Before Renwu's re-establishment, the Ministry of Industry had the lowest status among the six ministries, and it could be regarded as a promotion if it was transferred from the Ministry of Industry to other ministries to become a bureaucrat at the same level.

After the Renwu reform, the importance of the Ministry of Industry rose rapidly, and soon surpassed many of the original Qing noble yamen and became the most important and largest department.

Mainly in the process of industrialization, various engineering construction projects, various industrial and technological development projects, are more and more important.

Buildings, cities, mines, docks, railways, factories, shipyards, water conservancy, artillery, warships, science, technology, inventions, and so on are theoretically under the control of the original Ministry of Industry.

The Qing Officials Division under the Yamen of the Ministry of Industry also rapidly split, expanded, and increased from the original four of Yingxi, Yuheng, Dushui, and Tuntian to more than a dozen later.

Due to the increasing scale of the yamen, the Ministry of Industry was successively split and adjusted several times in the following decades.

First of all, the related affairs of highways, railways, and wharves were separated, and the post station system of the Ministry of War was added to form the "Hui Ministry", which means to connect the world.

Water conservancy-related affairs such as canals, dams, reservoirs, irrigation, and water supply were separated and a separate "Water Ministry" was established to take charge of the construction and management of all water conservancy projects.

Buildings, palaces, fortresses, urban planning and construction-related matters were separated to form the "Ministry of Construction", which is almost the Ministry of Construction.

The management of minerals and mines was transferred to the expanded Taifu Temple, which became the Ministry of Natural Resources, and supervised the registration of horses, vehicles, and ships.

At the same time, however, the design and production of armaments, which were scattered in several departments, were transferred to the headquarters of the Ministry of Industry after the split.

At present, the functions of the Ministry of Industry are mainly industrial and factory management, weapons and equipment design and production, military and civilian ship design and production, and technological development research and promotion.

Recently, however, there has been a trend in the wind, and it is necessary to separate the functions related to weapons and equipment and ships into a separate department.

Let the Ministry of Industry only be in charge of industrial and technological development, because the capacity of the concept of industry continues to expand with industrialization, and it is not small to stand alone now.

What's more, there is also the function of promoting technological development and managing the title of master craftsman, and it is no problem to list a separate Ministry of Science and Technology.

In other words, the Ministry of Works, which has been dismantled several times, is still a large department.

The main tasks of the Ministry of Industry in this upcoming reform include coordinating the affairs of the industrial sectors in the industries opened by the Imperial Consortium, coordinating the differences in industrial industry regulations between the Imperial Empire and the feudal states and between the feudal states during the withdrawal process, and coordinating the merger of the various rights and benefits of the craftsmen of the feudal kingdoms and the craftsmen of the Imperial Empire.

It's all busy work.

Fortunately, the affairs related to the Labor Bureau were handed over to the Ministry of Officials, and in fact, this matter was handed over to the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Households, but the Ministry of Households may be busier than the Ministry of Industry.

They had to deal with the civil rights of the people of the vassal states and the adjustment of the hukou, which involved the future social status of hundreds of millions of people.

However, in the related affairs of the Labor Bureau, the Ministry of Industry is not completely out of charge, but has only become an auxiliary role.

It is still necessary to cooperate with the work of the officials, and it is necessary to submit various materials for the determination of labor remuneration, working hours, and other norms, and summarize and forward the suggestions of the craftsmen.

At present, the whole yamen is full of officials holding and carrying all kinds of documents, passing through, exchanging, and rummaging through various rooms and departments.

All kinds of noisy voices, ringtones and talking voices of corded telephones are mixed together throughout the office area, making it particularly lively and noisy.

Zhu Jianyan and his son walked into the door, and the obviously frizzy reception staff tried to squeeze out a smile, finished the phone call as quickly as possible, and ran out quickly to receive them.

Although he vaguely felt that Zhu Jianyan's father and son were coming over now to cause chaos, in the face of an official at the level of the prince and the prince, no one could slack off.

The official who received the two fathers and sons invited them to the reception room, brought tea and chatted patiently, and at the same time arranged for another person to immediately inform the Ministry of Works.

Zou Bingtai, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, is 64 years old this year, and has reached the edge of the retirement age stipulated by the new system of Renwu, and he should retire after working for another year at most.

He was originally going to retire with the old emperor, just to give up an extra position of Shangshu to the new emperor, but when he was about to retire, he encountered such a large-scale reform.

Zou Bingtai, who couldn't put down the phone, suddenly felt a little powerless in his heart when he heard the news that his subordinate officials came to report.

He attended the imperial meeting last night, and knew what responsibilities the two fathers and sons were shouldering now, and knew that Zhu Jingyuan was holding the holy decree for all the yamen to cooperate.

It's just that Zou Bingtai can't imagine what these two fathers and sons can do when they come to find themselves, and are they ready to meddle in the industry-related affairs of the feudal kingdom?

But no matter how doubtful he was in his heart, whether it was Zhu Jianyan, who held the title of Shangshu, or Zhu Jingyuan, the emperor's grandson, who was favored by the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military affairs, Zou Bingtai couldn't let it go.

Zou Bingtai finished the phone call as soon as possible, then quickly sorted out his appearance, and quickly went to the guest room to greet Zhu Jianyan and his son.

The two sides formally met, and the chief officer and the elders put on a very friendly posture, greeted each other cordially and politely, and smiled and made a few noises.

However, the Ministry of Industry is very busy now, so the greeting session ended quickly, and Zhu Jianyan directly opened his mouth to help his son explain his intentions:

"Coming to disturb Da Sikong today, Guy has some immature nonsense ideas about the weapon, and I hope Da Sikong will send someone to help verify the ......"

Da Sikong is the honorific title of the Ministry of Industry, which comes from the honorific title of similar positions in the Zhou Dynasty, and the important ministers such as the Six Ministries and the Seven Secretaries have corresponding titles, which is also the habit at that time.

With the increasing number of departments in the court, a large number of newly added departments did not have similar titles, and the officials who stood in the original six ministries and seven secretaries liked this honorific title even more.

Zou Bingtai listened to Zhu Jianyan's words, and finally understood the intention of Zhu Jianyan's father and son, but the doubts in his heart also came up.

Zou Bingtai knows better than Zhu Jianyan that now is not more complex than before, military weapons are becoming more and more complex and exquisite, and only highly educated craftsmen can participate in research and development.

Zhu Jingyuan, the fifteen-year-old imperial grandson, even if he can have some good ideas, it must be very immature, most of them are just a whim.

But no matter what he thinks in his heart, Zou Bingtai must cooperate with Zhu Jianyan's father and son's request.

There is no need to make trouble with the two princes in this kind of place, and the two princes are so polite.

Anyway, although the Ministry of Engineering as a whole is very busy, the personnel related to the design of weapons are no different from usual.

They usually have a large number of verification projects, and they just include Zhu Jingyuan's ideas, and at most they waste some experimental materials.

So Zou Bingtai smiled and stroked his beard, and asked Zhu Jingyuan directly very actively:

"Oh, His Highness Jingyuan has any wonderful ideas, can you say them for the old decay to refer to one or two."

Zhu Jingyuan knew that the other party was mostly polite, but politeness was also an attitude of accepting himself, so he immediately began to describe his thoughts:

"Has the Ordnance Division considered manufacturing military vehicles with fixed artillery, covered with full-body iron armor, and driven by tracks, to cooperate with the infantry to carry out positional assaults?"

People in this world may be able to imagine what tanks are, but they should not know the word tank.

Because the word is an English transliteration, it originally meant "water tank", which was a code name given to hide people's eyes and ears when it was designed, and it turned out to be the official name of this equipment.

Therefore, Zhu Jingyuan can't mention the tank, but can only describe what the tank corresponds to in as popular a way as possible.

Zhu Jingyuan was worried that Zou Bingtai would not understand, and was ready to wait for the other party's questions before continuing to explain.

But Zou Bingtai seems to understand immediately:

"Your Highness is talking about a self-propelled ironclad shield car?"

Zhu Jingyuan paused and was stunned for a moment, this strange name seems to have been seen by himself, it is in a certain news newspaper, saying that the front-line army is equipped with this new equipment.

The Ming Empire's own military equipment, named in this style, has been inherited from ancient times to the present.

Zhu Jingyuan was browsing the news roughly at that time, and he didn't pay much attention to the specific situation of this thing, and there was no detailed description in the newspaper, let alone a photo.

Zhu Jingyuan instinctively thought at that time that this should be an upgraded version of the shield car.

Now that I think about it, I can do it on my own, I have iron armor and a shield, is this thing a tank?

"What do you mean by Dasikong, the Ministry of Industry has already made this kind of thing?"

Zhu Jingyuan was a little stunned, a little surprised, a little disappointed, and a little imperceptible embarrassment:

"Do you have any photos of the actual thing, as well as basic structural and outline drawings, can you show me?"