Although 15 taels of silver was a lot of money, ordinary people certainly could not afford it. But even in the most backward places, there were still quite a few wealthy people.
Being able to ride the same model bicycle as the yamen runners, or even the same tricycle as the county magistrate, was an honor no matter how you looked at it.
After that brand new bicycle was put up for sale at the boutique shop, let's go and buy one to try it out.
...
Li Yao busily built the factory buildings.
The bicycle production process was not complicated. The tricky parts were the bearings and springs. Xia Xian racked his brains but could not come up with a way to quickly manufacture these two components.
"Boss, why don't we hire more blacksmiths and I'll be responsible for teaching them?"
"No."
Artisan-made bearings not only had low efficiency, but could not guarantee precision. They still had to rely on machines.
Li Yao had already designed the wire drawing die and semi-automatic punch. But there was no water in the reservoir now, so the plan to use hydropower to drive the machines could not be realized for the time being.
It looked like they had to upgrade the tech tree ahead of schedule.
"Xia Xian, let's put this matter aside for now and make something else first."
"What are we going to make this time?"
What Li Yao made this time was not complicated: a cast iron vat, plus a cast iron piston, and a few bronze valves, and finally a boiler that looked like a vat.
After simple assembly, a primitive steam engine emerged.
"Use steam to drive machines?"
When he understood the purpose of this machine, Xia Xian's eyes opened wider than eggs.
How was this possible!
No matter how powerful steam was, it could at most push a pot lid.
"Light the fire."
Xia Xian added some coal to the furnace, then swung the bellows.
As the water in the boiler boiled, large amounts of steam entered the steam engine through the pipes.
Sizzling sounds could be heard as steam leaked from the gaps, but the piston did not move.
"Boss, it looks like it's not working."
"Don't worry."
Li Yao said as she grabbed the flywheel of the steam engine and forcefully cranked it. A miraculous thing happened.
The previously motionless piston actually started moving back and forth under the push of the steam, and through a unique link mechanism it drove the punch.
Li Yao stepped on the pedal.
Bang!
The punch immediately obeyed and punched, retracted, then stopped at the highest point waiting for the next command.
After trying repeatedly without any issues, Li Yao used a small forceps to clip a fine steel ball blank and placed it in the mold.
Bang!
With the huge punching force, the steel ball blank was punched into an almost perfect sphere in an instant. Then only the burrs needed to be removed and it would be a qualified steel ball.
Seeing Li Yao's series of operations, Xia Xian even forgot to keep swinging the bellows.
It took him at least ten minutes to make a qualified steel ball, and he needed full concentration.
But with this set of equipment, it was almost instantaneous to complete, and probably only needed an hour to match his annual output!
It was really amazing.
How did the boss come up with these ideas?
Was she really just a housewife who had never even left Baichuan County?
"Keep stoking the fire, let's test for two hours first."
Li Yao's voice brought Xia Xian back to his senses. He pulled the bellows to make the fire burn more vigorously.
After testing for half a day, Li Yao produced half a basket of steel balls, but she was not very satisfied.
There were still too many problems.
The precision was not enough, the seals were not tight with steam leaking everywhere, the transmission mechanism design was not very reasonable and prone to jamming, the mold strength was too low and easy to deform...
In short, there were still too many areas needing improvement that could not be completed overnight.
"These are the issues," Li Yao handed the notes to Xia Xian, "I've also written down solutions. Try to improve them according to the notes first. If that doesn't work, come to me again and we'll think of ways together."
Looking at the densely packed notes on the paper, Xia Xian really wanted to know what Li Yao's brain was like, how she could understand so many strange things.
Improving the steam engine, transmission device, punch, wire drawing die, punching mold... had become Xia Xian's most important work recently.
With the arrival of spring, Li Yao also started her farming plan.
Nearly 10,000 mu of barren hills could not be planted by Da Zhuang alone, so idle villagers were put to use again.
According to Li Yao's requirements, Wang Yuanguo bought back a large number of various fruit tree seedlings.
Li Yao planned the entire hillside to the top of the barren hill into orchards, so these saplings could be planted now.
Since the holes had been pre-dug, planting was very easy. The biggest difficulty was watering.
In the past few days, everyone had been carrying water buckets up the hill, but found it exhausting, and more than 100 people carrying water still seemed inadequate.
Seeing many tree saplings planted in the soil but unable to be watered, showing signs of drying up, Da Zhuang grew increasingly anxious. Finally he steeled his heart.
Mother said, to get rich, build roads first.
He immediately had everyone stop planting trees and focus their efforts on opening a dirt road along the hillside. At the same time he asked carpenters to make more than a dozen large buckets, and kept sending water up the hill with ox carts.
If there were not enough ox carts, then buy some more.
If there were not enough oxen in the village, then buy more oxen!
But he would need to discuss buying oxen with Li Yao.
"Mother, I want to buy more oxen."
These days, Li Yao had seen Da Zhuang's performance and knew that this eldest son had gradually broken out of his inherent mindset. So she asked, "Buying oxen is fine, but you have to calculate clearly how many oxen are appropriate for the family to raise."
"I've calculated it," Da Zhuang said. "With so much land, raising 10 oxen should be about right."
Expecting to get Li Yao's approval, he did not expect her to shake her head.
"Too few."
"Huh?"
Da Zhuang was a little stunned. 10 oxen was still too few?
No family in the entire Baichuan County could raise 10 oxen!
"How much cultivatable land has been opened up on the barren hill?" Li Yao asked.
"About 3,800 mu."
"So much land can only support 10 oxen?"
Da Zhuang was a little confused.
Raising 10 oxen was for farming. Supporting... Did Mother mean raising oxen to sell for profit?
That's right!
Da Zhuang suddenly realized, as if the door to a new world had opened.
"Then I'll buy 30!"
Seeing that he got the point, Li Yao approved and said, "Keep the long term in mind when doing things, don't just look at present needs. Also, buy more piglets. When the sweet potato vines grow, less than a hundred pigs will not be enough to eat them."
"Oh!"
Tens of thousands of mu of barren hills and farmland!
30 oxen, 100 pigs!
Da Zhuang felt that before long, he would be able to become the largest planter and breeder in Yizhou Prefecture!