During the Zhengde period, there were no academies in the capital, because there was no need!

Children go directly to social studies or private schools, and then are admitted to official schools, and private academies have no room to survive. It wasn't until more and more scholars began to question Cheng Zhu's science and that non-mainstream schools of thought became popular in lecturing that private academies appeared in the capitals of the Jiajing and Wanli dynasties.

The School of Physics is currently the only private academy in Beijing.

Before and after the examination last year, the School of Physics was very lively, and countless scholars came to observe and visit. But soon it became cold again, some students were scared away by the "difficult" knowledge, some students were quickly released to become officials, and some students gradually lost their freshness.

Up to now, there are only 12 rotating lecturers left in the School of Physics, as well as more than 60 regular students. There are also dozens of students, who come and don't come, and belong to the generation of fishing for three days and drying nets for two days.

In the inner courtyard, seven or eight people gathered around a cauldron.

The true Taoist priest stood by the pot, holding a stick and stirring and stirring. Boil to a certain extent, then filter it with gauze, let it gradually cool and crystallize, and then take it to boil again to make it crystallize again.

Everyone immediately gathered around and said in disbelief: "Can this really boil out the nitrate?" ”

The true Taoist priest said, "I don't know either, but taste it." ”

The Taoist priest took out a piece of crystal, which was lumpy and white and translucent. He broke it lightly, and immediately broke it, and the section glowed with a glass sheen. He leaned over to his nose again to sniff it, and then licked it with his tongue, almost sure that it was Mao Nit.

Hey~~~

Everyone cast disgusted eyes, this thing is extracted from, is it appropriate to lick it directly in the mouth?

One of them came over, also picked up the crystals and observed them carefully, then smelled the taste, tasted salty, and finally nodded and said, "It must be Mao Nitrate, my family runs a medicine shop, and I am very familiar with this thing." ”

Everyone was excited: "If this is the case, it will be a great achievement!" ”

"Can be dedicated to the emperor!"

"You can also open a factory, the academy will pay some money, and we will pay some money to make nitrate and sell it to the pharmacy!"

"Yes, yes, yes, Mr. has said that physics should be studied, and more importantly, it should be used in practice. Isn't the new loom developed by the Machinery Branch sold to the Tianjin factory to make money? ”

“……”

More than a year after Wang Yuan left the capital, the School of Physics had been divided into three factions.

One faction is dominated by square letters, focusing on astronomy, optics and meteorology.

One faction is dominated by Wang Xu, focusing on mechanics, heat and mechanics.

One faction is dominated by true Taoists, mainly focusing on chemistry.

Of course, they themselves do not have such a clear definition. For example, the True Daoist, this guy used to cultivate the Lead and Mercury Dao, but now it has directly become Western alchemy.

When Wang Yuan left the capital, he said to the true Taoist: "Nowadays, to prepare nitrate, you need to scrape nitrate. Why is nitrate formed near thatched houses? Is it related to feces? Can you use manure to get nitrate? ”

Inspired by this, the true Taoist priest mixed human and animal manure with other substances, piled it up and covered it with an oilcloth and left it for more than half a year.

Of the fifteen manure heaps, fourteen of them failed, and only the lime one succeeded.

The dung heap fermented with lime for half a year is mixed with plant ash and poured with water. Take its juice and boil it, that is, to obtain potassium nitrate solution, one cubic solution can be used to practice ten catties of nitrate.

This is definitely a huge step forward!

In the Ming Dynasty, gunpowder was produced, and the saltpeter needed had to be scraped slowly. The floating soil next to the old house and toilet will give birth to salty crystals, which will be scraped down to refine and purify the nitrate, and there is a special nitrate boiling camp in Tongzhou to do this.

But the yield of this method is too low, as the saying goes: "Boiling nitrate for a thousand days is not worth a cannon from the general." "Countless people have worked hard for two or three years, and the gunpowder they made is gone after one shot.

There are also saltpeter mines, mostly in the southern mountainous areas, such as Guizhou, where there is a large nitrate cave, and Tusi can be mined to make gunpowder. However, it is too far away from the capital and it is not easy to transport it long distance, so it can only be used in the southwest region.

Hearing the jubilation inside, Wang Xi said to his disciples, "Go and see what they have come up with." ”

The disciple quickly inquired: "Sir, they made wool nitrate out of!" ”

Wang Xi instantly felt a little nauseous, he was constipated a while ago, and the doctor let him take Mao Nitrate, and now he always has a feeling of discomfort in eating.

"We're going to speed things up too!" Wang Xi said.

Last year, Wang Xi was admitted to the third list of Jinshi, but unfortunately he was not admitted to Shujishi, and was directly sent to Huguang to be the magistrate. After careful consideration, Wang Xi chose to resign and stay in the capital to continue his research.

Under the leadership of Wang Xu, a large loom was made. It requires six people to cooperate with the operation, and the efficiency of the loom improved by Wang Yuan is more than three times higher.

Wang sold the loom to the Tianjin factory for three thousand taels of silver. He himself got 500 taels, and the other R&D personnel got a total of 2,000 taels, and the remaining 500 taels were donated directly to the School of Physics - a similar machine, which was born in the middle and late Qing Dynasty in history, but unfortunately was quickly crushed by a steam engine.

Now, the Faculty of Physics is rich, and the core students are also rich.

For example, on the side of the True Daoist, the blind chickens messed around before, which not only cost the academy's funds, but also threw a lot of their own money into it. But now that you have the method of making nitrate from excrement, you can easily return to your original cost and open a factory to make nitrate, which can be sold to fireworks merchants and medicinal herb merchants.

Only Fang Kai was the poorest, because they studied astronomy, meteorology, and optics.

The basic theory of optics has long been transmitted, and the clairvoyant mirror is not so valuable, and there are many workshops in the folk to imitate it. They only have to pay for the production or purchase of telescopes at their own expense, and they are all so poor that they can jingle into the world.

Moreover, Fang Kai is a three-list Jishi, and now he is still studying, and after graduation, he can only stay in the Hanlin Academy as a petty official, or throw it to other departments to climb slowly.

Those who study astronomy are all hard, so they almost didn't go to the street stalls to tell fortunes.

Night.

The priest returned to the dormitory, checked the experimental records again, and then took out the straw paper and began to write the manuscript, which was titled: "The Nine Emperor Physics Danjing".

Perhaps influenced by the School of Physics, the Danjing he wrote is not as cloudy as the traditional one, but written so that ordinary readers can understand:

"To cultivate the Great Dan, you must respond to the way of heaven. Distinguish the two instruments, gather the three talents, and combine the four images, and consider the five elements. ”

"The two rituals, yin and yang, Qiankun, heaven and earth, and tripods! The medicine is in the ding, and it is within the universe. Kan is the moon, and it is lead; Away from the sun, it is mercury. The sun and the moon are easy to merge, and the lead and mercury are in the middle of the tripod, and the sun and the moon travel between the heavens and the earth......"

"The three talents, water and gunpowder, should be ...... heaven and earth and people"

"The Four Elephants, platinum, cinnabar, black lead, and mercury are also! Platinum should be a white tiger, cinnabar should be a red bird, black lead should be Xuanwu, mercury should be a green dragon......"

"The four elephants are all together, and they are all five elements, leading Xionghuang into the middle palace to get the soil. All things are born from the earth, and all things are born from the earth. All things lose their land and die, and they return to ......."

"This is true of alchemy, and so is refining. It is necessary to combine two instruments, three talents, four images, and five elements to be obvious. ”

"If you want to refine manganese nitrate today, how can you get it? Miscanthus nitrate cold, located in Xuanwu ......"

The day after Wang Yuan returned to Beijing, he went to inspect the School of Physics.

The true Taoist priest presented the "Nine Emperor Physics Dan Sutra" and said, "Wang Shilang, some experience, please correct the axe." ”

Wang Yuan was very happy when he heard that his disciples had used feces to refine Mao Nitrate, and he thought that they had opened the way of chemistry. But looking at the manuscript of this Taoist priest, Wang Yuan directly lost his ability to organize language.

Is this the fucking Chinese version of alchemy?

The theory of the true Taoist priest is very simple, with two instruments, three talents, four images, and five elements, you can refine the golden pill that belongs to the Taiji Heavenly Dao. So why can't it be used to refine things?

This guy thinks that Mao Ni is cold, which belongs to the water in the five elements, corresponding to the Xuanwu in the four elephants. Therefore, it is necessary to create other conditions, such as gypsum belongs to the soil, and the ash of the grass and wood belongs to the fire, and the person should stand in the Xun (wood) position and stir the solution with iron-clad wooden sticks. Hair nitrate is water, and feces are also water, so feces are medicine, and the hair nitrate is separated from the feces with the five elements of yin and yang.

Wang Yuan scratched his head: "Dao Chief, have you tried not to stand in the Xun position, and you don't need to stir it with an iron and wooden stick?" ”

"Nope." The True Taoist said.

"You can try it, what if you can make it?" Wang Yuan suggested.