Unable to refuse the hospitality at noon, Guo Shao drank some wine at Chen Jiali's house, and was then helped to the side room to take a short nap.
After an unknown amount of time, Guo Shao suddenly woke up. When he opened his eyes, he saw Chen Jiali looking at him lovingly. Guo Shao let out a long sigh, his chest thumping, and he felt sweat all over his forehead and his mouth was dry. When he turned around, he saw that the charcoal fire in front of the bed was burning too strongly.
Was I talking in my sleep? Guo Shao asked in a daze.
Chen Jiali said faintly: I heard General Guo say don’t kill me, don’t kill me. Did you have a nightmare where someone was chasing you
It was a nightmare. Guo Shao wiped his sweat with his hand and said thoughtfully, but he was not being chased by someone.
Chen Jiali asked curiously: What kind of nightmare did you have to scare you like this
Guo Shao glanced at her and murmured, "I can't remember the first part. It was probably when I was at the end of my rope and was about to be executed. My opponent put a crossbow or something like that into my mouth, and then I was waiting to die. It was probably because it was useless to struggle, and I couldn't move my body. I was very scared and thought that the last blow might be very painful, so I thought to myself, just bear with it for a while, it will be over soon. After it was over, I didn't feel the pain anymore."
I could die at any time, but I didn't know when it would come. But the man didn't shoot for a long time. Every time I snapped my fingers, it felt like a year had passed. It felt very long. At that time, I just wanted him to hurry up. Finally, I heard the sound with fear. It didn't seem to hurt much, just like a mosquito bite, and then I gradually lost consciousness.
Guo Shao let out another long sigh: Then I woke up and found out it was just a dream, which was really nice.
Chen Jiali said quietly: I didn’t expect that someone like General Guo would have such a terrible dream.
Guo Shaodao: Maybe it's the sequelae of what I did before. I've seen too much bloodshed. But fortunately, it's just a dream. No one can easily force me to the end of my rope.
Chen Jiali said a few words of comfort in a gentle voice, like coaxing a child. Guo Shao gradually calmed down and felt much better. He suddenly thought of someone he had almost forgotten: the concubine in Mrs. Chen's family who was persecuted and survived. You should be nice to her. I suddenly realized how terrible it was to be violently threatened with life. She must have lived in nightmares all the time.
General Guo is a really thoughtful person. Chen Jiali said softly, "Take a rest, I'll be with you, don't be afraid."
Guo Shao turned over and got up: I have to go to the workshop in the outer city to see how they are making it. By the way, I haven’t thanked Mrs. Chen yet for providing the place, money and people to help me tinker with that thing.
It's just a small matter, don't worry about it, Chen Jiali said generously.
Guo Shao had designed a plan a month ago, but the yard at home could not meet the requirements, and it seemed not very good to have a lot of noise in the inner city. So he asked Chen Jiali for help. She happened to have a yard used as a warehouse in a relatively remote place in the southwest of the outer city, and Guo Shao asked her to use it as a workshop for experiments.
So he hurriedly got up, dressed and set off, and Chen Jiali followed him to the outer city.
It was just an ordinary courtyard, and the sound of banging could be heard at the door. When Guo Shao and others entered, they saw the blacksmith Huang hammering something himself, and the head craftsman Luo Jiye and others came forward to greet Guo Shao. Guo Shao said: No need to be polite, just do your own thing.
Several people bowed to the woman wearing a veil next to them, most of whom didn't know who she was. Although the place belonged to Chen Jiali, the current staff were not hers, including the head craftsman Luo Jiye, who was hired by the Military Equipment Supervisory Office, one of the five supervisors of the court, and the craftsmen were also transferred by the government.
The houses in the courtyard had been messed up beyond recognition. In a hall, a huge millstone took up most of the room. Guo Shao and Chen Jiali watched from the side, and saw some people grinding the edge of the millstone with files and grindstones. The rustling noise was endless.
The center of this millstone is made of solid wood, and the bearings are cast iron and polished smooth. The edges are also inlaid with cast iron, riveted to the wood; the edges have iron teeth that look like a large gear. There is another millstone of similar shape in the corner, but it is much smaller than the main millstone in the middle.
The transmission belt between the two millstones is made of wood and iron sheets, like the one connecting large and small water wheels, but the transmission belt here is made stronger with iron sheets in order to bear the weight.
Guo Shao pointed at the two millstones and turned to Chen Jiali and said: It's the same thing as a waterwheel. The big wheel in the cellar is pulled by mules and horses. It turns slowly and saves more effort. The small wheel over there turns faster and has a heavier load capacity.
Chen Jiali whispered: General Guo can use a water cart, which can also save mules and horses.
Guo Shaodao: First test whether this thing can be used, and then use hydraulic power to improve the power.
There is a bent cast iron rod on the edge of the small millstone, and a chain is locked on the iron rod. But when the millstone turns, the chain will be pulled and the position of the iron rod will turn to the wall, and a part of the chain will be released; when it turns in the opposite direction, a part of the chain will be pulled in. The chain passes through the hole in the wall and leads to the next door house.
Guo Shao took Chen Jiali to the next room and pointed at the hole in the wall: That chain is the thing tied to the wheel just now.
This thing was designed by Guo Shao himself. He knew how it worked without even looking at a diagram, but Chen Jiali was looking at it curiously.
After the chain reaches this side of the house, it is placed on a fixed pulley to change its direction to up and down movement. When the wheel rotates, the other end of the chain moves away and then closer, which will pull the other end of this side up and down repeatedly.
There is a cast iron structure hanging on the head of the chain, which Guo Shao named the chain head. The chain head is stuck in a vertical cast iron groove to prevent it from swinging left and right. This structure looks like a gate.
The chain head is a heavy cast iron lump hanging on the forging hammer weighing more than a thousand pounds. The principle so far is very simple: the chain moves up and down, pulling the forging hammer up and down to achieve the purpose of forging. But this alone is not enough. The chain can be pulled up slowly; when it is put down, it will also be synchronized with the rotation speed of the wheel due to the structure connected to the chain. It is impossible to forge things if it is put down slowly.
Guo Shao was also troubled by this problem at first, but now at least the problem has been solved in design. When the forging hammer rises to the highest point, it needs to be separated from the transmission structure and fall rapidly by gravity; then it is connected to the chain transmission structure when it rises, so that it can be pulled up with the help of power.
His initial design was manual. After the forging hammer fell, someone had to connect it; after it rose, someone had to release it and let the forging hammer fall down. Later, he thought about it and realized that this would make the forging hammer very slow. After a few hammer strikes, the red-hot iron would cool down and have to be heated again. It was inefficient and had no practical value.
So he redesigned an opening and closing device, which he called semi-automatic opening and closing. The connecting part between the chain head and the forging hammer is an L-shaped forged iron piece. When the L is in its original shape, it can hook the forging hammer; when it is pulled sideways, it tilts, and the hook on the forging hammer will slide down the inclined surface of the L, so as to achieve the purpose of releasing the forging hammer and letting it fall freely.
The thing that controls the opening and closing device also pulls the L connection part as the wheel next to it rotates. When the forging hammer is near the top position, the L part will be pulled off the side by the chain. When the forging hammer is put down, the person next to it will shake another pulley to pull the L part open again, so that the chain will fall down and reconnect with the forging hammer.
The entire mechanical device was very simple, but all the parts were made by hand. It took a month to complete, but now it is almost finished. The charcoal fire in the room was burning brightly, the bellows were whirring, and the blacksmiths were hammering.
Guo Shao stood in the middle, as if he was in a relatively backward modern factory, or in a large blacksmith shop.