Chronicles of Steam in the Great Ming

In the ninth year of the Xuande reign, modern mechanical engineer Lin Zheng'an tumbles out of a bank of fog and into Nanjing. He brings no blueprints or encyclopedia, only the laws of physics and the methods of engineering. Fortunately, the original Yongle Encyclopedia still survives, preserving Song and Yuan water-powered machines, gear systems, and blast furnace bellows lost to later generations. The scholar-officials, however, dismiss it as little more than a book for showing off one's learning. Lin Zheng'an persuades officials who look down on the crafts to rescue the artisans' knowledge from the encyclopedia. He improves water-powered bellows with his own hands, smelts iron to a usable standard, and then recreates the Newcomen steam-powered water pump, a machine that guzzles coal and breaks down constantly. This is no tale of instant mastery: it takes him decades to progress from water-powered bellows to steam engines, and from wooden treasure ships to Fuchuan ships with steam assistance. When the Ming fleet sails into the Mediterranean, carrying improved metallurgy and mechanical blueprints and bringing back ancient Greek manuscripts and the spark of European humanism, two civilizations spur each other onward among gears and parchment. Yet the hardest part is never building a machine. It is finding a place for the people and old order shaken by its roar.