After disposing of the Mongols' problem, Yang Xin immediately handed the Kunyu Ge to the Apocalypse.

"What is this?"

His Majesty the Emperor looked at it in surprise.

Yang Xin told Yuan Dudu and Tang Ruowang about it.

"There are some merits, but it seems to be worse than ours, if there are shortcomings and strengths of each other, it is obviously our strengths, they don't even know coke?"

Apocalypse said with interest.

"European smelting is spoiled by high-quality ores, and half of our iron ore can be regarded as extremely high-quality ores, but half of them are low-grade, 70% is considered good, so good ores don't need to think too much about what technology is at all, and the block smelting furnace can obtain high-quality wrought iron after forging. And because the gap between the ores is too large, it is impossible for us to obtain real iron in block smelting, after all, we have to find a way to remove twice as many impurities as them, and finally we are on the right path to iron smelting.

Iron ore is smelted into pig iron, pig iron is fried to mature iron, and wrought iron is carburized again into steel.

And the Europeans learned this process, it must have been in the Yongle years, mainly to cast cannons, after all, block smelting furnaces can not smelt too much at one time, at first they even had to use wrought iron bars to form cylinders, because they did not know how to cast pig iron at all.

But until now, some of them are still using block furnaces.

The same goes for copper.

We have the best smelting technology.

But our copper production is still much lower than theirs, because we don't have large copper mines, and our copper has to be mined and smelted in small mines, little by little, but they only have one copper mine in Sweden, and it is said that they can produce more than 10 million catties a year. ”

Yang Xin said.

**It is said to be an average of 3,500 tons per year.

At present, the most important copper producing area in the Ming Dynasty is still Yunnan, which is only a few million catties per year, and it can only reach 10 million catties when the old dog is perfect, and at that time the copper in Yunnan has reached 90% of the country's output, which means that the current annual copper production is equivalent to the highest peak of the Qing Dynasty.

No wonder Second Master Gu is arrogant.

Rich, capricious!

"It's a good place!"

Apocalypse looked at Kun Yuge in his hand and sighed.

"Your Majesty, I say this to make Your Majesty understand that although you still have the most powerful empire in the world, the countries of Europe are not weak, although we have always been ahead of them in the long years before us, and we can still say the same now. But they did not stop catching up, and even now they can catch up, and have overtaken us in some places, relying on certain advantages, and if our pace slows down, they will quickly overtake us.

Then they will no longer continue to fear us.

Even when they think they have exceeded enough, they will sail their warships to our shores and force us to fear them. ”

Yang Xin said.

Apocalypse nodded silently.

"What do you want to do with these two?"

He asked.

"Yuan Chonghuan is just eager to invite merit, and His Majesty has indeed issued an order, but his move as a county magistrate is indeed a bit dereliction of duty, reprimanding him in the opinion of a minister, and demoting him to a remote county in Guangxi or Yunnan can be regarded as a post-effect."

Yang Xin said.

Since Yuan Dudu doesn't like Hu Jianren, let him go back to his hometown.

Anyway, he has settled in Dongguan, and he is no longer from Tengxian County, so he shouldn't have to think about avoiding it, he can go to Guangxi to be a small county official, and if he can't, he will be thrown to Yunnan, in short, Daming is worse than Shao Wu, Shao Wu is also a Fucheng, this time directly find him a quieter place. If he is still not honest, then he can only be thrown into which palace to be a long history, but this is too cruel, you must know that being a long history is equivalent to a death sentence to the official career, and there is still a bit of a rush to be the magistrate of a poor county.

Yang Dudu took great pains to continue his self-cultivation in order for him to continue to cultivate his character.

If poor Yuan Dudu knew the news, he would definitely look up to the sky with grief and indignation.

His skies were even darker.

Apocalypse nodded.

He did ignore this issue when he issued the holy decree, a county official in order to offer merit and favor, abandoned his duty and ran to give him what treasure, this opening must have been followed by the whole country, and then just like those auspicious offerings in the past, this matter deteriorated.

Of course, if they can really offer something good.

But they can't give it!

This book is at best a reference.

At present, the emperor who is completely familiar with Sugang technology can still look at these things that he doesn't even understand coke.

In fact, Europe has just met with coal and iron, and the first patent for using coal to make iron in Britain was issued three years ago, but the coal they use is low-sulfur coal, but even so, pig iron for coal smelting is still not popular because of the sulfur problem.

"As for John Tang, the minister has an idea, can we send a few ships to Europe, in the end, only European ships have come to our side over the years, but it is not possible to go to Europe without our ships, and as far as the minister knows, even the Japanese have sailed to Europe."

Yang Xin said.

The first Japanese ship to reach Europe was the Date Maru.

Date Masamune of the Sendai Domain, his retainer Shikura Tsusunaga with 180 men, together with a missionary and a small number of Portuguese, arrived in Acapulco from Sendai three months later, stayed for two and a half months, and sailed for four months to reach Spain, but soon after the Tokugawa government began to purge the missionaries, and then after the Amakusa Rebellion, the Japanese kingdom began to close the country, and the era of navigation of the Wa Kingdom came to an end just at the beginning. In fact, this time had already begun, and the missionary who had taken the Date Maru to Europe had just been burned to death in Nagasaki, but this did not prevent the Ming Dynasty from sending a ship to Europe as well.

You don't have to go to the Americas.

Sail to Goa, India, and then go with the Portuguese sea boats.

John Tong will definitely do everything he can to ensure that this mission reaches Europe smoothly and take them to all the countries they want to visit.

"Brother wants John Tang to lead?"

Apocalypse said.

"Yes, and not only to let John Tong lead, but also to choose those who believe in them, such a voyage must last at least two years, without a firm will is definitely not possible, Your Majesty can let go of the wind, saying that he is going to send people to Europe to investigate, and then decide the attitude towards the missionaries. Your Majesty also knows that there are still a few ministers in the court who believe in them, such as Xu Shangshu, and Li Zhizao, the former secretary of the Nanjing Taifu Temple who has returned to his hometown.

Hire a group of people from Jiangsu and Zhejiang who believe in them as sailors.

Let John Tong lead the team to Europe.

They could get from Canton this autumn, and probably early next year, but they could not be sent to Portugal or Spain, but they would have to sail to Denmark or Sweden, and from there they would have to exchange the silk and porcelain they had brought for copper.

It is estimated that they will be able to return by the end of next year, and by the autumn of the following year. ”

Yang Xin said.

"But what's the use of them going here?"

Apocalypse said suspiciously.

He knew that Yang Xin was staunchly anti-missionary.

"It's simple, let them see the real Europe.

Your Majesty, Xu Shangshu and these people believe them just because they don't know the real Europe, and what they know about Europe is what these people say, and these people will naturally beautify everything they have, but in fact, what Matteo Ricci said to the Europeans is to portray us as the prosperity and wealth they dream of.

And that's exactly what happened.

At this time, most of Europe was poor, and we ate rice steamed buns, and they ate black bread mixed with nearly half of sawdust, which was hard enough to crush people.

The vast majority of what we wear is cotton or even silk.

The vast majority of what they wear is hemp.

We eat with porcelain, they use pottery, our tea leaves are the treasure of the princess's dowry, and our cheap sugar, which we have to buy at the drugstore, is something that is given to the sick to comfort him so that he can die. I don't think that those who believe in their way will be firm in their faith after seeing such Europe, and in addition, they must be allowed to go to France, let them see the aristocrats who have not bathed all their lives and defecated in the open.

I have to go to the Netherlands.

Don't go to Germany, where it is fighting like the north at the time of the Yongjia Rebellion, but you can go north to Sweden by sea.

We need to be friends with Sweden. ”

Yang Xin said.

"This country is special?"

Apocalypse said.

"Your Majesty, our main future enemy on land is Russia, and they are the only ones in Europe who are currently expanding eastward from land, and they have reached the North Sea.

And Russia's main enemy in the West is Sweden.

In addition, if there is anything in Europe that is worth buying in large quantities, it is only Swedish copper, and we will have more and more demand for cannons in the future, and the price of copper is already rising, but our own copper production is increasing slowly, and European merchants do not like to bring copper over, so we can go to them and transport it ourselves. ”

Yang Xin said.

Of course, he was just coaxing the apocalypse.

At this time, Russia was not yet a threat, and in fact had just entered the Romanov dynasty.

At this time, the tsar was still the first Tsar Mikhail I of the Romanov dynasty, and was struggling in the shadow of Poland, as for the copper of Sweden, it is better than nothing, and it is true that the Ming Dynasty is short of copper, after all, so many cannons have been cast over the years, and even if there is a steam engine in the future, it cannot change the fact that bronze is the best material for casting cannons. Naval artillery can use iron, but army artillery, especially those field artillery, the best is bronze, so the price of copper is indeed quietly rising, but the same Yunnan and Jiangxi are also in mass production, and the annual output is steadily increasing.

But it's always a little bit better.

And Yang Xin is also looking forward to Sweden, a-stirring stick, to perform better in Europe.

At this time, Second Master Gu is not dead yet!

Such a person will not miss this opportunity to join hands with the East.