The Troublesome Hero Among the Heroes

Small windmill, creaking and creaking around

There is a lot of swamp and water here

There is a lot of mud and a lot of grass

There are also a group of small insects that bite people

……

With the current technology, the big windmill Charles challenged by Don Quixote cannot be built. However, a simple small windmill with a fan blade as high as one person is okay. Now this kind of windmill is rapidly being promoted in the province of Randene.

Leave aside the matter of digging the corner of the empire. The foundation of everything is to develop the local area well.

It is not so easy to open up fields in the swamp, and drainage is the most important thing.

After the ditches were used to change the direction of the water source, the earth was dug into the ground to build an earth embankment more than one meter to two meters high to enclose a plot of more than one kilometer in length, and then began to pump water.

Wheat yields the highest when the groundwater depth is 1~1.5m⁽¹⁾, and barley yields the highest yield when the groundwater depth is 0.6m⁽²⁾. In order to achieve the highest yield, it is necessary to In the enclosed plot, the accumulated water 0.2-0.5m above the ground is drained, and finally the water level is lowered to a sufficient depth below the ground.

For this, Charles chose wind power as the energy source for drainage.

The windmill he first took out is very simple. A large wooden frame is topped with a windmill made of wood frame and canvas with a high fan blade. The windmill shaft is installed with bronze ball bearings that can barely be used. If the wind direction changes When you have to disassemble, adjust the orientation and put it up again, it will be done in a short time.

Fortunately, the wind here is basically northerly in winter, and westerly at other times, plus the fan blades can be removed, which is not very troublesome.

Several types of pumping equipment under the windmill have been tried. Considering cost, technology, materials, maintenance and man-hours, the keel watermill is finally selected.

The water output of a traditional keel waterwheel is about 36m³h. Charles uses an improved version. The originally open water tank is made into a square tube and sealed, and the running blades and tube are sealed. It does not leak water. The water output of this keel waterwheel similar to the tube chain conveyor can exceed 64m³h, and the water lifting slope is much greater than that of the traditional keel waterwheel. The number of blades is only 6% of the traditional model, and the production time is only 30%⁽ ³⁾.

It’s just that no seals that can replace rubber have been found on the car leaves. At present, we can only use leather and other materials to wrap the car leaves reinforced with metal sheets. This has a little effect on the water output and requires regular Maintenance, but this is enough for drainage.

Based on a plot of 1km² that needs to be drained of 2m deep water, about 2 million tons of water needs 1,400 man-days to drain, including maintenance, no wind, rainfall and other factors, 20 windmills add water The car can complete the drainage work of a plot in about three months in the windy and rainy autumn and winter seasons.

When the drainage in the plot is over, a large amount of cattle, horses, sheep and other livestock will go in and eat up the grass, and then a large amount of chickens will go in and plow the roots of the grass, and then the land can be cultivated. .

In the hilly area, Charles simply set fire to the hills one by one, and then planted pastures and sheep.

After two or three years, after the roots of large underground trees are completely decayed under the action of bacteria brought by sheep dung, this area can be opened up into an olive orchard and other cash crop planting area.

In the past two years, various craftsmen, including carpenters, went to Amstral one by one, and merchants who went here to pull livestock can now pull out one by one. Wool products.

Charles will not let go of the textile, paper and printing industries, he can only fiddle with these.

Now half of the carpenters here are building windmills and waterwheels, and the other half are building new textile machines.

Under the current conditions, it is impossible to build a large-scale textile factory. At this time, women are also laborers in the field. It is unrealistic to completely separate from agricultural production, so Charles can only rent the machines to each household, and then Then buy the finished product.

Anyway, there is no product quality standard at this time, and it can be sold after it is produced.

After five years of development, steel smelting has begun to take shape, but all kinds of products are government orders. The 19th Legion and various tools and agricultural tools have given a poor production capacity.

Currently, the tax rate for the export of iron tools and agricultural implements in Randney Province is 10,000%, and the smuggling merchants directly sink into the sea.

There will naturally be opposition to this kind of thing, but Charles is a man of peace and wealth. The business of paper and books is enough to make them forget what steel is.

Charles had just left for five days from this patrol. When inspecting a waterwheel workshop, the messenger from the Governor's Mansion rushed up to him on horseback. Some guests arrived, and many of them were very distinguished guests.

As soon as he heard the names of those guests, his eyes lit up, and he returned to Amstel without saying a word.

"Your Excellency Polymeni!" As soon as Charles came back, he went to the living room without changing his clothes to meet with the emperor’s chief think tank who had lived in the Governor’s Mansion for several days. "I can rest assured that I see you so energetic. Now."

The wrinkles on Polymeni's face are a lot more than when he was at Imperial Capital five years ago, but the whole person looked very energetic and even a little excited.

There are several old man with him, and at first glance, his temperament is scholar.

Polymeni didn't dare to talk nonsense with Charles anymore. He prepared a scene that year, but was disturbed by Charles's quick promise. Later, the emperor and other ministers laughed at him for a long time.

After learning from the pain, he came to the conclusion that Charles is not the kind of bureaucrat who talks roundabouts, so it's better to be straightforward.

"You make a price." Polimeini said directly, "We need to buy a lot of paper and print books."

As soon as Charles heard him and those old men Scholar came over and knew it was for this. Now, "Charles Teach Literacy", "Charles Fables", "Charles Children's Bedtime Stories", "Charles Teach You Soup" and other paper books are sold at Imperial Capital. Fire, it's strange that these scholars are not tempted.

"It's easy to use paper." Charles replied, "I can sell it to you at the factory price, so that the paper-making technicians don’t get hungry."

"For books, I have There are two plans, one is that everyone pays a cost, which is calculated based on the number of pages and the cost of binding. The other is that you don’t need to pay, and print it out and sell it by me, and the revenue is divided into half."

Those scholars They murmured to each other, and there were candidates for both plans, but those who chose the latter plan later made a lot of money.

The scholar who chose the first plan has his own contacts and is self-produced and sold.

But their customers are scholars. In this era, the circle is too small and sales are limited.

But the second plan is different. Charles put these big guys’ schoolbags on the exquisite covers and spine, and bought them home as decorations. The style went up all at once, and the sales were naturally far ahead. .

These are something to say. Now what someone has to do is to keep these academic leaders.

In the Loma Empire, wealthy people always have several villas. Amstel has many villas for senior officials from other towns in the Randene province and the 19th Legion high level officer. Charles personally came forward to sell these villas with public funds, and then distributed them to Polimeini and other academic bigwigs.

There was also an incident for this. In order to allow Polymeni to live in their villas, several high-level officials had an excuse to connect with the emperor’s think tank. They came in front of Charles. At auction, the final winner sold his villa to the province of Randene with a loss of 20 gold coins.

The winner's money was not in vain, and it didn't take long for him to be transferred to a wealthy province as a tax officer.

After more than a month, Polimeini was working on the first batch of printed books of the school team. At this time, an unexpected person rang the doorbell.

A big scholar in the desert area traveled a long way to Amstel to print a book. After learning that the most famous scholar of the Loma Empire lived in a place tens of meters away from his residence pay a visit to.

This is just the beginning. Soon after, scholars from other countries such as the Lazio Empire came to the house one after another.

At this time Charles took the shot. He remodeled the Opera House. Scholars are welcome to give speeches or debates here.

By the end of the year, a large-scale building was built in Amstel, which will soon become a library for many scholars from various countries.

For this, Charles is very satisfied, it is time for the next step.