Fourth Target Plane, 1429 in the Imperial Calendar.

According to the A.D. time of the main plane, it is 2289 A.D., which is the end of the 23rd century, and the 24th century is only one step away. The reason why it is called the imperial calendar is because it is a superpower that rules the earth - the Great Song Empire. Its territory includes the whole of Asia, Oceania, and the Americas in the main plane. The vast Pacific Ocean is its inner lake, Europe has its garrisons, and Africa is its colony and vassal state.

Due to the difference in planes, the names of the continents here are Songzhou (Asia), Tangzhou (America), Yanzhou (Oceania), Heizhou (Africa), Baizhou (Europe), and Snow Island (Antarctica). Similar to the main plane, the Song Dynasty did not change much after Zhao Kuangyin founded the country, until Song Zhezong: first there was Song Shenzong Zhao Xuan's change of law in front, but unfortunately Cāo was too hasty, and he did not know the law, and finally failed to end in gloom, and his army attacked the Western Xia, and the Song army broke the Xia army in Gyeongju (the main plane Qingyang, Gansu) and occupied 2,000 miles of land in the Western Xia. However, due to the crushing defeat in the battle of Yongle City, the move to destroy Xia fell short; Later, Zhao Xu, the son of Zhao Xu, ascended the throne at the age of nine, and the queen mother was in power, insisting on changing the law, seeking victory against the odds, repeatedly defeating the Western Xia, and forcing him to sue for peace.

However, in the Song Dynasty, Huizong began to have major differences from the main plane. Song Huizong of this world does not like calligraphy and painting, but he is good at gunpowder and firearms. Due to its special hobby, the entire folk value orientation has gradually undergone major changes, and the shortcut to promotion is no longer poetry and painting skills, but mechanical invention and creation, and strange skills.

Therefore, the world has no thin gold "Song" calligraphy, and has lost the historical relics of "Zhencao Thousand Character Text" and "Linshu Lanting Silk Book"; It has a series of inventions and creations such as rear-loading ammunition simple rifles, hard kraft paper bullets, medium and long-range mobile steel-cast artillery, and 40-branch Wyvern rocket carriage (cannon bamboo version of simple rocket artillery). As these advanced weapons hundreds of years earlier than the main plane appeared on the stage of history one after another, the original powerful Jin Soldier Cavalry disappeared and declined, turning into groups of sheep to be slaughtered and shè targets.

With the Great Song Empire, at the national level and the ruling regime, the national and ruling regimes attached great importance to engineering talents and "craftsman" groups, and the national defense strength and scientific and technological level of the Song Dynasty showed a leapfrog development trend. The "Tiangong Academy" and "Tianji Fang", which were established in accordance with the royal will, constantly innovated in order to cater to the emperor's preferences and tastes, so the rifle shè distance is getting farther and farther, and the bullet is becoming more and more powerful. Until one day, the quantitative change produced the qualitative change, a craftsman led to wash his hands by the stream to trigger inspiration, in the 12th year of the reign of Song Huizong, put forward the "flowing water method" of the new gun manufacturing process, "Tianjifang" per unit of time of firearms production increased nearly 10 times, since then has been troubled by the Song Dynasty of the munitions production capacity and ammunition supply problems completely solved. As a result, the Song army fought against the Jin soldiers, and the way of war brought about by the equipment revolution fundamentally changed, and the cavalry completely withdrew from the historical stage.

After four years, the army of the Song Dynasty not only completely recovered the sixteen states of Youyun, but also pursued the victory, and encouraged the civilian pioneer regiments, distributed guns and ammunition, and carried out the "expansion movement" of the territory with the propaganda slogan policy of 10,000 acres of land and ten years of tax exemption. During this period, the shipbuilding industry of the Great Song Dynasty benefited from the development of technology, the carrying capacity and weapons became more and more advanced, the routes became more and more dense, and the voyages became more and more distant, opening up one "oasis" on the sea one after another.

After the death of Song Huizong, his son Song Qinzong ascended the throne. Influenced by his father since childhood, Song Qinzong was extremely fascinated by mechanical craftsmen, encouraged new inventions, and dismissed many conservative officials. In addition, compared with his father's mode of governing the country by recovering lost territory, expanding the territory slightly, being content with business, and being rich and peaceful. During the 51 years of his reign, the Song Dynasty conquered Siberia in the north and the coastal states of Song (Asia) in the south. Not only did they ask them to pay their salaries, but they also looted a large amount of gold, silver and jewelry, and shipped them back to China.

In order to become the first emperor of the ages, the territory of Haina, Song Qinzong promulgated the "Tuohai Marquis Order": the newly discovered island land, as long as it is not registered in the Great Song Dynasty, can be developed and occupied by themselves, and the measured land is handed over to the country for half of the land, you can permanently own the other half, and according to the area and the annual tax of the island, enjoy different levels of princes and uncles. When returning to their hometown, the magistrate needs to greet him according to his rank, and he should be distinguished and proud in front of people! Stimulated by this, the number of civilian expedition ships gradually increased. In the late Song Dynasty, someone finally discovered the continent of Tangzhou (America) in this world, and since then the Age of Discovery has completely arrived.

Perhaps it is the love of God, since the Song Dynasty Huizong, the five emperors have always been ambitious, breaking the law of large numbers in history "rich but three generations". When the fifth emperor died, the entire Great Song Dynasty had experienced a prosperous chapter of 173 years, with a wide open people's customs, a vast territory, and a strong army. Become the sole overlord of the earth for hundreds of years. However, due to the lack of opponents and the lack of war, the scientific and technological level of the Great Song Dynasty was beneficial in mechanical manufacturing, but the steam engine, which was the catalyst of modern industry, did not appear for a long time.

The year 833 of the imperial calendar (1693 AD).

With the Rakshasas (Baizhou Caucasians), who had not been valued by the Great Song Dynasty, they took the lead in inventing the steam engine and secretly applied it to wooden warships. Then, after one or two decades of accumulating strength, he finally defeated the Great Song Navy in the eastern waters of the Atlantic, and was still intoxicated by the leisurely rìzi of the era of invincible sail warships.

After the tragic lesson of the destruction of several detachments, the Great Song Dynasty finally understood the root cause of the enemy's strength, figured out the power essence of fast warships, and then immediately relied on its own hundreds of years of knowledge and technology accumulation in the field of machinery to quickly catch up. In just three months, the first wooden sail ship propelled by a steam engine was copied, then a year later the first ironclad battleship, then the first ironclad ship

War is the most brutal human activity, and it is also the best driving force for the development of human science and technology. After 6 years of naval battles in the Western Hemisphere, the Great Song Empire finally defeated the combined forces of Britain and France by sea and land (Germany was far from unified at this time), and then first dismembered Britain, divided it into four, took away most of the engineering talents and technicians, set up a permanent garrison to cut the land, and completely destroyed Britain's war potential. For France, it was also divided into three, encouraging the various lords and kings of Baizhou (Europe), so that the countries on the territory of Baizhou became more and more fragmented, and the territory became smaller and smaller, and it was no longer possible to produce a strong military power.

860 years in the imperial calendar (1720 AD).

The first long-distance practical railroad appeared in the Great Song Empire, and then the fourth target plane, the steam age, came completely. However, this is not the main plane after all, and the trajectory of historical development will eventually be different. Perhaps because of the difference in the age of the dinosaurs, the earth's underground fossil energy resources such as coal reserves are very small, only about 5% of the main plane, and oil is even more pitiful, not even 1%. The problem with this is that the duration of the steam age has been greatly extended and the era of the internal combustion engine has become very backward. Since most of the oil was buried deep underground, and the high cost of extraction was desperate, the ruling class and business alliances of the Great Song Empire gave full play to the capitalist squeezing of the last surplus value of commodities, and made a big fuss about the energy cornerstone of steam (coal), and coal-fired oil and coal-fired gas were invented and used one after another, ruling the family life of hundreds of millions of people for hundreds of years.

About 300 years later, coal resources were basically exhausted, and the Great Song Empire had to start using oil resources deep underground, but due to the difficulty of exploitation technology, there were too few large oil reservoirs and self-blowing wells, and ordinary people could not afford gasoline at all. Therefore, the people of the Great Song Dynasty, who inherited hundreds of years of invention and creation genes in their bones, began to look in other directions.

As mentioned earlier, because there were no opponents, no wars, no threats, and there was a lack of sufficient research motivation in the military, electricity was not invented until 1990. Then there was a global shortage of coal energy, so the promotion was very slow, not to mention related disciplines such as electronic computers, mass-energy equations, and nuclear physics.

In the 21st century, researchers from the Imperial Academy of Sciences considered the current situation of the world's energy shortage, the non-renewable nature of oil, and the favorable conditions of a small number of people and more land (limited medical conditions, the entire Great Song Empire with a territory of only 500 million people spread across three continents), and tried to artificially hybridize, graft, and cultivate a new variety of "energy crop" - miscanthus sorghum.

"Manganese sorghum" is a staple food and tastes slightly worse. But as an "energy crop", it has many advantages: it grows quickly and vigorously, can grow everywhere in a wide area from subtropical to temperate, and can grow without chemical fertilizers and pesticides; The combustion is complete, the crops are relatively dry when harvested, and how much carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere during the growth process, how much carbon dioxide is released when burned, and the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not increased; The cost is extremely low, producing six times the energy of biodiesel made from rapeseed and less than one-quarter of the cost of growing rapeseed, and the yield is high, up to 82 tons per hectare, equivalent to an average annual harvest of 50 tons of oil per hectare.

Of course, in addition to sorghum, more than a dozen other "energy crops" have been cultivated in the fourth target plane, and are gradually being cultivated in parts of Songzhou (Asia), Tangzhou (America), Yanzhou (Oceania), and Heizhou (Africa). But while "energy crops" are good, they don't produce sulfides from combustion, they don't produce acid rain pollution. However, due to the limitation of unit carbon content, its xìng on military equipment can be limited, and there is still a big gap compared with the fuel (especially aviation fuel) that relies on petroleum.

About 120 years later (at the beginning of the 23rd century), when oil resources were almost exploited, the Great Song Empire, which controlled more than 90% of the world's "energy crops", forced countries to accept the "bioenergy" industrial chain through the carrot and stick policy, and retained the last small amount of oil and coal resources in the world to ensure the "generational difference" advantage and energy advantage of military weapons.

At the end of the 23rd century, the fourth target plane has been using bioenergy for nearly 70 years, and has gradually perfected electrical equipment, but things like washing machines, microwave ovens, computers, televisions, etc. have not yet been invented, and entertainment is still mainly concentrated in movies, newspapers, etc.

Therefore, Wang Fan took a little time, and after learning all this, he immediately drove the "Qin Shi Huang" to the capital of the Great Song Dynasty, and then met and negotiated for a long time, signed a package of goods sales contracts and oil for mangsorghum and other "energy crops" plan (to solve the problem of livestock feed in the main plane and the first target plane), and then he was satisfied with the order to cross the plane again.