In February and March of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, the prince of Fu and the king of Tang left the capital with a large number of people, and rushed to their destinations in the south and north.

For ordinary people, the two clansmen's visits to foreign countries are just a piece of lace news of more than 100 words. However, for the clan lords and some big businessmen, they attach great importance to the overseas trips of the two clans.

It was not that they had any good feelings for King Fu and King Tang, but that the entourage of the two clans carried a large number of clan lords and children and representatives of the merchant house.

The clan lords saw their overseas trip as a signal from the emperor, and after ten years of rectification, the emperor finally gave them the opportunity to re-intervene in politics, although it was only to handle diplomacy with foreign countries, but it was better than squatting at home and eating idle dinner. And it's better to deal with vassal states than to go to the battlefield to fight for your life.

While these clan lords cheered and celebrated that they had finally survived, the merchants also looked forward to the fact that the two clansmen's visit to foreign countries would bring them more trade concessions.

But for Chongzhen, this is just a small thing. The most important thing for the Ming Dynasty in March of the 11th year of Chongzhen was the appearance of the first condensing steam engine with pressure exceeding atmospheric pressure.

Under the continuous research of Bo Jue and other Ming mechanical experts, with the material and technical support of the craftsmen of the Wensi Academy and the Ordnance Prison, plus the theoretical guidance of scientists such as Galileo. The steam engine research and production team led by Bo Jue finally improved the original extremely rudimentary water-lifting machine into a machine that could output power.

After hearing the news, Zhu Youzhen immediately took the time to go to the Cannon Factory in Jingshan, which had all the tools and raw materials for processing steam engine parts, so it became the base for the development of steam engines.

In an independent small courtyard of the cannon factory, a machine more than 2 people tall was erected in the courtyard, although it looked thick and bulky, it was still much more delicate than the pumping machine that Chongzhen had seen before.

The whole machine is divided into three parts, the steam boiler, the cylinder, the base, and the output device. The steam boiler in the style of water pipes accounts for almost half of the whole machine, but this style of boiler is just in line with the current technical level of the Ming Dynasty, so that the boiler will not be blown up by the pressure of water vapor.

After seeing the emperor's arrival, Bo Jue began to instruct the workers to boil water and start the steam engine. It is obviously impossible to boil the water of such a large boiler without one or two hours. So Sun Yuanhua, the military director on the side, began to introduce the details of this steam engine to Chongzhen to pass the time.

“… For the efficiency of this steam engine, we chose the number of rotations of the flywheel per minute to evaluate. Basically, the flywheel is powered by water, about 9-10 times per minute, and the power output of our current machine is about 30-35 times per minute.

According to our test, if a horse drags 150 pounds of weight per second to raise one meter, then the machine is roughly equivalent to 75 units of output when it is operating normally. The old steam water lifter has an output of roughly 3-35 units. That is, the machine is now twice as efficient.

However, the coal consumption of the new machine is only one-sixth of that of the old machine, that is, the new machine has use value even if it is far away from the coal mine..."

Zhu Youzhen listened to Sun Yuanhua's introduction, carefully observed the operation of the steam engine, and then discussed some problems in the development process of the steam engine with Bo Jue and other researchers.

At the end of the symposium, Zhu Youzhen asked Sun Yuanhua to report the list of personnel who developed the steam engine as a commendation, and said to everyone: "... To be able to improve the steam engine to such an extent in such a short period of time, I would like to thank you for your efforts.

However, I think this is just the beginning, and I hope that you can further improve the efficiency of the steam engine, and the standardization of various components, especially the calculation of air pressure in the boiler and the output power standard, will be determined one by one.

If we are to turn the steam engine into the preferred source of power for factories, we must be able to industrialize it, not just make it by hand in the workshop. Think about it, our steel manufacturing industry needs power blasting, our cement factories need power to crush ore, our cotton textile industry needs power to drive machines, and our agriculture needs more powerful power sources to pump water from deep underground for irrigation... If you can't come up with a standard for a steam engine, how are we going to make it on a large scale..."

With the emperor's commendation and encouragement, the experts and craftsmen who had been slacking off on their success were once again motivated to achieve the goal that Chongzhen had set for them.

Before Chongzhen left, he asked Xu Xingsheng to send 150 new steam engines to the Ordnance Superintendent* to replace the pumping steam engines used in agriculture at the Tangshan Iron and Steel Works and throughout Hebei. The price of this new steam engine is three times higher than that of the old one, almost 1,800 yuan per steam engine.

The reason why the new steam engine is so expensive is that it uses a lot of precision machining technology and a large number of steel and wrought iron components. The new steam engine is not perfect, and it also needs a large number of maintenance personnel to maintain, which is also the reason why the price is difficult to low.

But even so, the value of the new steam engine was immeasurable for factories that were in dire need of power and for agricultural areas that needed to pump water to fight drought. When the new steam engines began to be installed in various places, many factory owners in the Gyeonggi area also sent orders, and the factory owners in the cotton textile industry hoped that the Ordnance Inspector could produce a steam engine that could produce a stable output to drive their cotton textile machines to replace animal power and water power.

After all, the drought in northern China that began last year has further reduced the amount of water in the Haihe River, causing extremely fierce conflicts between cotton textile factories and farmers on both sides of the Haihe River over water use. As a result, many cotton textile factories either moved to the south or shortened the opening time of the factories, and the emergence of new steam engines undoubtedly gave them a glimmer of hope.

Therefore, in just a few months, the Ordnance Superintendent received an order for 1,126 units, while the Ordnance Superintendent's production capacity was only 7 units a month. In order to be able to complete the accumulation of orders, Sun Yuanhua, Bo Jue and others standardized the design of the components of the steam engine, and began to contract some unimportant parts to private factories.

On the other hand, the new steam engine not only solves the problem of the blast power source of the steel plant, but also allows the steel plant to lay out the workshop without being restricted by the river, which greatly increases the production efficiency of the steel plant. The quality requirements of the steam engine for steel also further promoted the quality standards of steel production, and the Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant began to leave other iron factories behind, and a jaw-dropping speed developed.

Of course, for Chongzhen, Chongzhen's eleven years have brought him more surprises than that. On May 15, 11 years, the first five-year economic plan had already achieved all the targets except grain production five months ahead of schedule.

The greatest significance of the success of the first five-year economic plan was not the completion of the various economic targets set by the imperial court, but the first time that the Ming officials were shown how to mobilize social resources for economic construction. Before that, the traditional Chinese concept of governing the country was to rule by doing nothing, as long as the officials did not disturb the people's lives, it was the best way to govern the country.

"The voices of chickens and dogs are heard by each other, but the old and dead do not get along." It is exactly what scholars think is the ideal form of society. This kind of pastoral life, which is rooted in the economy of small farmers, naturally looks beautiful in good times, but once it encounters famine and war, this false good life suddenly turns into hell.

For the gentry landlords, the good pastoral life meant that they were able to obtain a good rent from the hired peasants, but did not have to fulfill their obligations to the state, which was naturally a prosperous age that they admired. However, for the state and the people, this prosperity is at the expense of the country's defense capacity and the ability of civilians to resist disasters.

Therefore, when the imperial court first introduced the goal of the five-year economic plan, it was resisted by local officials and scholars, who regarded it as a policy that would exhaust the people's strength and bring disaster to the country. After all, in the traditional Chinese doctrine, the small-scale peasant economy rooted in the land means that the wealth of the world is constant, and the imperial court says how much wealth to increase every year, which is obviously an impossible policy, which is nothing more than trying to take money out of the people's pockets.

At this time, the scholars and doctors knew very well that there was not much wealth to be divided among the common people, and the imperial court wanted to take money out of their pockets by implementing such a policy. As a result, these scholars suddenly became the embodiment of the people, and resolutely opposed the use of fixed economic data to prescribe economic construction in various places.

Officials everywhere are also apprehensive, after all, they have not experienced such a way of economic development. The imperial court fixed these economic indicators at once, what if it couldn't do it itself? Even the most staunch reformist officials are at a loss as they know how to improve these economic indicators.

The first five-year economic plan was spent in the midst of quarrels between the imperial court and local officials. If it were not for the successive droughts and floods in the north and floods in the south, which made the ability of the planned economy to resist disasters more prominent, and caused the officials and gentry in the north to change their attitudes, it is estimated that the first five-year economic plan would have died halfway.

It was with the support of the northern officials and gentry that the imperial court had the time to transfer and marginalize those officials who resisted the planned economy, and to suppress the tide of opposition to the planned economy among local officials. But even so, some of the more economically developed areas in the south did not pay any attention to the planned economy issued by the imperial court, and they did not openly resist it, but simply shelved the imperial court's policies.

It was under this stumbling administration that the first five-year economic plan was still successful, and how not to make Chongzhen feel happy. With the first five-year plan as the foundation, it is only natural that the second five-year plan will be implemented.