As Gao Dongliang listened to the praise from the crowd, a confident smile appeared on his face.
With a wave of his hand, he set the tone:
"Therefore, our mission this time is not improvement, but revolution! We need to start from scratch and design a truly scientific and efficient furnace! Let them see what we're made of!"
So, the expert team, brimming with confidence, began their "disruptive transformation".
They first abandoned the core of Su Tang's design—the swirling flue—and replaced it with the straight-vent mode they were most familiar with. Then they added several rings of heat sinks to the chimney, calling it "increasing the heat dissipation area."
Then, they felt that the furnace was too small and not hot enough, so they doubled the volume of the furnace, believing that this would make it burn more vigorously and with greater firepower.
As for the kaolin that Su Tang had gone through so much trouble to find, they also felt that it was "too simple in composition" and took it upon themselves to add a lot of traditional auxiliary materials that they believed could enhance heat resistance, such as asbestos and quartz sand.
Zhou Huai'an would come to the workshop every day to check on the progress. Watching the furnace take shape day by day in the hands of the experts, becoming tall, mighty, and full of heavy industrial aesthetics, he was overjoyed.
He could almost see himself reporting the victory to the central government, receiving commendation from his superiors, and enjoying a bright future in his career.
Meanwhile, Su Tang's makeshift team was placed in an old workshop.
The room was drafty, and the tools were all outdated hammers and pliers, which couldn't compare to the sophisticated tools the expert team had.
Geng Xiangdong, Lin Fan, Lu Gong, and others felt a surge of anger as they looked at the generous treatment the expert team received and the shabby conditions on their own side, but they didn't stop working.
Su Tang didn't care about any of that. She was wearing a set of dirt-resistant blue overalls and personally taking charge. Wearing gloves, she was using a large wooden basin to mix "special refractory clay" strictly according to the formula on the blueprint.
Kaolin, diatomaceous earth, and several other rare earth element powders extracted from space—powders yet to be discovered in this era—were fused together in her hands in a precisely calculated ratio.
"Add another thirty milliliters of water," she commanded without looking up.
Chen Xue immediately measured out the water precisely with a measuring cup and carefully poured it in.
In Su Tang's hands, the clay seemed to come alive, gradually becoming delicate and supple.
During the subsequent high-temperature firing, the clay exhibits a perfect ceramic texture, producing a clear, metallic sound when tapped, and is indestructible.
Other highly skilled veteran workers are responsible for the precise assembly of the secondary combustion chamber and the hollow water jacket. Every component is seamlessly connected, showcasing the beauty of an industrial work of art.
Su Tang directed the entire process, occasionally picking up a vernier caliper to correct an error down to the millimeter level.
Sometimes he would pick up a piece of chalk and draw sketches on the ground to explain the thermodynamic principles behind a design to the experienced workers.
Her unbelievable breadth of knowledge and powerful ability to manage situations won the hearts and minds of the entire team, resulting in astonishingly high efficiency.
The following afternoon, the expert team sent a young assistant named Sun Hong, who was ordered to gather intelligence.
Sun Hong, with his hands behind his back, strolled leisurely into Su Tang and the others' work shed.
He first glanced disdainfully at the dilapidated surroundings, then his gaze fell on the small, ugly-looking stove that was being assembled, and he couldn't help but curl his lip.
"Hey, old master, busy?" He walked up to an old master craftsman who was polishing parts and asked casually, "Your furnace doesn't look very big, is it okay? Can it get hot?"
The old foreman didn't even look up, continuing to file the parts in his hands while replying in a deep voice, "We do what the boss says. Whether it works or not, we'll know after we compare."
Sun Hong encountered a setback, which was neither too direct nor too indirect. Somewhat unwilling to give up, he moved closer to Lin Fan, looked at the complex honeycomb-shaped component in Lin Fan's hand, and asked with feigned curiosity:
"Hey young man, what are you making? It's all weirdly shaped, what's the point?"
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