On the edge of the industrial area in the east of Cecil City, in a research room of the Machinery Manufacturing Institute, Gawain was gathering with Rebecca and Nicholas Dan.
The chubby iron ball star floats in the center of the room. Beside him, a complex and delicate metal model is floating with him. The metal model is obviously the chassis of the vehicle. With the high-precision processing ability of Nicholas egg, its Every gear and connecting rod has been restored most accurately, and various operation demonstrations are carried out with the magnetic field traction.
"This is the universal traction chassis after finalization. Of course, it's just a model. How to realize it requires the efforts of technicians," the voice with a hint of metallic trembling came from Iron Ball Star's body, and he spun the model as he spoke. , so that Gao Wen can see its internal details, "Based on the last design drawing, we re-adjusted the connection method between the magic net unit and the power ridge, and added a layer of shock absorption, which can make the chassis adapt to more complex and Bad roads, and this shock absorbing structure can be dismantled, and after dismantling, it can be replaced with an additional magic mesh unit to make the chassis more powerful, so that it can be used as a tractor for construction machinery in relatively flat areas.”
Gawain looked at the model presented by the Nicholas egg, listened to the other party's explanation, and nodded slightly: "... not bad."
The magic vehicle was born, and the first problem it had to face was the harsh road conditions and difficulties in maintenance in this era.
In this era, there are no smooth and solid highways, and there are no service areas and car repair shops in the vast wilderness between cities. Although since Rebecca tossed out the cement, Cecil's road construction has never stopped. However, even with the convenience of magic, the current road facilities in the southern border are seriously imperfect. At this stage, there are only three roads in Cecil that can be regarded as "modernized", and there is one between Cecil City and Kant. On the wide cement avenue, there is a similar road between Cecil and Tanzania. The road leading to the Glen area was just completed a few days ago, and other places are basically only the original southern nobles. The messy roads were built.
Among these messy roads, the best situation is the "temporary road" from Tanzania to Hossman City, but that is only for mages and engineers with magic terminals to use "fossils to mud" and "transformation roads". The "mud to stone" technique is only emergency leveled and reinforced, and it is okay to transport people and materials temporarily, but in the long run, it is not up to the standard for Gao Wen in terms of durability and scale.
As a remnant of the old feudal regimes, "roads" were a major problem in front of Gao Wen. The nobles practiced their own methods in their own territories, and built various roads. Not only were the quality and scale chaotic, but the planning was also a mess. Sometimes, in order to prevent being plundered by neighboring nobles, they even specially destroyed the area where the roads meet between the two territories, using magic to create a large number of man-made potholes, sandy land, and quagmire. Now that the southern border has been unified, The lords of yesteryear have withdrawn from the stage, but these exasperating things have been left to the builders of Cecil.
Fortunately, this world has incredible magic technology, and the magic terminal specially used by ordinary engineers has also been popularized. Under the circumstances, the road construction project in the southern border is progressing fairly smoothly, but even so, considering the actual situation in most remote areas and the situation outside the southern border, the early magical vehicle chassis must still take into account how to deal with harsh road conditions.
"Universal chassis should pay attention to the maximum applicability, so we redesigned its size according to the current average width of most roads in the southern border, basically narrowing it down a bit," Rebecca took Nicholas's words, and gestured as she spoke. said, "The widest point is no more than 1.8 meters..."
Gao Wenxin said that it was indeed 1.8 meters, which is the width of the largest double carriage in the world. Strictly speaking, it is the limit width of two horses plus a set of harnesses. Although the roads built by the nobles are varied, their widths are roughly similar. Except for small paths and country roads, the narrowest "official" roads will not be lower than this number. If it is narrower than this, a large double carriage will impassable.
Cecil's road construction was carried out on the basis of the old road, and the personnel and materials needed for road construction were also transported by horse-drawn carts. Therefore, each lane of the newly-built cement road was also affected by this number, which was basically the same number. The width of a large two-horse carriage plus a "safety margin" of about one meter, and on this basis, the size of the magical vehicle must also meet the requirements of being able to drive safely on such a lane.
As far as Gawain knows, a similar thing happened on Earth. Primitive carriage widths influenced the standard of roads, road standards influenced the size of early automobiles and trains, and the size of automobiles and trains influenced all traffic built on early roads and railroads. The size of the basic means of transport, cargo boxes and other things...
Two completely different worlds, after all, have reached the same goal by different routes at this point.
He suddenly thought of the hometown that he had been away for countless years, but Gao Wen could only sigh silently, and in the sigh, his thoughts gradually diverged.
With magic vehicles, this is an epoch-making means of transportation. Of course, they are countless times stronger than the current horse-drawn carriages. With these powerful and tireless vehicles, the development of the southern border will definitely take a big step forward, but if They alone are not enough.
The southern border is not big, but it is definitely not small. The long and narrow shape of the territory makes it extremely difficult for east-west traffic. At present, in order to build the four new industrial cities on the "cross axis", Gao Wen needs to deploy a large amount of materials and personnel from various parts of the southern border, including ore from the Tanzania-Cecil area, timber from the Glen area, stone materials from the Pepo area and Magic materials, as well as the huge immigration brought by the population migration project, all these are basically carried by several river channels centered on the Baishui River. However, the river transport has natural restrictions after all. The scale of the city is getting bigger and bigger, especially since the "cross axis" starts to extend in both east and west directions. Some raw material production areas far away from the river channel will get on the right track sooner or later. Gao Wen must find a way to find a more efficient means of transportation.
The advantage of magic vehicles lies in their flexibility and convenience. They are quite useful for short-distance and small-scale cargo transportation, but when dealing with the development pressure of the entire southern border, their power will definitely be stretched.
Of course, people in this era of this world probably don't think so, because magic vehicles are already the most advanced and powerful means of transportation they have ever seen, but Gawain has seen things that are better than magic vehicles. On the rails, it can transport tens of thousands of tons of goods at a time, the king of land transportation as strong and powerful as the blood vessels of the industrial society.
train.
Compared with that thing, the transportation capacity of the magic vehicle in front of me would naturally pale in comparison.
In the final analysis, the magical vehicle was not born entirely to solve the transportation problem in the southern border. It was just a supplement in this regard. Its real meaning was to initiate a subsequent major transformation of transportation, to replace traditional horse-drawn carriages, and to manufacture agricultural vehicles. machinery, manufacture construction machinery, and even prepare for military combat vehicles.
Gao Wen knew that the birth of trains on the earth was much earlier than the practical automobiles powered by internal combustion engines (not counting the early steam engine-powered and experimental locomotives), because the trains on the earth used The technical starting point of the "silly big black thick" steam engine is far lower than that of the precise, compact and efficient internal combustion engine. At the same time, various front-end technologies (tyres, batteries, electric spark plugs, etc.) In the period of development, all these are determined by objective historical facts, but in this world, the development laws of many things are destined to be different from those on Earth, and the order of many things is naturally different.
The steam engine could not be realized, but the rotor-type magic energy engine was born, and a high-efficiency power source similar to "internal combustion engine" or "electric motor" appeared in this world. At the same time, due to the technology accumulation and Gawain's conscious guidance made the "magic car", a complex vehicle, appear in this world earlier than trains, but this does not mean that this world does not need trains.
In fact, now is the time when the southern border needs it, and it also has the technical foundation to develop it.
Having lived here for so long, Gao Wen has already learned to discard some old ideas, and realized the real situation hidden under the dark and ignorant appearance of this special era. The technical reserves of this world are far richer than he imagined. It is also far higher than what he saw, but these technologies are concentrated in the hands of a few people, or scattered in the hands of scattered intellectuals in a fragmented state (this phenomenon of "over-concentration of technology" and "fragmentation of technology" is The result of the collapse of the ancient Gondor Empire), which led to the society here looking far behind its true technological heights.
After understanding this point, Cecil's technology development speed is naturally not difficult to understand: in many cases, those technologies are not developed from scratch at all, but are only mass-produced with existing "upper-level" technologies or to reconstruct and transform broken technologies, or even to be honest, if a copy of Gao Wen's "scientific thought" is thrown into a country with a strong foundation and a large number of talents like Typhon, their development speed will only be reduced. Faster than Cecil.
But even so, Gao Wen will still recognize and respect the talents and efforts of those researchers, and maintain the highest degree of trust in the research department under him. He knows that science is a gradual process with the continuous fragmentation of broken technology. Being reconstructed, as various theories in the field of magic technology become more and more perfect, sooner or later, this land will get rid of the shadow of the ancient Gondor Empire, and step into a field that even the great magisters of the Starfire era have never set foot in.
"Master Ancestor? Master Ancestor?"
Rebecca's voice suddenly came from the side, waking Gao Wen up from his thoughts.
"What are you thinking?"
Rebecca leaned in front of Gao Wen, with a look of concern and curiosity on her face.
Gao Wen realized that he had thought too much and was already a little distracted, so he quickly coughed twice to adjust his expression, and then said while thinking: "Rebecca, do you know that magic guided vehicles are not the most Powerful land vehicle…”
Rebecca blinked her eyes: "You mean... a larger magical vehicle?! Use multiple rows of linked engines to tow a larger vehicle body?"
"... It's not the same, it is indeed a bigger car, but its operating mechanism is completely different from that of a magic car," Gawain organized easy-to-understand words to describe the car that had never appeared in this world. "You can imagine such a car: it has a "magic engine" that is ten times, dozens of times, or even hundreds of times stronger than the magic car, and this magic engine pulls more than a dozen cars. Running on the ground..."
Rebecca's eyes widened: "How is that possible! The ground will collapse! And what about turning? What about bumps?"
"So it needs to run on the track. The so-called track is the groove or guide rail made of steel laid on the ground. They can disperse the pressure brought by the heavy carriage, reduce the wear and tear of the metal wheels, and improve the stability of the train..."