Zhang Huan looked over and over these brass things, but he just couldn't understand what they were for. But it didn't matter, he thought it wouldn't take long to find out, anyway, it was some kind of experimental equipment. He had been interested in the microscope for the past two days, and although it was an unbelievably simple thing, it did give people in the seventeenth century a glimpse of what the microscopic world looked like. For example, all kinds of small insects in the water......

Jiang Tian checked the quality of the new equipment. I am satisfied with this, but for the sake of safety, the amount of brass is quite thick, and it is not only full of weight in my hands, but also inconvenient to operate. But even so, he won't take the weight of the structure lightly, because it's a safety concern for him as an operator.

Song Yi, the only one who knew what he was going to do, was really a little worried: "Sir, why don't you leave this experiment to me, anyway, I already know your idea." ”

Jiang Tian could only shake his head: "I don't worry about those half-buckets of water under your hands, and this matter is extraordinary, and it must be kept absolutely confidential, so at most only the two of us know." ”

Although the other students were curious, they didn't dare to ask more, because they all knew that Jiang Tian sometimes had to undertake some important national research and development tasks, and those things would definitely not be known to outsiders until the results were produced, such as the mirror turmoil some time ago. China can make such a crystal mirror, this news is like a few drops of water in a hot oil pot, so that the business world and the collection world are boiling, for no other reason, since Jiang Tian appeared, the Academy of Sciences has improved the glass process, so that the price of glassware and various handicrafts on the market has dropped significantly, especially the glass made by the Academy of Sciences is not only bright and few bubbles, sometimes there are even no bubbles, if such a quality of glass is placed in the past, although it dare not say that it is priceless, it is also the darling of the collection world. It's good now, just because we can make our own, but the original imported "crooked melons and cracked dates" are not cared for, and no one wants them to deal with them at a low price. If it weren't for the fact that the kilns of the Academy of Sciences had been making telescopes for the military, there would have been no shadow of the new factory. Otherwise, it can really force those merchants who hoard goods to death. Now there are imitations of mirrors, and many people have seen them in that auction, these mirrors are not only very large, but also bright Cheng dù is not inferior to the imported products of Xiyi, assuming that this kind of thing can also be mass-produced, it is not too much, even if only a dozen mirrors of the same specification can be produced every month, then it will not take a year to fall from 20,000 or 30,000 taels of silver to only about 10,000 taels each. Do you say that his Jiang Tian's every move has not received widespread attention?

In this way, no matter what Jiang Tian develops, there will be people who are very looking forward to or anxiously waiting for the results, but so far, he Jiang Tian has never disappointed the emperor, China's technical level is basically the same as Europe, and there is a vast territory and others are difficult to achieve the scale effect, if it is not for the secret recipe of the royal mirror, I am afraid that in the folk is ten mirror workshops have started, but whenever someone asks whether the secret recipe is sold, the patent office will refuse on the grounds that the patent owner does not intend to sell, Later, someone found out that this patent was held by two people, one was naturally Jiang Tian, and the other was something that no one could afford to mess with, because he was Zhang Tao, the emperor of China. For this reason, some people who used to laugh at the patent system beat their chests with regret, and this kind of situation where they can't eat but can still smell the fishy smell is really maddening.

Many people say that if the Manchu Qing Dynasty did not enter the customs, then there was a possibility that capitalism would sprout at the end of the Ming Dynasty. So let's assume a scenario, that is, there is no Manchu Qing, there is no Xiaoice River, there is no Donglin Party that has not achieved enough things and has more than enough failures, and every qiē and qiē continue along the trajectory of Wanli years, will there definitely be the germ of capitalism? Obviously, in addition to the traditional view of Chinese society that emphasizes agriculture and suppresses business, the imperial court does not allow large-scale commercial land, and the long-term peaceful life has led to a rapid increase in population and low labor costs, and the huge living pressure has created the characteristics of Chinese people to endure hardships and stand hard work. Assuming that a capitalist can make a lot of profits without having to bear any R&D and improvement costs, who will think hard about improving the production process? In a situation where the major commodities have established a guild access system, and it is difficult for outsiders to compete with the guild members, even if you have advanced production technology, but find that everyone has a monopoly on everything from raw materials to workers to the market, how can you convert scientific knowledge into productivity? In a political situation where the main commodities are all in the palace or in the secret participation of the court officials, what kind of strength should those who dare to challenge have to compete with those double oligarchs? In fact, the products of the early industrial age alone could not be compared with the handicrafts made by skilled workers, and the cloth sold by the British faced similar commercial challenges at the beginning, only to gradually surpass the cloth woven by Chinese retail households due to industrial technological upgrades. However, with the small peasant economy of male and female weavers with looms in every household, and with a huge total population of nearly 400 million at that time, the output indicators of various products at the end of the Qing Dynasty can still be breathtaking in the world, which is the energy of the vast land and huge population, even if it uses lower production technology. If you can't imagine it, please refer to the miracles created by the masses after the establishment of the dynasty, in that era when people will conquer the sky, in that era when they did not hesitate to throw their heads and shed blood for the construction of the motherland, one by one the tasks that foreigners call impossible are achieved one by one, and what country's capital will mobilize the people of the whole city to build a subway by digging ditches? This is how Beijing Metro Line 1 was built!

Now we know that according to the original history, unless we enter the era of industrialization in the nineteenth century, no one can shake China's stable and strong social structure that has lasted for 2,000 years, which shows that in the era of continuous natural and man-made disasters, the GDP of the Ming Dynasty still exceeded the sum of Europe in one year! Only the sea coachman, who has reached its peak, surpassed the GDP per capita of the late Ming Dynasty, which is similar to a small Nordic country in the 21st century that far surpasses the United States in per capita indicators, but can you say that it is richer than the United States? Therefore, until it is overtaken by capitalism or the industrial revolution, it is impossible for China to change this social system that it has long been accustomed to. It is also impossible to give birth to the germ of capitalism, at most monopoly capitalism under a feudal bureaucracy similar to liberal capitalism (I won't say state capitalism!). That situation has no constructive value at all for reform.

Jiang Tian is very clear about this, and Zhang Tao, who has been mixed for so long at the end of the Ming Dynasty, knows even better, but what can it be? Can a single decree of the Emperor change that? No way! Zhang Tao dared to offend Rulin, it was because he had the army as a barrier, and there were civilians trained under the new army system, and those who were not only not productive but also wasting the country's resources, even if they drove all these people home. However, Zhang Tao did not dare to attack all the merchants and handicraftsmen, who were the owners of the secondary and tertiary industries, and were an important part of maintaining the stability of the country except for the peasants. So far, except for Zhang Tao, who controlled the salt industry in order to maintain the army, he didn't dare to stretch his hand too far, and the salt and iron monopoly was still an old example of the Ming Dynasty, and those salt merchants couldn't say a word, after all, the salt in your hands was issued by the imperial court, and the imperial court could also take it back. And Zhang Tao because of his "hometown" in Jiangnan, he deeply understands what the so-called free employment is all about, you say that a group of wanderers who have lost their land and have not yet had "unique skills", are they employed or exploited?

Later, because of the expansion of armaments, at the same time a large number of refugees in the north fled south, so Zhang Tao's new army absorbed a lot of such proletarians, all kinds of political work after the baptism of history, they did burst out of amazing combat effectiveness, according to the Yangzhou City, in order to curb the bombardment of the city wall by the red-coated artillery, the new army defending the city was stunned in the absence of cavalry, only by three thousand death squads to attack the Qing army camp at night, most of these people were originally refugees from Jiangbei, according to military history records, The mobilized generals at that time only said one sentence: "Yangzhou is broken, Nanjing is in danger, and the world is dead, so the man who doesn't want to be a dog for the Tartars will stand up!" As a result, 3,000 warriors attacked the Qing army's artillery camp that night, the sound of fighting and explosions continued until dawn, and 3,000 people did not survive, but forced Duoduo to retreat ten miles overnight, and stood on the city wall early in the morning to watch last night's battlefield, the Qing army left 5,000 corpses that were too late to bury and a large number of wounded, as for why the sneak attack of 3,000 people had such a great effect, mainly because these daredevils did not plan to return to the city alive, everyone was tied to a gunpowder bag to go out, At night, when they found the Manchurian cavalry coming to reinforce them, some people resolutely lit the fuse on their bodies and launched a counterattack against the cavalry......

Zhang Qian led the expeditionary force after a arduous sea trek and a year-long build-up before suddenly landing at Dagukou and attacking Beijing. The main force of the Qing army that confronted along the Yangtze River was quickly defeated, but after all, these guys were on horseback, not to mention running relatively fast, and they could burn and plunder among the major cities along the way, and the new army lacking cavalry could only follow behind to clean up the mess, which made the population of Jiangbei provinces plummet again. If it weren't for Zhang Qian's decisive division of troops to dig out the Manchu nest directly from Korea, I am afraid that all parts of the north would not be able to recover their vitality now. Therefore, even if the current Chinese Dynasty does not have any reform measures and completely copies the system of the Ming Dynasty, it can reach a certain state of "rejuvenation" after a few decades, which is similar to the situation during the Kangxi period of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and it can be peaceful for 60 years without reform. This has some interesting consequences, such as the fact that there is a large amount of surplus land in the countryside, and the redistribution of the state makes it possible for most of the tenants to become yeoman farmers, so that no one will abandon the land and run to the city to work until the land resources are exhausted, and the handicraft industry does not need to expand reproduction because of the decline in the consumer base. At this time, the imperial court abandoned the original small-scale peasant economy of self-production and self-consumption, and invigorated the introduction of foreign businessmen to trade in China, and any business owner would definitely want to expand production capacity in the face of profits, but because the traditional means of production required a large number of skilled workers, it could not expand, and the secondary industry fell into a helpless state since then. If the state agencies were to promote more efficient production processes, or to formulate policies to encourage industry and commerce, would the peasants abandon their land in the countryside and concentrate in the cities after seeing more attractive wages? When a capitalist sees that a new machine or a new technology can reduce costs and increase output, will he be tempted?

This is a big pie drawn by Zhang Tao and Jiang Tian, used to tempt those profit-seeking capitalists, to have policies and technologies, as long as you operate normally in accordance with the new national laws, you can obtain previously unimaginable benefits, and the final result is to drive those who taste the sweetness, in order to obtain higher profits and consciously develop new technologies, promote the generation of social change, and at the same time let some people who are interested in science see that these tricks have become hens that can lay golden eggs. Even if you study at home every day, no one will laugh at you for not doing your job, then China's industrial revolution will not be far off, and even without Jiang Tian and Zhang Tao's savings, these capitalists will also participate in politics in order to protect their own interests, to ensure their political demands. Then when this new political power rises, it is not impossible for anyone to fight back, because let's not forget that these capitalists hold the entire country's industrial production in their hands.

Everything has an objective law of development, and Zhang Taotong's description of Jiang Tian also understands that a comprehensive change in the social system will inevitably occur in later generations. This is the law of the development of things, before you engage in capitalism, you want to realize communism first, then the result of pulling out the seedlings and encouraging them is to go through the historical process again. Therefore, Zhang Tao gave up the dream of realizing social harmony in his later years, thinking that if China could always be one step ahead of Europe, then China, which had taken the lead, would not give any chance to foreign enemies, and what system should be adopted at that time was a headache for future generations. Even if the imperial power is eventually outlawed, what's wrong? In the thinking of Zhang Tao, a red and authoritarian former proletarian fighter, there was no need for the emperor to exist. It was only because most people in this era were not suitable for the imperial court without an emperor, and they could see the profound meaning of these reform policies, and there was no second person before Jiang Tian appeared, so he had no choice but to go into battle and reluctantly add himself to the yellow robe. Assuming that Zhu Cihong was not so naïve at the beginning, then maybe he Zhang Tao was still assisting the emperor.

But these have little to do with the brass products in Jiang Tian's hands, Zhang Tao knows very well that "power comes out of the barrel of a gun" This wise saying, the success of reform needs military power to guarantee. To retain the existing combat power, or to maintain military pressure on the other major powers, it is necessary to keep the army on standby at all times, to be able to deter the surrounding Xiaoxiao to leave a buffer time for itself, and to have a technological advantage over other enemies, so as to ensure that a small number of troops can deter most enemies. And this advantage must now be solved by relying on Jiang Tian. Zhang Tao's original order was for him to increase the power of black powder, or to develop a new explosive. It's a pity that the development of explosives at this industrial level at the end of the Ming Dynasty could only end in failure, and the only answer left was to increase the power of the existing black powder.

Given by some false propaganda in later generations and some rumors on the Internet, Jiang Tian initially thought that as long as copper oxide was added to gunpowder, it could at least double the power as some articles in later generations said, but after actual experiments, Jiang Tian knew that he had been fooled, no matter how much copper oxide was added, he did not see the effect of the black-hearted flower cannon in later generations. The funniest thing is that during the first experiment, the craftsmen in the workshop made a large firecracker according to his instructions, but after it was lit in the wilderness, the people around quickly hid in the trench, but only heard a muffled sound, and the effect sound was like a fart...... Therefore, although copper oxide is an effective additive, in order to ensure the power, something else must have been added, but he Jiang Tian didn't know what it was! Since the improved formula was unsuccessful, Jiang Tian was ready to try some kind of soil method that he had not operated.

"Compress! As the name suggests, the volume of something is drastically reduced, and it can also be applied to gunpowder, but the danger of these things is quite high, and improper operation can cause accidents. Jiang Tian explained the precautions to Song Yi.

Compression of black powder is a very professional technology, but unfortunately no one in the entire imperial court except for him Jiang Tian knows what this thing is, and it is impossible to complete the test with a small number of machines, so Jiang Tian asked the Academy of Sciences to make some new tools, and then he tried it himself, at least to master what the compression ratio of black powder was. In order to ensure that even if the gunpowder is ignited due to excessive pressure, it will not injure the test personnel, so the charge of this compressor is very small, and even if it is exploded, it is impossible to splash shrapnel and hurt people, and brass is used that will not rub sparks.

After all the students left, Song Yi was the only one who did not go home, but listened to Jiang Tian's final explanation: "When the loose structure of gunpowder is tightly compacted, the same volume of charge is equivalent to several times the original, although the power will not be doubled, but at least it is a qualitative leap, and at the same time, we can also get the same launch efficiency with a small amount of charge......

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