"Kill these white-skinned ghosts!"

"Kill them!"

On June 27, the 23rd year of the Apocalypse, a group of black men of short stature, short heads and thighs, dark skin, broad noses and thick lips, curly hair, sparse body hair, and white painted tattoos rushed out of the jungle with stone spears in their hands.

Their target is the group of Ming farmers who are using tractors in the wasteland outside the jungle.

"Kunlun Nu is here!"

Accompanied by the shouting of a peasant holding an iron plow, a peasant next to him immediately blew a wooden whistle around his neck.

"Beep-"

The piercing wooden whistle stopped the tractors in the distance, and some of the Ming horse infantry cruising along the farmland road also began to harness their horses and gallop towards the place where the wooden whistle sounded.

The peasants fled in panic, and the dwarf blacks who pursued them kept throwing spears, sometimes injuring some of the slower peasants.

Their size was around the hundreds, and in the face of a sneak attack, a group of seventeen Ming horse infantry chose to raise their guns and pull the trigger.

"Bang bang bang-"

A dull gunshot rang out, and more than a dozen dwarf blacks were knocked to the ground, but the other dwarf blacks did not run away, but threw stone spears one after another, trying to knock the Ming army off their horses.

However, before their stone spears could be thrown, gunfire was heard again in the distance, only this time with more bullets.

In an instant, hundreds of dwarf blacks were shot and fell, and the other dwarf blacks scattered and tried to flee into the jungle.

Later, the Ming army continued to raise their guns and shoot, and more than 100 horse infantry in the distance also shot one after another, and for a time the dwarf black people suffered heavy casualties.

But even so, they dragged everything they could use.

The coal next to the tractor, the iron plough in the field, and the iron farming tools on the side were all things they looted.

When they managed to escape, the two groups of horse infantry converged, and some of the peasants who had been injured by the stone spears were also sent to the rear for treatment.

After about a quarter of an hour, hundreds of horsemen rushed in the distance, and they rushed from the dirt road, and the ranks were long.

Seeing this, the chief flag officer of the Ming army who was in the same place also stepped forward and stopped on the road on horseback:

"Commander!"

"Where's Kunlun Nu?!"

When the familiar voice sounded, Wu Sangui rode his horse from the front of the group, and the chief flag officer pointed to the jungle in the distance:

"As before, I hid in the woods again."

"The people injured seven people and were robbed of hundreds of pounds of iron and hundreds of pounds of coal."

"Looking at their direction, it should be from Jiuzhen County in the north."

The words of the chief flag officer made Wu Sangui grit his teeth, turned his head and explained directly to the quartermaster:

"Bring 30,000 catties of fire oil from Cangwu County, and let people burn all the forests here!"

"Yes!"

Wu Sangui's military order was quickly responded, and in just one day, Cangwu, two hundred miles away, transferred enough oil to meet the oil.

In the middle of the night, along with the appearance of a fire, a line of fire swept towards the depths of the jungle, seemingly trying to burn all existence.

Slash-and-burn cultivation is almost the most frequently used reclamation method by the people of Nanzhou and the Yamen.

As long as there is enough oil, a fire in summer can create hundreds of thousands of acres of white land.

For the migrants, the only thing left to do was to clear the rocks and charred trees and roots buried in the ground.

In three months at most, the hundreds of thousands of acres of land will be cleared, and canals and reservoirs will be arranged.

The land will then be cultivated by tractors.

Such a method has been used in Nanzhou for more than ten years.

Anyway, as long as it is the rainy season, hundreds of miles of land along the coast from the inland will be moistened, so every year the Nanzhou political envoy will organize a team to cut down the trees that can be used in the spring, and then burn millions of acres of forest land in the summer.

For immigrants, the result is that they have access to more or less arable land, which makes their lives more nourishing.

But for the dwarf blacks, who live on hunter-gatherers and are in a more primitive state, this practice is undoubtedly destroying the environment on which they depend.

However, the dwarf blacks were not stupid, they would follow the example of the Ming people in farming, and even in order to farm, they would launch attacks on the Ming immigrants, robbing them of grain, iron tools and coal.

Their approach is the reason for the intensification of contradictions between the two sides.

Since they basically have no fixed place of residence in Nanzhou and are basically scattered throughout Nanzhou, it is very difficult for Wu Sangui to encircle and suppress them.

So since coming to Nanzhou, Wu Sangui has adopted a straightforward approach of setting fire to the forest in order to shrink the habitat of dwarf blacks.

By his means, all the dwarf blacks were moving inland.

However, as the number of woodlands burned by the Ming army continued to increase, many dwarf blacks could only take risks to confront the Ming army.

It's just that most of their fate is based on the major mining areas and railways in Nanzhou.

"Touching ......"

When the saber representing his identity at his waist was thrown on the table, Wu Sangui also sat in a stone house in this reclamation land.

He kneaded his eyebrows, and there were two generals standing in front of him.

"This group of Kunlun slaves is so restless, explain to the political envoy of Nanzhou, and ask the country to send millions of fire oil to come, and I will burn tens of millions of forest farms at one time."

Wu Sangui wanted to do it once and for all, but the generals under his command reminded:

"General soldier, now that the king of Qi is about to be vassal, and the internal turmoil of the dynasty, I am afraid that he will not approve of burning tens of millions of forest farms."

Daming's forest farms can create taxes, especially in Nanzhou, which has thousands of years of forests, which is the largest part of tax revenue.

The Yamen of the Nanzhou Political Envoy Si Yamen relied on cutting down forest farms every year to make a profit of more than 100,000 taels of tax silver, and Wu Sangui's idea is estimated not to be recognized by the Yamen of the Nanzhou Political Envoy Si, and the Forestry Department of the Ministry of Industry will not approve it.

"This doesn't work, then it doesn't work, if the cat-and-mouse game continues, when will I be able to exterminate all the Kunlun slaves and transfer them back to the Central Plains?!"

It has been several years since Wu Sangui was thrown to Nanzhou, and the accumulated resentment has become more and more.

He is now the most important middle-aged moment of an upright military general, if he can't accumulate more credit at this age, then when he is old, he is ready to let a group of juniors ride on his head.

"If I participated in this expedition to the west, I'm afraid I would have already found a knighthood!"

Wu Sangui clenched his fists, but the general and staff member in front of him reassured:

"Don't worry about the general soldiers, I heard that the governors of each capital are going to leave a large number of people with the king of Qi, and at that time, with the merits of the general soldiers, it will be easy to transfer back to the Central Plains!"

"Well......" Wu Sangui also understands this truth, but in the face of the current situation, he still feels that life is like a year.

But no matter how uncomfortable he is, it's useless, as long as King Qi doesn't leave, he will have to deal with that group of Kunlun slaves who are four feet seven or eight tall in this remote place in Nanzhou for the rest of his life......

"Your Highness is coming!"

"Great!"

Almost when Wu Sangui complained about forbearance, Xia Yunyi, who was thousands of miles away, made an excited voice.

He was joined by several other officials who were walking with him.

"We have to hurry back to Xijing City, Niangniang and they will only arrive in a month at most."

Xia Yunyi spoke, and at the same time looked up at the scene in front of him.

At this moment, he is inspecting the city of Tokyo in Gyeonggi Province with several attendants from the Sixth Division, and compared to the city of Xijing, which has been under construction for twelve years, the city of Tokyo is more primitive.

The real development of Tokyo City was the 20th year of the Apocalypse, and in the new year, the two capitals had communication, and the communication route was mainly by train, by water, and then by land.

After Jin Xuan left for the Ming Dynasty, Xia Yunyi took over as the governor of Qi, and his plan continued the Liangjing Railway, while also vigorously developing the Qishui (Mississippi River) and its various waterways.

For the time being, the railway from Xijing City to Chengshanfu in Qi has been completed, so it is possible to take a ship directly to Chengshanfu in the upper reaches of Qi to take a steamship to the east.

It only takes 10 days for the ship to reach Gyeonggi Province, at which point it is only necessary to transfer to the Gyeonggi Province Railway, and it takes less than six hours to reach the city of Tokyo.

Of course, this line was only completed by Qi at the beginning of this year, which also means that the resources of Xijing City can only be transported to Tokyo City now.

Therefore, Xia Yunyi and his family came to Tokyo City mainly to make plans for the urban construction of Gyeonggi Province and Tokyo City.

After more than a month of visits, Xia Yunyi and the others had a general understanding of the situation in Gyeonggi Province and had a long-term plan for the planning of Xijing City.

Gyeonggi Province is located in the northeastern part of the Qi Kingdom, with a lowland to the north and a mountain range to the northeast.

Its central and southeastern areas are a lowland, including a river valley.

As for its southern and eastern boundaries, more than half of it is the High region, which stretches from Lake Champlain to Manhattan Island.

In this way, the topography of Gyeonggi Province is very complex, with plateaus and mountains predominantly occupying almost half of the area of the province.

However, King Qi naturally had his own considerations for choosing this place for Tokyo.

Although Gyeonggi Province has a large mountainous area, it has lakeside plains and valleys in the west and north, and there are ample Atlantic coastal plains in the east.

This convenience allowed the Dutch to start human intervention at the beginning of their landing on this land, and many traces of land reclamation have been left.

The city of Tokyo is actually what it would be in the future New York, and its proximity to the Hudson River (Westwater) makes it easy to navigate, allowing it to drive inland and coastal areas, as well as to quickly develop into a trading powerhouse.

However, due to the narrowness of the place, the habitable area is too small, and for the Qi State, it is still necessary to improve the land by reclamation of the sea.

Therefore, there are not many residents in the city of Tokyo at the moment, except for the 30,000 people who migrated at the beginning of this year, only more than 3,000 Qi troops are stationed there.

Therefore, there are no city walls in Tokyo City, only a patch of Ming Jiangnan style buildings that have just risen for a year or two.

"The direction of Hongmaoyi is correct, this place must be artificially interfered with to reclaim the land, and after the completion of the Liangjing railway, 300,000 labor reform workers can be transferred to artificially reclaim the land."

"According to the speed of Hongmaoyi, if we mobilize 300,000 laborers, we can fill in about 50,000 or 60,000 mu of urban area every year."

"However, there are a lot of rivers here, which will naturally help us reclaim the land, so what we need to do is to level the land and blow up some of the mountains that are hindering development before there are too many people here."

"The development of the city of Tokyo will be for a period of 10 years, during which time it will no longer accept immigrants, and the population will continue to move after the land has been leveled."

Xia Yunyi expressed his thoughts to the officials of the Sixth Ministry, and his idea was very simple and crude, that is, to take advantage of the lack of people to bomb the mountain crazily, and then let the labor reformers clean up the stones of the bombing mountain to the coast, and reclaim hundreds of thousands of acres of land out of thin air.

According to his plan, the plain area of Tokyo City will be much larger than that of New York in a few hundred years.

Therefore, for his opinion, the officials of the six ministries all nodded in agreement.

Seeing this, Xia Yunyi also passed the proposal, and then hurried to Xijing City with the officials.

They had to go back as soon as possible and arrange everything before the arrival of Concubine Yuan Xi, the princess of Qi.

Only when they live comfortably, His Royal Highness the King of Qi can be more quickly, and the country of Qi can have a backbone.

Therefore, Xia Yunyi and the others rushed back non-stop.

While they were hurrying, a person thousands of miles away also put down the music in his hand, nodded and explained to the person in front of him:

"Things will be done according to what Hong Chengchou said, so that Brother Ran doesn't have to worry."

In the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies in Nanjing, when Zhu Youzhen said this to Wang Chengen, Wang Chengen's appearance also showed that the handover of officialdom was over.

"Slave and maid receive ......"

Wang Chengen responded, and Zhu Youzhen also leaned back in his chair and said:

"Brother Jiong'er, they have arrived in Yingzhou, and they will arrive in Xijing City in a month at most."

"Tell Huachun to speed up the handover of the imperial store, otherwise he is afraid that he will not be able to catch up with the winter solstice ship."

"Yes, but it's ......" Wang Chengen said helplessly:

"The scale of the Huangdian is too large, and the factory behind it involves more than four million workers, and the handover is much more difficult than the officialdom of slaves."

"Besides, at the moment, Lu Yuangao has been taking people, and there are no less than 3,000 corrupt officials and corrupt officials who have been arrested in the imperial store and factory, which also increases the difficulty of the handover."

"The slave maid estimates that Hua Chun may only be able to go to Qi Country next year."

Wang Chengen's estimate is not unreasonable, after all, the imperial store can contribute a quarter of the Ming Dynasty's tax revenue every year, and its scale is no less than that of the household yamen in the Wanli period.

In addition, the factory behind the imperial store involves too many people, so it is difficult to speed up the handover.

If it really doesn't work, Zhu Youzhen can only go first, and then let Cao Huachun finish everything before going to Qi State.

"How is Li Dingguo doing?"

Zhu Youzhen was noncommittal to Wang Chengen's words, but talked about Li Dingguo.

Hearing that Li Dingguo was mentioned, Wang Chengen also showed a smile on his face:

"That kid is okay with self-enlightenment, and now he is normal every day."

"Recently, many generals have been transferred to the State of Qi, and there are few who are more senior than him for a while, and his position is appropriate."

Wang Chengen was happy for Li Dingguo, and Zhu You was the same after listening, so he also said:

"Since you are stable, then you will play my brother, resign as the governor of the Zhidu on my behalf, and let Li Dingguo temporarily act as the governor of the Zhidu."

"As for the governor of the five armies, I think about it, so I'll take it from afar."

After Man Gui and Sun Yingyuan were transferred one after another, Zhu Youzhen did not come up with a candidate who could replace him as the governor of the capital.

Sun Chuanting and Hong Chengchou are already cabinet ministers, Li Zicheng is going to Qi again, Li Dingguo is too young to serve the public, Qin Minping and the three brothers of the Qi family are old, no matter how you look at them, they can't be selected.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen could only take the position of governor of the capital from afar, and he could not abdicate until Li Dingguo had enough experience or a new handsome talent emerged within the Ming Dynasty.

This kind of thing is also a kind of helplessness to say.

Throughout the ages, it is enough to be fortunate to have three handsome talents in a period, and it is rare to meet and not seek handsome talents like the early Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, and the early Ming Dynasty.

At present, after more than 20 years of training by Zhu Youzhen, Daming has also walked out of Sun Chuanting and other six or seven people, and now there are still three people who want to go to Qi country.

If it weren't for Xiong Tingbi's age, Zhu Youzhen would have wanted to pull him out and become stronger.

"That kid is only twenty-three, isn't he too young? And the merit is not enough ......"

Wang Chengen heard Zhu Youzhen's words and spoke worriedly.

Hearing him say this, Zhu Youzhen was also a little helpless.

"I originally wanted Qi Yuangong to be transferred to the governor of Shangzhi, and Qi Yuanfu to be the governor of the Southern Army."

"It's just that the news of Qi Yuanfu's poor health came from the south, it seems that he has to go to the office in advance, and Qi Yuangong has to replace him, so he can't be transferred."

"In addition, India needs Qi Yuanbi to be in charge, and it will be difficult for the governor to choose a candidate."

Zhu Youzhen is also very difficult, the new generation has not risen, and the older generation is withering.

In addition, the political significance of the governor of Shangzhi is more important than the military significance, so he is not at ease with anyone, only Li Dingguo is more at ease.

With Li Dingguo's current ability, it is a little difficult to command the 240,000 soldiers and horses of the 16th Guard and 50th Battalion, but perhaps this can make Li Dingguo focus more on leading the troops, lest he always want to go back to Qi.

Moreover, letting Li Dingguo sit in this position is also one of Zhu Youzhen's means to support his eldest nephew.

If his brother is old and mediocre in the future, and wants to abolish the crown prince, it will have to be weighed on Li Dingguo's face.

Although in Zhu Youzhen's view, such a thing is unlikely to happen, he is still fully prepared.

"The slave will tell you long live later......"

Wang Chengen heard Zhu Youzhen's helplessness, so he could only respond, and he couldn't help but worry a little about Li Dingguo.

"I heard that Zheng Zhilong's eldest son Zheng Sen joined the army and joined the navy, how did he behave?"

Zhu Youzhen suddenly mentioned Zheng Zhilong's son Zheng Sen, which made Wang Chengen stunned.

Seriously, with Wang Chengen's position, he wouldn't care about the son of a general soldier at all, after all, Daming has more than 30 general soldiers.

However, since His Royal Highness opened his mouth to ask, Wang Chengen still withdrew from the study and went out to inquire about the news.

After a while, he returned to his study and told the news:

"It is said that he is skilled in water warfare, and is now the garrison officer of the C-class fleet, and has captured many European merchants who tried to smuggle into the small Western Ocean."

Wang Chengen's words made Zhu Youzhen nod in approval, since the Ming Dynasty gained a firm foothold in Leviia, the restrictions on merchants from various countries have been further increased.

Merchants from almost all countries were sent to Ceylon for trade and trade, and could not cross Ceylon to the East and the West.

The main reason for this is that the Ming Dynasty began to use steam engines in Luchuan and Jiugang, and Zhu Youzhen did not want to expose this thing to Westerners too early, so he had to "close off the country".

However, such a "closed country" is not so much a closed self as a closed world.

After all, the countries that are not allowed to enter the Ming Dynasty only account for 30% of the world's area, and the remaining 70% of the countries can enter the sea.

Zhu Youzhen's doing, coupled with the ongoing war situation in Europe, I am afraid that the emergence of European science will be delayed for decades because of the war.

But Da Ming seems to have emerged a lot of geniuses because of universal education.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youzhen set his sights on the performance of the Armaments Institute.

[On June 28, the structure of the imitation steam engine of Huang Changxi, a bachelor of Hanlin, adopted a new design of elastic piston rings in the internal combustion engine, which increased the thermal efficiency of the internal combustion engine to about 4%. 】

According to Huang Changxi's design, Wang Zheng, the chief bachelor of internal combustion engine, conducted a theoretical analysis of the thermal process of the internal combustion engine and put forward the requirements for improving the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. 】

This is from Sun Yuanhua, because Bi Maokang is old, he applied for Zhishi at the beginning of the year, and at the same time applied to move to Qi State.

Therefore, the position of the squire of the Armament Institute was replaced by Sun Yuanhua.

However, this change of position is not important to them, and the advancement of technology is what they care about.

What Wang Zheng proposed, Zhu You checked it, if he remembered correctly, then Wang Zheng's paper is actually the earliest internal combustion engine four-stroke work cycle.

In terms of internal combustion engines, Daming did not go the wrong way, but on the fuel of internal combustion engines, many bachelors in the "internal combustion engine department" put forward different views.

Some people think they need to use gas, some think they need to use oil, and some people think they need to use ethanol.

In fact, from Zhu Youzhen's point of view, using ethanol (alcohol) is a good choice.

In later generations, ethanol fuel burns more fully than gasoline, which can solve the problem of carbon deposition, and it has a strong cleaning effect, and some fuel impurities can also be eliminated.

Compared to methanol, which is also a clean energy source, ethanol is much more powerful, reaching two-thirds of gasoline.

In this way, Daming's internal combustion engine is starting from scratch anyway, and if ethanol is chosen as fuel, it seems to solve a lot of things, at least it is easier to obtain than oil, and it is cleaner.

Therefore, in his previous life, Zhu Youzhen paid attention to this technology, and he paid attention to it from the introduction of this technology to the stop.

In later generations, the reason for the cessation of ethanol was also very simple, first of all, the source of ethanol.

In later generations, the large countries that used ethanol fuel were all characterized by fertile land and sparsely populated land.

They have a lot of arable land to cultivate, and converting it to ethanol fuel is a good way to consume their surplus corn and sugar cane.

After all, the Ming Dynasty adds tens of millions of acres of arable land every year, and even if there is no high-yield grain technology in the future, ethanol can be used as the main energy source with the vast arable land area.

There is no problem with the grain, then the remaining problem is the temperature.

The combustion of ethanol gasoline will make the exhaust of the car contain a large amount of water vapor, and the ice skate dripping from the exhaust pipe will be pressed on the side of the road, which will cause the grip of the four wheels to be inconsistent, and then there will be slippage and rollover, which is one of the reasons why many northern countries banned the use of ethanol fuel in later generations.

However, for Zhu Youzhen, Daming has a vast territory and many places with oil producing areas, so Daming can promote relative fuels according to the localities.

In the north, ethanol fuel is not good in winter, so oil is used in winter, and ethanol is enough at other times.

Zhu Youzhen's only worry is that after ethanol is used as fuel, the grain will be controlled by intentional forces.

But his concern was premature, and all the solutions were useless until things happened.

Therefore, in the face of this recital, Zhu Youzhen also wrote his own comments:

"The direction of ethanol and oil can be studied as appropriate, and the ...... can be used by the country and the DPRK"

Out of location, even later

(End of chapter)