After the Civil War, the price of cotton, an important raw material for industry, fell sharply, not only restoring the pre-war price, but also dropping by about 30% compared with the pre-war period. Because U.S. cotton production was interrupted during the war, other countries quickly filled the U.S. gap. Regions such as India and Africa, where the human and natural conditions are suitable, have created large cotton-producing areas, and cotton production in small countries such as Brazil and Egypt has also expanded significantly. At this time, U.S. cotton suddenly returned to the market again, and it can be said that cotton production is in great surplus.

The low price of cotton has reduced the industrial cost of various countries, and the cotton textile industry has once again entered the expansion cycle, which has led to the accelerated development of machinery manufacturing, transportation and financial industries.

New technologies have also begun to be intensively promoted, and the two fastest growing new technologies come from two countries, one is China and the other is Germany.

The Germans have made rapid progress in the field of chemistry, using their rich coal resources, the Germans have invented chemical dyes, which are cheap and have better printing and dyeing effects, and quickly replace natural dyes with high production costs and easy to fade, injecting greater vitality into the German economy.

China and Britain were the largest importers of German dyes, and Germany imported coal tar from Britain, synthesized the dyes, and then sold them back to Britain, making the British feel that they were about to become German colonies economically.

In addition to dyes, the birth of the fertilizer industry in Germany led to a significant increase in food yields. And a large number of exports to France, Eastern Europe.

China has played an important role in promoting power technology.

One of the main reasons is that China's new era of technical personnel has grown up. After Zhou Lang's education construction, China's universal education achieved 80 percent of the students' enrollment 30 years ago, and now public schools have been able to cover the whole country, with a school attendance rate of more than 95%, it can be said that compulsory education has been completed, and there are very few illiterate people in the new generation.

Universal education provides a huge talent base, and coupled with China's population, the possibility of producing talents is extremely high. Even if Chinese are more enthusiastic about taking the imperial examination to become officials, the number of engineering and technical personnel and scientific research personnel is still the largest in the world. In this case, if new technologies cannot be developed, it can only be said that the Chinese are stupid.

Such a huge number of technical personnel, in fact, as early as 30 years ago has laid the foundation, although the original technology has been scarce, but the number of improved technology is huge, China has almost all areas of technological contributions, based on the improvement of European technology, the quality of steam engines, machine tools, mechanical products produced in China, is already world-class, not lost to any country.

However, a large number of original technologies have emerged in power technology, and the emperor's promotion has been indispensable, because as early as more than ten years ago, the emperor began to focus on funding the research of power technology.

Why did the emperor fund the research of electric power technology, because Zhou Lang was worried about China's industrial revolution, he found that China's industrial development level, 20 years ago, began to stagnate, although new technologies are still being promoted, but the total amount is no longer increasing, reflecting that the urbanization rate began to stagnate, and now after 20 years, the urbanization rate has only increased slowly from 30% to 40%, only an increase of 7%.

After Zhou Lang's comparative analysis, there is such a conjecture, that is, in the era of steam power, China's development has reached the limit, and the industrial revolution based on steam power cannot make China completely complete industrialization.

China is a huge country, the real completion of industrialization in history, in fact, has to be pushed to after 2000, when China became the world's factory, the initial completion of industrialization, industry completely replaced handicrafts, industrial output exceeded agricultural output, industrial population exceeded agricultural population, but the urbanization rate only reached 50 percent.

To make China a country with an urbanization rate of more than 70%, steam power cannot do it. Then we can only look for stronger power, that is, the second industrial revolution, which was marked by the use of electricity and the use of internal combustion engines.

Needless to say, the power industry is based on the use of electricity, the power source is simpler, and the electric motor can be used in an entire town, unlike the steam engine, if the factory wants to install it, you have to procure the coal yourself, which is disastrous for areas where transportation is not convenient. The application of the internal combustion engine, just look at the huge automobile industry, the automobile industry in later generations consumed three or four percent of the world's steel production, second only to real estate in China to other industries.

Therefore, Zhou Lang focused on funding research on electricity and internal combustion engines.

Zhou Lang took out a huge fortune of 10 million taels of gold, established a future fund, and set up two awards, one called the Electronics Award, the other called the Dynamics Award, to reward and fund scientists who have contributed to these two fields around the world, and the award is awarded once a year, and the winner can get a huge reward of up to 10,000 taels of gold.

The Future Fund also takes out a huge amount of more than 100,000 taels of gold every year to support the research of famous inventors of the Royal Society of China and even around the world, and various research organizations and individuals can apply to the Future Fund, and the team of scientists under the fund will review the qualifications of the applicants, and after determining the ability of the other party, they will be given funding for their research.

As the initiating country, China's scientific teams and individuals receive the most funding, and many Westerners even immigrate to China because of China's ease of research, and the Chinese government welcomes the arrival of these top scholars.

As a result, a large number of new technologies began to emerge in China, not only with the contributions of foreign scholars, but also by Chinese technicians.

The emperor often participated in the research and discussion work of various scholars in his busy schedule, and he did not hesitate to put forward some forward-looking ideas, such as the concept of electric lights, the idea of an electrically driven train, etc.

I don't know if it was inspired by the emperor, a young Shanghai college student surnamed Wen really made an electric light in the laboratory.

As early as 1809, Sir Humphrey Davy (Faraday's teacher), a professor at the Royal Academy, used 2,000 batteries and two charcoal rods to make the world's first arc lamp. But the light produced by this lamp is too strong to be installed on the street or square, and cannot be used by ordinary households. Countless scientists have racked their brains to create an inexpensive, high-quality, and long-lasting household electric light. Göber, a German watchmaker who immigrated to the Americas, invented the light bulb in 1854.

However, these technologies are still not practical and the inventors do not know how to promote and have no willingness to continue to improve, so the invention is just a short-lived technology, until the emergence of Edison, the electric light began to be applied. Edison invented a similar light bulb about 20 years after Gober, making one in 1860, but it was not until 1878 that it became practical.

This Chinese college student made the first light bulb more than ten years ago, but unlike other genius inventors, he was obsessed with making a fortune with the light bulb, and he used the light bulb technology to get the support of the Future Fund, and finally improved the light bulb that could be used for five years.

When his light bulb was displayed at the fair, the emperor even took the initiative to summon him to cover up in the palace, and then immediately signed a contract with him to produce electric lamps for the palace, replacing the oil lamps in all rooms and the lanterns outside the house.

The order from the palace not only opened his business, but also made him famous in an instant, and collaborators flocked to the door, after which he formed a company to promote technology, and it was a matter of course.

What is most important in power technology is actually this humble light bulb that is the most important. Because the light bulb is the first practical electricity commodity that can be promoted on a large scale, only the promotion of the light bulb can make the power supply profitable and make the coverage of the grid possible, otherwise even if there is technology, there is no way to promote it.

But electric light is a consumer product, and it should be the electric motor that creates value in electric power technology, which is the only way to replace steam power, and the emergence of electric motors has made the transportation of coal to every factory a thing of the past. This makes it easier to obtain mechanical power that was previously only available to factories of a certain size, and small factories, even a small workshop, a family, buy a motor, and after it is electrified, it can also drive small machines. That's why the electric revolution is more widespread than the steam-powered revolution.

It was Germany's Siemens that brought electric motor technology to practical use, a small company that started by producing telegraphs, but the founders, the Siemens brothers, were also inventors and made many inventions in the power industry. They improved the practical electric motor and then patented it all over the world. The wind-thunder lamp company, which had become wealthy, acquired the patent, and then carried out further research and development, and then introduced it to the market.

The rapid and practical use of electricity has led to the emergence of a number of power industry enterprises in China, some focus on manufacturing and improving generators, some produce electric motors, some operate power grids, and some produce batteries, China's power industry is the most complete and technologically advanced country in the world, at least in this era.

Of course, the power industry has just started, and there is still a long way to go to expect the power industry to replace steam power. Because a very important technical problem has not yet been solved, that is, the problem of long-distance transmission, which will have to wait for another genius to appear Tesla to be able to solve it.

At present, the application of electricity is still limited to electric lights, even the most developed urban agglomeration of Songjiang Province, it is mainly based on the supply of electric light electricity, some large companies have established a power grid covering the city, and also supply power to factories, but mainly during the day, at night they will prohibit the factory from using electricity, because at night their main customer after the electric light, if the factory continues to run the motor, it is possible to overload their power grid and collapse.

But the advent of electricity has made urban life more interesting, entertainment programs such as movies have not yet appeared, but electric lights have turned cities into cities that never sleep, nightlife has begun, and urban residents have begun to spend more time outdoors than rural residents. City life has become more varied, gradually overtaking the quiet countryside and attracting trendy young people.

China's urbanization is accelerating once again.