This LJ98 had been purchased at a high price by the London Steam Engine Company two years earlier, commissioned through Hesse merchants and stripped from a wrecked French train. At Joseph's request, low- and medium-power steam engines were sold to the United Kingdom in large quantities, but the latest high-power steam engines were prohibited goods. However, France had already built train repair yards in Baden, so LJ98s, which powered trains, frequently appeared throughout the German Territories. It was impossible to keep them completely secret, and the French Government turned a blind eye to it.
Yet even with a ready-made model to reference, Watt and the British technicians could only copy seventy percent of the French Goods' power.
They had only reached even that point after purchasing French high-hardness bearings and Alloy Steel milling cutters last year.
In truth, they were already quite impressive for this era.
After all, the United Kingdom had no one capable of cheating the heavens, someone who could have helped settle on the high-pressure boiler route from the very beginning of steam engine development, or poured vast sums into researching Alloy Steel and high-precision machining before the first generation of steam engines even entered production.
When steam engine development hit a bottleneck, those technologies immediately provided powerful support.
Watt's progress on the High-Pressure Steam Engine had already advanced more than a decade faster than in history, yet he was still left far behind by the French. Avoiding the gazes of the gathered high officials, Watt instructed his assistant to start the prototype.
The boiler had long since been heated, so only a few minutes later, the Engine70 standing in the middle of the room began to emit a dull creaking sound, and its main shaft slowly began to turn.
Before long, the British higher-ups watched the