บท 19: Craftsman
บรรณาธิการ: Atlas Studios
The royal craftsman soon arrived at the dining room where Richard was.
The food on the table had been taken away, and Richard had spread a long scroll on it, quickly drawing something with a quill.
Edward was puzzled, yet he stood beside him not daring to disturb. The craftsman also did not have the courage to utter a word, so he merely bowed his head without speaking. However, he glanced at the scroll from time to time to check what Richard was drawing. He seemed to be drawing a machine. It looked like a windmill, but more complicated.
Scratch, scratch.
Eventually, Richard put down the quill in his hand, glanced at the content on the scroll, and nodded slightly, before turning to look at the craftsman waiting.
The craftsman looked more than 50 years old, but he was merely in his forties. Craftsmen led a difficult life in this world. Even if they were employed by the royal palace, they were only slightly better than serfs. Long-term fatigue made them age faster.
His face was full of wrinkles, and he had sunken eyes with heavy under-eye bags. At this moment, he was looking at the prince nervously.
"Are you Hans?" Richard asked.
"Yes, Your Highness, I'm Hans," the craftsman said quickly. He had not expected His Highness to call him by his name correctly. There was surprise and… panic in his voice. After all, it might not necessarily be a good thing for His Highness to remember a nobody like him.
Richard waved his hand and said directly, "Come over here and take a look at my blueprint. Can you understand it?"
"Yes." The craftsman hurriedly approached him, his eyes shifting to the scroll. After a few serious glances, he confirmed his guess and asked tentatively, "This- this seems to be a windmill, Your Highness?"
"Yes, it is indeed a windmill. Are you confident you can make it? I will give you five days at most," Richard said.
"Uh, this…" The craftsman hesitated, looked at the blueprint, estimated the workload, and said with uncertainty, "It should be possible."
"Take a closer look and give me an answer only when you are certain. If there is anything that you don't understand, you can ask me now, and I will answer your questions. Don't tell me in a few days that there's a problem and you can't complete it," Richard said.
"Uh, yes yes," the craftsman replied, sweat dripping from his face. He looked at the blueprint again, his eyes flashed. He suddenly realized that the blueprint was not as simple as he had thought it to be. At the very least, when compared to ordinary windmills, there were many parts that he could not understand.
He quickly stretched out his hand and pointed at a specific part. "Your Highness, there- there seem to be some problems in this area. Windmills are usually installed on a pillar. Why is the windmill installed on this—"
Richard glanced at it and slowly said, "This is a turret."
"A turret?" The craftsman was startled.
"Indeed, windmills are usually installed on pillars. The structure is simple and easy to build, but the disadvantage is that they cannot always adapt to the wind direction and need to be adjusted manually, which is laborious and inefficient. However, in this blueprint the windmill blades will be installed on a special turret. The turret can automatically rotate around the central axis to face the wind's direction. This will allow us to utilize the wind as much as possible at all times," Richard explained aloud.
The craftsman widened his eyes, surprise on his face. "Can- can this really be done? But Your Highness, how do we do it? The wind… won't just come from one direction, it may be from any direction."
"There is a specific part on the turret for that." Richard pointed at the blueprint. "There is a tail fan behind the main blade, perpendicular to it. It's connected to the gear track on the edge of the turret. So no matter which direction the wind comes from, as long as it blows through the tail fan, the tail fan will push the turret to rotate, ensuring that the main blade of the wind tower is always aligned with the wind's direction."
The craftsman listened to his explanation, scratching his head. He still did not quite understand. However, at least he was certain about one thing: His Highness was not talking nonsense. He knew what he was doing. In fact, he was much more knowledgeable than him.
In that case…
The craftsman took a deep breath and asked questions about different areas he could not understand. "Your Highness, over here…"
"Yes, the two heavy balls that swing outward on the cantilever are centrifugal governors. You don't need to understand the principle. All you have to know is that they can be used to automatically adjust the rotor speed to adapt to different wind speeds. That's it."
"Uh, okay. Your Highness, about the rotor—"
"Oh, that." Richard picked up the quill and ticked off the corresponding parts. "This is somewhat complicated. You don't have to do it, I will do it myself. I need it to induce electricity, and I'll need artificial magnets for that. You don't have the skills to make them yet."
"Well, Your Highness, how about this part over here?"
"This is an improved crankshaft, used to transfer energy to drive the rotor. Pay attention to it."
"Your Highness, how about this part?"
"This is the area where the current is stored. I will do it myself. All you need to do is to leave the necessary space for it."
"How about over here?"
Richard took more than an hour to explain everything in detail, until the craftsman finally figured out the specific parts of the blueprint. He wiped the sweat from his face and said, "Your Highness, this windmill seems to be a really difficult project. I am afraid that five days—"
"One week then," Richard said, his voice somewhat serious. "But it can't be any longer. I have limited time. This must not be delayed."
"Uh, this…" The craftsman hesitated, not daring to refuse his order. He gritted his teeth and nodded. "Sure, Your Highness, I will make it in a week."
"Good."
The craftsman took the blueprint and left. The next moment, Edward was about to say something when Richard glanced at him and gave an order, "Edward, find me some iron filings and rust powder."
"Huh?" Edward was taken aback. He said what he had been trying to say all the while, "Your Highness, what is it that you are making?"
"You will know by then," Richard said.
"Uh, okay." His answer was similar to not answering at all. Edward shrugged, turned and left helplessly.
That afternoon, iron filings and rust powder were sent to Richard's private laboratory.
Inside the private laboratory, the bright afternoon sun shone through.
Richard looked at the dozens of catties[1.Catty is a unit of weight, used especially in East Asia, traditionally equal to about one and a half pounds but formalized as 0.5 kg in mainland China] of iron filings and rust powder on the experiment table and nodded with satisfaction. Although Edward had mediocre swordsmanship skills, he was still fairly capable.
According to Edward, the combined weight of these iron filings and rust powder exceeded 100 pounds. The pound was a British-American unit of weight. One pound was equivalent to 0.45359237 kilograms, which was about 0.9071847 catties. However, every time someone mentioned this British-American unit of weight, Richard's habit was to automatically convert it into the unit that he had memory of.
One pound was about 0.9 catties, therefore 100 pounds was equivalent to about 90 kilograms, which was quite a lot.
The only reason why he needed so many iron filings and so much rust powder was to make the rotor for the windmill.
Richard had decided to use the most fundamental method, one that would never fail to create electricity.
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