Emperor Chongzhen's merging of the remaining 2,000 people of the mine battalion that Li Banghua had been ordered to train in accordance with the new army's drill code into the Shenji Battalion was of course not a temporary decision.

Over the past few years, the new firearms and equipment of the Shenji Battalion have been constantly updated, and its combat effectiveness should be greatly improved, at least in terms of guarding the safety of the Jingshi City, there is no problem.

However, as the only military force in Beijing for the purpose of war, the establishment of the Shenji Battalion has always been in a state of dissatisfaction.

The previous reorganization of Wen Zhenmeng, Liu Wenbing, and Zhu Guoyan not only cleaned up the empty salary, but also eliminated a lot of old and weak.

The Shenji Battalion, which originally had a staffing of more than 15,000 people, was left and right and the five major battalions of the Chinese army, all of which were not yet staffed.

Later, Yuan Chonghuan rushed to the northwest to take up the post of governor of the three sides, and Zhou Yuji took a Beijing camp to escort the military salaries and guns he carried to his post.

Now, Zhou Yuji has been transferred to the post of chief military officer of Gansu Town with the firearms team that went out to the Shenji Battalion, and it is impossible to transfer back to the Beijing Division and serve in the Shenji Battalion.

It is Zhou Yuji himself who will return to the Beijing Division in the future and return to the Shenji Battalion to serve, and the left battalion of the Shenji Battalion that he took away has now become the main force in the Gansu Town Army, and it is impossible to return to the Beijing Division and return to the Shenji Battalion.

In this way, there are only four battalion heads left of the five battalion heads of the Shenji Battalion, and the gap in the large battalion with 15,000 posts is even greater.

Later, after the Beijing camp was split, and the 3,000 battalions and the five military battalions were independently reorganized into the third and fourth towns of the Guards, Wen Zhenmeng also left the post of the Beijing Battalion Supervisor and transferred to the right guard of the Guards Governor's Office.

This time, Emperor Chongzhen came to Baiye City, and the mine camp men and horses left behind in Baiye City were disciplined and well-trained, but they were included in the sequence of the reserve army governor's mansion, and they immediately felt pity.

It just so happened that the training standards of the mine battalion were also the drills of the new army, and the ordnance and weapons equipped were all new-style firearms.

Thinking about it this way, I had the idea of integrating them into the Shenji Battalion and letting the Shenji Battalion be fully organized as soon as possible.

At the shooting range of the Third Gun Factory of the Armament Institute, the successful test firing and drill of the Chongzhen Type 4 and the Shenwei Capture General Cannon by the non-commissioned officers of the mine battalion strengthened his idea.

Let's say that Liu Han, Liu Mu, Song Yingsheng and others were specially summoned by the emperor again, and after listening to the emperor's will to reward them, everyone was overjoyed and grateful.

Including Song Yingsheng, a civil official who was born as a jinshi, listened to Emperor Chongzhen's arrangement, he was also excited and admired, and all kinds of feelings were intertwined.

He is similar to his younger brother Song Yingxing, they both like to learn from all kinds of work, and they have no resistance to leaving Beijing to work in Baiyecheng, an important mining and metallurgical town.

It's just that he followed the people left behind in the mine camp to become a civilian officer in a regimental training team, but it was not his expectation of his life.

And this time, His Majesty the current Emperor seemed to know his heart completely, not only incorporated the remaining personnel of the mine camp into the Shenji Battalion as the Shenji Left Battalion, but also promoted him to Lang Zhong, the director of the Baiye City Engineering Department, and concurrently served as the deputy envoy of the supervising army of the left battalion of the Shenji Battalion, which solved a problem that seemed unsolvable to him in an instant.

The elite mine battalions left behind in the Baiye City area were incorporated into the Shenji Battalion, which may be a major loss to the entire Ministry of Industry, especially for the Baiye City Branch of the Ministry of Industry.

However, while Emperor Chongzhen did this, he also promoted Song Yingsheng to Lang Zhong of the Ministry of Industry of Baiye City and concurrently served as the deputy envoy of the supervision of the new Shenji Left Battalion, which was equivalent to bringing the newly formed Shenji Left Battalion under the control of the Ministry of Industry.

Song Yingsheng had already heard from his correspondence with his younger brother that the current saint was a very human being, and after this incident, Song Yingsheng felt that the current saint was the true son of heaven!

When he bowed down to Thanksgiving again, his heart was filled with awe and piety.

This time, in addition to these characters who were directly summoned by Emperor Chongzhen and personally rewarded, there were many other candidates recommended by the Ministry of Industry and the Armament Institute.

However, Emperor Chongzhen handed over the rewards and rewards of those people to Sun Chengzong, so there was no need for the emperor himself to worry about it.

After the summons and reward, Emperor Chongzhen's car did not return to the Yamen of the Ministry of Work in Baiye City, but set off directly from outside the south gate of Baiye City, went to Jizhou, went to Sanhe, and headed towards Tongzhou.

Emperor Chongzhen didn't want to be in such a hurry, because he also wanted to take a look at the blast furnace technology of the iron-smelting factories and steel-making plants inside and outside Baiye City, and at the same time, he also wanted to take a look at the factories and mines in the area of Baiye City that were held by the Internal Affairs Government and Baohe Company.

However, just last night, his thoughts and itinerary were interrupted by a message from Tongzhou.

This news is also good news, and it is the good news that Emperor Chongzhen has been looking forward to for a long time!

As early as July of the second year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen made a decree to let Bi Maokang, who was the new secretary of the Ministry of Industry at that time, serve as the minister of the general office, and prepare to build an Huangming Institute of Technology outside Tongzhou City.

At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen also ordered a group of people who were proficient in the study of hundreds of crafts to gather in Tongzhou Institute of Technology to run a school.

For example, let Li Tianjing, the cattle man who presided over the translation of the "Complete Book of Mining and Metallurgy", serve as the sacrificial wine of the four products of the College of Engineering, and let Song Yingxing, who had already begun to write "Tiangong Kaiwu" and was a member of the Ministry of Engineering at the time, become the director of the six products of the College of Engineering.

Moreover, a group of officials recommended by Xu Guangqi, Bi Maokang, Li Tianjing, and others to participate in the translation of the "Complete Book of Mining and Metallurgy" and other works, such as Yang Zhihua and Huang Hongxian, the eight records of Guanglu Temple, were also arranged to Tongzhou to serve as professors and professors of the left and right institutes of the College of Engineering.

Of course, speaking of which, this is another reason why the Rite Almanac Bureau, which Xu Guangqi presided over, has slowed down in compiling the Chongzhen Almanac.

Because in the summer of the second year of Chongzhen, not only Western missionaries such as Long Huamin, Tang Ruowang, etc., went to the northwest to preach, leaving the Ministry of Rites and Qin Tianjian, but also a group of disciples trained by Xu Guangqi himself, such as Li Tianjing, who were also ordered to go to Tongzhou to prepare for the construction of the Institute of Engineering.

Some of these people are proficient in Western studies, such as Li Tianjing, and some are well-read and well-read encyclopedias, such as Song Yingxing, a native of the Ming Dynasty and self-taught.

With these characters, coupled with a person who likes to learn a hundred crafts, especially for firearms manufacturing, the Ministry of Engineering Shangshu Bi Maokang, and at the same time has the strong support and funding of Emperor Chongzhen, at the end of the second year of Chongzhen, this Huangming Institute of Technology was officially opened in Shilibao in the east of Tongzhou City.

Since the establishment of this engineering college in the summer of the second year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen has allocated funds three times, each time it is 300,000 Chongzhen silver yuan, plus various materials allocated, and the cumulative investment is more than one million Chongzhen silver yuan.

The money spent in this way is almost catching up with the military expenses provided by the imperial court and outside the court every year to the first town of the Guards of the Luhewan Battalion in Tongzhou, which is not far from it.

The reason why Emperor Chongzhen attaches so much importance to this engineering college is, of course, that he hopes that they will come up with some technical achievements as soon as possible, which can be quickly used for military purposes.

Therefore, along with every grant from Emperor Chongzhen, there were one research task after another, such as the refining of petroleum, the smelting and casting of metals, the classification of minerals, and so on.

Among all the research tasks assigned to the Institute of Engineering, Emperor Chongzhen was most eager to see the results, and it was also the one that he thought was the easiest to produce results, that is, the manned flight of the hot air balloon.

If you can get the thing of manned flight of hot air balloons in this era, then its significance is too great.

Let's not talk about the role of this move in promoting knowledge in astronomy and physics, just talking about the military value of manned flight of hot air balloons, especially its use in warfare, can make the Ming officials and soldiers of this era go to a huge level.

With this thing, not to mention the Jianyu in the northeast and the thieves in the northwest, even those Western powers who are colonizing everywhere in the world will also be at a disadvantage when facing the Ming officials and troops in future land and sea wars.

Of course, the vision is always beautiful, but the reality is cruel.

Although Emperor Chongzhen wrote many edicts to inform Song Yingxing and Yang Zhihua in charge of the project in the Institute of Engineering that he knew about hot air balloons, he also specially asked people to send a Kong Ming lantern carefully built by the Weaving, Dyeing and Needlework Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Institute of Engineering to give them some inspiration.

But more than a year later, progress has been slow.

By this time in the spring of Chongzhen's fourth year, Emperor Chongzhen's original enthusiasm had almost been consumed, and he realized that this matter might not be so simple.

Therefore, on the way from Beijing to Tianjin Dagukou to inspect the Dagukou shipyard, especially when passing through Tongzhou City, I simply did not go in the direction of Tongzhou Dongshilibao Huangming Institute of Technology.

However, what I didn't expect was that Emperor Chongzhen, who couldn't get it out of the left and right, was already a little discouraged, but during his stay in Baiye City, he unexpectedly received the good news from Li Tianjing, the sacrificial wine of the College of Engineering, and Song Yingxing, the secretary, who directly sent people to send a fast horse, and the hot air balloon manned flight was successful!

Li Tianjing and Song Yingxing said a lot about the content of the good news sent by others, but in summary, it means this:

On the 10th day of the first month of March, the School of Engineering once again ventured to conduct a manned experiment, and the hot air balloon was lifted off 44 feet above the ground, drifting 32 miles downwind, and the manned space lasted for four hours, which can be declared a success!