The rise of the prince

Chapter 552 It's You!

the next day.
After a day of hustle and bustle, life in the palace will go on as usual.

Last night, the grey-green glazed bottle fired by Zhou Li remained in the palace and became a new collection in the palace.

But what interested Li Xingzhou even more was the alkali.

After repeated observations, I took Yue'er to wash the clothes with this thing, mixed it with the dough to observe the reaction, and tossed all morning.

Yue'er looked confused, blinking her big watery eyes from time to time and asking questions, after he tried his best to explain so that she could understand, but in fact, she still didn't understand the little girl's expression.
Li Xingzhou slapped his head and finally figured it out, yes!How could I forget this thing!
He can basically determine what the main ingredient of this "alkali" is - soda ash!
In later generations, it was produced on a very large scale and became an indispensable thing in daily life.It is mainly used in the production of flat glass, glassware and ceramic glazes.It is also widely used in domestic washing, acid neutralization and food processing.

If the name of soda ash is unfamiliar, it can also be called - soda, or sodium carbonate.

Soda ash is just a name. In fact, it is a salt, not an alkali.Li Xingzhou also seemed to discover a new world, because although this is an indispensable thing in daily life, he had no idea that adding this thing could greatly reduce the melting point of sand.

You must know that the main component of sand is silicon dioxide, and its melting point exceeds 1700 degrees. You can see that the temperature of the furnace and crucible used by Zhou Li yesterday must not exceed [-] degrees. When it is in the best state, it should be eight or nine degrees, close to [-] degrees. .

Because he knows the heat resistance of ordinary ceramics, he can infer the approximate temperature based on the damage of the ceramic crucible.

But at this temperature, after mixing the alkali powder, the sand actually melted!
No wonder others couldn't make colored glaze. Although the main ingredient was silica sand everywhere, but before seeing Zhou Li operate it, no one in the entire palace, including him and many craftsmen, knew how to make the sand into a gel or Fluid.

In fact, Li Xingzhou thought about it before, and even tried it in private, because everyone has heard the legend that glass can be burned out of sand at high temperature, so he tried it naively, but it didn't work at all. thing.

Li Xingzhou was overjoyed, and hurriedly took Yue'er home, and before he had time to pack up the alkali powder all over his body, he hurriedly recorded this discovery.

This major discovery made him think more about his future plans.

Sodium carbonate is mainly extracted from soda ash ore. The method is not complicated. The ancients would produce and sell it. Judging from the "soda alkali" used in daily life, it is obviously processed, but the purity is not very high, at least not up to the level of later generations. .

Li Xingzhou now understands why Di Zhi said that there are soda ash deposits in the Huaihe River, and that Tubo and northern Liao are good at producing caustic soda. A large amount of caustic soda was bought from Tubo, and some were sold from Liao. Jingguo produces it himself, but not enough.

Because this thing has a lot of storage around the plateau lakes.

Mongolia and Xinjiang are surrounded by plateau lakes, and the purity is higher, and there are also many stocks in the Huaihe River Basin in the Central Plains.

This is not more important than graphite, but it is also an important resource. Simply put, a large amount of soda ash ore is needed for various glass manufacturing in industry, washing, cooking and other fields in life.

Li Xingzhou had no choice but to use a pen to draw a little further north on the map in front of the table, including most of Mongolia to the south. This drawing is a huge and huge area.

In the past, he only went south to Shangjing, Liao Kingdom, because Xiao Hongqi knew that there were graphite deposits there.

Graphite is more important than soda ash. The iron and steel smelting and glass manufacturing of Wangfu cannot be separated from graphite. In later generations, country m will also include graphite in the national strategic resource reserve.

Liao Kingdom went to Beijing, and later generations near Lindong Town, Bahrain Zuoqi, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

But now he wants to go further north, across the vast grasslands of the Yinshan Mountains, because there are abundant soda ash resources there!
Compared with the natural dangers of Tubo in the Western Regions, Mongolia is obviously more convenient to transport from the north!And soldiers will not have physical discomfort.

In the future, as long as the soda ash resources are sufficient, glass products and daily necessities will be continuously produced. The core of the current problem lies in Dizhi.

In the afternoon, Li Xing walked to the camp of the new army. The training ground was full of dust, and the deafening sound of guns and hooves was mixed together.

Since Wei Yubai joined, the cavalry has also started large-scale training. According to Li Xingzhou's request, all cavalry have been trained as light cavalry.

In fact, in Jingguo, due to the lack of horses and the advancement of armor technology, the elite cavalry are all heavy cavalry based on the idea that good steel must be used on the blade. It was all the heavy cavalry who picked the remaining horses.

Jing Guo's main force is still heavy infantry.

So Wei Yubai was very surprised when he heard that Li Xingzhou was going to train most of the [-] cavalry of the new army into light cavalry, and told him that it was too wasteful to use such good armor and harness as light cavalry.

However, Li Xingzhou still insisted. Both Di Zhi and Yan Shen agreed on this point. They fought in the south together and knew what the appearance of the new army meant.

Head on?No matter how powerful it is, can it break through the bombardment of top guns and artillery?
The last glory of the Mongolian cavalry also ended in the approaching shooting of the French musketeers, so the new army never worried about the suppression of the frontal battlefield, the cover of the flanks, and the expansion of the battle results after defeating the enemy on the frontal battlefield.

Most people are worried about the war, but for the new army, it is more depressed.

Because the new army could not go out, the new army defended Kyoto.

Why the new army wants to go to the battlefield so much? In fact, to put it bluntly, most of the new army, from grassroots officers to senior generals, were born in poor families.

It is not difficult to understand that the soldiers at the grassroots level were born in a poor family, because in such an environment as Jingguo's culture, joy and martial arts, if it weren't for the poor family who couldn't afford to read, who would serve as a soldier.

What's more important is that the top military officers, Di Zhi, Yan Shen and others all came from humble backgrounds. For humble families, the only way to rise is military exploits.

The reason why he chose to be a soldier was because Jing Guo's forbidden army were all professional soldiers.

The so-called professional soldiers mean that the state supports them and pays them. Their usual tasks are to garrison and train, and they are ready to fight at any time.

Think this is not very common?
In fact, it is not ordinary at all. Before Jingguo, basically all soldiers were cultivating and training at the same time, and then went to the battlefield when they were fighting. It is equivalent to reserve service, and it has also become a military system. When they arrive in Jingguo, they are called Xiangjun. It is also a local army. This is how it works.

And once you become a member of the Central Forbidden Army, that is, Lingjie, Wulie, Shenwu, and Xinjun, the source of income is the military salary distributed by the state. Similarly, if you get the military salary, you must obey the imperial court and not leave the camp without authorization. Otherwise, they are deserters and must be executed.

Therefore, Sanya's deduction of military pay caused more serious damage to the imperial army than any previous dynasty.

Professionalization was originally a good way to increase the military's combat power, and it was precisely because of the prosperity and prosperity of Jingguo's commerce that it was possible to support a professional army.

But once the Sanya eats the blood of soldiers, professionalization becomes the biggest pain for the Central Guards!

The Xiang army has little salary, but they have time a year to farm, work, and have various ways to support their families. You can live well if you deduct more.

But the forbidden army has less military pay, which is their only source of income.

This disadvantage is exactly the same as the original Dasong. It is said that Song Bing can't fight, but put yourself in the shoes of yourself, how can you let people work for you?Who is willing to work for such a court?

The most pitiful thing is that the emperor knows whether to deduct the payment or not, but the emperor just acquiesced.
The reason for acquiescing is very simple. The reason for setting up Sanya to support the forbidden army is that the forbidden army will only listen to the Privy Council and then rebel.But the emperor thought about it again, and he was still not at ease. What if Sanya raised soldiers and had a good relationship with the forbidden army, and the forbidden army only listened to Sanya and then rebelled?
It's all right now, Sanya withheld the imperial army's salary, and the imperial army complained about Sanya, the emperor was relieved, it was impossible for the imperial army to rebel with Sanya, and the head of Sanya was also relieved, touching his neck and feeling that his head was safe.

But what about the forbidden army?
no one thought
What about the daily life of hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the imperial army?
(End of this chapter)