Life of Being a Crown Prince in France

Chapter 1196: Chapter 1102: Watt’s Despair (Double-Length Chapter)

Joseph gave orders for the arrangements in Ireland, then suddenly remembered something: “By the way, the work at the Bolton-Watt Company should also be wrapping up. The British Government seems to be short on money lately, so let’s give them a little extra pressure.”

Lavallette immediately bowed and said, “Yes, Your Highness.”

The Security Bureau had long made a full plan for the Bolton-Watt Company as per the Crown Prince’s request; now they just needed to execute it step by step.

…

England, Birmingham.

In a vast, luxuriously decorated experimental workshop in the west of the city, Watt was vexed by the shouting and blaring coming from the street.

It was from a protest march against the soaring sugar prices.

Watt turned his head and yelled at a technician: “Stuff all the window gaps with paper! Quickly!”

The technician hurriedly bowed his head and ran off, calling other technicians to block the windows.

Watt focused his attention back on the massive steam engine in front of him, his furrowed brow filled with agony and despair.

He originally thought that simply enlarging the existing Engine52 steam engine proportionally—proven to be a very clever and reliable design for a high-pressure steam engine—would easily achieve the 180-horsepower version.

However, after laboring to build a prototype, he found himself trapped in a terrifying nightmare.

The enlarged boiler of Engine52 was as tall as 6.5 meters, with a diameter close to 1.8 meters. Once operational, the towering boiler would shake violently with the piston’s movement.

The over 6-meter-tall cast iron giant, once it started shaking, would make the ground tremble, and the boiler’s joints soon showed signs of metal fatigue.

To lower the steam engine’s overall center of gravity, Watt had no choice but to increase the boiler’s diameter, but reality soon dealt him a harsh blow.

With the technology of this era, increasing the boiler diameter to 2 meters drastically reduced casting reliability, leading to various cracks and defects. To ensure quality, the craftsmen had to thicken the boiler walls by 70%, which in turn caused the steam engine’s weight to skyrocket.

And most despairingly for Watt, even with a diameter increased to 2 meters, the damn boiler was still unacceptably tall.

Yes, the maximum height acceptable for a vertical boiler from an engineering perspective corresponded to an output of 50 horsepower. Hence, historically, Mark Segan’s steam engine, despite its advantages, was merely a flash in the pan.

A company manager knocked on the door and entered, cautiously saying to the displeased Watt: “Mr. Watt, the general manager asked me to remind you that at two in the afternoon you have to present the progress on Engine180 at City Hall.”

Since the British Government investment fund became a shareholder of the Bolton-Watt Company, the company executives had to occasionally report to the overseeing officials, and the 180-horsepower steam engine, being critical to the company’s prospects, was naturally given the most attention.

Watt suddenly raised both fists and roared: “There’s nothing to report! Let those officials go to hell!”

The company manager shrank his neck and, leaving behind a “It’s at two this afternoon,” hurriedly fled.

The workshop door closed again, and Watt sighed dejectedly; the report still had to be dealt with somehow.

He signaled to a few technicians nearby: “Go organize the research logs from this month, and the technical details of the prototype. Oh, leave out the parts about the vibration issues and boiler overweight, those gentlemen won’t understand anyway.”

The technicians exchanged glances, and a middle-aged technician cautiously said: “Mr. Watt, we’re not very familiar with the prototype’s data, your requirements by two this afternoon are probably… very difficult to meet…”

Watt’s lips twitched upon hearing that.

Earlier in his anger, he forgot the workshop was filled with a bunch of incompetents, hardly any of whom could even read simple design blueprints.

This was one of the major reasons for his extremely slow research progress.

In fact, the redesign of the pressure gauge and safety valve for the 52-horsepower old model was only completed a week ago, almost single-handedly by him through sleepless nights.

Yes, the entire Bolton-Watt Company’s mid-to-high-level technicians were all recruited by Sandler before.

And his recruitment principle had only one rule, which was that they had to be incompetent.

At the same time, Sandler signed lifetime work agreements with them for the company, which would require thousands of British Pounds in compensation if they were to be fired.

So after taking over the experimental workshop, Watt could only pinch his nose and work with these nitwits, barely recruiting two somewhat capable young people, who were collectively ostracized by the older technicians.

Watt tried to calm himself and loudly called to a young man with brown hair not far away: “Marek, go organize the prototype data, and highlight the parts about vibration faults and overweight issues.”

He was the only useful technician in the entire workshop and had been a great help to him.

Marek immediately shouted: “Yes, Mr. Watt, I’ll need 40 minutes.”

Just then, Bolton unexpectedly pushed open the door and entered—he rarely visited the workshop—handing Watt a letter with a grave expression: “You’d better have a look at this, it’s just arrived from Sandler.”

“Sandler? He still…” Watt wanted to say “He’s still alive,” but swallowed the second half of the sentence. Considering Sandler’s injuries at the time, surviving for more than half a year was indeed a miracle.

He hesitantly unfolded the letter, only to find a messily written text glaring back at him, clearly indicating that Sandler was struggling to hold the pen.

The first two paragraphs were the customary greetings, and then suddenly turned to the development of the high-powered steam engine.