Road to the Crown

Chapter 215: Steam-powered vehicle

14th July 1574

"The ships have arrived, sir!"

Sitting down in one of the city taverns, I was having a quality time with Elia awaiting the news that just arrived.

"Good. Do they have everything that I asked for?"

Twisting my head from the lovely, Elia's face in front of me to take a look at the messenger, I saw him pulling something out from under his coat. Instantly alarmed, I was ready to react at any moment, only to see him pull out a piece of parchment and pass it down to me.

"Sir, the managers asked me to pass this list to you. It should contain all the answers that sir might ask!"

Taking the scroll to my hand, I quickly rolled it out on the table and scanned the content. Just like expected, providing any amount of new rifles or steam engines wasn't a problem at all, but poaching the ships that were currently stationed in the mining town's dock was the hard part.

Even though the hardest part has yet to come with taking all this stuff on land to the Zamosc city, it turned out that bringing them by the river to Sandomir would be the greatest hurdle.

In the end, I couldn't let the memory of this strange look on Governor's face from back in the royal palace out of my head. Luckily, from what I knew, when I went back to my own lands, he had to remain in the capital due to the overwhelming amount of all sorts of work that the senators had to handle, yet I couldn't count on him remaining there forever!

After all, moving such a huge amount of resources only to placate the feeling of another powerful family could be clearly taken as the shift of alliances on my side! Even though I hoped to kind of force Jan to joining the faction that I wanted to create with Zamoyski family, I had no way of guaranteeing that it would happen. That's why, in order to avoid clashing with my current protector, I really wanted to move all the gifts out of Sandomir before he would go back!

Obviously, there was no way to hide such a huge transfer of resources and manufactured goods through such a big city. I knew that the moment that Jan would be back to his home, he would learn about my actions, yet there was this little, annoying but useful truth about human interactions. It's far easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission!

"I see that those steel plates have arrived. Let's not waste any more time then."

With how relatively delicate the steam horses were, there was no way that I would transport them on our insanely tragic roads with a simple carriage!

But without the proper tools like springs or many other parts that were necessary to create a proper amortization for the carriages, I had no other way than to rely on the old and effective design!

Moving out from the inn where I was staying while waiting for the transports to arrive, I walked through the busy streets of the city before arriving at the space I rented in advance at the docks. Right there, a set of fifteen carriages was placed on its top, with everything that was supposed to allow for its movement lying deconstructed on the side.

"Sir, we have gathered all the materials. Can we begin?"

Looking at the several craftsmen that just recently joined the ranks of the mining town pioneers, I nodded my head. There was no point for me to explain anything, as before any of the newly recruited craftsmen would even touch their tools, they were forced to learn how to read the blueprints of mine.

In just a few moments, the thin sheets of metal separated. The moment the tiny rope that held them together was cut, they turned out to be a set of thin, curved leaves rather than a long, flat piece of steel!

After grouping each of the pieces into a set of three, each set composed of the varying sizes of the steel pieces, they were bound tightly together with another piece of tiny rope, before a set of nails would connect one of their ends to the base of the carriage. 

While using twine to connect moving elements was something that I abhorred, with how this would be the first time anyone would ever use such design, I still decided to go with it. After all, if something were to break, it would only take a moment for my men to fix it, as opposed to using a refined and complicated design that would require intentionally manufactured parts to be delivered in order to fix it!

As soon as all four points where the axis of the carriage would be normally mounted were fixed with those bound pieces of steel, another set of workers would bring the axis itself, and fit it through the small circles mounted at the bottom end of those leaf springs, effectively creating the first type of vehicle suspension in the history of humankind!

At least, that's what my guts told me because being just a simple weeb back in my modern timeline, I never would have bothered to check whether something like this wasn't invented in advance!

Yet the best part has yet to happen!

After everything was set in done, and the wheels were mounted once again on the axis, a small mechanism was added to both the rear and front of each carriage. While increasing the complexity of the vehicle by an insane amount, in itself, either of those bits was as simple as it could get!

Starting with the part mounted on the back of the single carriage that would overcome this modification, was nothing else but an additional, huge wheel, connected to a simple axis reaching all the way to the inner part o the carriage. In essence, as long as a steam horse would be placed in the trunk, by connecting the output of the engine with the input of said wheel, the very first, self-powered land vessel would be created!

Yet even with a means to push the carriage forward, it would be all for nothing if there would be no way to steer where it was supposed to be going!

And that's where the part at the top of the carriage came into use. Consisting of two separate wheels placed horizontally on the protruding axis, a set of chains would then connect to the front wheels of the carriage. Thanks to the opposite directions of movement between those two upper wheels, the steering of the carriage was finally possible!

While this invention was nothing but a test, the fact that all the other carriages were mounted with the leaf springs was already a huge step forward in terms of safety and comfort of using them. Even though I had no guts to change all the carriages into self-driving type, it didn't change the fact that wasting nearly a third of the space in my convoy for the horse food and the rations for the escort caused a huge pain in my head!

Yet when all the carriages were finally put back in their proper orientation, when all the horses were bound to their respective coaches, I couldn't help but smile openly.

Zamoyski family, here comes the future!