Chapter 1008: Steel Feet in the Mud (First Update, Please Subscribe)
Talented people emerge in every generation.
Although the personnel changes at the core of the Ming Empire have caused a certain response around the world, and countries around the world are paying attention to the next move of the Ming Empire, for ordinary people, the impact of the changes in the core on their lives... is almost zero.
Compared with the changing situation in official circles, what do ordinary people care about?
Of course, it’s the simplest thing - life.
The seven necessities of life for ordinary people are firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea.
The glory of the empire, the future of the empire, are too far away from ordinary people.
In the early morning, when the crowing of roosters echoed between heaven and earth, in the barn nearby, Wu Huasun, covered in oil, was busy there. The engine of a Benniu 24 tractor in front of him had been disassembled into eight pieces.
Benniu tractor is a famous brand produced in Daming. Five years ago, Benniu Tractor Company was established and launched the Benniu 16 tractor, which was the world's first internal combustion engine tractor. It used a 16-horsepower gasoline engine and changed the clumsiness of steam tractors. It quickly won the market's favor. It was not only popular among Daming farmers, but also exported in large quantities to Europe and the United States.
In the past few years, this light tractor that can tow plows, sow seeds, and even tow harvesters has been very popular in the market and has become standard equipment on many Chinese farms.
Picking up a newspaper from the side, Wu Huasun didn't even look at the news that Qian Degong became the Prime Minister of the Executive Yuan. He tore off a corner of the newspaper, took out some tobacco leaves, rolled a cigarette, lit it, took a puff, and then talked to himself.
"This wheel is totally unsuitable."
Staring at the wheels of the tractor, Wu Huasun frowned. His farm was very close to the wetland, where the soil was very moist. The wheels of the tractor were prone to slipping or even failing. This matter had always bothered him.
In fact, the wheels of tractors were originally made of steel. In order to facilitate use on farmland, designers widened the wheels to increase the ground contact area and reduce pressure, but the effect was not good. Later, a rubber protective layer was added to the steel wheels. In addition to steel wheels, Benniu tractors also have pneumatic tires like cars. However, car tires are not completely suitable for tractors because the grooves of car tires are too shallow and thin.
Staring at the shallow and fine grooves on the outer rubber layer of the steel wheel, Wu Huasun, who was holding a cigarette in his mouth, suddenly had an idea.
"What if it's tracked?"
Wu Huasun, who once served in the Imperial Armored Forces, was no stranger to tracks. After all, the biggest difference between tanks and armored vehicles was the steel tracks. It was also the steel tracks that allowed it to move on the muddy battlefield as if it were flat ground.
Recalling the tracks he had seen in the army, Wu Huasun naturally remembered the "confidentiality agreement" he signed with the army when he retired.
"The confidentiality contract is not to disclose military secrets such as tanks and machine guns, not... the track is just a spare part."
Sometimes, people always have some sudden ideas, and when these ideas come up, they themselves don’t know whether the idea is right or wrong, but what is certain is that although Wu Huasun said to himself that "the track is not a tank but a part", he still made many modifications to the parts, just borrowing the idea of the track. After completing the preliminary design, Wu Huasun went straight to the nearby station locomotive depot.
Every slightly larger railway station has a locomotive depot, where trains are inspected and repaired. There are all kinds of machine tools and equipment used to repair train parts. In addition, they also accept external orders. After all, within a radius of hundreds of miles, there is only one enterprise with mechanical processing capabilities.
Staring at the drawings Wu Huasun brought, the engineer from the maintenance section thought for a moment and said.
"Are these parts all made of steel?"
"Yes, made of steel."
Wu Huasun asked, explaining his ideas one by one.
“How long will it take?”
"About a week. You know, this kind of off-site business needs to be queued behind regular business. You have to wait for a few days."
"Okay, I'll come back in a week."
The rest of the process was simple, just signing the contract and paying the deposit, and then all that was left was waiting. Of course, Wu Huasun didn't wait. After returning to the farm, he began to make some simple modifications to the wheels so that they could adapt to the steel tracks.
A week later, Wu Huaxun brought back nearly 300 pieces of steel tracks from the locomotive depot, including cast tracks, machined connecting pins and cap pins. After connecting these parts one by one, two tracks soon appeared in front of him. He spread the tracks flat in front of the wheels, drove the tractor carefully onto the tracks, dragged the tracks, and finally connected the tracks into a whole with connecting pins. After fixing the cap pins with a hammer, he stared at the tractor equipped with a pair of "steel feet".
Wu Huasun said to himself.
"It looks like that."
After he started the engine once more, shifted the gears, and stepped on the clutch, Wu Huasun took a deep breath. The moment he released the clutch, he could feel the wheels seemed to move, and at the same time he heard a sound similar to "the rattling of chains" in his ears.
“It’s moving, it’s moving…”
Wu Huasun shouted excitedly and drove the tractor out of the barn. The tractor went straight towards the house. When he turned the steering wheel hard, he remembered that the tracks were not controlled by the steering wheel.
"No, we have to think of a way..."
In the following month, Wu Huasun devoted all his attention to his "steel feet" and began to modify the steering system. Finally, a month later, he appeared on his farm driving a newly modified tractor. Amid the roar of the engine, the tractor equipped with a pair of "steel feet" easily plowed several furrows on the sticky black soil.
"Much faster than before..."
Wu Huasun said a little excitedly.
In the past, tractors would easily slip when plowing the fields, but now it is easier than ever to plow the fields.
At the end of the day, they even plowed more than ten acres of land.
However, in just a few days, the news that Wu Huasun installed a pair of steel feet on the tractor spread throughout the surrounding area, attracting not only the attention of nearby farmers, but also the attention of reporters, and soon reporters came to interview him.
Facing the interview with the reporter, Wu Huasun did not hide anything. A few days later, a piece of news appeared in the local tabloid...
(End of this chapter)
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