Ministers who have never been to Europe do not believe that the Ming Dynasty can build an arena of 100,000 people, and they can't even imagine what such an arena would look like.

What will the arena be half the size of Ying Tianfu? How can I hear what I say? If you let the eunuchs pass the word, wouldn't it take hundreds of eunuchs to do so?

But in fact, in addition to the poor sound amplification effect, building an arena of 100,000 people is not a technical problem.

In the first century, Rome was able to build an arena of nearly 100,000 people out of bricks, and Zhu Zhanji was able to achieve this task by recruiting Italian talents in this field.

The Colosseum originally used primary cement fired from volcanic ash as a binder, but the Ming Dynasty now has a more effective cement.

The key is the difference in the research direction of architectural structure, which has led to the inability to build taller buildings in the East.

This time the court meeting was a success for Zhu Di and Zhu Zhanji.

Although the ministers were stumbling a little because they were not used to the rules. But everyone attaches great importance to the greater power space given to them because of the "concessions" of the imperial power.

Although there is no power struggle today, everyone clearly understands that there is a sphere of power that belongs to them.

This is the biggest benefit of a clear division of labor.

In the previous court, all major matters needed to be discussed by the court, and although the official secretary was the head of the ministers, he did not have the power to appoint a squire.

The Ministry of Industry is in charge of the world's projects, but even the construction of a bridge requires the consent of other ministers.

It means that all power is centralized, and ministers only have power and no authority.

But now, after Zhu Di accepted Zhu Zhanji's suggestion, he only made a small concession, turning the main contradiction between the emperor and Wenchen into a secondary contradiction.

A small concession of power through the imperial power turned the contradiction between the ministers into a major one.

Since the rules of procedure have stipulated that the affairs of each ministry are independent, only major matters are brought out for deliberation. Then if I don't meddle in your affairs, the rest of you don't come to meddle in my power.

This point, not only Jianyi, Xia Yuanji and the other chief officials have already discovered it, and the ministers below them know better.

For example, in the past, they could only have the right to deal with affairs after the matter was decided, and they could not decide what should be done about this matter.

But now, the imperial power has backed down, and the decisions on many matters have been passed down. Then, in order to maintain their own power, their main contradiction is the court discussion.

The struggle for power has not yet begun, but the pattern has been formed and everyone has already understood what they should do.

After the dispersal of the dynasty, Zhu Zhanji returned to Xingqing Palace, changed his clothes, and prepared to go to Xiamaqiao Farm.

Zhu Di will meet Chen Cheng tomorrow and send him to the northwest, Zhu Zhanji will meet him today, and by the way, he will arrange for the Department of Counseling and the personnel of Jinyiwei to provide him with support.

However, I did not expect that today's court meeting would be held until more than 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It's short now, it's cloudy these days, and it's getting dark now.

"Your Highness, Jinyiwei has reported that Lin San, Tang Sai'er and his wife are already in Jinyiwei."

Although Tang Sai'er's affairs are more important, there are priorities, since Tang Sai'er and the others have been controlled, one day sooner or one day later will not affect things.

Chen Cheng will be summoned by Zhu Di tomorrow, although this matter is small, it is more urgent.

"Tell Yang Zhangde that I will meet them tomorrow at noon. Go and see the princess, are they ready? ”

"It's ready in the afternoon, just waiting for His Highness to come back."

After changing the clothes to go out, Sun Xian took Zhu Qizhen's little hand and entered the palace gate. "Your Highness, you went to inspect the Xiama Bridge, why do you have to follow the concubine. Let my mother know, and she will count me down again. ”

Having said that, Sun Xian was actually very happy that Zhu Zhanji could remember her when he went out.

Zhu Zhanji touched the head of Zhu Qizhen, who was shaved like a little Afu, and said to Li Liang: "Bring me Document C003 and put it ......."

It is not far from Xingqing Palace to Donghua Gate, Zhu Zhanji hugged Zhu Qizhen, followed Sun Xian by his side, and walked to Donghua Gate.

got into the carriage at Donghua Gate, Zhu Zhanji opened the document handed over by Li Liang and handed it to Sun Xian. "I don't want you women to be confined in the palace for the rest of your life, and the scale of the Counseling Department will be expanded in the future, and it will be moved to the inner library, and the place here will be vacated, and I am ready to use it for you.

This is a pinyin alphabet marked on my trip to the West according to the Western script and according to my Ming script. Letters, initials, and finals are all marked with Chinese characters. You have been smart and clever since you were a child, and you can learn everything quickly, I hope you can take care of this matter, and use a year or two to phonetically mark and sort out all the Chinese characters, and transliterate them according to the dictionary in the Yongle Canon. ”

When Sun Xian heard the news, she was a little confused. She has lived in the deep palace for a long time, and she was suddenly arranged by Zhu Zhanji for such a task, and she didn't even know how to start.

Zhu Zhanji is trying to save trouble, because today's Ming official dialect is a bit Jianghuai dialect, which is similar to the Nanjing accent of later generations.

This accent is quite different from the Mandarin of later generations, so Zhu Zhanji did not have the leisure to pronounce Chinese characters one by one.

But although this matter seems small, it is a major event that will affect thousands of generations, and of course he will not let a minister take this credit casually, so it is best to let Sun Xian come forward.

It can be said that as long as she completes this matter, her future queen status will be higher than that of any queen in the future.

Seeing that Sun Xian was a little confused, Zhu Zhanji said patiently: "In addition to you, I will also let the Xie Shi join in this matter." In addition, I brought back some scholars from the West this time, and they will all help you out. You can use this alphabet of mine to disassemble, decompose, and phonetize, and as long as you complete this work, you are destined to leave your name forever. ”

Sun Xian shuddered, and her eyes became hot when she looked at Zhu Zhanji. "Your Highness, the concubine is stupid, and I'm afraid that I won't do it well. What's more, those Confucian masters, will they think that the concubine is a concubine and a chicken Si Chen......"

"Don't care about those corrupt Confucians, you do this first, and when it is done, then spread it to the whole country as a course for future learning. That's no worse than three hundred thousand...... Would you like to do it? ”

Sun Xian nodded firmly. "The concubine is willing!"

Zhu Zhanji nodded and said, "I'll ask the Counseling Department to make a yard for you when I go back, but you don't want to do this alone, and all of them will join Hu Liangdi, Lan Liangdi." There are dozens of you, and one person is responsible for dozens of words, and all the thousands of words that are commonly used can be phoneticized. When the time comes, I will add them in to help you improve, and this will not take away your credit. ”

Sun Xian sat up straight, and bowed down again: "Your Highness, you are really good to the concubine." ”

Sun Xian looked at the alphabet compiled by Zhu Zhanji seriously, Zhu Zhanji hugged Zhu Qizhen and teased him from time to time.

He was almost five years old, and it was the time when he was lively and active, lying on the window of the carriage, looking at the guards on horseback, envious, pointing to the horse and saying, "Daddy, ride a horse." ”

If it was usual, Sun Xian would definitely discipline her, but at this time, she looked at the alphabet and had entered the realm of selflessness.

Zhu Zhanji helped Zhu Qizhen put on a tiger hat, and said with a smile: "Daddy will take you on a horse...... Li Liang, bring the docile Iberian horse ......"

Sun Xian realized that the father and son were going to abandon her, she glanced at Zhu Qizhen with disgust, and the little guy immediately asked Zhu Zhanji for help, turned around and hugged his neck, not daring to look at Sun Xian's eyes.

"It's okay, I'll hold him in my arms and won't fall him."

"Your Highness be careful......"

Zhu Qizhen saw that his mother was not hindering, and immediately became happy. "Riding a horse, I want to ride a horse......"

Out of Chaoyang Gate, not far from Xiamaqiao Farm, to the intersection of Zhuangzi, Chen Cheng led a group of talents from the research institute, already waiting at the intersection of Zhuangzi.

In addition to them, a large number of scholars and experts from various countries were also called.

They arrived at Yingtianfu before the Spring Festival, and they have been familiar with the customs and customs of this place for a month.

But their work was not arranged, and even Chen Cheng only divided them into different groups according to their majors, and he didn't know what to arrange for them.

Zhu Zhanji's main purpose in recruiting them was, of course, to build a new-style university in Yingtianfu that was closer to application.

Traditional Confucian teaching emphasizes theory, ideology, and application.

It takes a lot of energy to count on them to cater to you.

It is better to find a group of European scholars who are not closely related to them and re-establish a stall.

Of course, Zhu Zhanji will not completely abandon Confucianism. The Confucian idea of great unification, the idea of ethics, and the ideas of courtesy, happiness, benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and forgiveness are important ideological weapons for maintaining the power of great unification in the Ming Dynasty.

Chen Cheng is now in the Ministry of Industry, and this position is not high in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty.

However, he is also Zhu Zhanji's veritable butler, which gives him a transcendent status.

Just like Yang Shiqi, he is just a scholar of Zuo Chunfang in Wupin, but because he is the chief butler of Zhu Gaochi's James Mansion, even if he is an official of the six departments, he doesn't dare to take it casually when he sees him.

Moreover, after Chen Cheng returned from his mission to Timur a few years ago, with the support of Zhu Zhanji, he published two books, "Itinerary of the Western Regions" and "Chronicles of the Western Regions", which introduced the situation of various countries in the Western Regions and India.

This made him a well-known literati in today's Ming court.

Zhu Zhanji's Yulin Weixue was originally in charge of Chen Li, and after Chen Li was promoted to the commander of Yulin Wei, Zhang Fengshan was always in charge of the overall situation.

Zhang Fengshan was born in the army, and his skills are good, but he is not qualified enough to serve as the mountain chief of Yulin Weixue, so now the mountain chief has always been Zhu Zhanji.

But in addition to various trainings, Chen Cheng is basically in charge of the affairs of Yulin Weixue. Otherwise, with Zhang Fengshan's original position as the general manager, he would not be able to resist the pressure brought by the major nobles in the capital.

As the de facto controller of Yulin Weixue, Chen Cheng's fame is far greater than that of his Ministry of Engineering.

Everyone didn't expect that Zhu Zhanji would come over this time and bring Zhu Qizhen and Sun Xian as well. This caused a bit of confusion in their reception, as there were no female dependents to receive her.

However, Zhu Zhanji did not bother everyone too much, and asked Li Liang to take Sun Xian to contact a group of Western literati to understand the rules of Western writing.

Today's largest unit of Xiamaqiao Farm is no longer Yulin Weixue, but the Daming Royal Hospital, which is now famous in the entire Ming Dynasty.

This was originally the product of the doctors of the Tai Hospital, and the research of the Medical Research Institute, but under the guidance of Zhu Zhanji, it became the first comprehensive hospital in Daming.

The doctors of the hospital consider themselves the chief doctors of different departments, and their apprentices become attending physicians.

Although the nurses in the hospital are mainly men, because Zhu Zhanji thought that women were more careful, he also recruited a group of female nurses, but they were mainly responsible for laundry and cleaning.

It's not that Zhu Zhanji doesn't want to use a lot of women, but the main thing is that most of the women are uneducated and don't even know how to write, so they can't afford medical work at all.

After sending everyone away, only the management team of Xiamaqiao and the heads of various research institutes were left, and then everyone came to the large conference room of the Royal Hospital.

This nondescript large conference room was temporarily added by the hospital when Zhu Di came to the hospital for treatment once in the fifteenth year of Yongle.

At that time, Zhu Di needed to be treated continuously for half a month because he had dewormed his stomach, so a large conference room was built in the hospital to facilitate him to deal with government affairs.

Settle down in the conference room, where it was already dark, and the interiors lit candles on the walls.

Chen Cheng began to report on his work, and it took him about half an hour to introduce the general development of Xiamaqiao Farm in the past three years.

No matter when, the hospital is profitable, especially now that there is only one royal general hospital in Daming, the entire nobles of Daming, including the wealthy class, will think of coming here when they have a serious illness.

There are even many nobles who simply take the hospital as their home because of old age and old health. These people brought huge income to the hospital, and with this hospital, they were able to maintain the balance of income and expenditure of the entire Xiamaqiao Farm.

Seeing that Chen Cheng was quite complacent in announcing that they had saved Jin Kuo's annual appropriations in recent years, Zhu Zhanji felt a little crying and laughing.

He didn't set up ten research institutes to make ends meet......

No matter what kind of research, it needs to cost a huge amount of money, and what the research institute needs is rational investment, not saving money, which is completely unable to develop new technologies and applications.

Of course, it doesn't mean that these have been eating rice in the past three years, and there are several research institutes that have developed very well.

In the work reports of the major research institutes, Zhu Zhanji happily accepted the impact of some new technologies.

For example, the Gewu Research Institute, this research institute is mainly based on Ma Di, Zhu Zhanji's "student", they are mainly engaged in theoretical research, and have now laid the theoretical foundation in mechanics through the study of gliding wings.

They have sorted out the basic knowledge system of physics, and they have also made breakthroughs in mechanics.

For example, the simpler and more durable glider, the sail setting on the ship, after their improvement, even when the wind is headwind, the speed of the ship can reach more than five nautical miles, which has a huge benefit to the Ming fleet to go to sea.

The achievements of the Machinery Research Institute are even more significant, Ma Zhicai and the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry have become more and more systematic in their research on mechanical transmission, and there are more and more processing machines today, and they are becoming more and more complex.

There is also the Iron and Steel Casting Research Institute, after several years of research on different formulas, Daming is now able to manufacture alloy steel on a small scale, and the current lathe milling cutter and drill bit are all cast with harder alloy steel, which is harder in strength.

With these alloy steels, Daming can now directly cut steel, which makes today's Daming machining a new level.

There is also the Research Institute of Shipbuilding Technology, and now they are already working on the construction of larger ships with steel as keels.

However, while the study is on the right path, progress is still slow.

What makes Zhu Zhanji happiest is that the application of the steam engine has reached the level of popularization after three years of development.

In the Jiajiang Industrial Zone, there are already small lathes powered by steam engines, but without Zhu Zhanji's guidance, they have not yet thought of applying steam engines to vehicles.

Zhu Zhanji felt that he had to speed up the development of the Americas, because with the steam engine, he could make steam cars.

But without rubber tires, the current wheels simply cannot bear the weight of a steam engine.

As for the train, this is still a distant dream, and the key is nothing else, the production of steel is not large.

If you want to increase steel production, you need a lot of manpower and material resources......

With the current speed of hand-digging mines, countless people are needed to mine the stone alone.

And there are few open-pit iron mines in the entire Ming Dynasty, and transportation is a big problem.

Without enough steel, railways cannot be built, and without railways, the level of transport cannot be reached.

He felt that he could start to popularize the steam engine.

However, the promotion of the steam engine can also promote the development of the industrial level of other countries, which Zhu Zhanji absolutely does not want to see.

It seems that patents are a weapon that will play a greater role.

Whoever wants to imitate the waterwheel processing and steam engine processing of the Ming Dynasty must follow the rules of the Ming Dynasty. It's not that you can make it, you don't have to pay for it, you don't have to be controlled.

In the beginning, the application of the steam engine could only be promoted on a small scale, such as in remote mines, so that foreigners could not find out.

Wait for the technology of the Ming Dynasty to have its superiority, and then begin to popularize.

In this way, the invention of the steam car does not need to be too rushed.

When he didn't come to the research institute, Zhu Zhanji felt that it was very interesting to have intrigues and intrigues all day long. But when he saw these world-changing inventions, he felt that it was boring to deceive.

Being able to see the vigorous development of Daming through the eyes is truly exciting.

It was already completely dark, and the report work had just come to an end, and Zhu Zhanji encouraged the work of various research institutes, but did not express any opinions.

This is mainly because from tomorrow, he will inspect each research institute one by one, and then he will give guidance.

Many ideas and new technologies are not suitable for such an occasion.

Moreover, at the end of the meeting, Zhu Zhanji once again asked the research institutes that their own research and development projects should not be mentioned in the future when outsiders were present.

Today, thousands of foreigners live in Xiamaqiao Farm, and they can't talk about their work in front of them.

When he left from Xiamaqiao, Zhu Zhanji called Chen Cheng and said that he would make arrangements to send him to the northwest.

What does Chen Cheng say? Nor is he a peaceful man, he traveled to various countries when he was young, and he was used to wandering outside, and when he returned, Farr was a little unaccustomed to it.

After four years of holding back in Xiamaqiao, now I heard that I could go to the northwest, and I was not afraid, but very excited.

"Your Highness, going to the northwest is a chore for others, but for ministers, it is a beautiful errand. The minister may take a look at the development of the minister's cotton plan in the northwest in the past few years. ”

With a book by Chen Cheng, it is strictly forbidden to plant cotton south of the Yellow River in the Ming Dynasty, but because of the textile technology revolution in the Ming Dynasty, the output has increased greatly, and the demand for cotton has risen sharply.

Today's Yili and other countries are growing a large number of cotton, specifically to supply the Ming Dynasty, but the mountains are high and the roads are far away, and the cotton there is transported over, and the cost is high.

But there is no way, Daming is willing to pay this premium, and he is not willing to affect his country's food security because of cotton planting.

Through cotton, the relationship between the Ming Dynasty and several vassal states in the northwest is not bad now, but if it is only because of this benefit, it is impossible to think that they will follow the Ming Dynasty with all their hearts.

Zhu Zhanji carefully analyzed the strategic purpose of this western expedition with him, and instructed him: "Your task is quite important, and we need to pay a certain price to make the interests of the northwest countries align with the Ming Dynasty and jointly deal with the Timurid state.

At present, the grain in Jiayuguan is the most important bargaining chip, as long as there is enough food and grass for 200,000 cavalry, I can authorize you to exchange interests with other countries. ”

Chen Cheng was very familiar with the situation in the northwest, and the division between the Timurid State and the Eastern Chahatai Khanate was originally a national division, and the hatred between them was actually very great.

For this reason, he was very confident in this mission, but he was most afraid that his actions would be influenced by the commander of the Northern Route Army.

"Your Royal Highness, the emperor is old and will march west by sea, so who is the commander in the northwest?"

"If there is no accident, it will be Zheng Heng who will lead the Warat, the Tatar coalition army to attack from the north, and I will ask him to fully support your operation. But ......"

Zhu Zhanji hesitated for a moment, and said softly in the night: "My father may be responsible for the deployment of logistics supplies in Jiayuguan, and you will have to learn to be more flexible at that time." ”

Chen Cheng was shocked, and looked at Zhu Zhanji's somewhat blurred face in the night with some surprise.

The emperor drove the expedition in person, and the crown prince was also transferred out of the capital, which means that it will be His Royal Highness the grandson who will supervise the country.

Doing so while the crown prince is still young will cause chaos in the court!

However, considering that the army is under the control of the emperor and the grandson, it seems that this chaos can also be controlled......

As Zhu Zhanji's confidant, Chen Cheng was full of strength at this time. If the grandson can directly ascend the throne, he Chen Cheng will be the minister of the dragon!