Since the successful issuance of Huaxia Dragon coin, the Ming economy has entered a stage of rapid development. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The key to whether a country is truly rich or not lies in the living conditions of the people at the bottom, and Li Hongfei has really worked this.

One of the most important policies was to carry out land reform to curb land annexation.

Although there are still many tenant farmers (farmers without land) in the Ming Dynasty today, their living standards have been improved by several grades.

In the past, the imperial court collected taxes, which were levied according to the registered households in each village, that is, a peasant cultivated a few acres of land, and the imperial court collected agricultural taxes on a few acres of land, and those officials did not care whether these fields were your family's or not.

Such a way of taxation can easily lead to more and more difficult lives for ordinary people who make a living from farming.

After all, agricultural science and technology in ancient times were not developed, and ordinary people also took great risks in farming.

However, the tax policy at that time was very rigid, unless the emperor ordered a tax reduction or exemption, no matter how much your mu of land was harvested this year, you had to pay taxes according to the yield per mu of land registered in the previous imperial court.

That is to say, even if you don't harvest any acres of land this year, as long as the government doesn't say anything, you still have to pay enough taxes in accordance with the regulations of previous years.

Even in the era when the imperial power was seriously weakened, the so-called tax reduction or exemption policy could not leave the capital at all, and the officials below colluded with the local landlords, and not a penny of agricultural taxes should be levied.

What should I do if I can't come up with the money?

Borrowing usury, under the rolling interest, you don't want to turn over in this life.

Since the implementation of the land-based taxation model across the country, farmers' income has finally been guaranteed.

Although farming is still risky, the government will collect statistics on nearly 200 mu of cultivated land of different qualities from 10 local households every year, and use their average yield per mu to implement agricultural tax levies.

And only the landowners are asked to implement the tax.

This is also fundamentally eliminated, because the government levies taxes, thus forcing ordinary people to borrow usury.

This new method of taxation implemented by Li Hongfei can also alleviate the contradictions between landlords and tenant farmers to the greatest extent.

You must know that taxation is basically the landlord's business, if the landlord is not good to his own tenant farmers, then sorry, originally one acre of land can produce an average of two stones of rice, the tenant farmers give you "passive sabotage", one acre of land only harvest one stone of rice.

Although the tenant peasants also suffered a loss, and the 30 percent grain they were supposed to receive was directly halved, the landlords suffered even more, and not only did they halve their harvest, but the agricultural tax had to be levied according to the average output.

When the tenant peasants and the landlords hurt each other, it was only the landlords who suffered, because the new peasant tax was tantamount to an explicit stipulation that the tax had nothing to do with the proletarian peasants, and even the government could not openly collude with the landlords to embarrass the tenant peasants.

In order to achieve high yields and high returns, landlords must have a good relationship with their tenant farmers, just like the relationship between bosses and employees in later generations.

Of course, those employees who are "passive and slacking", after the boss has suffered a loss, he will naturally not raise such idlers in vain.

Although the coastal cities of Daming have gradually entered the primary stage of capitalism, today's Daming is still based on agriculture, and only when the peasants become rich, Daming can be regarded as truly rich.

Therefore, building bridges and paving roads, opening canals and diverting water, these basic and costly constructions, the imperial court must spend a lot of money to govern.

After receiving Li Hongfei's instructions, Wu Hao began to contact officials from the water conservancy engineering department and formulated a five-year plan to complete the construction of major roads in the country's prefecture and county cities within the next five years.

It is unlikely that a road connecting villages and villages will be realized at present, but on the basis of the original official roads, there is still no problem in expanding the provincial roads connecting various prefectures and counties.

If the road conditions are improved, the speed of commodity circulation will naturally become faster and faster, the level of consumption will increase, and the national tax revenue will naturally rise to a higher level.

You must know that today's commercial tax accounts for one-third of the tax proportion of the Ming Dynasty, and the more developed the business, the richer the imperial court will be.

Of course, national wealth is only one thing, and a strong military is the foundation of a big country.

After the implementation of the military reform, the soldiers of the Ministry of National Defense gradually changed to the Daming Type 1 rear-loading rifle.

This kind of use of paper shell bullets, known as the pouting handle of the rear loading rifle (when loading, the barrel and the butt need to be broken, the word "break" in many places and read as "pouting", so it is also called pouting handle), the technology has become mature, full of ten bullet production lines, can fully meet the field troops of the Ming National Defense Army, all the ammunition requirements after reloading.

As for the local garrisons and the armed police force (Li Hongfei became a new armed police force to accommodate the dismantled army, it was specialized in dealing with major cases in the state capitals, even small-scale anti-bandit operations), continued to use front-loading flintlock pistols.

The real rear-loading rifle "Daming II type" is still due to the production of metal bullets, and can only be equipped with some special forces.

In addition, this single-shot breech-loading rifle was not the ideal model in Li Hongfei's mind, so after producing 1,000 units, he ordered to stop production.

The ideal rifle in Li Hongfei's mind is a bolt-action rifle with a magazine, not a rear-loading rifle that needs to be loaded with one shot.

Fortunately, there is not much difference in the principle of the two rifles, and the most important thing is to solve the problem of the production of metal bullets, otherwise the rate of fire of the rifle in the future, the current bullet production line, can not meet the needs of the war at all..........

In the past two years, Daming has vigorously developed the military industry, and new weapons have emerged one after another.

For example, the battlefield harvester - heavy machine gun.

With the current level of science and technology of the Ming Dynasty, if you really want to be ruthless, you may not be able to get it out, at least the hand-cranked multi-barreled heavy machine gun, today's Ming Dynasty still has the ability to build it.

The hand-cranked multi-barrel heavy machine gun may not be familiar to everyone, but Gatling must be familiar to everyone.

And when it comes to multi-barreled firearms, the Ming Dynasty's Thunderbolt gun, up to 18 tubes, has a certain similarity with the multi-barreled heavy machine gun in its firing principle.

However, in order to complete the development of a hand-cranked multi-barrel machine gun, three key technical conditions must be met: metal fixed ammunition, continuous ammunition feeding system, and fixed firing pin device.

As for the ammunition feeding system, perhaps due to the problem of springs, the magazine cannot be fed, but the researchers can use the bullet chain feeding system.

Therefore, if the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty really want to be ruthless, they may not be able to make this kind of hand-cranked multi-barreled heavy machine gun.

Although the Ming National Defense Force is well-equipped and its combat effectiveness is also very strong, when it really faces the cavalry, it is always more defensive and less offensive.

In a one-on-one situation, the infantry of the Ming Dynasty is not much weaker than the cavalry, but the cavalry is not stupid, and people know that they can't beat it, so they won't fight you hard at all.

Therefore, every time the Ming army fought against the cavalry, there was almost never a total annihilation record, and even more than half of the enemy was destroyed several times, all in advance in ambush, taking advantage of the geographical advantage, and several times the enemy's army, only barely achieved.

And the enemy cavalry, with enough patience, will always find the weak points of the infantry.

Most of the infantry rely on battle formations to win, but even the most well-trained troops cannot maintain a battle formation at all times!

The cavalry came and went like the wind, and it was entirely possible to rely on fighting more and fighting less to slowly accumulate superiority over the infantry.

If at this time, the Ming National Defense Army can be equipped with heavy machine guns, then when a cavalry with more than 1,000 numbers can rush to kill an infantry with no more than 100 people but equipped with three to five heavy machine guns, the outcome can be imagined.

However, in the final analysis, the manufacturing process of heavy machine guns was too complicated and the consumption of ammunition was too large, which doomed this weapon to not be popularized by the Ming Dynasty army in a short time.

Moreover, in today's military research, the most important thing is not weapons, but new gunpowder..........

There are two disadvantages of black powder.

First: the power is limited.

In order to ensure that rifles and artillery have sufficient range, it is often necessary to increase the amount of gunpowder, which means that the volume of ammunition must be increased, which is an important constraint on the inability to implement the miniaturization of firearms.

Second: the black powder burned inadequately.

When the black powder burns, it produces a large amount of black smoke, which seriously interferes with the shooter's vision.

After firing with black powder, it is often necessary to pause for a few seconds and wait for the smoke to clear before you can continue to aim and fire.

This situation does not seem to have much impact on today's single-shot rifles, but what Li Hongfei needs is a fast repeating rifle, or a heavy machine gun, if he continues to use black powder, then in addition to the first bullet fired, it can be aimed, and the subsequent shots are almost always relied on.

In this way, what difference does it make if the rate of fire of the weapon is not increased?

Therefore, if you want to develop weapons with a faster rate of fire and greater power, the development of smokeless gunpowder is the most crucial.

As early as when Li Hongfei was the prefect of Suzhou, he proposed to Song Yingxing to develop smokeless gunpowder.

It's a pity that Li Hongfei was not a professional chemical engineer before crossing, he only knew that the scientific name of smokeless gunpowder was nitroglycerin, and he didn't know how to extract it, but fortunately, through the literal meaning of nitroglycerin, it can be interpreted as a substance containing saltpeter, and since it has the word "oil", it should be liquid, and the closest of them is only nitric acid.

However, such a brainless prompt, in today's period when the field of chemistry is just emerging, even Song Yingxing can't develop it for a while.

It took three years, although nitroglycerin was not made, but a lot of by-products were accidentally made.

Because nitric acid is both oxidizing and acidic, Song Yingxing's research found that nitric acid can be used to refine metals: that is, impure metals are oxidized into nitrate first, impurities are eliminated and then reduced.

In other words, nitric acid can maximize the purification of various metal materials.

In addition, Song Yingxing also produced nitrogen fertilizer through nitric acid.

The Ming Dynasty was a large agricultural country, and fertilizers were indispensable for crops to achieve high yields.

Although the effect of natural organic fertilizer (manure or fertilizer formed after plant decay) is good, the quantity is extremely scarce, and the fertilizer produced by a few people is not enough to meet the fertilizer demand of more than ten acres of land.

It wasn't until the advent of industrial fertilizers that a variety of crops were truly able to achieve high yields.

It can be seen that the emergence of nitrogen fertilizer has played a great role in promoting the agricultural development of Daming.

Nitric acid has not made a breakthrough in the military industry, but it has made great contributions to smelting and agricultural development, which can be regarded as a surprise.

What really made Li Hongfei ecstatic was that after five years of hard work, nitroglycerin was finally synthesized two months ago...........

Bairreau was a French chemist with a great talent for chemistry, but his only drawback was his ability to gamble.

Because of gambling, Baierro not only lost all his belongings, but even his wife left him.

The lonely and helpless Byerrow, under the coercion of the debt company, could only find the clerk sent to France by Li Hongfei through a local headhunting company.

After signing a ten-year contract with a Suzhou Heavy Industry Group that he had never heard of, Bairlo paid off all his debts with a deposit, and with only a ticket in his pocket, he embarked on this trip to the Far East, which was full of unknowns.

Because of his talent for chemistry, after joining Suzhou Heavy Industry, he was placed in a team with Hopnave, a glassmaking craftsman, and began research on thermometers, altimeters, and presses.

In addition to the problem of gambling, Baierluo really has nothing to say at work, and sometimes even Song Yingxing, who is confused in chemistry, will take the initiative to find Baierro to solve his doubts.

And Bairrow's salary, second only to Hopnaf, who made glass, among all foreign scientists, plus the share of several research results, can fully meet his usual gambling expenses.

This kind of life is very satisfying, and in order to keep his job, he even works harder than ordinary researchers.

When he learned that his boss attached great importance to the research of smokeless gunpowder, he offered to join the research group and began to study smokeless gunpowder in earnest.

But Byerrow's research did not go well, he looked through countless materials, matched countless chemicals, but after combustion, none of them achieved a smokeless effect, and many dangers occurred, and the research of smokeless gunpowder was difficult to move forward...........

Until one day in 1649, when Byerrow was experimenting, he accidentally knocked over a bottle filled with a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid.

The solution flowed on the table, and when he couldn't find a rag, he quickly went out and got a cotton coat from a colleague to wipe the table.

The coat was soaked in the solution and drenched, and I was afraid that my colleagues would blame me when they saw it, so I went to the kitchen to dry the coat.

Unexpectedly, when he approached the stove, he only heard a "plop", and the cotton coat was burned clean, without a trace of smoke or ash, which surprised Bairlo.

Afterwards, he carefully recalled what had happened, and was immediately overjoyed. He realized that he had inadvertently synthesized a new compound that could be used to make smokeless gunpowder.

For this reason, he repeated the experiment many times, and confirmed that the results were correct, so he named it "fire cotton", and the scientific name is nitrocellulose.

Nitrocellulose was indeed invented, but with the method provided by Byerlo, the gunpowder produced was very unstable, and there were many gunpowder explosions during the manufacturing process.

The degree of danger is even more than five times that of the manufacture of thunder mercury, after all, although the manufacture of thunder mercury is dangerous, as long as it can be handled with care, and no violent friction and impact occur, the danger is still within the controllable range.

However, the use of nitric acid and sulfuric acid to mix, the preparation of these two substances alone has a certain degree of danger, and in the process of the reaction between the two, a little carelessness will cause accidents, and the difficulty of large-scale extraction can be imagined.

Moreover, digestive fiber is extremely flammable, and the slightest spark will cause an explosion, which is a fatal flaw in the war-torn battlefield, so the military did not purchase such gunpowder products after careful evaluation.

It wasn't until half a year ago that Song Yingxing finally started experiments to improve digestive fiber after completing the hot air balloon project.

After four months of repeated experiments, Song Yingxing finally dissolved nitrocellulose in ether and ethanol, and added an appropriate amount of stabilizer to it to make it a colloidal substance - nitroglycerin.

Subsequently, nitroglycerin was pressed into flakes, cut into strips, and dried and hardened, and smokeless gunpowder with military use was finally produced.

Now two months have passed, and the nitroglycerin manufacturer has officially started production at the Weapons Research Institute in Majiazhuang, Beijing.

If there are no major accidents at the factory within half a year, and the output of gunpowder is considerable, it is very likely that Li Hongfei will issue an order to increase the number of manufacturers to comprehensively replace black powder in the future weapons application of the Ministry of National Defense.