Chapter 303: The Turning Drilling Machine
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It was another sunny day, with the warmth of spring spreading across Qingzhou. As the grass and trees along the Xiaoqing River began to turn green, more and more people headed outside for the spring outing.
The night after Wang Xuan left, four foreign merchants and six foreign refugees were arrested in Qingzhou.
In an effort to increase the labor force in his domain, Xiao Ming’s refugee policy seemed to have become a target for various factions to place spies among the incoming refugees.
According to Qingzhou law, those who were causing trouble among the refugees were to be executed immediately. The Qingzhou newspaper reported this, serving as a warning to the constantly arriving refugees from other places.
Though Xiao Ming understood that absorbing refugees would inevitably attract some with ill intentions, he couldn’t afford to ignore the issue entirely. After all, the refugee policy overall brought Qingzhou a population dividend.
Many of the workers involved in Qingzhou’s road construction were inexpensive refugees with no stable livelihood.
At the Machinery Department
Today was the day when the machinery department delivered tools to the water-powered lathe workshop. The craftsmen in the lathe workshop were going to use these tools for the first time to produce hollow gun barrels, the final piece needed for the flintlock musket.
Zhao Long held the reins of his horse, and Xiao Ming jumped off his horse. Zhang Liu was already in the workshop, instructing the craftsmen to install the drill bit onto the water-powered lathe.
This water-powered lathe had a waterwheel at one end, positioned in the fast-flowing current of the Xiaoqing River. As the waterwheel rotated quickly, it powered a circular stone disk fixed to the wheel. This disk acted as a flywheel, and in the center of the disk was the drill bit. The rotating stone disk caused the drill bit to spin, and this was the water-powered lathe Xiao Ming had had the craftsmen create.