Wang San walked around the streets and alleys and came back, washed up, and with his hands that still emitted the smell of fragrant pancreas, he solemnly tore off yesterday's page on the month card, so a new day appeared on the calendar, and a red tick was written on this page of the calendar, and this day was the day he went to the Department of Academic Affairs for an interview.

As long as this interview passes, then he can be officially transferred to Beijing Normal University as a lecturer.

For Wang San, the world has changed dynasties, and his life has also changed a lot. Not to mention that he may be promoted now, even the house he lives in now is also new, and there are many new furnishings in the house.

Just like the fragrant pancreas used for bathing, the month card hanging on the wall, and the chiming clock on the table that kept making clucking sounds, they were all useless before.

The seven-day calendar, the sun, the moon, fire, water, wood, metal, and earth, starting from the solar sun, the seven days are a week, and the cycle repeats.

The 24-hour timekeeping method has now begun to be used in all government offices, and the new day begins at midnight, which has become accustomed to the officials, but in his heart, he still likes to count the morning light penetrating into the courtyard as the beginning of the day.

The Qiyao calendar and twenty-four hours, for him, the biggest impact is that now officials can rest for two days every seven days, compared with the original ten-day holiday, there is more time to rest. In the yamen, it is now also a 9-to-5 working time, and if you go early, there will be no reward, and the new court pays more attention to the efficiency of work. The examination law strictly supervises the work process of the officials.

The 24-hour timekeeping method is not known to be advocated by anyone.

The self-striking bell on the table rang with a crisp sound, like a golden bell chime, and struck it seven times in a row. It was seven o'clock in the morning, and Wang San liked the chiming bell very much, and last month, he had spent a hundred silver dollars. I bought one from the Royal Department Store Merchant and came back.

The chiming bell is actually not a new thing, as early as a hundred years ago, there were Western missionaries who brought this chiming bell to China. However, for a long time after that, the chiming bell belonged to the Westerners, both mysterious and precious, only the homes of those famous maritime merchants and gentry, and in the court, the royal relatives and nobles owned, which was a symbol of status.

In the past, Wang San's old boss had a chiming bell in his home, and his boss even built a bell tower for the chiming bell. Put the bell inside, and when guests and friends visit, they will invite guests and friends to set up a banquet in it and enjoy it together. He had the opportunity to go in and see it once, and he was amazed.

I remember that he heard from his colleagues at that time that the clock of his boss was said to have cost thousands of taels of silver.

But now he also owns one, and even his clock is not as bad as his boss back then, but more beautiful. This is a chiming clock that was bought from the Royal Department Store for a hundred dollars. It is gilded with copper, with a resplendent exterior and delicate shape, and is also decorated with brightly colored enamel paintings. The painted figures, birds and beasts are lifelike.

The chiming clock also has a glass door, transparent and colorless glass, which adds a bit of luxury and dazzling to the chiming bell.

But this gorgeous chiming bell is only sold for 100 yuan.

Wang San knew. Although the self-striking bell was first brought by Xiyi, but now in the new dynasty, the self-striking bell is self-produced. It's on the outskirts of Beijing. There was a workshop, which was all owned by the emperor. Among them are workshops specializing in the manufacture of candles, matches, and pancreas, as well as the production of goods such as glass, clairballs, and chiming bells.

I heard that the bell factory has several large workshops, with more than 1,000 clock-making craftsmen, and tens of thousands of workers and apprentices. Its scale is so large that the people of Beijing have called the clock factory the bell city.

There are several workshops in Bell City, each of which manufactures different clocks, not only to make clocks but also to make watches. There are several scales of bells, the general ones are two feet high, and some are three or four feet high, and there are more than one foot high.

The largest bell they built was more than two zhang in diameter and weighed more than 30,000 catties. This bell also has a special bell tower to place, just outside the Chengtian Gate of the south gate of the imperial city, the newly built bell tower is as high as 33 zhang, the hour finger and minute hand are as long as 9 feet and 1 zhang 2, and the pendulum weighs 720 catties. Compared with the original Bei'anmen Bell and Drum Tower in the north of the imperial city, it is more imposing and majestic.

Now the imperial city is one north and one south, there is a bell and drum tower in the north, and a large bell tower in the south.

After the completion of this bell tower, it immediately became one of the new coordinates of the Beijing Division. The big bell is timed every other hour, and the huge bell ringing can be heard throughout the capital. It was louder than the sound of cannons fired at Xuanwu Gate and Victory Gate in the past.

The full name of the clock factory is the Dahan Royal Clock Manufacturing Bureau, and they not only built this large bell tower that amazed countless people, built a large clock weighing tens of thousands of catties, but also built many smaller watches.

In addition to chiming bells, they also made pocket watches. A watch that is not much larger than a dragon yuan can be hung on a chain and can be put in a pocket. In this way, clocks can no longer be kept at home, but can also be carried around.

However, this kind of small pocket watch is expensive, and it is more expensive than a chiming clock.

Now, officials like Wang San, as long as they want to buy it, can still buy a self-striking bell. But pocket watches can only be bought by the rich, and he has seen the pocket watches in the royal mall, which are basically gold watches, each watch is extremely exquisite, and the price is high, almost all of them start at least two hundred yuan.

He had also seen more exotic watches in the mall, which were watches tied to the wrist, but these watches were made for noble ladies, but the price was higher, a small watch, at least 500 yuan.

Unbeknownst to Wang San, the Royal Watchmaking Bureau had now become one of the most lucrative industries under the Emperor's name. Its sheer size has allowed them to have a very high production capacity, and through the Royal Department Store Trading and the East India Company, they have rapidly spread out to the market. Nowadays, from the Central Plains to North Korea, Japan, and even Vietnam, Myanmar, Nanyang and other places, the clocks and watches they make have been selling well everywhere, and European clocks and watches cannot compete.

The clocks and watches of the Manufacturing Bureau, like the military manufacturing of Dahan, have long implemented the division of labor manufacturing, unified standard parts, and assembly line operations. Different parts are handed over to a special parts production workshop, and various parts are finally assembled and packaged.

Whether it is a chiming clock, a pocket watch or a watch, it is still a luxury product, something that can only be consumed by the wealthy, so its profit is also extremely high.

The Royal Watchmaking Bureau produces a watch almost every ten minutes, and it can reach tens of thousands of clocks a year. This watch factory can bring considerable profits to the emperor every year, and can also provide more than 10,000 jobs for the people of Beijing, and pay a huge amount of taxes for the imperial court.

Nowadays, the level of the Han Dynasty, whether it is muskets or artillery, or even shipbuilding, the manufacture of clocks, telescopes, glass, etc., has far surpassed that of Western European countries.

The shipbuilding industry of the Coachman Dutch ranks first in Europe, there are hundreds of shipyards in Amsterdam alone, the whole country can start to build hundreds of ships at the same time, their shipbuilding technology is also extremely advanced, the cost of ships is one-third to one-half lower than that of the United Kingdom, and many countries in Europe have ordered ships from the Netherlands.

Their merchant tonnage accounted for three-quarters of the total tonnage of Europe at the time, with more than 10,000 merchant ships. There are often two or three thousand ships parked in the harbor of Amsterdam.

But now, countless Dutch shipbuilders are vying to come to the Han Empire in the East, because the conditions of the Han are better, the country is stable, the salary is high, there are no all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, the burden is light, and the Han does not discriminate against outsiders, especially there is no religious discrimination and persecution.

As long as you live by the law and pay taxes according to the law, everyone can live freely.

A large number of Europeans came to the East by boat, especially those who had been devastated by the war such as Germany and Spain.

Dahan's naval expansion plan has made Dahan's shipbuilding industry quite prosperous and won a golden age. Coupled with the prosperity of maritime trade, the demand for merchant ships was also enormous.

Today, Dahan has thousands of shipyards, large and small, and thousands of shipyards are operating at the same time, and a ship can be built almost every hour.

As an old Beijinger, Wang San definitely felt the changes brought about by the new dynasty.

More kinds of materials are more abundant, whether it is food or use, and everyone's income has generally increased. There are opportunities to earn money by working everywhere.

Changing into a new robe that had just been ordered a few days ago, and a pair of lambskin boots, Wang San stood in front of the one-person high dressing mirror and looked himself up and down, left and right in the mirror many times, until he couldn't find any problems, and then left the bedroom with a smile.

He took the hat from the handmaiden's hand, and walked out briskly. At the gate, the coachman at home has prepared a carriage, which he also bought this year, and the Mongolian horses transported from abroad, a full set of newly built carriages, and the accessories inside are also brand new.

He spent nearly 100 yuan on the purchase of this carriage, and the price of the horse was 30 yuan, because the carriage was a four-wheeled carriage, and the accessories in it were also used well, so it was more expensive than the horse, and he also paid a livestock transaction tax for buying a horse, and the carriage also paid a vehicle and vessel tax, and the license plate money, before and after, almost 100 yuan.

But he thinks the money is worth it, riding in a four-wheeled carriage on the wide streets of Beijing, but it is more face-saving and more comfortable than riding a sedan chair before, and the four-wheeled carriage does not shock, which is much stronger than the two-wheeled carriage.

When the coachman saw him come out, he hurriedly trotted forward to open the door of the carriage with glass windows for him.

"Go to the Yamen of the Department of Academic Affairs!"

"Yes, sir!" The coachman nodded in response.

As soon as the coachman waved his whip, the mighty Mongolian horse moved its hooves and trotted lightly, its iron hooves striking on the bluestone slabs with a crisp sound.

Wang San leaned against the soft saddle, and on the small table in front of him, several newspapers and periodicals issued today were already placed. Nowadays, there are more and more newspapers and periodicals in Beijing, including various morning newspapers, evening newspapers, weekly magazines, pictorial magazines, monthly magazines, etc., and there are dozens of copies, including the Royal Times, which has a huge circulation, and some tabloids with only 1,000 copies.

Wang San has a hobby, he reads both big and small newspapers, and now that he has a carriage, he sits in the car every day when he goes out to read the newspaper.

He picked up the Imperial Daily on the top, and the headline on the front page was the news of the Holy Emperor's departure from Beijing.

"The Holy Emperor of the Dragon Han led 100,000 tigers out of Beijing to inspect the northern frontier outside the imperial pass, and to meet the Mongolian tribes!" (To be continued.) )