized by hydrogen Potassium makes a bleaching powder.

Then, you can do the cannonball. Just find the realgar (omit one hundred words)

Is that thing in the thermometer nitrated? It's too dangerous. To prepare that thing, formal industrial technology is required. All the operation steps need to be below 80 degrees, and you can reach that condition with a little hand rubbing.

Rows of "made in the border area" rolled off the production line from Wei Keng's adobe workshop.

...

After a day of industrial production, the water used to cool down the equipment passed through the dried bamboo tubes and poured onto every Wei Keng who had soaked in the pond. After taking a bath and drying off the water, he applied the crushed Tianqi leaves in the jar to his body.

These days, Wei Keng and the others were harassed by a bunch of female mosquitoes who asked for blood to have children. In fact, those who sucked Wei Keng's blood died. There is an urgent shortage of straw curtains on the adobe houses.

The only fly in the ointment now is that Wei Keng, who is scrambling to produce heavy industries, is very inefficient in weaving straw blankets.

Wei Keng: "Wouldn't it be nice if a group of girls came to weave straw sandals and straw blankets for me."

Oh, Wei Keng didn't say this to the supervisor. Although his emotional intelligence was a little low, he still felt that he and this girl seemed to have some disagreements about this plane because he was unwilling to cooperate with certain things. When there is a disagreement, the goal is not to quarrel. As for telling some jokes, there will be no sympathy but only disgust.

Wei Keng judged the relationship between himself and the supervisor in this way: In the words of the 21st century, the two parties' personalities are not suitable? Inappropriate consumption concepts and inappropriate living habits. In short, I am too stupid to be worthy of a flight attendant.

However, in the dimensional space bubble, the supervisor Bai Linglu is constantly reviewing Wei Keng's action records these days. Of course, for some unsightly scenes, such as standing in a row of golden water columns and opening an arched corridor in the morning, she directly turned on the smart coding system.

The girl's impression of Wei Keng has changed a lot, and now she has a positive comment: "Very decisive hands-on ability, with the consideration of doing my best and remaining, it is very reliable now."

For example, on the project of curing nitrate that she was reviewing right now, the plan set by Wei Keng was only to complete the initial output of three kilograms per day. But when implementing the plan, set as high a standard as possible, directly block the river, then catch a large number of fish, and add the offal to the pile of nitrate, ensuring a daily output of 15 kilograms of pure nitrate.

Although this is only a part of a small plan, Wei Keng has set a goal and absolutely completed it, making Bai Linglu feel that the overall plan of this plane is executable.

So here comes the question, how to get Wei Keng to agree to stay here?

Bai Linglu: "He doesn't strike up a conversation with me now, what should I do?" She didn't send this trouble to the gravity well.

...

Wei Keng wants to stay in the ruined area for a hundred days and then leave, but there will inevitably be some unexpected collisions.

Forty days after arriving on this plane

A boat passed by upstream and stopped outside Wei Keng's residence. This sneaky appearance was just like a sneaky spy.

For this reason, of course Wei Keng would be hospitable and let them disembark for a drink.

The bullet hit the river, warning them to stop the boat.

The businessman who disembarked stammered and claimed to be from Ji'an City, and saw that there were new human settlements here to do business.

For business, of course Wei Keng wants it, tea, cotton cloth, tung oil, he wants it himself.

Originally, he was traveling to the time-space merchant, and he still had a lot of small yellow croakers in his hand. Of course you have to buy it. After you buy it, you can make tea to cure constipation, put up mosquito nets, and use tarpaulins.

Wei Keng invited these panicked suspected businessmen to the camp to discuss business, but after these guys entered the camp, they kept trembling. Originally, Wei Keng couldn't hear the Cantonese dialect very clearly, so he had to rely on the translation system. Communication is more troublesome.

The reason why this group of businessmen trembled is not difficult to understand. A human settlement suddenly appeared in the ruins, and after entering, they found that the group of humans looked exactly the same.

In the world of Pandora, there are all kinds of weird genetic communities. Some genetic groups do not lack humanoid individuals. They are called fusion people. Although there are some individuals whose appearance is similar to that of human beings, they have behaviors that are very strange to normal people in their lives. For example, one year is a human, and ten years after pupation is a beast. These gene groups only use the thinking ability of the human brain. As for human morality, social habits have never existed.

Wei Keng is now like this kind of weird gene group, and because he looks exactly like a human, it even stimulates the "uncanny valley" effect.

Of course, for this reason, Wei Keng resolutely quibbled: "If there are a thousand identical beauties, you will definitely not have the uncanny valley effect. The little yellow croaker in my hand is much more attractive than beautiful women. Please show your capitalist greed, ten times as much." The kind that sells the noose for a profit."

The system prompts again: These guys may not be businessmen, at least not purely businessmen.

When they were negotiating business, they were hypocritical, and they didn't bargain with Wei Keng on the parameters of the tea and cloth at all. What Wei Keng said was what he said, obviously he was perfunctory.

That night, when Wei Keng deliberately left a hole, they escaped. As a result, he fell into the dry toilet and almost choked to death, which shows where Wei Keng left the hole.

"Ah, mom, dad..." In the tunnel, the mentally broken man thought he had been swallowed by something, crying for his father and mother, and the stench of the tumbling kept coming up.

Wei Keng squatted on the edge of the dry toilet, threw the rope down, pinched his nose and said, "Everyone, since you are here for business, why do you act without saying hello many times in our area? I'm afraid this is not the way to be a guest."

Wei Keng's yelling reassured the people in the cesspit a little, and they should also realize that they are not in the stomach of some evil beast. No, there are still dry leaves thrown by Wei Keng in the dry toilet.

Wei Keng's questioning didn't get an answer for a few minutes, and when Master Wei Keng wanted to untie his crotch and wash them with hot water,

Finally, a hard voice shouted: "We are not guests, you are the uninvited guests." Then a pile of shit was thrown out, and almost missed Wei Keng who was shouting.

Wei Keng was dumbfounded, and stopped arguing. After pulling them up, he simply poured a basin of water on them, and spread out a map on a wooden board a few meters away from them.

Wei Keng issued a warning to these businessmen: "Have you seen this map? With this river as the boundary, your city's armed forces are not allowed to cross within six months. Don't say it is unpredictable." Then he lost a Small simple board map.

In the team that climbed out of the dirty tunnel, those few idiots accepted the map provided by Wei Keng with their noses and tears, and then this group of people rushed into the jungle without looking back, as if there was a ghost moment behind them They dare not stay.

Wei Keng looked at the direction in which they disappeared, lowered his head and thought carefully, and seemed to feel that the current situation was very unsafe. So they sent a small team to follow them from a distance to determine their return route. Of course, it is necessary to determine the relevant information of Ji'an City.

A week later, part of the reconnaissance team returned, and another part was sent to rotate for reconnaissance.

In Wei Keng's eyes: this is a somewhat remote city, with concrete walls, but the cement exterior walls are pure black, and some damp places are covered with moss.

The investigation team touched the nearby hilltop highlands to observe the situation of this dilapidated human settlement,

Based on the number of animal-drawn carriages parked in the open area, combined with the road conditions on the map, an inference was made about the force dispatched after its full mobilization: it should be possible to mobilize a team of more than a thousand people to carry artillery and other heavy weapons to attack the area they occupy. strike.

Of course, this offensive power is the upper limit of the most ideal situation.

Even the Mongolian system during the Genghis Khan period could not devote its strength to one direction when there were abundant reasons for fighting.

Judging from the lushness of the bushes on the outskirts of the city, the soldiers in the city have not had military training such as large-scale marches for a long time.

Under the current circumstances, even if the city's highest center has the highest authority, if it wants to take the initiative to launch a foreign war under the condition of long-term maintenance, the power that can be mobilized should be less than one-tenth of the power that can be mobilized by the entire city.

But even if he was really optimistic, Wei Keng was still apprehensive. ——In war, there will be death, and I am very afraid.