In the 20th century, Joseph Needham, a British biochemist and sinologist, published his History of Science and Technology in China, in which he gave us a number of historical achievements of Eastern civilizations that were too messy to sort out on their own.

So we learned about the four great inventions of the East: papermaking, gunpowder, the compass, and printing. Let us, a nation that has suffered all kinds of foreign bullying and cultural invasion in modern times, rejoice and excite like "Zhaoxue" until now.

But I don't know if Joseph Needham himself had a different point of view, or was not interested at all, but one of the more important and widely used inventions in the life of Eastern society, which fascinated Europe for hundreds of years, was indeed porcelain that has continued to live vigorously from its inception to the present, but it was not included in the "invention" queue.

Limited historical records show that about 3 million pieces of Oriental porcelain arrived in Europe in the first half of the 17th century alone. Throughout the 18th century, a staggering 60 million pieces of oriental porcelain were transported to Europe by guò sailboats across tens of thousands of nautical miles in a hundred years!

Faced with this kind of porcelain, which "may have been melted by several metal powders", European merchants and craftsmen were quite puzzled. Until the 18th century, Europeans still did not fire porcelain, and the global production of porcelain can be said to have been completely monopolized by the East for nearly 1,700 years.

However, the history of the development of porcelain in Europe unmistakably tells us such a true history: from the end of the 17th century, for two hundred years, in the Netherlands, in Germany, and in England, European countries struggled to imitate the so-called "white gold" Chinese porcelain. Combined with the local culture of Europe, he created the European porcelain industry and promoted the modern industrial revolution in Europe from another perspective.

Sun Hongyi stood by the small simple wharf in Yinggu Town, and could see West Point Town, about two kilometers south of the opposite bank.

The muffled steam engine burst from the river in the distance, and a river transport ship entered the docks of the opposite town in sight. Compared with West Point Town, which is busy and lively all year round, Silver Valley Town, which also has a beautiful and glamorous appearance, has been established for more than two years. It's still tepid, and even deserted most of the time.

More than a dozen Mohican Indian hired men pushed several flatbed trucks to transport tons of lead, zinc, or copper-tin ore to the dockside storage area for stacking. At this time, an inland river steam cargo ship docked in the town of Silver Valley was loading large blocks of stone and logs, and there were a few gaps left. A number of bags of fur were carried with stitches.

Not far from the wharf, a few European-American residents were still arguing with buyers from West Point about the price of furs, and the price was entangled in whether it would cost another 1 cent more than a cent.

Everyday necessities were purchased from West Point or Manchu, and then exchanged furs, game, and grain for low-grade goods such as furs, game, and grain with nearby Indian tribes such as Mohican, and finally resold to local merchants in West Point. For a long time, specialties from nearby Indian tribes have become a daily characteristic income for the residents of Silver Valley.

As the mayor of Yingu Town, Sun Hongyi stood by the dock in a daze, looking at the depressed scene in front of him, and his heart became more and more unwilling. Ambitious from the beginning of the town's founding. and now disheartened, Sun Hongyi's whole mental outlook has experienced a glide from high to low.

The original intention of the establishment of Yingu Town was only to provide an Indian trade port that could face the east bank of the middle reaches of the Song River, and as for the later discovery of stone, lead-zinc ore and copper and tin ore resources, it was limited by mining manpower and domestic ore processing and smelting bottlenecks. It didn't have much economic effect at all.

Before the catastrophe, Sun Hongyi was just a small computer programmer, although he was a silk but unwilling to do nothing for a lifetime, so after the construction plan of Yingu Town came out, Sun Hongyi volunteered to serve as the mayor of the town, intending to build Yinggu Town into an economic center on the east bank of the middle reaches of the Song River. …,

But. The reality is brutal. In terms of the mining industry, although there are mineral resources that West Point Town does not have, except for stone ore, the veins of other minerals are complex and extremely difficult to mine; In terms of agriculture, although the coastal areas around Yinggu Town are dense with water networks and fertile soil, most of them are swamps and primeval forests that are difficult to fill, and the hills and mountains in the north have limited the expansion of Yingu Town, and the development of agriculture is now limited to a few orchards, vegetable gardens and livestock raised after the filling of swamps. As far as the processing industry is concerned, most of the people who can be arranged to come to Silver Valley are illiterate European farmers selected from other places, or the increasing number of Indian "stowaways", and there are no high-level professional talents to tap and exploit.

Today's largest economic export is a few kinds of ores that are bits and pieces of hardwood, or a few hardwoods for the Beiyang Shipbuilding Company and Huamei Wood Company, or mushrooms are dug up in the nearby mountains and forests to grow mushrooms, as well as several medicinal herbs such as Coptis chinensis and American American ginseng. As for the small cement building materials factory founded by Sun Hongyi himself at the beginning of the year, its scale did not boost the local economy much, and Sun Hongyi, like Lei Feng, half sold and half gave away all the cement produced to the construction of Yingu Town.

Since the establishment of the entire Silver Valley Town for more than two years, including the nearly 200 "Indian stowaways" who have been resettled one after another, the population of the whole town is only more than 700 people, compared with West Point Town, which has a resident population of more than 1,500 people, it is simply a rapid development, and there are even rumors in the capital that Silver Valley Town is like a penal colony for idle people.

Such a beautiful town guards the mountains in the north and the surrounding primeval forests every day. It can be said that the per capita production value and income of Silver Valley Town are the lowest in the country, so low that the residents of the entire town are languishing and absent-minded all day long.

"Mayor Sun, it's not too early, let's start. The big guys are waiting for you to preside over the kiln! ”

Just as Sun Hongyi's heart was ebbing and falling, a Chinese resident with a strange accent said something respectfully behind him.

The nameless Ming Dynasty Chinese resident, known to everyone as Lao Chentou, was one of the hundreds of Chinese immigrants who moved to Yingu in the second half of last year. Before immigrating, he was the hometown of Zhu Xi, a great Confucian in the Song Dynasty, and a local charcoal burner in Jianyang County, Jianning Prefecture, Fujian Province. But not long after arriving in Yingu Town, after a warm conversation with some Chinese residents who were also settled in Yingu Town. It was revealed that this person had also worked in a porcelain kiln for half his life!

The kiln in Jianyang County, Daming Dynasty, this is a famous porcelain production area in history! Sun Hongyi, who overheard the news, was miserable this time, and quickly found Lao Chentou, and after some questioning, he learned that Lao Chentou's ancestors had always been the porcelain master who built the kiln, but when it came to Lao Chentou's father's generation, an uncle who burned tribute porcelain to the imperial court made a mistake on the fire. As a result, even the whole family lost their jobs, and Lao Chen's family stayed away from the porcelain kiln.

Sun Hongyi hurried back to Manche and scavenged for information from those half-dead laptops. Finally, through the gaps in countless A-films and documents, I found some information about the construction of kilns and porcelain firing. Then from the hands of Li Xiang of the Ministry of Immigration, he got the registration information of hundreds of displaced people from Jianning Mansion in Daming and Fujian. After several investigations, I really found more than a dozen people who had worked as porcelain kiln workers.

Although the kiln is famous for its "black porcelain". However, it does not mean that the porcelain craftsmen who built the kiln will not fire other varieties of porcelain. Sun Hongyi decisively submitted the development plan of Yingu Town to the cabinet, intending to use the abundant porcelain clay resources in the mountainous river network area around Yingu Town to establish the porcelain industry of the Chinese American Republic.

Such an explosive proposal immediately attracted the attention of the cabinet. You must know that at this time, a piece of porcelain transported from the Far East to Europe has changed hands several times, and its unit weight price is not known how many times higher than that of spices, and the Oriental porcelain currently imported from Europe in China is the price of a small bowl and basin of tens to hundreds of dollars. If the local porcelain could be produced in a veritable way, it would be a minting machine that didn't need gold or silver! …,

Mao Jian, director of the Civil Affairs and Finance Bureau of West Point Town, who heard the news. Immediately put forward the plan to locate the porcelain factory in West Point Town, on the grounds that the economic environment of West Point Town is more suitable for the development of such a "high-tech industry". As soon as he heard that someone was going to steal business, Sun Hongyi almost swam past the Song River and Mao Jiangan.

Finally, in line with the principle that everyone should drink meat, the Ministry of Commerce approved Sun Hongyi's registration application for the establishment of "Yingu Porcelain Company", for a while. The nouveau riche people across the country who heard the news were "generous", and the North American Development Bank also sent them frequently, and the business staff ran to Yinggu Town twice in three days.

Don't need much capital to stake in? No, you have to enter! It's against you?!

The financial problem was solved overnight, and the number of shareholders of the company far exceeded that of any other company, and the investment enthusiasm exceeded that of the original West Point Tobacco Company.

Today. It was the day when the first batch of porcelain firing was completed and waiting to be released from the kiln, Sun Hongyi, who had sighed for almost an hour by the dock, walked towards the porcelain factory in the north of Yingu Town with more than a dozen Chinese residents.

The first time out of the kiln, everyone, including Sun Hongyi, was frightened, the kiln bricks were removed by the workers, and Lao Chen, who was the "chief engineer of the Silver Valley Porcelain Company", closed his eyes.

"It's done!" The trembling voice of a Chinese porcelain worker finally sounded, and the workers watching around held their breath and clenched their fists.

Old Chen's eyes opened suddenly, and his thin body rushed over like a gust of wind. Holding a black and shiny porcelain bottle from the porcelain worker's hand, the corners of Lao Chen's mouth were trembling: "It's done...... God willing, it's really done! ”

Sun Hongyi clenched his left hand into a fist and smashed it in his right palm, and also ran to Lao Chen's side, carefully took the black porcelain that was still hot and warm, and touched the delicate and oily surface of the porcelain, his eyes were a little green.

In addition to the traditional black porcelain, which is the best part of the kiln porcelain workers, this batch of trial production porcelain also includes celadon and white porcelain. Sun Hongyi, who doesn't understand porcelain, can only look at Lao Chentou's expression to distinguish between good and bad, as long as Lao Chentou nods and smiles at a certain piece of porcelain, he quickly takes it into his arms and touches and kisses, and then puts it in the box next to him like a baby son.

Bottles, jugs, cups, saucers, spoons...... There are hundreds of pieces of porcelain that have been successfully kilned for the first time, and they can only be regarded as trial production, but based on the current market situation in Europe, it is already as high as five or six thousand dollars. Even if the price of supplying the domestic market will not be so perverted, it will be at least a thousand dollars.

According to Lao Chentou, there are seventy-two processes, but in essence, the process is far more complicated than described. To put it simply, it means that from the messy pre-treatment process such as batching, embryo making, glazing, painting, etc., to the post-firing process of entering the kiln, the cycle will not be short. According to the current manpower and blank processing capacity of the Silver Valley Porcelain Company, it can fire up to one kiln per week.

Even so. Orders from the state-owned Import-Export Group and a number of private trading companies also arrived early, and at the current level of production, it was almost enough for the Silver Valley Porcelain Company to work for a whole year.

Sun Hongyi drooled and counted, good, good, very good! If it is officially put into production, two or three hundred pieces will be produced in one kiln. About 1,000 pieces a month, exported to Europe for at least 30,000 US dollars, and I have the intention to make some excellent goods. The output value of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year! Coupled with the country's industrial support policies, the 20% export tax rate is considered very "low......

From now on, there is this "mint". Daddy doesn't love Niangu Town, which doesn't love Mom, is about to embark on a broad road! All the idle residents, whether Indian, European or Chinese, as long as the IQ is not too low, will be recruited into the porcelain company, and after a few years, there will always be a large-scale porcelain industry.

But Sun Hongyi's mind is not all here, because the porcelain industry is only the first fire in Yinggu Town that he planned. After leaving the porcelain company, Sun Hongyi hurried to a newly opened sloping medicine garden in the northeast of the town. …,

Sun Hongyi's second fire, another economic growth point in Yingu Town. It is the large-scale cultivation of medicinal herbs. In addition to the artificial planting of Coptis chinensis in North America that has been carried out in the early stage, some of the Chinese herbal medicine seedlings brought from Daming have also settled in Yingu Town, and several medicine farmers have become technicians of the "Yingu Ecological Medicinal Materials Company", but unfortunately the legal person of the company is not Sun Hongyi, but the lover of the Supreme Judge Zhong Jinshan and the director of the Pharmaceutical Research Institute under the National Pharmaceutical Group Huang Nian.

In the nursery fields on the terraces or under the slopes. The green Bupleurum seedlings are very pleasing to the eye in the breeze, and dozens of European or Indian workers are seriously handling the chores in the medicine fields under the fingers of Chinese medicine farmers.

This is a batch of precious Bupleurum obtained from Daming last year, after a year of planting, Bupleurum seeds harvested quite a lot, large-scale planting from this year really began. Wait until next year, the National Pharmaceutical Group will launch one of the artifacts of the 17th century: Bupleurum Injection and Bupleurum Syrup Oral Liquid.

Bupleurum is one of the few plant medicines that can produce immediate results, with modern pharmacological research and preparation methods, its antipyretic and fever-reducing, anti-inflammatory and anti-epidemic viral hepatitis effects are very good. Historically, yellow fever broke out in the Caribbean in 1648 and quickly spread to Central and North America, Europe and Africa.

In the east of the Bupleurum medicine field, a large special corn field also belongs to the Silver Valley Ecological Medicinal Materials Company. The artificial planting of Coptis chinensis began in Yingu Town last spring, and advanced corn interplanting and mixed planting were adopted, which did not occupy an area and could create a growing environment for Coptis chinensis. Although it will take a year for the real large-scale harvest, in the European trade at the beginning of this year, berberine powder produced by state-owned pharmaceutical groups has been coaxed by European businessmen, even if each 1-gram bottle of berberine is sold for 20 US dollars, those European businessmen who have been adrift at sea for many years and are fed up with gastrointestinal epidemics are buying in large quantities without blinking.

With these two local advantageous industries, the core economic development engine of Yingu Town can be formed!

After inspecting the medicine field, Sun Hongyi ran to the southeast of Yingu Town, and his third fire was to mobilize several Chinese carpenters to cooperate with Huamei Wood Company to start a special furniture manufacturing company in Yingu Town.

This is a group of Ming immigrants of the 1624 year who were resettled from the Ministry of Immigration in early June. Several Chinese carpenters with good craftsmanship were not hired by Huamei Wood on the grounds that they were not good at the woodworking skills that were now in high demand and that they were older.

Several Chinese carpenters who are 40 years old, in fact, are strictly wood carving craftsmen, skilled in carving all kinds of exquisite wood art, in Sun Hongyi's view, the combination with furniture manufacturing is simply too suitable, and the characteristic home decoration wooden building materials can also be used. Although the style of the current spliced furniture and wooden building materials is concise and easy to transport, there is always less taste, in the United States, where the oriental civilization has become fashionable, how can there be less authentic work from the Ming Dynasty? Even if the silk from the 21st century is not very literate, the European market is a bit of a struggle, right?

Under the encouragement and leadership of Sun Hongyi, he borrowed several thousand dollars from the North American Development Bank, ordered several carpentry machine tools from Huamei Wood Company, and several woodcarvers who already had the right to formally settle were given shares.

The Chinese craftsmen who learned that they had also become the "proprietors" were full of morale, and before all the woodworking materials were in place, they went into the nearby woods, selected their favorite wood, and had a chance to produce products after a night.

According to the current scale of furniture factories, the output of one month can only be regarded as symbolic. But Sun Hongyi, who has been aggrieved for more than two years, is not in a hurry, the primeval forest resources around Yinggu Town are abundant, and a variety of excellent furniture hardwoods are obtained without effort, and there are smooth channels for importing rare hardwoods from Central and South America, and the future is unlimited.

In the future, "Silver Valley Oriental Furniture Company" will inevitably occupy a place in this industry.

Looking at everything in front of him, Sun Hongyi finally took a long breath of comfort. Porcelain, biological medicinal materials, oriental art furniture, he believes that in less than two years, Yinggu Town, which takes the signature economic route of oriental characteristics, will definitely become one of the towns with the most development potential in the country. How is West Point doing well? In the end, isn't it a place without a little "cultural heritage"...... (Your support is my biggest motivation.) )