"Down, down...... Stop! ”

"One-two...... Pull! ”

"One-two...... Pull! ”

On the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month of the Apocalypse, when there were only four or five days left before the annual Spring Festival, the Ming Dynasty had fallen into a jubilant atmosphere.

Fireworks and cloth made in the south of the Yangtze River, and grain from Huguang and Sichuan......

These things are being shipped by sea and arriving in Tianjin.

Under the auspices of Xu Guangqi and Wang Shunding, and under the supervision of Jin Yiwei, the Yellow River was dredged, and most of the river sand in the Huitong River and Tonghui River in the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal section were also cleaned up by them.

Therefore, after the opening of shipping, the river channel from Tianjin to Beijing is wider, and the traffic is more convenient, and most of the merchant ships from all over the country enter Beijing through the Tonghui River, and even the goods as far as Guangzhou can appear in the market in Beijing.

Its ladder voyage of all countries, the scale is complete, and the market is rampant and trade-moving, all of which are goods from all over the world, running and shooting, and all of them are people from all over the world.

Coupled with the existence of the imperial store, the city of Beijing has also regained its status as a distribution center for goods in the Ming Dynasty.

Along with the delivery of supplies, a large number of people also migrated from the south to the north.

In the Yellow Book, the population of Beijing in the 48th year of Wanli was more than 1,224,000, and if the counties under the jurisdiction of Shuntianfu were included, the population was more than 3.06 million.

However, according to this year's Yellow Book statistics, the population of Beijing has reached more than 1,453,000 people, and the population of the counties under the jurisdiction of Shuntianfu has reached more than 3,690,000 people.

In addition to the division of responsibilities between the Soldiers and Horses Division and the officials of the Criminal Department, the market in Beijing City at present is divided according to Zhu Youzhen's order.

There are rice markets, sheep markets, pig markets, fruit markets, grain markets, coal markets, flower markets, oil markets, and so on......

Due to the prevalence of the business model of "front shop and back shop" in Beijing, Zhu Youzhen specially concentrated many workshops in the same industry in one location, forming a special Hutong market such as Maoer Hutong, Pawnshop Hutong, Coffin Hutong, Qianshi Hutong and Coal Shop Hutong.

Not only that, but with the issuance of military tuntian, and the conscription began to be abolished by way of paying wages.

In fact, the wages and silver issued by the imperial court to the people through Zhu You's inspection are constantly enriching the lives of the people.

The improvement of living standards has made the trend of raising flowers popular among the people of Beijing, and flowers have also become a characteristic commodity of Beijing.

Every April and May, there are people in the market who sell jasmine, Qingyuan Fenfu.

Even in winter, florists still grow lilacs in pots, the flowers are small and fragrant, and the knots are fragrant.

However, lilacs are not admirable, so jasmine is more popular with the people of the capital, and even from the third year of the Apocalypse, Yake orders tea with jasmine, and women use jasmine to show off their heads.

Flowers are available for sale in the shopping malls of the capital at any time of the year. Flowers adorn the daily lives of the people.

Compared with the false prosperity in the Wanli years, the prosperity in the Apocalypse years seems healthier and more real......

Zhu Youzhen, who was sitting in the carriage watching the bazaar, closed the window, but Lu Wenzhao next to him was puzzled: "Your Highness won't look at it anymore?" ”

"I've seen it, how the people live, you can see it at a glance." Zhu Youzhen shook his head and sighed:

"There are tens of thousands of officials in this world, and the people's livelihood is not reported during the Wanli years, but in recent years, they have begun to recruit workers and regard the policies of the imperial court as their own merits."

"Although it's a little annoying, doesn't it also show that the people's lives are not bad?"

"It's really good...... Lu Wenzhao bowed slightly, and also said with what he knew:

"When he was still the chief flag officer, the people often scolded Jinyiwei when they saw it, and secretly spat on the court officials behind their backs, treating well-dressed beasts as derogatory ......"

"It's just that in recent years, the imperial court has distributed a large number of acres of land and allocated official funds to support the relocation of the people, and the people have seen these things, and there are naturally fewer people who scold."

"The most scolded at the moment is that salt tea is too expensive."

Lu Wenzhao said one point that most of the people are tired of, that is, with the establishment of the two divisions, the people began to feel uncomfortable after the salt tea state-run.

Although for the people of the Ming Dynasty at present, the people of each family of five only need to spend about 200 wen a year on salt tea, and their income from only arable land is eight or nine taels, and more than ten taels.

It stands to reason that they should think that this little salt tea is not much.

But after all, they have experienced the flood of illegal salt, and the period of five or six wen per catty of private salt, they are naturally dissatisfied with the price of official salt ranging from 12 wen to 24 wen.

Zhu Youzhen understands very well, but he also knows that if he does not do this, it will be difficult for the domestic economy to be led by the imperial court.

In the current environment, the Ming Dynasty must survive first in order to better benefit the people.

The outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in Europe led to a decrease in the amount of ocean-going trade between the East and the West, and the tariffs of the Ming Dynasty would also decrease year by year as the Thirty Years' War intensified.

It's an economic trough, but it's an opportunity for expansion.

Just as the Ming Dynasty settled on Ceylon this time, it can be seen that the Portuguese and other officials and merchants on the island have retreated to Tianzhu.

The Thirty Years' War, in which more than two dozen countries were involved throughout Europe, was constantly holding themselves back.

As a result, their declining power in the Far East was destined to be difficult to replenish.

For example, the Netherlands and Spain, after the defeat of the Ming army, their forces have not recovered until now, and their momentum is not as great as that of Portugal, Britain and France.

However, this momentum will soon change as overseas vassals become vassals.

The seventeenth and twenty-first centuries were destined to be a time for the coastal countries to beat the landlocked countries.

As long as the Ming vassals occupy the coast, under the continuous supply of the Ming Dynasty, the landlocked countries will be slowly wiped out.

This is actually the same question as to why the Qing Dynasty was able to open up so much land inland.

In the era of the rise of sea power, sea power countries will inevitably come into contact with the world and firearms earlier than landlocked countries.

In a landlocked country like Dzungaria, it is normal for it to be exterminated because it cannot even pull out 30 24-pounder guns.

Even if the Ming Dynasty is gone, a Han dynasty will be replaced, even if it will not open up its territory to the west, it will defeat Dzungaria.

In the final analysis, at the peak of Dzungaria, there were only 500,000 or 600,000 standing troops, of which more than 20,000 were equipped with firearms, and the heaviest firearms were only 20 mortars of 10 Russian pounds.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen didn't bother to care about the current Warat and Dzungar, even if Dzungar annexed the Warat tribes as in history, Zhu Youzhen would not take it to heart.

It is indeed not difficult for the Ming Dynasty to fight a Dzungaria, after all, the number of ten-pound (twelve-pound) cannons in the Ming army has broken through to 6,000.

The number of 20-pound guns, including the army, reached 1,400.

In addition, there are nearly 30,000 five-pound cannons, and the number of artillery pieces in the Northern Military Governor's Mansion alone is as high as 6,000.

If Dzungaria dared to invade, without Zhu Youzhen or even Man Gui opening his mouth, Mei Zhihuan, Li Rubai, and Li Ruzhen in Hexi would be able to defend against the enemy outside the Gobi Desert in Jiayuguan.

In the era of sea power, there was nothing to brag about fighting inland countries, and Zhu Youzhen paid more attention to the Indochina Peninsula and Tianzhu.

Thinking of this, he said to Sun Shoufa, who was driving in front of the carriage, "Let's go, go to the armament yard." ”

"Yes......" Sun Shoufa replied, and Zhu Youzhen also leaned on the carriage and began to pretend to sleep.

In recent days, he has been a lot more stable, and the rest time has become more as Zhu Youxiao slowly deals with the slack.

However, those notes that Zhu Youzhen could solve in one hour, but it took three hours to deal with them in Zhu Youxiao's hands.

The two stand from different angles, and Zhu Youzhen has his own set of rules of conduct, that is, focusing on the people.

If any party engages in party strife under his nose, he will raise his hand and put some black material to clean up these parties.

Compared with him, Zhu Youxiao needs to start from the perspective of the dynasty, so most of the policies are stable.

This is the drawback of the times, not the drawback of Zhu Youxiao.

After all, he is the emperor and needs to look at the problem from the emperor's point of view, but Zhu Youzhen does not have so many concerns.

Zhu Youxiao was still in the miserable review of the Heart Cultivation Palace, but Zhu Youjian only had a dozen military information on the table.

It wasn't until the carriage left the capital that Zhu Youzhen began to look at it one by one.

First of all, the most eye-catching thing is the graduation recital of Yanshan Military Academy.

Counting the children of the clan, the total number of soldiers who graduated this time is 1,927.

The first time Zhu Youzhen opened it, he saw the names of Li Zicheng, Cao Bianjiao and others.

Not only that, but he also saw a lot of familiar names.

Wang Ziyong, Liu Zongmin, Dang Shousu, Liu Xiyao, Liu Fangliang, Xin Sizhong, Liu Rukui......

A series of familiar names of the generals of the Northern Shaanxi Rebel Army made Zhu Youzhen cry and laugh, and he was full of emotion.

He couldn't laugh or cry that so many people actually came to Yanshan to enter the Military Academy, and he sighed that this was their best destination.

Zhu Youzhen never felt that the rebel army in northern Shaanxi was wrong at the beginning, to put it bluntly, they all rebelled at the beginning because they couldn't survive.

It's just that the corruption in the back was too fast, which led to the failure of the peasant uprising, not to mention, and also implicated the Han people and followed them into the trough.

If the imperial court had money and grain for disaster relief, they might be like Zhang Xianzhong, Gao Yingxiang, Luo Rucai, Sun Kewang and others, who had not yet appeared in the name, to work in an unknown place or concentrate on farming.

Zhu Youzhen can raise a knife against the rebels who have a murderous nature and lose their nature after the uprising, or he can raise a knife against demagoguery people like Xu Hongru.

It's just that in the face of the scrawny and hungry people's resistance, maybe he will choose to be appeased like Chongzhen.

However, one thing that he is tougher than Chongzhen is that if the other party is not honest after being appeased, then the iron hooves of the four cavalry guards will let them know what the wrath of thunder is.

"Li Zicheng, Li Zijing and a few other top thirty children of northern Shaanxi, let's send them to the Southern Military Governor's Mansion first."

"Cao Bianjiao, Cao Dingjiao and the other top thirty disciples will stay in the Shangzhi Governor's Mansion."

"The rest of the people think first about the navy, the northern army, and then the western army."

Zhu Youzhen put down the document and gave an answer, while Lu Wenzhao was curious: "Doesn't the Eastern Army Governor's Mansion arrange it?" ”

"The Eastern Army Governor's Mansion is fighting against Jianyu, and the scene is the most fierce, which is not suitable for this group of students." Zhu Youzhen shook his head and said:

"After all, it is a person who has spent six years of painstaking training, and if he is sent to the Eastern Army Governor's Mansion and the Battle of Sweeping, it is lucky to survive a third of it."

"Sweeping Ping'an South is more suitable for them, and Cao Bianjiao, who is upright, will also be sent to the Shangzhi Gongwei Camp in Duoyan Mansion to study first."

The establishment of the three guards in the south of the desert made the Great Wall of Beizhili, Shanxi, and Liaodong ineffective, and the Shanxi Outer Gongwei Battalion took over Kaiping Wei, the Shangzhi Gongwei Battalion took over Duoyan Mansion, and the Liaodong Gongwei Battalion took over Taining Mansion.

In short, the capital is located under absolute security, and the construction of the three prefectures has basically become a scale.

Since the great victory in the war, coupled with the exile of corrupt officials and corrupt officials, more than 50,000 people have been relocated to Duoyan Mansion in the land of Sanfu, more than 40,000 people have also moved in Kaiping Mansion, and more than 20,000 people have moved in Taining Mansion.

There are nearly 120,000 people in the land of Sanfu, and this number will increase in the future, reaching the level of one million people in Sanfu, so it will be much easier for the Ming army to carry out a northern sweeping operation in the future.

In particular, if a large amount of arable land can be cultivated on both sides of the river in the Horqin grassland, the cost of sweeping the north in the future will be reduced to one-third of what it is now.

As long as Taining Mansion is rich, it is only a matter of time before the entire Monan and Mobei are ruled by the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Youzhen continued to deal with the military situation, and time passed little by little.

Until the last military intelligence was opened, they were not far from the armament yard.

It's a coincidence that this military information was handed over by Sun Yuanhua, and the matter inside is also about the feasibility of guano fertilizer.

This answer made Zhu Youzhen frown, because what Sun Yuanhua said was not feasible......

However, when Zhu Youzhen saw the infeasible question, his brows slowly relaxed.

Sun Yuanhua used guano fertilizer to grow vegetables, but the vegetables began to get sick and eventually died.

Zhu Youjian looked at his process and found that he did not dry and disinfect the bird droppings, nor did he mix and ferment the bedding, so it caused fertilizer damage.

"Is Sun Yuanhua in the Armaments Institute?"

Zhu Youzhen raised his head and asked Lu Wenzhao, but Lu Wenzhao shook his head and said, "Sun Shilang has been on the side of Yongping's experimental field recently. ”

"Well......" Knowing that Sun Yingyuan was not in the armament yard, Zhu Youzhen also wrote down the process of how to deal with bird droppings.

He saw this process in the book on poverty alleviation and remembered it very clearly.

Soon he wrote everything out, handed it to Lu Wenzhao, and continued:

"If the experiment is successful, an order for 3,000 guano ships will be placed at all shipyards immediately."

"The silver is allocated from the Imperial Horse Supervisor, and the silver is completed one by one."

"Yes!" Lu Wenzhao responded, and Zhu Youzhen also began to slowly get out of the carriage.

The cost of a 10,000-material cargo ship is more than 3,400 taels of silver, and the load is about 2,000 tons, but to build so many 10,000-material cargo ships at once, whether the dry wood of several major shipyards is enough is a problem.

However, this is not difficult for them, but if it is used to make cargo ships, it does not need to be as strict as warships.

Dry wood can be used in one year, and it is no problem for a ship to be repaired for more than 20 years.

As for but years later? According to Song Yingxing's progress at the moment, Zhu Youzhen felt that seeing the steam engine was a matter of the past few years.

As long as the steam engine comes out, the steam engine ship and the steam locomotive will not be far away.

The only problem now is the problem of steel, and the explosives and pumping technology needed to mine iron ore have not yet been developed.

If the steam engine had been introduced, the problem of pumping and transportation in the mine would have been greatly improved.

As for gunpowder, we have to see when the mercury thunderate that Bi Maokang and they studied will appear.

For now, they can be said to have studied on their own, and Zhu Youzhen only mentioned that they should add mercury, nitric acid, ethanol, copper and other things appropriately.

How to match Zhu Youzhen didn't know, he didn't listen carefully to the questions about the process of gunpowder in chemistry class and history class back then, but he just roughly remembered something.

Of course, he could have forgotten something.

Zhu Youzhen is not sure whether the mercury thunderate is formed, but under various proportions, he can always develop a gunpowder that is stronger than the current black powder.

Even if it can only be commissioned, it is also a great progress for the military industry and industry of the Ming Dynasty.

"His Royal Highness Chitose ......"

After passing the inspection of the Armaments Institute, Zhu Youjian re-entered the Armaments Institute after a few months, but compared with the emptiness of the last time, the Armaments Institute has built several branches covering an area of more than 100 acres this time.

Zhu Youzhen walked in and took a look, and basically some branches that had become large-scale.

For example, there are already agricultural colleges with chemical fertilizer and grafting technology, breeding technology, and military industrial institutes with basic military technology.

Zhu Youzhen didn't go to see the Agricultural College, because he had been concerned about the progress of the Agricultural College, and even a few days ago, he wrote to Huang Long, asking Huang Long to order Huang Fei to contact the Dark Elia (British) merchants and companies above Tianzhu.

He hopes to bring in the other side's native white pigs and cows, as well as species such as the big horse.

There is no ban on these species, the only thing to pay attention to is whether the other party can transport these tens of thousands of miles by sea.

As long as the British local white pigs are transported over, and the time comes to breed with the local white pigs, Zhu Youzhen believes that the Ming Dynasty can breed Yorkshire pigs with strong fertility, heavy weight and fast fattening in advance.

Once Yorkshire pigs are successfully bred, the price of pork in Daming will be reduced to a terrifying amount.

As long as meat and oil keep up, the people's demand for staple foods will be reduced, and it will be much easier to survive the Xiaoice period.

Thinking so, Zhu Youzhen walked into the Military Industrial Institute, and as soon as he entered the door, Zhu Youzhen was asked by the two receiving officials to put on paper armor made of pure paper.

Since the military industry is still mainly researching gunpowder, anything that may trigger static electricity cannot be brought in.

However, Zhu Youzhen didn't think about observing it up close, after he changed into paper armor, he watched some research from a hundred paces, and during this period, Bi Maokang also came to his side with a disgraced face.

"His Royal Highness Chitose ......"

The grizzled Bi Maokang still pays great attention to etiquette, but Zhu Youzhen couldn't help but smile when he saw his flowery old face:

"Bi Shilang, how is it?"

Zhu Youzhen's smile made Bi Maokang respond with a wry smile, and for the question, he replied with a sad face:

"The research of this gunpowder is a little difficult, Your Highness, among the raw materials you mentioned, mercury, nitric acid, and ethanol, we all obtained them quickly, and the formula of hydrochloric acid was also obtained from the hands of the Francois people, but the problem of proportioning is still very big."

"Sometimes if you don't succeed, it can cause an explosion, so we're all very careful."

Hydrochloric acid was first developed in the last century, but it is not pure hydrochloric acid with high purity.

Some of the Portuguese artisans in Ho Jing also know the recipe for this thing, after all, it's not a secret.

After getting the hydrochloric acid formula, Bi Maokang, Song Yingxing, and Sun Yuanhua improved and optimized the formula, and although the hydrochloric acid produced was not of high purity, it could still be used to make mercury thunderate.

Zhu Youzhen listened to Bi Maokang's words and nodded slightly.

In this way, the raw materials of mercury thunderate have basically been made, and what is needed now is to modulate them step by step.

As long as mercury thunderate is studied, the progress of all kinds of firearms and industry will be leapfrogging.

"How's the research on blast furnaces and steam engines?" Zhu Youzhen knew that mercury thunderate needed time now, so he asked about the steam engine and blast furnace with confidence.

For these studies, Bi Maokang has participated, and naturally knows the progress, he said:

"The blast furnace has been improved according to our method, and the furnace has been raised to a foot high, and charcoal has been used."

"However, although the tapping iron is thirty percent higher, it still can't reach the level that His Highness said that a furnace produces hundreds of thousands of catties, at best, a furnace produces about 2,000 catties."

"That's not bad." Zhu Youzhen slightly bowed his head: "What about the steam engine?" ”

"The steam engine, Chang Gung (Song Yingxing's table character) has been improved, although it can pump out the water of the two-zhang pit, but the sealing problem can only be said to reduce leakage, and it cannot be completely sealed."

"Only when the sealing problem is solved can the power transmission that Your Highness said be carried out, and the steam engine can be used in cars and ships."

Bi Maokang's discourse is getting closer and closer to modern people, and I don't know if it is due to the fact that Zhu Youzhen wrote too many materials and topics in the vernacular.

The intrigue away from the court allowed him to immerse himself in the research, and he also made some achievements.

"However, Your Highness, although the gunpowder has not studied the mercury thunderate you mentioned, the structure of the breech firing gun, the subordinate has roughly figured it out."

"It's a bit difficult to mass-produce, but if you hire a skilled craftsman to make it, you can make it, but there are some problems with this quantity."

"And there is no mercury thunderate, and the use of black powder as a primer is not enough power."

Bi Maokang's words made Zhu Youzhen nod in agreement, he didn't think that the craftsmanship of the breech gun could be difficult, as long as he gave money and silver, not to mention the Ming Dynasty, even the current Europe could be made by skilled craftsmen.

But the problem is that just a delicate breech-loading pistol is useless for the Ming Dynasty and a country.

It is necessary to achieve standardized production, unify standards, and then get out mercury thunderate in order to achieve a leap forward in the rifle process.

"However, Your Highness, the textile machine technology you mentioned, we refer to the hydraulic technology of the textile machine and steam engine in the south field, and roughly come up with a batch of improved textile machines with an output twice the current hydraulic large textile machine."

Bi Maokang brought Zhu Youzhen a good news, which made Zhu Youzhen sigh secretly "I didn't run in vain".

"Can it be mass-produced?"

"Yes!"

Zhu Youzhen's inquiry was answered affirmatively by Bi Maokang, and Zhu Youzhen, who got the answer, also said to Lu Wenzhao beside him:

"Let the drawings be brought back to the south field, and the textile factories will be replaced with new looms."

"Tell Hua Chun to run the textile factory well......

"Commanded by humility." Lu Wenzhao responded, and then arranged for someone to get the drawings and send the message.

After arranging all this, Zhu Youzhen also followed Bi Maokang to visit some other researches.

Although they were all topics studied by Zhu Youzhen, more than 300 students in the Armaments Academy also studied his teaching materials.

But for some breakthrough research, Zhu Youzhen basically couldn't interject, so he could only listen silently.

Finally, it took an hour to visit all the researches, and Zhu Youzhen could only leave a sentence of "tell Chengen if you need silver", and then walked out of the armament institute and returned to the capital......