Chapter 762: Development of the Ming

Outside Responding-to-Heaven City, in the hollow of Dragon Spring Mountain.

A low, continuous humming sound echoed in the valley.

It was not the roar of a beast, nor the wind through a pass.

It was the roar of metal and steam.

Inside the huge wooden‑stone workshop, a massive object made of bronze, wrought iron, and strange‑iron alloy was operating while trembling.

The three‑zhang‑high boiler was heated to red‑hot.

The copper needle of the pressure gauge trembled violently, pointing to a dangerous mark.

Thick iron pipes connected to the huge cylinder, and the piston rod moved back and forth in a slow but steady rhythm.

Through a complex crankshaft and connecting rod, it ultimately drove a heavy flywheel to begin rotating.

The faster it spun, the faster it went.

"It's done…… it's done!"

An old artisan, his face covered in soot and his eyes bloodshot, shouted hoarsely.

He was Wang Gong, formerly an artisan household of the Yuan court's Ministry of Works, now the chief master artisan of the Investigation of Things Institute's Power Machine Office.

Around them, dozens of equally exhausted artisans, apprentices, and Investigation of Things Institute students held their breath.

The flywheel's speed gradually stabilized.

It drove the adjacent shaft, which in turn drove a set of simple hammers to begin moving up and down regularly.

"Thud."

"Thud."

"Thud."

Each muffled sound seemed to strike everyone's heart.

Outside the workshop, Zhu Yuanzhang (Zhu Yue) stood with his hands behind his back.

He wore no dragon robe, only a simple blue‑cloth commoner's garb, yet the surrounding guards and officials all bowed their heads, not daring to breathe loudly.

Liu Ji stood at his side, holding a thick stack of drawings and calculation sheets.

"Since His Majesty five years ago ordered the establishment of the Investigation of Things Institute and set up the four divisions of Power Machine, Strange Electricity, Firearms, and Purification, this device is the first major breakthrough."

Liu Ji's voice carried restrained excitement.

"Wang Gong and the others, following His Majesty's principle that 'boiling water produces expansive gas that can push,' spent three years and seven months, failed 129 times, consumed 170,000 catties of iron and 300 catties of strange iron, and finally produced this 'steam original machine'."

"It can now steadily output about…… the pulling force of thirty strong horses."

"If further refined and scaled up, it could be used for mine drainage, workshop drive, and even……"

He paused.

"To pull vehicles."

Zhu Yuanzhang did not speak.

He merely silently watched the roaring machine, watched the wind raised by the spinning flywheel flutter the banners hung inside the workshop.

A tremendously complex emotion surged in his chest.

Steam engine.

Symbol of the Industrial Revolution.

In the world of his memory, the appearance of this thing changed everything.

And in this world eroded by dark energy, where civilization's survival hangs by a thread, its meaning is all the more complex.

"Is it reliable?"

He asked.

"It has run continuously for two hours with no obvious fault, but the boiler pressure is extremely high; three welds are leaking and it needs to be stopped for repair."

Liu Ji reported truthfully.

"How are the strange‑iron‑alloy parts performing?"

"The key inner walls of the cylinder and the piston rings have been doped with five percent strange‑iron powder; wear is only thirty percent of that of pure‑iron parts, and they effectively resist the subtle corrosion of the high‑temperature dark‑energy environment."

"Cost."

"If mass‑producing a simplified model, not counting strange iron, each unit needs roughly eight thousand catties of wrought iron, five hundred catties of copper, and three hundred artisan‑days. If strange iron is included…… it is currently hard to estimate, and the mining and refining of strange iron remains a bottleneck."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded.

"Tell Wang Gong that all participants in this project will be rewarded with a hundred taels of silver, granted the title of Master Artisan, and their descendants may enter the attached school of the Investigation of Things Institute."

"This machine is named…… the 'Vastly Martial Model One Steam Engine'."

"Order the Power Machine Office to continue improving, with three goals."

He extended three fingers.

"One, miniaturization. I want to see an engine that can be installed on vehicles and ships."

"Two, increase efficiency and reduce consumption. With the same coal, we want to push heavier loads and turn the wheel longer."

"Three, safety. Solve the risk of boiler explosions for me."

"Yes!"

Liu Ji quickly recorded.

"Moreover."

Zhu Yuanzhang turned his gaze, and on the other side of Dragon Spring Mountain he could faintly see tall smokestacks.

"How is the progress of the new production line at the armory?"

"Your Majesty, after adopting water‑powered hammers and standardized molds, the daily output of the 'Vastly Martial Model Two' flintlock gun has reached fifteen units, with a yield rate of seventy percent."

"But the prototype of the 'Strange Electricity Gun' remains stuck at the energy‑storage stage; the strange‑iron coil's energy‑storage effect is extremely unstable, lasting at most three shots, and its power diminishes with each firing."

Continue the assault.

Zhu Yuanzhang's gaze was sharp.

Tell the Special Electricity Bureau, I give them one year. If there is still no breakthrough, the director will be removed from office and the entire bureau's salaries will be halved.

Also, the railway.

How much of the experimental track from the Tangshan mine to the Zunhua ironworks has been laid?

Ten li have been laid. Wooden-iron rails, with strange iron reinforcing the joints. The experimental mine carts are too heavy, requiring eight horses to pull, and the effect falls short of expectations.

Then continue to reduce weight and redesign. Let the Bureau of Mechanics and the artisans work together to find a solution.

Zhu Yuanzhang raised his head and looked north.

We don't have hundreds of years to slowly climb.

The monsters of Qing will not wait for us.

Almost at the same time.

Liaodong, deep beneath Hetu Ala.

This is no longer a simple cave, but a huge cavity completely transformed by dark energy, a mixture of flesh and crystal.

Soldier's Nest.

The inner wall of the cavity is covered with a constantly pulsing, translucent membrane of flesh.

Beneath the membrane, countless twisted embryo-like figures can be faintly seen sinking and floating in the azure-blue nutrient fluid.

Old Man Sama—or rather, the Iron Crow Army's proxy in this place—hovered at the cavity's center.

Below his black robe, his legs were no longer legs but dozens of pulsing, azure-blue tentacles, connected to the entire floor of the Soldier's Nest.

How mature is the first batch of Fusion Entities?

He spoke, and his voice rang directly in the minds of the several dark-energy artisans nearby.

Reporting to Master, three hundred Iron Bone War Slaves can now leave the nutrient fluid and respond to basic tactical commands.

But the higher-ranking Fire Spitters and Earth Borers still have unstable neural fusion, with a forty percent risk of losing control.

Controllability is paramount.

Old Man Sama's tentacles swayed gently.

What Qing needs is an army, not beasts.

Reduce the dark-energy infusion concentration for the Earth Borers by fifteen percent and extend their cultivation period by ten days.

As for the Fire Spitters……add fragments of the human central nervous system to strengthen the control nodes.

Yes.

In the eyes of the dark-energy artisans, blue light flickered as they recorded the order.

Furthermore, the lord has sent new orders.

Old Man Sama's voice became even colder, inhuman.

The decay of the light barrier is accelerating. It is expected that in seven to ten years, a 'rift' large enough for a squad to pass through will appear.

We need to prepare in advance Adaptive Reform Bodies—units capable of surviving and fighting in a potential-energy environment.

This requires higher-purity crystal ore, and…more living experimental material.

Tell Nurhaci that in the Jinzhou campaign after the spring thaw, no prisoners are to be left.

Send them all into the Soldier's Nest.

We need data, vast amounts of data.

Inside the cavity, the azure light flickered unpredictably.

It illuminated one numb face after another, eroded by dark energy.

It also illuminated the 'materials' in the nutrient fluid that were gradually losing their human form.

East of the light barrier.

Chen Dynasty, the Observatory.

A huge array of crystal lenses slowly rotated, focusing and analyzing the weak, chaotic energy waves coming from the west.

Zhang Cheng's complexion was not good.

The rate of decay of the light barrier has risen to an annual average of 0.8 percent.

Especially in the sectors corresponding to Ming Liaodong and Qing Hetu Ala, the decay speed is more than twice that of other areas.

The intensity of energy turbulence is also increasing. Our directional communication windows have been cut from three times a month to two, and the signal distortion rate has risen by fifteen percentage points.

Yue Fei stood to the side, his armor not yet removed.

He had just returned from duty in the Northern Frontier, still carrying the chill of the snowy plains.

How is the lord's recovery?

He can handle affairs, but the system remains in a weak period and cannot undertake large-scale operations.

Zhang Cheng sighed.

How much of the 'Basic Potential Energy Conversion Principle' pulse we sent over have they deciphered on the Ming side?

Less than thirty percent. Their theoretical system is still being built, and many concepts are incomprehensible to them.

But…

Zhang Cheng called up a blurry energy chart.

We have detected within Ming territory recently appearing stable, unnatural concentrations of thermal and mechanical energy bursts.

Although weak, they are extremely regular.

They… seem to have stumbled upon the threshold of 'external-force drive'.

Yue Fei's eyes flashed with a sharp light.

Good.

If they can stand on their own, then when they fight side by side in the future, their resolve will be firmer.

I'm just afraid that...

Zhang Cheng pointed to the map, where the dark blue region grew ever denser, constantly churning and expanding.

The energy readings of Qing's 'Soldier's Nest' have quadrupled in the past half year.

They are in a frenzy of production.

And the Great Ming is still learning to walk.

The Observation Platform fell into silence.

Only when the crystal lens turned did a faint humming sound arise.

And from the distance, from the direction of the Chen dynasty capital, came the rhythmic bell sounds that signified order and production.

That was the signal for the workshop shift change.

It was also the pulse of this civilization, sprinting at full speed in the silence.

Inside the Longquan Mountain factory.

The steam engine finally shuddered violently and then stopped.

The boiler pressure valve blew a white jet of steam, emitting a sharp hiss.

Wang Gong rushed forward, directing the artisans to urgently cool down and inspect.

His fingers brushed over the scorching exotic metal alloy cylinder, feeling the lingering warmth that seemed almost alive.

Then he turned and bowed deeply toward the figure in blue cloth outside the factory.

Tears mixed with coal dust carved two grooves on his face.

He knew this machine was still crude, bulky, and unreliable.

But he knew even more—

A new era had already arrived, unstoppable, with the roar of these pistons.

And Zhu Yuanzhang, standing outside the factory, also slowly exhaled a breath.

He seemed to see.

He saw rails stretching out, trains roaring.

He saw gun production lines running day and night.

He saw massive steam warships cleaving the polluted waves.

He also saw, behind all of this, the ever‑approaching dark‑blue shadow that blotted out the sky.

Accelerate.

He said softly.

To himself, and to this land.

A bit faster.