The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

One day in late February, just after lunch, carriages drove north from Jiangling and Ying County one after another. Their destination was the copper smelting workshop at the foot of Ji Mountain.

The carriage stopped at the door of the workshop, and the copper official Yang Xi immediately came to greet him. Those who came today were all his real superiors, that is, the engineering officials and engineering assistants in the Nanjun Gongcao, as well as several respected craftsmen.

However, those engineering officials and engineering assistants wearing official uniforms and crowns on their heads took the initiative to make way for an old ox cart that was very slow to drive in the front. In the car, there was an old man with gray hair sitting peacefully. His clothes were neat, but his hands were full of calluses and wrinkles.

"I never thought that it was Mr. Chen who came!"

The copper official Yang Xi felt very surprised and hurried over to help the old man down with a group of engineers and engineering officials.

This old man is called Chen Yi, the most experienced engineer in Nanjun. When Chen Yi was young, he was an ordinary craftsman, but because of his outstanding skills, he was good at carpentry and stonework. He was transferred to Shujun and worked under Li Bing, the governor of Shujun. In those years, he and countless craftsmen assisted Li Bing in managing the Minjiang River and built the "Jiangpeng", which is the Dujiangyan in later generations!

That big weir is the pride of Chen Yi's life. Under their wonderful ideas, the unruly Minjiang River turned from a big disaster to a big benefit for Shujun, irrigating thousands of miles of fertile fields. Since then, the Chengdu Plain has been controlled by people for floods and droughts, and the people have never known famine. A steady stream of food has been sent to Nanjun along the river, and then sent to the Central Plains as military rations for the Qin army.

In Chen Yi's view, Jianpeng is already the limit of human use of the power of flowing water. When Dayu was controlling the flood, he summed up the experience: water can be drained, but it cannot be blocked. We can only coax the water to flow to where we want it to flow. As for harnessing the water power like taming livestock and letting it work for us? It's simply arrogant!

So he leaned on his cane and said with a smile: "I heard that an Anlu craftsman wanted to make a tool that can be transported without human power. I have been a carpenter and stonemason for decades, and have traveled to Shu County, Ba County, Nan County, and Guanzhong, but I have never heard of such a magical tool. How can I not come and see it and broaden my horizons?"

Chen Yi's words made the engineers and engineering officials on the side laugh. Like Chen Yi, they didn't believe that there was such a thing in the world, let alone a small craftsman from a county or township.

Indeed, they also heard that the small craftsman did make a treadle pestle, which has now been promoted in Guanzhong and Nanjun, and other counties are gradually using treadle pestles to replace human pestles.

But in the eyes of everyone, it was just luck, just a simple little device. Did the craftsman think he was the reincarnation of Lu Ban?

As he walked in, an engineer stroked his beard and said, "I heard that Gongshu Ban made a flying kite out of wood, and it flew in the sky for three days and three nights before falling down. This Anlu craftsman also claimed that this thing could move forever, which was really arrogant. I heard that it will be tried today. We want to see how it will end?"

Tongguan Yangxi was hesitant to speak. He wanted to defend the honest Yuan who had not rested since he came to the construction site. However, he only saw that Yuan made a water wheel and made it run. It was still unknown whether it could drive the wooden pestle, so he finally shut up and led everyone forward.

Their destination was a stream next to the ore storage yard used to wash ore and wash soil. The water was two feet wide and relatively turbulent due to the terrain. A group of people were busy around the stream.

"Who is Yuan?"

Chen Yi tilted his head and asked Yang Xi. He couldn't tell who Yuan was from the pile of servants with mud and water all over their heads and faces.

"It's the one with a black cloth belt, holding a wooden hammer, and setting up the equipment himself."

Chen Yi identified for a while and finally found Yuan. He saw that he was wearing brown clothes and shorts like the others. He didn't instruct the others on the shore, but went down to the scene himself. At this moment, he was walking barefoot in the water.

Seeing this, Chen Yi's resentment towards Yuan was reduced a little. He took a closer look at the equipment installed by the water and was slightly surprised.

First, there was a wooden bracket more than ten feet high, deeply nailed into the ground and tightly built with stones. The object on the bracket looked like a thickened large wheel, and it looked like a spinning wheel used by women to weave cloth magnified many times. When it stood up, it was one person tall.

The wheel was equipped with several blades. When the wheel was successfully placed on the water, everyone at the waterside made way.

Next, an amazing scene appeared in Chen Yi's eyes: there was no human power to step on and pull, and no livestock to circle. The huge machine seemed to have its own life. Under the rush of the stream, it began to rotate clockwise, making a gurgling sound, and the speed became faster and faster, and finally the same speed as the water.

After everyone made way, the other side of the water wheel was also revealed: it was a rotating shaft driven by gears, connected to the water wheel, and there were four staggered paddles on the shaft. The water stimulated the wheel to rotate, and also drove the paddles to rotate. Whenever the paddles pushed down the tip of the treadle rod, it was like a person stepping down hard, and the four treadles placed under the rotating shaft moved by themselves, pounding the ore in the mortar one by one!

"It's done!"

Yuan and the copper official craftsmen who followed him to cut wood and make wheels and experimented for several days cheered.

Chen Yi and the engineers and craftsmen who saw this scene on the other side were all stunned, as if the wooden pestle driven by the water wheel fell down and hit not the ore, but their hearts!

Their old idea that people could not control and use water power to work was shattered by the facts they saw with their own eyes!

"This can cleverly use the power of flowing water, why have we never thought of it!?"

Chen Yi felt guilty. As a craftsman with decades of experience, he had never thought about this.

While everyone was shocked, Yang Xi had already brought Yu over. Yu was an honest man, unlike his brother-in-law who was full of thoughts. When he saw a group of county engineers, engineering officials, and a white-haired old craftsman standing in front of him, he immediately trembled and wanted to bow to them...

"We are not worthy of such courtesy. We should be bowing to you and asking for your advice."

Chen Yi quickly helped Yu up, looked him up and down, smiled, and praised: "You are worthy of being a craftsman who can make Anlu pestle. Today, you really refreshed us!"

The engineers and engineering officials on the side also praised Yu, and all the skills and skills were piled on him.

It would have been better if he didn't say anything. Yu blushed immediately and refused repeatedly.

Chen Yi thought he was modest and admired him more. Unexpectedly, in his heart, he just thought guiltily: "It's not me, these are all Hei Fu's ideas, I just did it..."

But Hei Fu warned him of the consequences of being exposed, so he could only bury this matter in his heart.

"Can this thing be named?" Chen Yi was very excited. He turned around the device again and again, carefully observed the cam and connecting rod, and praised it endlessly.

"It's called a water pestle."

Yuan said, "Because it can drive several treadle pestles to move in a chain, my brother-in-law named it a linked water pestle..."

"Linked water pestle."

Chen Yi praised, "Great! Legend has it that in ancient times, Shennong made pestles to help the people. And you made a treadle pestle two years ago, which extended the force by using the weight of the body to tread on the pestle, and its benefit is twice that of the pestle. Today, you have set up a clever mechanism to use water to pound, and its benefit is ten times that of the treadle pestle!"

As an old craftsman, Chen Yi can see the great use of this thing: as long as the water keeps flowing and the water wheel keeps running, the four pestles can keep moving, day and night!

They checked its strength and found that it was no less than an adult raising a hammer and smashing it. Moreover, people need to rest and sleep, eat and drink water, and may be lazy, but the linked water pestle will not. In this way, one continuous water-penetrating machine is at least equivalent to ten adult laborers!

"If we can set up fifty of them here, wouldn't it be equivalent to giving Tongguan an extra five hundred people?"

Thinking of this, Chen Yi excitedly pulled the fearful Yuan, raised his hand high, and said to everyone:

"Any craftsman is called skillful if he is beneficial to people, and clumsy if he is not beneficial to people."

"Those so-called skilled craftsmen in the palaces of the princes have cast exquisite ritual vessels and carved jewels, which can be said to be the best they can do, but they are not beneficial to the people. In my eyes, they are just a group of clumsy craftsmen!"

"The Jian'e Dam built by the governor of Shu County, Li, irrigated thousands of acres of farmland, letting people decide whether to deal with water or drought, and Shu was prosperous. It can be said to be a great skill."

"And today, the continuous water-penetrating machine made by Yuan is equivalent to ten more people out of thin air. This can be said to be a small skill!"

...

In the afternoon, Heifu also accompanied Li Youlai to watch the production of the "linked water pestle". Everyone crowded by the water, watching the wooden pestle operate by itself under the drive of the water wheel, and exclaimed. Heifu was whispering with Yuan in the back, and learned from Yuan the praises of the old engineer Chen Yi.

"Small?"

Heifu smiled: "I don't agree with this. Chen Yi only saw the stream in front of him and only saw that it affected Tongguan. But he forgot that there are thousands of streams in Nanjun and tens of thousands of rivers in the world. If this thing can be promoted, the number of people who benefit will be tens of millions, how can it be less than Dujiangyan... than Jian'e?"

Moreover, the linked water pestle can not only be used to process ore, but also to pound rice and pound medicine. It has a wide range of uses.

Sometimes Heifu couldn't help but sigh that ancient inventions and creations didn't need to be fancy or complicated. Sometimes, the simpler things are, the easier it is to last.

Although the water mill was invented by our ancestors in the Western Han Dynasty, water mills that helped people pound grain and grind flour could be seen everywhere in the south until before the reform and opening up. There was one in Heifu's hometown in his previous life. When his grandfather worked in the grain management office when he was young, he was sent to the water mill for a few years. Heifu also went there to play when he was a child, so he had some impression...

In Heifu's eyes, the significance of the water mill is more than that. This should be the first time in China that people took the initiative to use water power and convert it into power.

When the window paper of "people can use water power" was broken, it can be imagined that craftsmen from all over the country would spontaneously study and understand its principles. Within a hundred years, water mills, water rafts, water wheels and other things can be created. With Heifu's suggestions, the time will even be shortened to within ten years!

"I just hope that these things can really liberate more people from heavy labor and slowly change this era."

Thinking of this, Hei Fu joked: "Brother-in-law, you are already a great craftsman, and promotion and reward are just around the corner!"

"I don't ask for any reward or title, as long as I am not exposed."

Yuen was still worried. In his opinion, this was a fraud, and once it was exposed, he would be punished!

"I have told the county lieutenant that I figured out this thing by the water and told you that even if someone doubts it, you and I can be innocent."

Hei Fu comforted Yuen in this way, but he still wanted Yuen to get the credit. Every profession has its own specialty. Although Hei Fu had an idea, it was Yuen's technology that turned this idea into reality. In the future, Hei Fu will have more places to rely on him.

At this time, Li You had finished his inspection with satisfaction, so Hei Fu's boast that day was completely realized. If dozens of water mills can be added to the surrounding streams and rivers, the copper officials will be able to hand over more copper ingots and let the foundry make more weapons. Before the war, the shortage in the arsenal will be made up!

Li You finally sighed: "My father once showed me an article by Xunzi, which said that when you stand on a high place and wave, your arm is not longer, but the person who sees you is far away; when you shout with the wind, your voice is not faster, but the person who hears you is clear. Those who use carriages and horses are not fast, but they can reach a thousand miles; those who use boats and oars are not able to swim, but they can cross rivers. Gentlemen are not born different, but they are good at using things!"

"And today, there are Zuo Bingcao Shi Heifu and Anlu County craftsman Yuan, who used water power to make a continuous water mill, which can also achieve several times the effect!"

Everyone responded in unison, including the county governor's office chief who came to watch the excitement after hearing the news. He nodded slightly, as if thinking about something.

After returning to Jiangling City, the Chief Secretary went directly to the County Governor's Mansion and informed the County Governor of Nanjun of the "wonderful sight" he had seen today.