The first snow in the ninth year of Chongzheng, earlier than in previous years, the heavens may be celebrating the arrival of the peaceful and prosperous era of the Ming Dynasty, or may be sighing for the death of the hero, Li Zicheng and others were executed not long after, the capital began to snow with goose feathers, and for a time the whole world was integrated into the white snowflakes.

At this time, Zhu Cijiong was not immersed in the gentle township, as an emperor, he had a lot of things to do, and the most important of them was naturally to plan the future development of the Ming Dynasty, so after dealing with the affairs of the leader of the righteous army, he began to plan for the future development.

The appearance of cement can be described as a timely rain for him, with cement, the speed of railway construction will be doubled, the construction of the Yellow River and Yangtze River Bridge, the construction of the Qinling Taihang Tunnel, these problems he could not think of before, now it seems that it is only a matter of time.

'A bridge flying north and south, the moat becomes a thoroughfare', thinking of the construction of the railway, a sense of pride and ambition can not help but fill his mind, as long as the railway runs through the entire Ming Dynasty, prosperity and strength will no longer be a dream, a rich country and a strong army is no longer a dream, and the Ming Dynasty will stand on top of the world.

Of course, the use of cement is not only in the construction of railways, but also in building city walls, roads, forts, buildings, etc., etc., with cement will be more convenient and fast, and even the laying of telegraph networks has become very simple because of the emergence of cement.

In the past, Zhu Cijiong's idea was to erect wooden pillars and erect telegraph lines in the air, and at least tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of miles of telegraph lines had to be laid throughout the Ming Dynasty.

Now it's different, he plans to open a standard wiring trench directly on the ground, dig a few feet deep and then swing the standard wooden square inside, and then pour it with cement, and then take out the wooden square when the cement is dry, and then cover it, and the trench will become, no matter how many telegraph lines, just put it inside.

Of course, there is still a problem of underwater laying of telegraph lines, which he has also thought about, and he plans to let the Ministry of Industry produce multi-layer covered armored cables, that is, first wrap a layer of rubber outside the copper wire, and then wrap a thin layer of iron sheet outside the rubber layer, and then cover a layer of rubber, so that the strength and protective performance of the cable will be greatly improved, and it will be okay to spread it directly from the water.

This kind of cable is more laborious to process, but the width of the river waterway is nothing compared to the telegraph network tens of thousands of miles long, it is enough to make a few hundred miles long, but it can not delay much time, and in the future, the telegraph network will be connected to the vassal states or allies of the Ming Dynasty through the undersea, which is also tens of thousands of miles long at every turn, and now the manufacture of this underwater cable is also a kind of accumulation of experience, and there is no need to temporarily cram.

This is only the railway and telegraph network, of course, the development of a country is not just to improve transportation and communications, industry, agriculture, economy, military, culture and other aspects must be developed in an all-round way, Zhu Cijiong does not think that he is a proficient all-rounder, so he summoned experts from all walks of life to discuss with him the development plan of the Ming Dynasty.

This time, he had an overall development plan in mind, so there weren't many people to gather, just a few of his most valued cronies.

Naturally, no one dared to delay the meeting convened by the emperor, and soon Zhu Cijiong sat in his private study with a group of cronies, blowing the newly designed heating, drinking ginseng tea prepared by the imperial doctor, and preparing to discuss the huge map of the Ming Dynasty on the conference table.

Sitting on his left hand side is his mentor, Xu Guangqi, the head of the cabinet and the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, and below is Sun Yuanhua, the secretary of the Ministry of War, and then, it is gone!

Sitting on his right hand was Bi Maokang, the secretary of the Ministry of Works, Yang Sichang, the secretary of the Ministry of Officials, and Chen Zilong, the newly promoted left attendant of the Ministry of Officials, accompanied the last seat, that is, he only gathered a total of five people.

Now everyone is going to be strange, let go of the household department and the criminal department of the book are not recruited, but a new official department Zuo Shilang is invited to discuss national affairs, is it a bit too cronyistic?

In fact, otherwise, the head of the household department and the secretary of the criminal department are one in charge of silver, one is in charge of prisoners, and it really has nothing to do with the development plan, this Chen Zilong is different, he is the successor of Zhu Cijiong's cabinet chief assistant, according to Zhu Cijiong's detailed investigation, he is an all-rounder who is proficient in industry, agriculture, economy, military, culture and other aspects, and letting him participate in the discussion of development plans is a bit of a cultivation of his meaning, and more importantly, Zhu Cijiong really wants to hear his opinion.

At the beginning of the meeting, Zhu Cijiong first gave a general introduction to his planning of the railway and telegraph network, according to his meaning, to establish a transportation center near Kaifeng Prefecture, where all the railways of the Ming Dynasty are gathered, and next year the railway from Beijing to Kaifeng will be repaired, and then Kaifeng to Jinling, Kaifeng to Xi'an, Kaifeng to Jinan, etc.; As for the telegraph network, he planned to lay the capital first to the provinces next year, and then the provinces to the state capitals, and the state capitals to the county seats.

Hearing that the emperor had such a huge plan, everyone was dumbfounded, and Bi Maokang was the first to speak: "Your Majesty, please forgive Weichen for talking too much, how to cross this big river, how to leap over this lofty mountain, many of these routes you said need to trek through mountains and rivers!" “

When Zhu Cijiong heard this, he said proudly: "You don't need to worry about this, I thought of a thing, like lime, which can be stirred into mud after adding water, but it is as solid as a rock after the water dries, and if steel and pebbles are added in the middle, the toughness can be comparable to steel." The name of this thing is cement, and with this cement, it is not a problem to build bridges and dig holes. “

Everyone was shocked when they heard this, Xu Guangqi couldn't help but ask: "Your Majesty, please forgive Weichen for being lonely and unheard, there are such strange things in the world, why have Weichen never heard of it." “

Zhu Cijiong smiled and explained: "This thing is not natural, it needs to be finely ground and mixed with limestone, clay and iron ore powder in proportion, calcined and then ground into powder with a certain amount of gypsum, and it is normal that the teacher has not heard of it." “

Xu Guangqi also studied the characteristics of various minerals a little, he heard the words and thought about it, combined with the characteristics of these minerals, it is really possible to make the cement that the emperor said, he couldn't help but admire: "The emperor is really a god, and he can even come up with such a complex thing." “

Zhu Cijiong touched his head a little embarrassed, and said embarrassedly: "Hehe, don't talk about this, in short, I have already thought about it, the railway and telegraph network are not a problem, and now the biggest problem is the northwest, which can account for a small half of the territory of the Ming Dynasty, if it is abandoned like this, it will be difficult for the Ming Dynasty to develop greatly in a short period of time." “

Xu Guangqi nodded when he heard this: "Well, this problem Weichen has also been thinking about, after Weichen's understanding in recent years, the drought in the northwest seems to be gradually improving, and it is estimated that it will be back to normal in another ten years." “

Decade! The teacher is a true god, this can be estimated, it seems that it can only wait for ten years, but such a large area, it is a pity that it is deserted, if it can be used, the development of Daming can be at least doubled!