From Yongding Gate in the south to the Bell and Drum Tower in the north, this is a central axis of the city that divides the city into two, and countless royal palaces, altar temples, government offices and other important buildings in the city are attached to this central axis and combined, witnessing this glorious city.

When Chongzhen ordered the establishment of the Royal Academy of Sciences to re-measure weights and measures, so as to use more scientific means to calculate weights and measures, a new system of weights and measures with meters, seconds, and grams as the basic units began to gradually show its rudiments.

One of the most important units of length, at the beginning, the academicians of the Academy of Sciences planned to follow Chongzhen's suggestion to calculate the circumference of the equator, and then take 1/40 million of the circumference of the equator as one meter.

But they soon found that the method of calculating the equator did not work, because the land of the Ming Dynasty did not pass through the equatorial region, and most of the equatorial region was ocean, making it difficult to carry out actual measurement review. In the end, they decided to measure the length of the meridian and take one thousandth of an arc as a meter.

However, after countless calculations and discussions, they finally decided to use the meridian passing through the city of Beijing as the benchmark, and the length from the North Pole to the equator is one ten-millionth of a meter, that is, one meter.

With the standard problem solved, all that's left is repeated measurements and calculations. The geographical features of the North China Plain are very suitable for surveying. With Chongzhen's strong support, after a year of hard work by thousands of people, the accurate value of one yuan rice has been measured. Of course, this one-meter length is not without any problems, but it is already the most accurate result under the conditions of the available measuring tools.

Originally, the next step should have been to make rice prototypes and measure weights and measures for mass, volume, and temperature, but these academicians found another problem in the process of measuring the meridian, that is, the central axis of Beijing City was not completely consistent with the meridian, and the difference between the two was about 2 degrees.

This was obviously a relatively serious political issue, and for this reason Zhu Youzhen had no choice but to issue a gag order to the academicians of the Academy of Sciences, strictly forbidding them to talk about the deviation of the city's central axis from the meridian.

Because Chongzhen covered up this matter, he finally made this public weights and measures system speed up the measurement work. In the middle of December of the first year of Chongzhen, a set of original weights and measures made of gold, silver, and copper alloys finally appeared in front of Chongzhen's table.

When Zhu Youzhen looked at this set of scales with interest, Xu Guangqi still said with some hesitation: "Your Majesty, although this set of scales has been relatively accurate, but the academicians of the Academy of Sciences believe that it is not enough to rely on one year's measurement data, it is best to continue to measure, if you can have a 3 or 5 years, maybe this set of weights and measures will be more accurate." ”

Zhu Youzhen straightened up and shook his head and said, "The officials of the Ordnance Supervisor and the Wensi Academy have already reported to me, and the standard dimensions of many parts have been set in the past year. Together with the Ministry of Industry, they plan to launch a set of standard size drawings and various measuring tools, ranging from mechanical parts such as screws and nails to building modules.

If the introduction of metric weights and measures had been a few years late, it would have been astronomical to alter the atlas and withdraw the gauges, and to reintroduce the new sizes.

Therefore, I think it is better to push out this complete system of weights and measures as soon as possible, and then wait for the economy of Daming to improve, and then make further accurate measurements. ”

Although Xu Guangqi had some regrets, he still did not continue to persuade the emperor. Although he had a great idea in his heart to do it once and for all, after all, he might not be able to participate in the next measurement.

Zhu Youzhen is actually quite sorry that he has not yet discovered the two elements platinum and iridium, which makes it impossible for him to make a rice prototype with the smallest coefficient of thermal expansion.

Zhu Youzhen turned to look at Xu Guangqi and several academicians of science, and said happily: "This set of weights and measures is stored in the basement of the Academy of Sciences." In addition, the Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Industry can set up an International Bureau of Weights and Measures to prepare to promote this set of public weights and measures standards.

I hope that he is not only the standard of my Ming Dynasty, but also the standard weights and measures of all countries in the world. In this way, when international trade is carried out in the future, there will be no more trouble because of different units of measurement..."

Regarding Chongzhen's statement, neither Xu Guangqi nor the Jesuit missionaries were surprised. They believe that this set of weights and measures, which is based on scientific principles, is definitely much better than the chaotic weights and measures system in various countries.

When Xu Guangqi and the others left with the original weights and measures, Zhu Youzhen began to listen to Lu Qi's routine report. The release of slaves on the day of the court meeting really caused a fierce controversy. However, to Zhu Youzhen's surprise, the controversy was not one-sided.

In addition to the students from several schools he expected, many nobles from the capital also participated. But they didn't want to slap him, the emperor, but to protect their own interests.

The capital of the inner government, which is now the largest cotton, wool and linen textile industry in the capital, has dropped from four-fifths at the beginning of the year to two-fifths, and the rest is the capital of nobles and merchants.

Based on the current calculation that 100 laborers are required for every 1,000 spindles, 500,000 spindles need 50,000 workers. Together with other parts of the textile industry, the cotton, wool and linen textile industry employs nearly 80,000 workers.

Although there are more than 700,000 people in the capital, there will be no more than 350,000 people who really belong to the good people, and there are only 150,000-200,000 adult laborers excluding the old and young.

Among the remaining 300,000-400,000 people, although there are still more than 100,000 adult laborers, most of them belong to the lowly slave class. After all, before the first year of Chongzhen, Beijing was not a production-oriented city, but a consumption-oriented city.

As a city at the foot of the Son of Heaven, the number of dignitaries and wealthy merchants in the capital is thousands. These upper class of the Ming Dynasty have as few as 2 or 30 slaves and maids in the family, and as many as hundreds or thousands.

The number of slaves occupied by these people has seriously affected the recruitment of workers in factories throughout the capital. This year, due to the Gyeonggi drought, many Gyeonggi victims were recruited to work in factories in the capital.

However, these victims did not consider this work as their long-term occupation, after all, although they were affected by the disaster, their family's fields still existed, and now life in the factory is too tiring.

Even if it is a workshop under the name of the inner government, it is claimed to work 10 hours a day a day and have a day off every 10 days, but sometimes it is necessary to add an hour to the shift. As for privately owned workshops, working 11 hours a day is commonplace.

Most painfully, in order to ensure that these workers are mentally fit to work, these private workshop owners have taken measures to supervise the living of these workers. They are like a bunch of slaves, living a repetitive and numb life every day between the factory and the dormitory.

Under the threat of the scoundrels hired by the workshop owner, the workers entered the workshop and followed the prison. In order to reduce costs, these workshop owners gave these workers the cheapest food, such as old rice that had been stored for many years.

Under such poor working conditions, as long as there is still land at home, who would want to work for these private workshop owners? This private workshop is understaffed, and it is obvious.

Although there are also private workshop owners who hire slaves and maids from those families who have a large number of slaves and maids, and whose family is somewhat decadent, they want to use these cheap labor to fill the shortage of workers.

However, they soon discovered that the quality and efficiency of the work of the good people, although they often complained and even caused trouble, were not to be said of the quality and efficiency of the work. But the slaves themselves were not paid, and the standard of living and labor in the workshops far exceeded that of their slaves, so sabotage and destruction of machines became the norm in the private workshops.

These private workshop owners apparently do not think that this is the result of their being too harsh on their workers, but that something must be wrong.

After the news spread in the capital on December 1 that the imperial court intended to issue a slave release order, these private workshop owners thought about it for a while and felt that this policy was too correct.

After the slaves and maids of these wealthy families were released, they had almost no property except for their own bodies. Of course, a very small number of upper-level slaves and maids will not be released so easily, and those who can be released must be slaves and maids who have no special talents.

In order to survive, these slaves had no choice but to work in their workshops. Workers in this situation are obviously less likely to have problems with sabotage and machine destruction.

This also made some old-fashioned gentlemen loudly criticize that the release of slaves and maids would disrupt the normal order of the Ming Dynasty, these noble businessmen who opened workshops strongly supported the students led by Yenching University, and began to fight back against the stubborn and old-fashioned gentry.

Although the gentry who opposed the release of slaves and maids were not small, the students of Yenching University took advantage of the favorable conditions of the home field, and with the support of these private owners, they vigorously publicized the benefits of freeing slaves and maids on the streets of the capital, and scolded those who opposed them.

Although these gentlemen have a lot of power in the Yanguan, they are obviously in a dilemma in front of the people of the capital who have instigated.

And as this controversy gradually attracted the attention of the gentry of the world, Chongzhen and Huang Liji's plan to make the government and opposition officials shift their attention from the Henan incident to other places was mostly realized.

On the other hand, seeing that no one noticed him, Qian Qianyi bothered to persuade his first son, and finally hung up the signboard of the New Donglin Party in shame.

Qian Qianyi's style of using the Donglin Party as good and bad, rich and noble, and leaving when in distress is really contrary to the theme of Donglin Academy.

He decided to purify the party members and rebuild Donglin to Kuang Guoyun, so he took 38 people, including disciples, disciples, and friends, to establish the new Donglin Party, which was officially parted ways with the Donglin Party, which was mixed with fish and shrimp, and no longer had anything to do with the old Donglin Party.

After the words of Qian Qianyi when he formed the party spread, they immediately aroused the disgust and attacks of a small wave of people. But in the face of the storm caused by the slave release order, this small turmoil did not gain more people's attention.