The eastern part of Zijin Mountain is where the Qixia District of Nanjing in later generations is located, and now most of it is wasteland, which was originally occupied by the Eight Banners of Jiangning, and was used as a pasture. There are 10,000 war horses on the books of Jiangning Eight Banners, so a large pasture is needed. However, as early as the Yongzheng period, the pastures of the Eight Banners in Jiangning were leased to the Han people to grow grain. It was not until the Zhu Ming Dynasty was still Yingtian that Emperor Zhu took back this pasture, and also acquired a large piece of land on the east side of Zijin Mountain, of course, not to recruit tenants and collect rent, but to build a Western-style layout here, all kinds of infrastructure complete Yingtian New City. Today, however, it is still a large barren area that is used by the Army as a makeshift training and weapons testing ground. The nitrostarch explosives "invented" by Zhu Jishi were tested here.

In fact, there are many chemicals that can act as explosives, the most famous are of course trinitrotoluene and trinitrophenol, also known as TNT and picric acid. The former has not yet been invented, and the latter is being used as a dye. However, the industrialization of the Ming Dynasty had just begun, and the production of TNT explosives and picric acid explosives was still slightly more difficult, so Zhu Jishi chose nitrocellulose starch, which was relatively simple in production process and easy to obtain as raw materials. However, nitrostarch explosives have a big disadvantage, that is, the stability of industrial production is not good. The power of this type of explosive depends entirely on the nitrogen content, which is not easy to control. In the case of high nitrogen content, the power of nitrocellulose explosives can be comparable to TNT and picric acid, so in the first and second world wars in history, nitrostarch is an important military explosive, and its power is far greater than that of A oil explosives.

However, there is no such scientific method as the lead expansion method to detect the power of explosives, and the power of this new type of explosive can only be estimated by testing the power of the grenade filled with nitrogenyl explosives after explosion.

So when the explosion sounded. Liu Jiong, chief of the general staff of the Ming army, who was observing at the scene, immediately stretched his neck to watch the dust rising in the distance. It was a column of smoke at least a few feet high. He nodded secretly. The power is enough, probably several times greater than that of an oil explosive. Raising the binoculars, he vaguely saw that the wooden people within a radius of ten feet around the grenade had fallen to the ground.

It seems that the grenade filled with nitrogenated starch can be smaller and lighter, so that the distance thrown will be farther, Liu Jiong thought so, the farther and more powerful grenades thrown will constitute great damage to the dense infantry formation. It's even more terrifying if it's loaded into a grenade.

Without waiting for the smoke and dust to dissipate, he nodded and smiled: "The power is very good!" More powerful than A oil dynamite, Deville

Sir, what is the price of this explosive? The Army's funding is a bit tight right now! ”

The Frenchman St. Clair, who has just moved from Jason Labs in Europe to Lan Fang Hong as the director of the chemistry laboratory. Deville opened his mouth wide and looked at the dissipating column of smoke stupidly, as if he didn't hear Liu Jiong's question, but muttered to himself, "God, even starch can be used to make bombs...... Looks like I'm going to need to look into the possibility of sugar making a bomb. ”

Liu Jiong couldn't understand French, so he pulled the French scientist into the carriage: "Let's go, let's go to Fort Maria and talk to the emperor, the current A oil explosives are too expensive." I can't afford to use it at all, if this flour explosive (referring to nitrocelluated starch) is still so expensive. The Army's military spending cannot but increase. ”

Military spending will naturally never be enough for Liu Jiong. However, for the Ming court, it was an extremely heavy burden. In the previous war against the Qing Dynasty and the restoration of the Ming Dynasty, most of the income of the Ming court was used for military spending, and even borrowed money every year to fight the war. If it weren't for HSBC, a money printing machine that can turn money, Daming's finances would have collapsed long ago.

However, now, with the end of the large-scale war and the expansion of the Ming Dynasty's territory, the fiscal deficit of the Ming Dynasty finally fell for the first time in the 3rd year of the liberation, and the budget target for the 4th year of the liberation is to strive for a basic balance. The central government is expected to achieve a revenue of 110 million silver dollars, of which the total revenue of customs duties, salt tax, and interest tax is about 50 million yuan, and the local finances of six provinces, one country, and two governments, including Guangdong, the Grand Duchy of Lanfang, Nanzhili, Fujian, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Beizhili, Yingtianfu (capital), and Wuchang (companion), are expected to achieve a surplus, and should pay 60 million yuan in taxes to the central government. In addition, 12 provinces and 1 prefecture (Shuntianfu) are still in a state of deficit and need subsidies from the imperial court. Among them, the newly established Jiaozhou Province and Liaodong Province have a large deficit, which is expected to exceed 5 million yuan, and the deficit of the other 10 provinces and 1 government is smaller, with a total of only more than 15 million. Therefore, the central finance of the Ming Dynasty needs to spend 25 million yuan to support local finances in the 4th year of recovery, and in addition, it also needs to pay about 9 million yuan of interest on the debt owed to HSBC in the previous years, and the remaining 76 million yuan is the funds that the Ming court can spend.

76 million silver dollars is certainly not an astronomical amount in the eyes of the richest man in Zhu, this money will be used to maintain hundreds of thousands of troops, the central government of a large country, and a large number of central projects such as river works and official roads, and also arrange "immigration disaster relief" funds, and pay annuities to a large number of nobles (the nobles of the Ming Dynasty have annuities since the 4th year of the recovery), which can only be described as overstretched - so he didn't even ask for the royal annuity he deserved.

However, the whole world knows that the "Emperor Lei Feng" of the Ming Empire, who does not take a stitch from the common people, is the undisputed richest man in the world. In the past few years, his personal wealth has swelled at a high speed, almost to the point where he doesn't know how much money he has.

At the east horse farm of Fort Maria, Zhu Jishi was riding a big ocean horse again, but he was accompanied by two other "big ocean horses", Maria. Clementina and Mrs. Duran. After Luo Xiangmei returned to the palace, she began to "seize" the power of the harem step by step, not only managing Emperor Zhu's women, but also replacing the palace manager with her sister Luo Xiangju not long ago.

What the queen's intentions were, Emperor Zhu naturally knew. Gong Dou, after all, is a part of the life of the queen's mother, since she likes the feudal marriage system, then she has to bear the consequences - a group of women live happily together, serving a man together, Zhu Jishi is not extravagant at all.

However, Emperor Zhu soon became a member of Madame Duran and Maria. Clementina has found a new position - to help Zhu Jishi manage his growing private fortune! Like Zuo Zongtang and Liu Jiong, who worry about money all day long, Zhu Jishi is also worried about money, but not because there is not enough money, but because there is too much money.

If you have a lot of money, it's also very troublesome to manage!

"Jason, you're probably the only emperor in the whole world who is worried about too much money, I think I can help you solve some troubles." Maria blinked her charming eyes and looked at Zhu Jishi with affection.

"Uh, are you looking for jewelry and art? Well, buy whatever you like. "Emperor Zhu looks like a loser emperor's generosity.

"You're so nice." Maria grinned, although she had too much money of her own money to spend, but women always liked to spend men's money, and there was no way around it.

"But the advice to you is not to invest in jewellery and art, but to set up a royal consortium run by professional managers. The original Jason Holdings was actually a similar consortium, but after you arrived in the East, you set up Lanfang Bank, HSBC Bank, Rubber Bank, Northeast Bank, Telecommunications Bank, Railway Bank, plus my Segul Bank and Roman's Far East Line, and a total of 8 completely independent large commercial houses appeared in the property of the Ming royal family. In addition, you now own a large estate estate, art and art, a huge investment in railways and telegraphs, four universities and 19 seowons, and a city in Japan. I have roughly estimated that the total value of all these properties must have been in excess of £200 million, but it is now somewhat loosely managed. (To be continued......)