Chapter 374: Great Power Weapon

Chapter 374: Great Power Weapon
"The armor of our new tank should be thicker. It must be able to withstand 47mm rapid-fire cannons."

"Sir, don't worry about it. The foreign designers have considered it. In fact, steam tractors have excess power. The tanks we have designed now can even withstand the new tank guns we have designed."

"Hey, when will our own designer come out?"

"Our people are assistants to foreign designers, so they are not good enough now. When the students of Hailing University graduate next year, we will probably be able to produce designers. In a few years, there will be students graduating from universities built in various provinces. After a few more years of learning from foreign experts, we will definitely be able to do it."

Shao Quanzhong was standing with his hands behind his back, looking at the new tank designed by the Hailing Tractor Factory. Tanks cannot be hidden, and once they appear on the French battlefield, the suddenness of the attack is a one-shot deal.

The great powers don’t need to import technology, they can do it on their own, but the Huai Army must strive to maintain its leading edge.

"This time when we invaded France, we used a small number of troops, and basically did not use the armored vehicle troops. Although armored vehicles have poor defense, they are fast and easy to maneuver, and can provide more timely support to infantry. In the future, they will be equipped with rapid-fire cannons."

"Maria, send an order to the new army in the four provinces directly under our jurisdiction. Each infantry division must have an armored vehicle unit."

"Report! Maxwell requests to see you."

Ahem, this old guy is finally here. Damn, my wallet is going to bleed again.

I ran to the tractor factory to avoid you, and you actually followed me. It seems that I can't get through this hurdle without two hundred thousand taels of silver.

Seeing Maxwell coming over calmly, Shao Quanzhong felt like a fat sheep being slaughtered. "Old Maxwell, don't worry. I robbed some money from the Bank of France. Although money is needed everywhere, yours is indispensable. This time I will approve at least 200,000 silver for you."

Maxwell said elegantly, "Your Highness, there is no rush to study the funding issue. Our experts at Xiaoxiangya Academy of Sciences strongly urge you to inspect and see our latest achievement - the giant 20-bit differential engine."

They all strongly requested that they should go over there. After all, they were all foreign Hanlin scholars with official positions and truly learned scholars. Shao Quanzhong, a semi-illiterate man, still respected scholars very much. Let's go over and take a look.

Shao Quanzhong was very nervous while walking on the road. Old Mac is talking about art when he wants to allocate funds. He invites me to inspect in person and then gives me a ladder to prepare medicine and flatter me. How can I not bleed more? I guess two hundred thousand silver coins can't stop it.

In fact, Xiaoxiangya has received funding from the state. Yung Wing is now in charge of the Prime Minister's Office of Foreign Affairs and has also joined the Grand Council. In the future, the funding for Xiaoxiangya Academy of Sciences will be even better.

What scientists asked for from Shao Quanzhong were additional special funds. The funding for key research projects was not enough, so they thought of Shao Quanzhong, the fat sheep.

Shao Quanzhong had no idea what a difference engine was. He heard it was used for calculations, so it must be a large abacus. How much bigger could it be?

Maxwell led him into a two-story factory building. Wow, there was a huge thing, almost as tall as a steam tractor, filling the entire room.

This thing is so big? Not only is it big, but it is also extremely precise. Shao Quanzhong looked around and said, "This part must cost tens of thousands, right?"

"To be specific, this giant differential machine has 25,000 parts, and the processing accuracy requirement for each part is one hundredth of an inch."

This is a large and delicate job. No wonder Babbage risked his life to take his own warship to see the results of his research. This thing is really not something that ordinary countries can make.

"Your Highness, our Academy of Sciences had the ambition to build this great weapon after the arrival of German technicians who came to aid Qing."

"The British invested 30,000 pounds in this thing, but after ten years of trying to make it, they gave up. One reason was that they were reluctant to invest more money, and the other was that the processing technology was not that advanced at the time."

"Over the past few decades, the industries of various countries have developed greatly, and the technological level of machine tools has improved. Thanks to your Highness, Xiaoxiangya Academy of Sciences has sufficient funds, so we will try to build this thing."

"In addition to the high level of German craftsmanship, the performance of the skilled craftsmen of the Qing Dynasty also exceeded our expectations. For this huge national project, we have mobilized 1,000 senior technicians from all over Hailing, and three quarters of them are from the Qing Dynasty."

"After the completion of this major project, Hailing's factories have produced a thousand eighth-level fitters. Their high-end competitiveness in the machinery industry is no less than that of any industrial power."

Because of the attraction of high pay, Hailing gathered skilled craftsmen from the 400 million people in the Qing Dynasty. There is still a long way to go in designing the Qing Dynasty, but in terms of personal skills, China has never lacked talented people.

Shao Quanzhong was really interested now. I don't know if the differential engine is useful, but military training can directly promote industrial progress. This is good, I understand. "What's the point of us going to so much trouble to build this thing?"

Maxwell took out a book and said, "Your Highness, please take a look at this."

Shao Quanzhong opened it and saw a complicated table of numbers in French. Do you really want to make fun of me?

"This is a logarithmic table. France gathered all the French mathematicians and spent ten years to create it."

"Don't underestimate this table. It is used in the design of precision machine tools and high-end weapons."

"But this table is manually calculated, and there are two or three errors on almost every page. Manual recalculation is a huge workload and almost impossible to achieve."

When Mr. Babbage was young, he spent ten years building a six-digit difference engine and revised this table, which made Britain a world industrial power.

But six decimal places are far from enough to meet the rapid development of industrial technology, so we built this big guy.

I see. This thing is the foundation behind industrialization. The Academy of Sciences has finally produced something useful.

"Old Mac, is this thing overspent? Just tell me how much money is needed."

"The Giant Difference Engine has exhausted the Academy's funds. We need 300,000 taels of silver to make up for it. However, we hope to obtain a further investment of 2 million taels of silver."

What? Old Mai, you are going too far. You spent 300,000 taels and you asked me for 2 million taels. Do you really think that Mr. Shao's money came from the wind?

"We want two million taels for a larger national project. Come with me and let Mr. Babbage tell you himself."

In the design studio next door, although Babbage was still sitting in a wheelchair, he was able to speak fluently after being personally cared for by Mr. Fei, but he still looked very weak.

In the design studio, the walls are covered with drawings, and a general plan that looks extremely complicated is particularly eye-catching.

Babbage's eyes looked a little empty. "I brought 50,000 parts drawings this time, as well as dozens of computer programs designed by my beloved Ada, including programs for calculating trigonometric functions, multiplication of series, and Bernoulli functions."

"Ada is Byron's daughter and my only confidant. She funded me to design the unprecedented 'Analytical Engine' and even programmed it herself."

"It's a pity that she died young and never saw the birth of my Analytical Engine. Once the Analytical Engine is built, it can automatically solve complex calculations with a hundred variables, accurate to 25 decimal places..."

Shao Quanzhong scratched his head. "Didn't Maxwell say that the Difference Engine was sufficient? What's the point of building an Analytical Engine?"

Maxwell interjected, “If you can fund this project, it will make Qing Dynasty far ahead in the world in the future.”

"The Analytical Engine designed by the genius Babbage can calculate results that are completely impossible to calculate by human power by designing a program and inputting it into a punching machine."

"But it's useless, isn't it? It's such a waste to throw two million silver coins down the drain."

Maxwell said seriously, "It's useless now. But I'm an electromagnetic scientist. I predict that within 70 or 80 years, humans will be able to build an electromagnetically controlled analytical machine, and the input program will replace the human brain's thinking."

"The future world will be a world of computers. Once computers are introduced, almost everything will depend on them. Countries without these things will be left far behind and will no longer be able to catch up."

"The computer designed by Mr. Babbage and the computer program designed by Countess Ada represent the future of the world. If the Qing Dynasty has enough reserves in this area, it will be the absolute leader of the world in 70 years, and no country can challenge it."

(End of this chapter)