Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 770: Siberia, New Ship, & Steam Engine Advancement (2/2)
"If you find any other islands while you are traversing its coast, ignore them for now and complete this mission for me. This is not a mission to discover new islands."
Marc Anthony seriously looked at the document and readily agreed.
"Rest assured, Your Majesty, I will set off immediately."
"Good!"
The next moment, Vijay met up with Bhaskaracharya.
"Bhaskar, contact Danior for me."
"Right away, Your Majesty." Bhaskar did not know what His Majesty was up to, but he still followed the orders loyally.
By evening, Danior Boswell, one of the most successful ship designers in the empire, was in front of Vijay.
"Danior, I need you to design a merchant ship built only for the purpose of cargo capacity and speed." Vijay knew that with the development of the frontiers and the integration of the economy with Southeast Asia, trade would become critical.
And as the saying goes, if you want to do something great, prepare the tools first. The tool for any successful trade, especially intercontinental oceanic trade, is fast, reliable, and high-capacity cargo ships.
Guwahati-class armed merchant ships could no longer cut it. He needed dedicated ships able to carry twice or even thrice that of the Guwahati class.
"Here are the improvements that can be made to the ship. These are the technologies that have been researched in the Bharatiya Academy of Military Sciences. Find out a way to integrate these technologies into the design."
"Oh, and this is the general outline of the ship I envisioned. See if you can use it."
"I don't care what you do—even if you cooperate with other design firms, I will agree, and the funding will be abundant. But my only single condition is that the cargo capacity of the ship should reach a minimum of 3,000 tonnes and a speed of not less than 15 knots.
As soon as Danior Boswell heard the conditions, his eyes widened. Was His Majesty joking? He couldn't help but get nervous.
Vijay quickly understood the expression.
"You don't have to give me the design right away. I will give you a time of four months. Just experiment for yourself and give me the result."
Danior Boswell nodded numbly and left.
In fact, Vijay had no doubt whether the ship could be built because, in the details, he gave Danior Boswell, he put forward a lot of his own ideas, which had been inspired by 'Great Republic', the fastest all-wood-built clipper powered by sails in the world, built in 1853. It was built by an American named Donald Mackay with a gross tonnage of over 4,500 tonnes. Unfortunately, before it could go on its voyage, it was damaged by fire, after which it was rebuilt In 1855, and its gross tonnage reached nearly 4,000 tonnes. 'Great Republic' went on to become a very reliable ship, as it was in service for over three decades, after which it was sold to the Portuguese in the 1870s and renamed 'Dom Fernando'. It then went on to be in service for nine more years, almost a decade, until it got wrecked near the coast of Brazil.
There was no bottleneck in building this ship as far as tools were concerned; the bottleneck lay in ideas and technology. But with Vijay mentioning the crucial technologies that were used in the ship, like the four-masted rig design, clipper ship hull design, iron bracing in a wooden hull, large composite keel technology, hollow masts technology, and improved sail plan technology, he was sure that with the talent of Danior Boswell and the ship designers, as well as builders of the Bharatiya Empire, the construction of the ship would definitely start by the middle of 1663.
Vijay wasn't done yet. He travelled to the Bharatiya Academy of Military Sciences in Nagpur overnight and met up with Hey Ram.
Hey Ram was getting ready to join the research of next-generation weaponry for the Bharatiya Empire, but Vijay quickly stopped him.
"I need your expertise on another important project. Come here."
Hey Ram curiously followed.
Vijay looked at him with a smile. "You have participated in the research of the steam engine, haven't you?"
"Have you thought about further utilising the power of steam and building more powerful machines?"
"I had this idea, but I do not have the time to research it personally, so you can do it for me."
Vijay gestured with his hands in the air as if he were drawing a beautiful painting on an invisible canvas.
"Do you think instead of just pumping out water from the mines, it could be used to power fifth-generation machine tools directly?"
"Instead of using atmospheric pressure as the main driver and steam power as a catalyst, what if we directly use steam power as the driver? Let the pressure build up high enough in the chamber, and when the Tāpans reach their limit, it should move the piston. By moving the piston continuously in different chambers with different pistons, a relatively circular or pendulum-like motion should be generated. We can use this motion to make adjustments in the machine tools and have them calibrated to run on the power of the steam engine. Think about how industries will change once this technology is invented."
"Maybe it can be as revolutionary, if not more revolutionary, than the industrial system we are so proud of."
"Maybe this will be the culmination of all the Bharatiya Empire's efforts for the last decade. So, what do you think?"
Hey Ram's eyes immediately widened. His brain automatically added the graphics to the invisible canvas His Majesty drew—it looked beautiful.
'The fish is hooked,' Vijay immediately realized that he was successful.
"Immediately assemble your research team and get started with the research. I will allocate the funds immediately."
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In the meantime
Raya University, Cultural and Educational Capital, Sharada Pete, Kashyapamar State, Akhand Bharatiya Empire
A young boy with dishevelled hair was aimlessly looking at the sky. He kept muttering some complex words under his breath, but the students around him walked past as if he were a little off in his head. However, no one disturbed him since characters like him, who although unusual, were not rare.
Anand Binoy completely ignored the weird gazes of the people around him. Instead, he kept looking at the top of the hill, where the clouds began to gather.
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"Hey, it's raining!!!"
Water drops as big as pebbles started to fall. The students all ran into the dormitory of the university, but Binoy was different. Looking at the darkening sky, with flashes occasionally showing themselves to the world like a shy woman about to meet her future husband, he quickly got up and suddenly ran towards the hill just on the outskirts of the campus.
"Hey, Binoy, where are you running? Come back!!!"
His roommates, who saw him running towards the hill from the window of the dormitory, screamed at the top of their lungs. Binoy looked back, smiled, and waved his hand as he continued to run. He didn't have many classmates because he had entered the university through a special quota due to his excellent attainment in physics and mathematics. However, he was very bad in other subjects, so the only classes he attended were several physics and mathematics classes, thereby not having many friends except for his roommates.
His roommates knew that Binoy was a little special. He was a genius when it came to physics, but when it came to anything else, he was like a little kid who didn't know the common sense of the world.
"Let's go follow him. That guy—if something interests him, he wouldn't care even if it means putting himself in harm's way," one of the roommates said. They quickly picked up the leather umbrellas and ran behind him. They could still remember a few months ago how he burned himself with a lens in order to prove something he called the dual nature of light.
Binoy finally reached the top of the hill. He was panting, and the rain had already drenched him, making his clothes stick very close to his skin, causing itchiness and irritation. But he didn't care for any of it. His eyes stared motionlessly at the two iron rods, 10 meters tall, which he had planted on the ground at the top of the hill.
Between those iron rods, there seemed to be a lot of useless metal wires tied to them, each of a different colour.
His roommates finally caught up and immediately covered him with the leather umbrella they had brought. They were about to drag him back, but suddenly—
"BADUM!!!"
Lightning roared and hit one of the pillars, causing sparks to fly in the air.
Momentarily there was a burnt smell in the air but it was quickly dissolved in the chaos on top of the hill.
"Ah!!!"
The boys were startled and fell back on their asses, their faces filled with dread. But Binoy, unlike them, wanted to get closer to the iron pole. He wanted to see if the metal wires he had attached—each of different elements—had really melted as he had predicted or if something else had happened. But before he could get close, his classmates, not listening to a word he said, picked him up on their backs and ran down the hill.
