"Woo ......"

On the afternoon of the seventh day of the second lunar month, the whistle sounded in the door-head ditch.

Because it was a valley terrain, the sound of the whistle came for several miles, and a few miles away, Zhu Ciran, who heard the whistle, hurriedly opened the window and poked his head out.

His expectant eyes didn't show for two seconds, and he didn't even see the armaments yard on the horizon clearly, and he was vigorously pulled back by a hand.

"Come back and sit down, open the window at will and be easily attacked by assassins."

Li Dingguo muttered and closed the window, while Zhu Ciran looked at Zhu Youzhen with bright eyes:

"Uncle Qi Wang, is the fourth version of the steam engine coming out?"

"Not yet, this should be the whistle caused by the third version of the steam engine high-pressure boiler experiment."

Zhu Youzhen sat and dealt with the slack, and after Zhu Ciran heard it, he hurriedly asked as urgently as a sponge absorbing seawater:

"What is a high-pressure boiler?"

"The high-pressure boiler is ......" Zhu Youzhen paused, and after reacting, he frowned and shifted his gaze from Zhu Ciran:

"Why do you ask this? You don't have to worry about this, you just have to do your homework first. ”

"I'm just curious, I've done my homework." Zhu Ciran took out his homework as if he was doing his work and handed it to Zhu Youzhen.

Zhu Youzhen glanced at it, and then explained: "A high-pressure boiler is a boiler with a steam gauge pressure higher than that of an ordinary boiler. ”

"What's that pressure? Why use a high-pressure boiler? Is there any difference between this boiler and the heating boiler such as fire wall and floor heating? Zhu Ciran hurriedly asked.

With his anxious appearance, Zhu Youzhen looked a little uneasy, and felt that the transition to enlighten the other party's interest might lead to the other party's "not doing his job", so Zhu Youzhen frowned and said:

"These things are all in physics textbooks, so you can read them carefully."

"Is there one?" Hearing that physics textbooks were available, Zhu Ciran immediately turned around and searched on the bookshelves of the carriage.

Although Zhu Youxiao and Zhang Yan did not want the three princes to go to the official school, Zhu Youzhen arranged for them to educate the teaching materials, which were basically the same as the official school, and added Chinese studies.

Zhu Ciran searched the bookshelf, then found the book "Basic Physics", and then opened the catalog to find the basic knowledge about boilers and air pressure.

He said as he read it, "Uncle Qi, why can you write these things that can't be seen in other books." ”

"Read quietly......" Zhu Youzhen was helpless, in the face of the 100,000 whys "Zhu 100,000" in front of him, he just wanted to be quiet and finish the remaining three books before arriving at the armament hospital.

"Oh......" Zhu Ciran was not dissatisfied after being called quiet, but read "Fundamental Physics" with great interest.

Compared with him, Li Dingguo next to him was much more precocious, and he didn't need anyone to urge, he picked up a copy of "Political Theory" to watch after Zhu Ciran was quiet.

This book was written by Zhu Youzhen, but this book is not in circulation in the market, there are only three copies.

One is the one in his hand, the other is in the library of the Qi Palace, and the last one is on Zhu Youxiao's bookshelf.

Based on Li Dingguo's military talent, Zhu Youzhen deliberately asked him to read this "Political Theory" while reading.

Daming's science and technology are advancing, and there is no need for simple military generals in the future, what is needed are generals like Xiong Tingbi, Sun Chuanting, Hong Chengchou, Yang Wenyue, and Wu Aheng.

Zhu Youzhen intended to train Li Dingguo to be his successor, and he calculated according to the time set by his brother, and estimated that at the age of forty-five, he would go to the Americas and conquer the Qi Kingdom.

When he was forty-five years old, Li Dingguo was just thirty-five, and whether he was the governor of the Shangzhi Governor's Office, the governor of any army, or the assistant to the cabinet, there was no big problem at this age.

Therefore, in the face of Li Dingguo's inquiry, he tried his best to answer, such as the current ......

"Your Highness, when I read "Political Theory" and "War Theory", I always feel that there is something similar, why is this? And the opening sentence of "On War", "War is a continuation of politics", can you explain it to me? ”

Li Dingguo looked at Zhu Youzhen, and Zhu Youzhen, who was in the office, also paused Zhu Bi when he heard this, he was just about to open his mouth to answer, but when he saw Zhu Ciran holding "Basic Physics" with great interest, he immediately greeted:

"Ran'er, listen to the answer to this question first."

"Oh......" Hearing Zhu Youzhen call himself, Zhu Ciran reluctantly put down the book in his hand, and then participated in the topic of politics and war without spirit.

Looking at Zhu Ciran's lazy appearance, Zhu Youzhen could only sigh in his heart, and then explained

"War is politics, and war itself is an action of a political nature, and there has been no war without politics since ancient times."

"Politics has reached a certain stage where it can no longer go on as usual, so wars break out to remove obstacles in the political road."

"When the obstacles are removed and the political goals are achieved, the war will end."

"If the obstacles are not cleared, the war must continue in order to be carried out."

"To put it simply, politics is bloodless war, war is bloody politics, and war is at the service of politics."

"For example, in the current war of the South Asian vassals, why should the dynasty fight the local area far away from the sea frontier?"

Zhu Youzhen explained, and asked like an exam, but Zhu Ciran replied:

"For gold and silver, for the land, for the population market!"

Zhu Ciran only saw things on the surface, but at the moment he was only eight years old, and it was good to be able to say this, while Zhu Youzhen set his sights on Li Dingguo.

Faced with the inquiry, ten-year-old Li Dingguo did not answer directly, but thought about it before saying:

"For the sake of resources and markets, the other thing is to canonize the vassal king, and remove the unrest factors within the original dynasty, so that not only can the problem of the vassal king be solved, but also the land, gold and silver can be obtained from the vassal king."

Li Dingguo said more completely than Zhu Ciran, but he also missed many key things.

In this regard, Zhu Youzhen lowered his head to deal with the sparseness, and added:

"In order to maintain the Ming dynasty's vassal system, establish an economic circle belonging to the Ming dynasty's vassal system and ensure the legitimacy of the Ming dynasty."

As he spoke, Li Dingguo nodded as if he didn't understand, and Zhu Ciran felt that he was listening to the book of heaven.

He looked at Zhu Youzhen and didn't speak, and secretly picked up "Basic Physics" and read it.

Seeing this, Li Dingguo also picked up "Political Theory" again, while Zhu Youzhen was having a headache because of the slackness in his hands.

The recital in his hand is from the household department, and it comes from Bi Ziyan's writing.

This piece of dredging is crying poor, and the reason for crying poor is that Bi Ziyan is eyeing the tens of millions of taels of gold and silver in the national treasury.

Of course, the household department is indeed poor.

After the tax was levied last autumn, what made people struck people was that Tian Fu did not receive 55 million stone of rice and wheat, but only 49 million stone.

The reason is relatively simple, that is, the severe drought in several provinces has led to the failure of grain harvests in various places.

Although it has rained since the beginning of spring and the drought is receding, the people who lost their harvest due to the severe drought last year still need the imperial court to solve the income and food problems of the spring planting and autumn harvest for them.

Bi Ziyan's recital clearly stated that at least 7 million people will be affected by the disaster and need to survive the autumn harvest, and that about 13 million people will be affected by the disaster in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Huguang, and Guangdong.

This accounted for one-eleventh of the population of the Ming Dynasty was affected, and the financial test for the Ming Dynasty was naturally great.

The plan given by the cabinet and the six ministries still continues the "cash-for-work" plan formulated by Zhu Youzhen.

Based on the investment and construction of the cement yard in the south of Yingzhou, Yingzhou can export 600,000 stone of cement per month and build 200 miles of cement roads under the guarantee of its own construction.

Therefore, the suggestion given by the Ministry of Industry is to directly transfer the surplus cement of Yingzhou to Huguang and Nanzhili according to the quota of 7.2 million stone a year, especially the three prefectures of Jingzhou, Xiangyang, and Yunyang in Huguang.

At present, only these three prefectures in Huguang are directly affected by the disaster, and the annual output of 1.5 million stone cement in Huguang and Nanzhili, plus 7.2 million stone in Yingzhou, can solve the employment problem of the local people, and can also build 2,700 miles of roads, killing two birds with one stone.

According to the estimates of the Ministry of Households, there are more than 1 million people directly affected by the disaster in Huguang and Nanzhili, and more than 3 million people who have lost their grain harvest, totaling about 4.7 million.

The standard given by the Ministry of Industry is that each area has a construction period of 120 days, a salary of 12 yuan, an estimated recruitment of 1.4 million workers, and 2.8 million taels of public funds for disaster relief.

This seems to be good, but Zhu Youzhen is suspicious.

Involving cement road, Nanzhili, and Huguang, he can't help but care about this matter.

Who knows if Bi Ziyan united with the local gentry to provide relief for work, and used the gold and silver of the court to benefit the people?

"Let Cui Yingyuan check Nanzhili and see if there are so many people affected by the disaster in Nanzhili."

Zhu Youzhen explained to Wang Chengen, and then lowered his head and continued to look at Bi Ziyan's recital.

In the follow-up song, millions of people were affected by the disaster in the four prefectures of Guangdong, and Bi Ziyan asked Jiaozhi to transfer 1.5 million stone cement to Guangdong for work relief, with a construction period of 150 days, 10 yuan, 300,000 workers, and 600,000 taels of public funds for disaster relief.

As for Shaanxi and Shanxi, as well as Xuanfu in Beizhili, a total of 8 million people were affected in the three places, with Shanxi being the most affected, with more than 4 million people affected, more than 600,000 people in Xuanfu, and more than 3.4 million people in Shaanxi

In these three places, the wages are all priced at 10 Wen, and the three places are 1 million in Shanxi, 200,000 in Xuanfu, and 1 million in Shaanxi, with a construction period of 150 days and 4 million taels of silver for disaster relief.

Not only that, the Ministry of Industry asked the Imperial Horse Supervisor to transport grain from all over the country to Shanxi from March to stabilize grain prices and stabilize them at a price of 400 wen until September.

In September, after the sweet potatoes in Beizhili were ripe, another 5 million stone sweet potatoes were transferred to Shanxi for direct disaster relief.

In other words, the imperial court now needs to directly transfer 7.4 million taels of silver.

In addition, in order to stabilize the grain price in Shanxi and let the more than 8 million people affected by the disaster in Shanxi have enough to eat, this requires at least 24 million stone rice and wheat, and in addition, 5 million stone sweet potatoes need to be adjusted in the future.

Rice and wheat will be lost, especially when transported to the interior, even if it is transported by water, at most it will be transported to Luoyang, leaving more than 600 miles, and at least a quarter of the grain will be lost.

In total, it is 7,400,000 taels of silver, 30,000,000 stone of rice and wheat, and 7,000,000 stone of sweet potatoes.

This is almost 24 million taels of silver, and it is not surprising that Bi Ziyan is crying poor.

Last year, the imperial court earned 49 million stone rice and wheat and more than 29 million taels of tax silver, but this year, the expenditure for only six ministries was 18 million taels, and the expenditure for military salaries was 13 million taels, for a total expenditure of 31 million taels.

Therefore, at the beginning of the year, the imperial court had already applied to Zhu Youzhen for the transfer of more than 2 million taels of coinage silver from the Financial Division.

But even so, there were still more than 21 million taels of silver and 1,540,000 taels of gold.

If copper is added, the price of those three items is more than 42 million taels of silver.

This is still the amount of more than 1,700,000 taels of gold, more than 5,000,000 taels of silver, and more than 100 boxes of jewels arrived in Huanglong, and if the gold and silver ships of the Naval Governor's Mansion arrived, the gold and silver coinage of the state treasury would reach more than 67,000,000 taels.

Bi Ziyan, as the head of the household, naturally knows how much coinage gold and silver is hidden in the state treasury, and it is naturally not surprising that his eyes are red.

It's just that his eyes are red, but Zhu Youzhen can't be red.

Although there are many coinage gold and silver, there is a problem, that is, they are all gold and silver shipped back from overseas, and if they are put into the market at once, Daming will suffer from inflation in an instant.

To tell the truth, the Ming Dynasty's Hubu Shangshu did a good job in opening up sources and reducing expenditure, but the financial awareness was very poor.

The treasure banknote is a sharp weapon, and there is no one who has been scrapped by the emperor and the Hubu Shangshu, and the treasure money has been scrapped, and as a result, Zhu Youzhen has to use gold and silver coins to redeem the trust of the people little by little, and dig a big hole for him.

Not to mention the matter of coinage, just in terms of the total amount of currency in the Ming Dynasty at the moment, the release of tens of millions of taels of gold and silver from abroad at once is enough to have an impact on local prices.

The total amount of currency of the Ming Dynasty, that is, gold, silver and copper coins, these three items add up to silver, and the value of the currency will not exceed 2.5 billion taels of silver.

Of course, this is circulated in the market, and what is buried in the ground does not count.

But even so, with a total monetary volume of 2.5 billion taels of silver, releasing tens of millions of taels of foreign silver in one go is undoubtedly a devastating disaster for agricultural civilization.

The silver inflation of the Ming Dynasty became a silver crunch because of the Thirty Years' War in Europe, and now it is not easy for Zhu Youzhen to solve the problem of the silver crunch, if he releases too much gold and silver, it will lead to inflation.

It is better to say that the release in the south has a large population and can accommodate more.

But in the north, especially in Shanxi, where the economy is almost non-existent, it is a bit of a suspicion of raising prices, because it is difficult for silver to circulate, and it is difficult for even the emperor to transport supplies.

Zhu Youzhen has always wanted to exchange new coins for old coins, and then slowly release gold and silver as the population of the Ming Dynasty grew, rather than using them as soon as they were available.

Bi Ziyan's idea is very good, but it does not apply to the current Daming.

Perhaps he saw the idea that Zhu Youzhen arbitrarily controlled overseas gold and silver earlier, but Zhu Youzhen's arbitrary control of overseas gold and silver at that time was also because the situation in the Ming Dynasty at that time was a silver crunch.

At the moment, prices are stable, the currency is stable, and it is not good to use a large amount of overseas gold and silver.

Therefore, for this disaster relief, Zhu Youzhen decided to continue to use food stamps after thinking about it.

He lifted the red pen and crossed out more than 7 million taels of silver, and then directly wrote the handwriting of "one day's work, three catties of rice".

Although this will require the Ming to move more rice and wheat to Shanxi and Shaanxi, at least it will not allow the local economy to continue to be damaged.

But......

"The population of Shanxi and Shaanxi is still too much......

Zhu Youzhen frowned, he had an embarrassing point, that is, Shanxi and Shaanxi.

Under the four-year drought, it is easy to relocate the population of Shaanxi and Shanxi, but when the drought is over, it will be difficult to move people back.

It is not difficult to raise 2 million people in Guanzhong, and the Weiping original has never been cut off during the 17 years of drought in Chongzhen, which means that there is no problem in the more than 10 million mu of irrigated land in the Guanzhong Plain for farming.

If Guanzhong only supports 2 million people, it can still afford it, but the question is where the remaining 2 million or so people will migrate.

Moved to Hexi, but it seems that there will be a few years of drought in Hexi, and it will be even more difficult to provide relief when the mountains are high and the roads are far away.

But if you don't move to Hexi, the population in the northwest is insufficient, and the Ming army wants to go west, so it will become the moon in the water and the flower in the mirror.

Moreover, the population of the northwest is insufficient, and it is difficult to control the entire Western Regions and Central Asia in the future.

The Western Regions, which now has the largest population, but whose productivity and desertification are more serious than those of later generations, are destined to be easy to defend and difficult to attack.

The Qing army sent troops during the small warm period, and as a result, Hexi, with a population of 10 million, could not even feed the 20,000 or 30,000 people on the South Road, let alone the Xiaoice River period at the moment, and the population of Hexi was only more than 4 million Daming.

Unless the Ming army can use 10,000 people to defeat Yarkand and Warat, who control tens of thousands of strings in the Western Regions, they will honestly wait for the train to be built.

The problem in the northwest is here, leaving no population, and it will be difficult to conquer the west in the future, and the control of the territory of the west will be the lowest of all the territories, because there is not enough population.

But the population can be left, and tens of millions of rice and wheat must be spent every year to feed them, which is a dilemma.

"There are still 12 years left in the great drought in Shaanxi, and 12 years is enough to reproduce a generation......"

After thinking about it, Zhu Youzhen still decided to relocate the people of Shaanxi again, and this time he still had to move to Sichuan, because Sichuan also had disaster victims who could move south.

As soon as he decided, the carriage arrived at the gate of the Armament Courtyard and stopped.

Zhu Ciran hurriedly ran out of the car, and Li Dingguo was the second to follow, but he was in order to get a stool for Wang Chengen and Zhu Youzhen to get out of the car.

Only Zhu Youzhen and Wang Chengen were left in the car, Wang Chengen wanted to help Zhu Youzhen get up, and he also said at the same time:

"The victims of the disaster in Shaanxi should move another 1 million to Sichuan, and settle in Baoning, Tongchuan, and Shunqing in northern Sichuan, and as for the more than 800,000 local people, let's move south to Yunnan together with the 400,000 people in Chongqing, Luzhou, and Xuzhou."

"After Sichuan raided the property of the gentry, didn't he get more than 1.5 million taels of silver and more than 1.7 million stone rice and wheat?"

"Ordered Li Banghua to send 1.2 million stone rice and wheat to the victims as travel expenses to move south, and allocated another 1 million taels of silver to Yunnan, telling Hong Chengchou to use this million taels of silver to resettle the 1.2 million victims."

After Zhu Youzhen's words were finished, Wang Chengen also helped him get out of the carriage.

It's just that after getting off the carriage, Wang Chengen hesitated:

"Your Highness, of the 1.2 million people in eastern Sichuan, one million of them migrated south from northern Shaanxi before."

"The year before last was finally stable for a year, last year suffered a major drought, and now it is difficult to stabilize for another year, just after the end of spring planting, and they want to relocate, these four years and two moves, will it hurt them too much......

"People can't live anymore, so what do you care if you hurt or not......" Zhu Youzhen shook his head.

He didn't have any way to hurt the 1.2 million people and spend more than 1 million taels of silver to resettle them than to spend a few million taels to let the 1 million Shaanxi people survive.

The former hurts the people, and the latter kills the people, neither of which is pleasing to the people, and can only avoid the important and trivial.

At present, one million people have been relocated, and there are only more than 3.8 million people in Shaanxi.

More than 1.5 million are in Hetao, 2 million in Guanzhong, and more than 300,000 in Hanzhong.

In this way, at least these 3.8 million people will be able to live like a two-year person after the intensity of the drought has decreased this year.

"Your Highness, greetings to Your Highness, Your Highness Chitose ......"

When Zhu Youzhen instructed Wang Chengen, the gate of the Armaments Institute was opened, and Bi Maokang, Wang Zheng, Song Yingxing, and Song Yingchang, who had been researching here, walked out of the city gate wearing round-necked robes, with more than 100 Dr. Hanlin behind them.

"Did you get the fourth version of the steam engine?!"

As soon as he saw the scientific research foursome, Zhu Ciran ran forward, while Bi Maokang bowed down with a smile and responded:

"With a breakthrough, it is probably not far from the day when it will come out."

"Hurry up, take me to see it." Hearing that there was a major breakthrough in the fourth version of the steam engine, Zhu Ciran immediately begged, making people unthinkable that he was the current prince.

"This ......" Bi Maokang smiled helplessly, looked up at Zhu Youzhen, and Zhu Youzhen also walked over with Li Dingguo and Wang Chengen.

He listened to the conversation between Bi Maokang and Zhu Ciran just now, and naturally knew about the fourth version of the steam engine, so he asked:

"What's the problem?"

"There are not too many problems, the main thing is the thermal efficiency and speed problems, the current thermal efficiency is about five percent, and the speed is two thousand two hundred and forty revolutions in a stick of incense, although it exceeds the third version of the steam engine, but it does not meet the requirements of the fourth version."

Bi Maokang said that there was a problem, and then he was relieved: "These problems can be solved by Liangfu, and only experiments are needed." ”

"Really?" Zhu Youzhen looked at Wang Zheng when he heard this, he didn't expect Wang Zheng's speed to be so fast.

"Don't dare to deceive Your Highness." Wang Zheng responded, and continued to report:

"Although the fourth version of the steam engine still needs to be experimented, we have calculated the approximate power of its carrying trains and ships, which is roughly as follows......"

Wang Zheng said, and took out two experimental drafts from his sleeve, and Zhu Youzhen took it and looked at the cumbersome design drawings of trains and ships at the end of the nineteenth century, and only sighed that the Ming Dynasty was not without talents, but no one reused them and excavated them.

"The fourth version of the steam locomotive weighs 30,000 catties, the speed is 50 miles per hour, it can pull 62,000 catties of goods, ten car boxes and two coal cars, can take 200 people, fill with water once, and consign two coal cars can run 50 miles."

"The steam engine of the steam engine ship is heavier, 100,000 catties, 9,000 catties of ships can make the ship speed reach about 50 miles per hour after loading the steam engine, and every 2,000 catties of coal can run 55 miles."

"The 9,000-material ship can carry 800,000 catties of coal, 400,000 catties of water, and 1.8 million catties of goods."

"Basically, each ship should be loaded with 40% of the load of water and coal, and basically loaded once, so that the corresponding steam engine of the ship can run for eight to sixteen days, and run from 5,000 miles to 10,000 miles in one breath."

"Of course, this is the result of experiments in the river, and it may be discounted at sea, but we estimate that the efficiency will be discounted."

Wang Zheng explained modestly, but Zhu You was very energetic after listening:

"Eight percent off is enough!"

Zhu You checked and calculated that the speed of the Armaments Institute is hours, not hours, so the speed of trains and ships is basically 15 kilometers per hour.

This may seem slow, but it has reached the efficiency of the late first industrial revolution.

Eighty coal and water stations were arranged, and it took seven days to transport supplies from the capital to Jiayuguan, 4,000 miles away, twelve days to the Yinli River Valley, and eighteen days to Samarkand in Central Asia.

If you want to go further west, even if you go to Moscow, which is more than 13,000 miles away, it will only take you 22 days.

Needless to say, the steam-engine ship departed from Tianjin, arrived in Guangzhou in thirteen days, the old port in thirty days, and Central America in fifty days.

It can be said that Daming has been able to prepare for the construction of the fourth version of the steam engine, which also means that Daming is about to enter the industrial revolution......