A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 339 Fantastic Calculation

Xiyuan.

Through several salons and tea parties between the minister's wife and Cixi with Yu Deling as an interpreter, the relationship between Cixi and foreign envoys has eased.

This kind of "women's diplomacy" left the ministers of the Qing court dumbfounded that international relations can still be conducted like this.

The one who came to see Empress Dowager Cixi today was American Minister Connor.

"Honorable Empress Dowager, I solemnly submit my credentials and hope that you can participate in the St. Louis World Expo that will be held in our country this year."

Cixi had heard from Yu Deling that the World Expo had been held many times before, and it was a big international event.

Cixi said: "Mr. Minister's invitation is full of sincerity, but Ai's family is too old to travel across the ocean, but a delegation composed of princes can be sent to participate."

Connor said, "That's as good as it gets."

Americans have invested heavily in this World Expo, eager to demonstrate their strong industrial strength.If there is no audience, it will become Jinyi Night Walk.So desperately invite countries to participate.

Cixi asked Yikuang, Prince Qing who was also in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "Who do you think is suitable?"

Yikuang said: "It's best to understand Western affairs. Beizi Zaizhen or Prince Jin Zaifeng who have been abroad before are more suitable."

Cixi said: "Zaifeng has just been appointed as the governor of Zhenghongqi Manchu. Zai Zhengang has just taken charge of the Ministry of Commerce, and I am afraid that he will not be able to get away."

Yikuang replied, "What Lafayette said is true."

Cixi asked Yuan Shikai again: "You are in Beiyang and know how to do Western affairs. Do you have any recommendations?"

Yuan Shikai thought for a while and said: "If you want to choose someone who is smart and yet not loses the state, Pu Lun should be the right one."

Sheng Xuanhuai, Minister of Railways, also said that Pu Lun was good.

Cixi thought that Pu Lun could do it, so she agreed.

Yuan Shikai also said: "Followers, you can choose to study in the United States in the past."

"It's natural. We need to order the provinces to select excellent items to participate in the exhibition as soon as possible," Cixi said, "By the way, since it is the World Expo, don't we have a Western genius Li Yu, let him go too."

Connor is also very interested in Li Yu: "Li Yu is very suitable. He still has a company in the United States, and his company's products will definitely be the most eye-catching at the World Expo."

"Oh?" Cixi asked in surprise, "Li Yu also opened a business in your country of America?"

Conner said: "Yes, the Queen Mother, and his company has even gone public, with the full support of our greatest financial tycoon, Mr. Morgan."

"Morgan? A businessman?" Cixi asked.

Connor nodded: "Yes, but he is not an ordinary businessman."

Cixi felt that a businessman was just a businessman, and no matter how powerful he was, he immediately felt that Li Yu was no big deal. By analogy, it was nothing more than gaining the attention of Hu Xueyan or Sheng Xuanhuai.

Cixi asked: "The Morgan you mentioned is just a businessman, doesn't he have any official position?"

Connor shook his head: "No."

Having said this, Cixi felt that Morgan was going to die, so she didn't take it seriously, but said: "Then let Li Yu go with the group."

After all, Li Yu is still just a craftsman and a businessman.

Connor added: "One more thing, we hope to draw another portrait of you and put it on display at the World Expo."

Cixi asked in surprise: "Exhibition? Portraits? Inappropriate?"

Connor quickly explained: "Dear empress dowager, you may not know that portraits of heads of state will be exhibited, including the king of England."

In the minds of Chinese people, England is the strongest country in the world, and being able to put it together with his portrait, Cixi felt that it was justified, but she still asked, "Haven't I already painted too many portraits?"

Connor said: "It was used for indoor exhibitions before, but now it needs to be displayed in the public. Naturally, the volume of the paintings must be larger and more solemn. For this reason, I specially found a very good female oil painter from our country. Home."

Cixi asked: "Better than your wife?"

Connor replied: "Yes, Your Honorable Empress Dowager."

Cixi is a very friendly person, said: "Okay."

Connor said: "Then I will take my leave first, and I will let the painter come to the beautiful Xiyuan as soon as possible."

After Connor left, Prince Qing Yikui quickly flattered him a few times: "Lafayette, Li Zhongtang caused a great sensation in the United States back then, and this time he will definitely be able to show our country's prestige again."

Yuan Shikai secretly smiled in his heart, not knowing what he could use to proclaim the country's prestige, and he brought up the matter again: "Queen Mother, regarding the abolition of the imperial examination, I have received generals from Shengjing General Zhao Erxun, Governor of Huguang Zhang Zhidong, Governor of Liangjiang Zhou Fu, Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi Cen Chunxuan, Do you see the joint name of the Hunan Governor Duanfang and six officials?"

Cixi sighed, it was really troublesome, she likes to hear good things like promoting national prestige, so she still asked Yikuang: "Yikuang, what do you mean by the Military Aircraft Department?"

Yikuang said: "Except for Wang Wenshao, everyone agrees to abolish the scientific examination."

Cixi said helplessly: "What else can I say? But this year has been so well prepared, let's hold the palace exam for the last time."

Yuan Shikai knew that he could not make progress, and this was Cixi's bottom line, so he replied: "The Queen Mother is wise!"

After Cixi made this decision, she felt empty in her heart, "I don't know if I am worthy of my ancestors."

Yuan Shikai said along the way: "The queen mother made a wise decision to do things that can be shown forever. The end is also another great beginning."

Cixi smiled and said, "You still know how to talk."

Yuan Shikai said again: "Queen Mother, there is one more thing that will benefit the present and benefit the future."

Cixi was in a better mood and asked, "What good thing?"

Yuan Shikai said: "I heard from Tang Shaoyi and Li Yu in Daotai, Tianjin, that a crop called tobacco can be widely promoted, which can not only replace opium, which is heavily poisoned, but also provide more taxes."

"It sounds like a good thing, is it really so effective?" Cixi asked.

Yuan Shikai said: "Nowadays, Western countries have all given up opium, and even the upper-class celebrities also choose cigarettes made from tobacco."

Cixi asked: "I wondered before whether foreigners smoke opium or not."

Yuan Shikai said: "I don't think so, otherwise there would be no tobacco."

Cixi said: "If this is the case, you can draft an edict with Prince Qing and order it to be implemented everywhere."

Yuan Shikai said: "Follow the order."

In fact, Yuan Shikai's answer is not correct, Europeans also smoke opium.

Before the first Opium War, Lin Zexu wrote a letter to the Queen of England, basically saying that you British do not smoke opium, but you use opium to harm us, it is too shameless.

But in fact, the British were also troubled by opium for a period of time, and many people smoked opium.

But instead of smoking opium, they drank opium wine.

In the past, the two Kings George III and George IV in the United Kingdom were both opium ghosts.

It is said that George III went mad because of opium.

One more thing, those who sell opium in Europe are also Jews.

Uh, I can faintly feel a reason why all parts of Europe were so anti-Semitic before World War II...

It's just that opium is not that harmful in Europe. After all, they have many other recreational activities to pass the time.

Previously, a British drama "North Sea Whale Dream" was released, which told the story of the British whaling ship in Queen Victoria's time. The hero in it bought opium wine at the beginning.

Later, Queen Victoria herself hated opium very much, thinking that it would make the men of her country lose their masculinity.

The promotion of tobacco is easy to do with Empress Dowager Cixi's nod.

Planting must start in the southwest region, especially Yunnan and Guizhou (the planting area of ​​these two provinces alone accounted for more than half of the country in later generations).Coincidentally, Ding Zhenduo, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, happens to be determined to promote the New Deal, and he will definitely spare no effort to promote this matter.

Even Cen Chunxuan, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Xiliang, the governor of Sichuan and Sichuan, where the opium is relatively rampant, are also promoters of the New Deal and anti-opium smokers.

-

On this day, Li Yu received another heavyweight letter from Einstein in Switzerland, which contained his thesis after several revisions.

Einstein also enclosed a letter devoted to discussing the famous mass-energy formula, because it is amazing.

Einstein wrote:

"Mr. Li Yu,
You telegraphed me back earlier that mass and energy are the same thing, two sides of one object.

At this moment, oh, I mean at this very moment when I write, it is night.

The nights in Switzerland are very long and lights need to be kept on for a long time.

Then I thought, if energy and mass are the same thing, is electric energy also a kind of mass?
When my wife took out last month's electricity bill, I suddenly thought, can't electric energy be calculated by weight?
For example, a kilogram of electricity?
This sounds a bit puzzling. "

Li Yu put down the letter. If he was not a time traveler, he would definitely not be able to accept the absurd statement of "one catty of electricity" at first glance.

But since Einstein's mass-energy formula came into existence, don't tell me, it is theoretically possible to have such electricity, and it can really be weighed in terms of catties.

According to the mass-energy formula, it can be easily calculated that a catty of electricity is almost 125 billion kWh, and a kilogram is 250 billion kWh.

In the year 1904, the world's annual power generation was about 250 billion kWh.

Before Li Yu crossed, the power generation capacity reached an astonishing 28 trillion kWh per year, that is to say, one catty of electricity is enough for all human beings to use for more than 4 hours.

Li Yu first sent a telegram back to Einstein:

"Mr Einstein,
Don't you think it's a great and interesting perspective on the world.

You can say: 'Two catties of electricity is enough for all human beings to use for a year! '

New theories require shocking conclusions, and yours is quite right.

I will try to help you complete the mathematical proof as soon as possible. "

When Einstein in Switzerland saw Li Yu's telegram, he put down the stone in his heart first, and waited for Li Yu to send the paper back.

But he didn't expect such a small mass to have such a large energy: Maybe human beings can change the energy pattern through this formula?

Einstein himself is a cosmopolitan + anti-war, he really thinks about things for human beings.

Also Jewish, he is much better than Sassoon and his ilk.

But it is clear that the control of nuclear energy is not easy, and in the end it was first used in war.

The reason, of course, is that controllable nuclear energy is not easy to achieve.

But humans have realized that this road has a promising future through the two mushroom eggs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Because nuclear energy is the most terrifying source of energy in the universe.

A little calculation shows that the little boy who exploded in Hiroshima contained 64kg of uranium 235, and less than 1kg participated in the chain reaction.

The lost mass is only 0.6g, but it is equivalent to 1.5 tons of TNT!

The 0.6g of electricity sent by the United States was really explosive, and the whole of Japan was paralyzed by electricity.

In addition, it can be seen that the efficiency of nuclear fission used in atomic bombs is very low.

If it is the nuclear fusion of a hydrogen bomb, the efficiency is much better.

But controlled nuclear fusion is more difficult.

It can be understood in plain language: the detonation of a hydrogen bomb must be completed by an atomic bomb.

The dignified atomic bomb can only be used to detonate a hydrogen bomb to provide the high-pressure and high-temperature environment required for nuclear fusion, so it is self-evident how difficult nuclear fusion is.

-

The progress of the factory is good now, as the boss, Li Yu must go to have a look.

As the No. [-] enterprise personally supervised, Xu Shichang also went with him.

And Lu Bicheng happened to be going to the headquarters of "Ta Kung Pao" in Tianjin, so he set off with them.

Even Jinwei Zhaoxue followed, and Li Yu couldn't refuse, because he gave her the job, and she got it first through the competition.

Xu Shichang was so awesome that he really set up a temporary train station next to the factory. Although the platform is very simple, it is already quite a face, and he doesn't need a bicycle.

As soon as he got off the train, Li Yu saw many refugees near the train station.

Li Yu asked, "Where did they come from?"

Xu Shichang said: "It should be near Tongzhou. After the disaster of Gengzi, there has been a drought in the past two years, and the people's life is not easy."

This wave of drought will end this year. Although the impact cannot be compared with some more famous droughts, but under the small-scale peasant economy and heavy taxes, farmers' ability to resist natural disasters is almost zero, and even a small disaster may be forced to sell it. female.

Since there are trains, we often see scavengers or refugees along the way.

Because the rails will carry goods, such as coal, the refugees will stand by the rails, and they will pick up a few pieces if they are lucky.

In the past, farmers were very difficult, and firewood was even a rare commodity. Except for cooking for three meals, they were usually reluctant to light a fire.It is even more impossible to take a bath in winter, because the firewood used to heat the bath water can probably cook for him for five or six days.

Li Yu arrived at the monosodium glutamate factory, looked around, and said to Yu Heqin, "This place is huge, sometimes we add more pickles."

Yu Heqin asked, "Pickles? Why do you have such a strong taste?"

Li Yu said: "It's not for me to eat, you can find more than a dozen large tanks and make more."

Yu Heqin wondered, "Why do you need so much?"

Li Yu said: "It will be distributed to refugees and nearby villages in a while."

It is not easy for refugees to enter Beijing or Tianjin, and many people are in between.

For ordinary farmers to eat, what they lack most is salt. If there is a lack of salt, people will have no strength, and even cannot work in the fields.

Pickles are just enough to add salt to them.

Generally, in farmers' homes, only male laborers who have gone to the fields are eligible to eat pickles.

Yu Heqin said, "Then we need to buy a lot more salt."

Li Yu said, "I will talk to the salt merchants in Tianjin about this matter."

There are many salt merchants in Tianjin, and Lu Bicheng's family is also a salt merchant.

(End of this chapter)