Chapter 174 Industrial Park

Two days after Ashes left, Maggie returned to Border Town unexpectedly and appeared in front of everyone again.

After asking why, her return was warmly welcomed, and the Witch Union had a new member.

What moved her greatly was that the welcome banquet was held in the back garden of the castle. The long iron shelves were hung with all kinds of meat, which could be taken down for barbecue at will. The seasoning is also very rich, including salt, oil, chili powder, pepper, and the barbecue sauce prepared by Roland himself. It is made by stewing soup with mushrooms from the Misty Forest and whole chicken, and then adding salt, sugar and wheat flour to stir it up. No MSG pity. Maggie almost stopped eating until her stomach was full.

Roland tested her abilities in the afternoon.

According to Nightingale's judgment, her total magic power is at the middle level among witches, and her ability can be transformed into various birds only if she has seen it before. It consumes a lot of mana when transforming, and it can change 4-5 times in a row in a day. It consumes very little mana to maintain the transformed state. It is a summoning ability and is affected by God's Stone of Retaliation. Her favorite bird is pigeons, but Roland noticed that no matter what kind of bird she turns into, she will be much bigger in size. For example, sparrows, in his opinion, are about the same size as ordinary pigeons. As for the real pigeon, it is almost the size of a sea eagle.

Maggie also couldn't turn into the flying beasts in fantasy, such as the phoenix, griffin and Kunpeng drawn by Roland, which made him quite regretful.

In addition, there is another point in Ashes' plan that deserves his attention, that is, what abilities do the many witches Tilly summoned have? If there are auxiliary witches that can greatly improve farming efficiency, he doesn't mind exchanging them for technology.

For this reason, Roland decided to write a long letter to Tilly, first explaining the natural alliance between the two sides, then warning her of the church's intention to unify the mainland, and finally handing over an olive branch, expressing the willingness to help each other and make progress together. When Maggie goes to the fjords next month, let her take it by the way.

The next day, the prince received another good news.

The factory building for the production of steam engines was finally completed. The factory building is located on the other side of the Chishui River, near the west end, next to Ye Zi's experimental field. The entire land has been surrounded by wooden fences, and a simple road leading to the pontoon bridge has been leveled. In Roland's plan, this place will be the future industrial park of the town.

Due to the need to expand the building space as much as possible, the workshop is built of light weight wood and covers an area of ​​about 1,000 square meters. The machine tools made by Anna have already been delivered, including two steam boring machines, two manual milling machines, one manual grinder and one machine tool. manual lathe. Although the principle of these machine tools is simple, the workmanship is first-class. Except for the parts such as the base and the pedals, which are made of wood, the other parts are all made of wrought iron or steel. It can be said that at the level of existing materials, Machining with the highest precision.

At present, there are only a dozen or so pitiful workers in the factory. They were originally blacksmiths and apprentices in the small town blacksmith shop, but now they are recruited here by Roland with a high salary of fifty silver wolves per month to learn how to operate high-end machine tools. And their blacksmithing tools and smithy were also moved to a brick building outside the factory building. Except for making some unimportant parts, the production of the steam engine will all be completed by machine tools.

Roland held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the gate of the factory building. In order to increase the momentum, he summoned some officials from the city hall and delivered a short speech. Amidst the echo-simulated salute, Graycastle Industries officially announced its establishment.

In the next few days, Roland, who is the head of the company, went to the factory whenever he had time to demonstrate the operation method of the machine tool and the manufacturing process of the steam engine. To let an illiterate blacksmith master how to process and assemble a steam engine, the best way he can think of is to illustrate the flow chart, similar to the assembly manual of a model, to mark the names, numbers, and dimensions of the parts one by one, and then explain their installation. The sequence and connections are depicted in the form of diagrams. On this point, Soraya helped him a lot.

The production in the first few days was just as he expected, and almost none of the parts met the requirements, let alone a complete steam engine. But Roland didn't care about the scrap rate. In Anna's hands, these scraps could be recast into new plates in the blink of an eye. He believes that after repeated practice, these blacksmiths will master the production methods of the new era sooner or later.

In addition to the industrial plant, the prince transformed the firing room and the backyard of the North Slope mining area into a military factory, mainly for the production of revolver rifles and bullets. The temperature of the batch-installed blast air bag has been greatly improved, and the cement powder can be fired independently, and the firing room is no longer necessary.

However, due to limitations in craftsmanship, the production of revolver guns and bullets is still done by Anna. Roland is designing a steam press for stamping bullets. Although the efficiency is not as good as Anna's cutting and shaping, it can at least reduce her burden. .

In order to thank Anna for being busy for nearly half a month, he decided to give her a gift.

*******************

"Gift?" Anna put down the cut parts in her hands, stroked the hair that slid to her forehead, and smiled brightly, "Okay."

"Aren't you going to ask about the gift?" Roland teased her.

"Hmm..." She thought for a moment, "I like all the gifts you gave me."

After more than half a year of recuperation, Anna can no longer find a trace of the shadow when she first met in the dungeon. Now she is thin and weak, her blue eyes are full of energy, and she is dressed in a plain dress. Full of youthful vigor.

This is what an eighteen-year-old girl should look like.

Seeing the corner of the other party's mouth curled up involuntarily, Roland's mood became much happier.

The "gift" was placed in the courtyard of the castle. In order to surprise Anna, it was covered with a layer of burlap. When making the Ashbringer, he had this idea in his mind. Since he was a prince, of course the gift had to be special. Finished products like jewelry seemed too insincere. He thought for a long time before he came up with this idea.

Roland uncovered the sackcloth, and a rattan basket appeared in front of the two of them. There were many hemp ropes connected to the top of the basket, and a huge piece of canvas was on the other end of the hemp rope.

"What is this...?" Anna stepped forward and circled it, curiously asking.

"A hot air balloon," he replied with a smile, "can take you up into the sky and look down on the earth like a bird."

"Fly to the sky?" She turned her head, her eyes sparkled with excitement, "Is it really possible?"

Flying in the sky has been the dream of mankind since ancient times. From hang gliding to hot air balloons, from airships to airplanes, people have made great sacrifices in their exploration and challenges, and have never given up on this pursuit. Although there are witches in this world, flying is still the right of a few. The scenery seen through the high-altitude perspective is bound to leave a deep impression on people.

"Of course, just let the hot air fill the air pocket."

Roland asked Nightingale to find Lightning and Maggie to act as emergency personnel. In case of an accident, Lightning and Maggie who turned into a large sea eagle could at least protect the two of them to land safely. As for the other witches, he decided not to call them for the time being, especially Wendy and Scroll, who would definitely oppose any of his adventurous actions. In the eyes of the two of them, he must not make any mistakes. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian to vote, your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile phone users, please go to read.)