Expansion and Growth (3)
With the king's orders, Gwon Yul led every unit of the Hwaryeokgun stationed at Banjeum and moved westward.
Crossing a swamp seventy kilometers long.
And then immediately established a new base.
On the east bank of a river flowing between two mountains roughly one hundred seventy meters high.
There was nowhere else to get stones or wood except that barren plain, and it was the absolute best location.
Because it was a strategic point on the route to the Ming and Mongolia.
They even had monuments carved with the character for “Yoha” placed at intervals along the river.
Anyone who received a message from the king’s messenger would understand its importance at once.
Meanwhile.
Hwang Jin’s cavalry patrolled along the birch fences known as yujobyeon and captured everyone they encountered.
Han Chinese were thrown inside the fence,
Jurchens were chased far to the east,
Joseon people were told to farm near the base, and
Mongols were taken for questioning.
“Why have you Mongols come this far?”
“I came to trade, my lord.”
“We told you many times that Joseon does not trade with the Mongols. Why do you keep doing this?”
“That is⋯.”
“Was it the Ming who ordered you?”
“No, my lord.”
“What?”
“It is not like that.”
“Then what?”
“I truly came because I wanted to trade.”
“Do you take us for fools?”
“No, my lord. I could not starve to death⋯.”
Each interrogator noticed the nervousness and closed his mouth, yet showed no mercy.
“I’ll feed you so you can live, so go and mine coal or copper,” and all of them were sent away in chains.
As a result, Joseon soldiers fled at the slightest sign of trouble.
Each time they were shot by the 12.7mm sniper rifles and sent to the afterlife,
yet information gathered along the way was compiled and analyzed.
Something felt off.
Those working the mines began speaking one by one, yet all pointed to a single person.
“Hyung, isn’t this strange?”
“Indeed. Dongsaeng. Jang Geo-jeong is supposed to be a famous Grand Secretary, yet he is handling matters so sloppily? That’s hard to believe.”
“Could someone be framing him?”
“Who? Only the emperor is higher than him?”
“That’s the thing. The emperor wouldn’t stoop to this, right?”
“He’s only ten years old, so it doesn’t seem likely⋯. Could the eunuchs have been plotting behind the scenes⋯?”
“What do they gain?”
“Hmm⋯. Since we don’t know the internal situation, let’s just summarize and report. What His Majesty desires is to protect this place.”
“Understood, Hyung. Then I’ll handle the Hwaryeok Military Academy officers and education.”
“Don’t overdo it, Dongsaeng.”
“Yes, Hyung.”
The officers of the Hwaryeok Military Academy nearing graduation roamed the area gaining experience.
Among them, Hwang Jin took responsibility for those who wanted to become cavalry officers.
All other cavalry commanders were too busy.
* * *
Zhu Yijun had ascended the throne but still had to watch his every step.
Because his teacher Zhang Juzheng had taken the opportunity of his youth to serve as regent.
Yet he did not simply sit and watch.
He appointed Eunuch Yao Chen and Li Qing as heads of the palace eunuchs and sent them to negotiate with Zhang Juzheng.
The result was a clean decapitation and the seizure of all his property.
But he could not relax.
Because his biological mother, the former Empress Dowager Zhang from the palace maid, sided with Zhang Juzheng.
So he resorted to measures.
Stir up conflict with Joseon to make Zhang Juzheng suffer.
Of course, it was the heads of the palace eunuchs, Yao Chen and Li Qing, who had egged him on.
Once Zhang Juzheng was gone, they would rule the world.
“What happened?”
“It went well.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. The Joseon army crossed the Yodong River and moved toward our side. Tell Zhang Juzheng to deal with it.”
“And if it is really dealt with?”
“That will never happen, so rest easy, Your Majesty.”
“I understand. Then do so.”
“I will obey, Your Majesty.”
Now that he was head of the palace eunuchs, Yao Chen and Li Qing did not dislike Joseon.
Because they could serve the emperor from close range after the envoy’s report from Joseon.
But the head of the palace eunuchs numbered ten more besides them.
All twelve of them, so called the Twelve Eunuchs, and among them some shared Zhang Juzheng’s views.
Therefore, one had to be constantly vigilant.
Even as the emperor’s personal eunuchs, a wrong move could end one’s life in this world.
* * *
Upon confirming that far more crude oil was seeping from the lower reaches of the Yodong River than expected, Yi Yeon immediately descended to Ganghwado.
He had not seen rain heavy enough to cause flooding, yet everywhere the crude oil had accumulated had suddenly vanished.
‘Enough for now. Plenty to last a while.’
Some of the exposed crude oil might have evaporated naturally, but that would take years, so before that, the team would drill for oil and develop equipment.
Producing chemical fibers to supply was not urgent.
Nanto Plain entrusted to Itayasu might be developed one day, but while developing the west and south coasts and planting much cotton, cotton would soon overflow.
Instead, nitrogen fertilizer production, which was immediately necessary, was handled first.
That way corn and potatoes could be mass-cultivated.
Sulfur and copper, which Joseon lacked, would come from Dong Joseon, so what was now needed was electricity.
Stable supply.
‘So we can produce nitrogen fertilizer on a grand scale.’
Hydrochloric acid could be obtained by extracting magnesium or calcium hydroxide from seawater.
Sulfuric acid could be made from sulfur.
But to obtain nitrogen fertilizer, enormous electricity was required.
To turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia via the Haber-Bosch process, a vast amount of hydrogen was necessary.
Hydrogen could also be produced from petroleum, but that too required electricity.
Even to build communication using wires and electromagnets, electricity was essential, so the most important thing was a generator capable of producing large, stable electricity.
Therefore, he had come straight to Ganghwado.
To examine the steam turbines and generators under development.
As soon as the revolutionary ship No. 3, which Yi Yeon had ridden, docked at Hadogou, welcoming people came to meet him.
“I congratulate Your Majesty on the victory!”
"""I congratulate Your Majesty on the victory!"""
Yi I stepped forward and bowed, and the others respectfully lowered their heads in unison.
Those who had seen the king for the first time prostrated themselves and kowtowed, but then.
“Are you all well?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Thanks to Your Majesty’s care, we have grown fat and healthy.”
Yi I and Kim Ji, seen after a long time, had plump faces with flesh.
“Growing fat is not good. Eat only a little oily food.”
“What? What do you mean, Your Majesty?”
“Oily food thickens the blood, and then the blood will not circulate well, right?”
“Ah, I didn’t realize that. Every night I’ve been eating fried chicken.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Oh no! From now on, eat fried chicken only once every five days. And never at night.”
“I will obey, Your Majesty.”
Fortunately, though they had eaten fried chicken every day, their bellies were not yet protruding.
Yi Yeon accepted their greetings and immediately headed to the place developing the steam turbines.
Even though he had been in Dong Joseon, he had been receiving constant reports, so he was curious how the development had progressed.
Yi I, seen after a long time, explained excitedly.
“Your Majesty, we added chromium and nickel as instructed and created a new metal. Truly, it does not rust.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Using it, we are experimenting with turbine blades and bearings as shown over there.”
They had made steam turbines from manganese alloy steel, but reports of ongoing problems during use had come in.
Hot steam caused rusting, they said.
It was not severe rusting, but pieces fell off while rotating at high speed and damaged the bearings, causing severe vibration.
So Yi Yeon ordered new alloy steel made using the chromium and nickel stored until then.
The chromium and nickel found in Dong Joseon were also sent.
Though Dong Joseon lacked iron, the other metals were surprisingly abundant.
However, they could not be used for making utensils.
Nickel, which entered only about ten percent for stainless alloy steel, was overflowing in Dong Joseon, but chromium, which needed to be added nearly twenty percent, was not abundant enough.
‘As always, chromium is the problem.’
In a seminar he had attended as a middle school science teacher in his previous life, it was said that common stainless kitchenware was made from chromium imported from Kazakhstan and the Republic of South Africa.
Chromium was also being mined in Vietnam and the Philippines, though he could not tell where.
Therefore, he planned to build industrial complexes in Singapore at the mouth of the Malacca Strait to block Western trade and to receive chromium ore.
To reach that place from Europe, one had to pass through the Republic of South Africa.
He had also asked the Oirat Choid tribe chief Togus to supply some.
Because the large nomad tribes there lived in places like Kazakhstan.
With this preparation, stainless kitchenware would solve the problem in time.
‘It would also increase the royal treasury.’
The king had said he would monopolize all underground resources and produce coins to circulate currency, but now it had become the center of all plans.
‘No resistance.’
The Joseon people had no resistance, but neither did the Dong Joseon people.
After occupying the archipelago and integrating it into Dong Joseon, no measures had been taken regarding farmland, so no resistance arose.
In fact, they liked it more.
They had been given one hundred baekbaek-ji of land each—land they had never dreamed of owning in their lives.
Therefore, he decided to continue in this direction to conquer the world.
But to continue generating revenue, new products had to be made constantly.
Although they were earning enormous profits from steel and glass mirrors, they were giving them away as well.
The most expensive expenditure among them was roads.
Roads cost a fortune to build, and even more to maintain.
Yet tolls could not be collected.
Otherwise, the active exchange of people and goods would be blocked.
‘America developed rapidly because of the Interstate, which they call the freeway.’
Therefore, all roads in the future would be free to use.
The cost would be covered by selling things like stainless kitchenware.
Having finished his thoughts, Yi Yeon examined the steam turbine blades and bearings that Yi I had mentioned carefully.
“Hmm⋯. Has the heat treatment been completed?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Like the springs, these turbine blades and bearings also required heat treatment to become harder and free of deformation.”
“Well done. Every metal must be heat-treated so its structure stabilizes; it is essential.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I have always kept that in mind.”
Yi Yeon nodded when he saw Yi I smiling with his chubby cheeks.
The man who applied every word he heard without forgetting was trustworthy.
“Then, let’s test it somewhere.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I will guide you over here.”
Following Yi I inside, he saw a long steel pipe about one meter in diameter.
Slightly concave in the middle.
And above it, a thick, solid-looking pipe was connected.
“You send steam to the center?”
“Correct, Your Majesty. If sent only in one direction, there is too much vibration, so we connected it both ways.”
As expected of Yi I.
Since they could not develop it perfectly from the start, he had explained the method of sending steam in one direction to operate the turbine blades.
But Yi I had invented a steam turbine that discharged steam in both directions.
“Your Majesty, it may be dangerous, so please step back.”
When Yi Yeon stepped back, Yi I gestured.
Then, a sound of steam traveling through the pipes accompanied the slight rotation of the steel axis connected to the center of the long pipe.
It gradually accelerated until the entire steel pipe began to vibrate.
“What is the speed?”
“Your Majesty, I tried to set it at three thousand six hundred revolutions per minute, but that was not well. So I attached a device to adjust steam pressure to about one thousand eight hundred.”
“How?”
“The conical rotor there opens and closes the steam input valve as it rotates.”
“Really? Is it not dangerous?”
“That is why I told you to step back.”
“Hmm⋯.”
Yi Yeon thought he had come at the right time.
The steam pressure adjustment device Yi I had made was the same one used in steam engines.
However, because the heavy cone rotated at high speed while adjusting steam pressure, the vibration was severe and it was impossible to tell when it would break.
The higher the rotation speed of the steam turbine shaft, the more severe the vibration, so it seemed the weight distribution was off.
‘Oh no! The rotation balance is messed up!’
Having identified the severe vibration problem, Yi Yeon asked Yi I.
“Why don’t you use gears?”
“Ah! I remember that method!”
Yi I blinked blankly.
Then Yi Yeon said one thing.
“The high-speed rotation is still too much, so lower the speed significantly and connect it with gears.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.”
Yi I hurriedly waved to stop the steam flowing into the steam turbine.
Only then did the trembling steel pipe find peace.
* * *