Transmigrated into a female county magistrate during a famine, leading her country to prosperity

This well existed before and was not dug recently.

The main reason why Shen Zheng chose it was because there was a very simple device at the wellhead - the well windlass.

A well windlass is a lifting device mounted on a well and used to draw water.

Tie the rope to the axle of the well windlass and shake the handle connected to the axle to retract and release the rope and control the up and down movement of the bucket - this tool is very familiar to everyone present. In the words of Mr. Qiao, you can make one with your eyes closed.

According to Shen Zheng's understanding, this well windlass could perhaps be called a "simple and labor-intensive human winch."

The reason why it is called "simple but laborious" is that its axle is designed to be very large, and the length of the handle is almost equal to the radius of the axle. As a result, this windlass cannot save effort or provide leverage, and its only function is convenience.

Under the gaze of everyone, Shen Zheng shook the handle, and the rope and the wooden barrel swayed together and were pulled up by her.

She stopped and asked Liang Fu and the others, "This device is very familiar and simple to you, right?"

Liang Fu nodded. "If you trace it back, the well pulley has a history of a hundred years and has been used till now."

As for who invented this thing and how did it spread to different places?

It was so long ago that even Liang Fu, who was in the Ministry of Works, didn't know about it.

Shen Zheng shook her head up and down several times in front of them, and then picked someone at random to answer with malicious intent.

"Come on, what's your name kid? Come here."

"Me?" The craftsman apprentice who was called looked around, and finally confirmed that the person Shen Zheng called was him, "My Lord, this is my student Gao Feng."

Misfortunes often follow blessings, and blessings often follow misfortunes...everything is the best arrangement.

"Come here, Gao Feng." Shen Zheng waved at him and pointed at the well windlass and said, "I just said that the purpose of tools is to save effort and convenience. Do you think this well windlass can achieve this purpose?"

In an instant, dozens of eyes fell on Gao Feng, all waiting for his answer.

He had never seen such a scene before. His face turned red and his palms were sweating. "Students... students..."

"Don't be nervous." Although Shen Zheng intentionally picked someone to answer, her purpose was definitely not to make fun of the other person.

She shook the handle twice more and slowly guided him, "Tell me first, is this tool convenient or not?"

Gao Feng took a deep breath and nodded heavily: "It's convenient. If we didn't have this tool, we would have to lie down by the well to fetch water and drag the rope manually, which would easily hurt our hands."

"Right." Shen Zheng gave him an encouraging smile. "That's right. There is no doubt that the well pulley has brought convenience to people's daily lives. Then think about it again. Does this tool save effort?"

This question is obviously more difficult to answer than “Is it convenient?”

Gao Feng had fetched water before, and he carefully recalled the difference in weight between the bucket on the rope and in his hand.

"It seems... not very labor-saving."

Shen Zheng smiled when she heard that and motioned for him to come up and try.

Everything she said and did encouraged Gao Feng, and Gao Feng's expression relaxed a little, and he was finally not as nervous as before.

He wiped his sweaty palms on his clothes and began to crank the handle up and down to draw water from the well.

No one at the scene interrupted him, and no one proposed a different conclusion to Gao Feng's previous answer - even if they did, they wouldn't speak up directly. It's not like they have to fight to win or lose, and this is too rude.

The handle creaked as it was shaken, and the excess water splashed out of the bucket and fell back into the well.

A moment later, a bucket of water appeared in front of Gao Feng.

"How is it?" Shen Zheng asked him, "Do you feel that the force you use in your hands is the same when you lift this bucket of water and when you hang it?"

"The students' feelings are basically the same. If there are any differences, they are subtle and difficult to measure based on students' feelings alone." Gao Feng was more confident at this time than before.

Shen Zheng nodded with satisfaction. As expected of an engineering student, she was very rigorous in her words.

"That's right." She looked at the well windlass, "Based on my observation, this well windlass doesn't save any effort."

Shen Zheng looked at the "huge" axle with a rope around it.

It would be strange if it could save effort with such a large axle rotating in the middle.

She looked at Liang Fu and thought to herself for a while.

She had felt that the windlass of the well in the county government office was a little strange before, but she had not thought about it carefully. When she thought about it carefully today, she just felt strange.

Liang Fu and Qiao Lao had been in Tongan County for a long time, and neither of them raised any objections to the windlass on the county's water well. It seemed that they had not yet studied levers in depth, and had only explored some superficial uses, such as a lever that could only bear weights on the same horizontal line - a scale.

Sure enough, it only took Liang Fu a moment to hear the difference in her words.

He asked: "In your opinion, Lord Shen, how can we improve this windlass to save effort?"

After he said that, he walked to Gao Feng, took the handle and shook it a few times.

Shen Zheng stepped forward, put his hand on the axle, and said to him with a smile: "Actually, you should know this. It's just that the windlass is too common and has long been popularized, so you and the people in the Ministry of Works didn't pay attention to it."

——Ordinary and popular are equivalent to common, will not be noticed by others, and no one wants to improve it.

In other words, the well windlass used in the Great Zhou Dynasty has left a deep "stereotype" on everyone - it doesn't matter, as long as it can be used.

"Should I know?" Liang Fu was stunned.

Speaking of windlass, he couldn't help but think of the similar chariot wheel.

Chariot wheels are different from ordinary carriage wheels, and are something that the Ministry of Industry has been exploring with great effort in recent years.

And what Shen Zheng said was right. The Ministry of Industry had also been trying to improve the axles and frames of ordinary horse-drawn carriages to increase the flexibility of the chariots - for example, so that the frame would not be unable to react when turning and cause the chariot to overturn.

It is said that the Great Zhou has been relatively peaceful in recent years, and there has been no emperor to give instructions, otherwise this matter might have ended long ago.

Shen Zheng's fingers tapped the windlass axle intentionally or unintentionally, and Liang Fu's eyes followed her fingers up and down.

Almost...

Just a little bit!

He should be able to understand what Lord Shen is saying, but there is a layer of mist blocking his vision, so that the words are on the tip of his tongue, but he just can't put them into words!

This feeling is really terrible.

Even Liang Fu couldn't say it, and everyone present was even more confused.

Old Qiao stroked his chin, walked around the well pulley several times, and said to himself: "This well pulley is complicated, but it is actually very simple. It is composed of these parts. But if Lord Shen hadn't said it, we would probably not have paid much attention to it. Now that you say so..."

He carefully examined each part of the well windlass. "The frame, the rope... Impossible, these are all attached objects. The only thing left is..."