Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1157 Epilogue XIII: Digging up the roots of the Ming Dynasty’s chemical industry
"The Imperial Journal of the Ming Dynasty: Chemistry" is a bimonthly journal with only six issues throughout the year.

Xie Yan started reading journals from ten years ago. After becoming familiar with the various symbols, he could read as fast as turning the pages of a book. Because there are many papers where one can tell that the research direction has gone astray by just looking at the title and introduction.

After browsing through the chemical journals of the past ten years, Xie Yan went on to look at those from the previous ten years.

Next, select some important papers and read them carefully.

During this time, Wang Sheng came upstairs and asked if they wanted to go eat first as it was almost noon.

How could Xie Yan be in the mood to eat?
After a while, my mother came upstairs and saw Xie Yan reading seriously. She turned around and left without saying a word.

"Send him steamed buns and water." Wang Yitong instructed.

Wang Sheng said, "Why not send meat buns?"

Wang Yitong said: "Stuffed food has a strange smell, and eating it in the library will affect others."

"My lady is really thoughtful." Wang Sheng hurried out to buy steamed buns.

In the afternoon, Xie Yan continued reading his paper while chewing steamed buns.

He picked out some older papers from the citation notes of certain papers, the oldest of which was even from forty years ago.

From time to time, scholars passed by Xie Yan, glanced at him curiously and then walked away.

Because the contents of the journals are very cutting-edge and are not even tested in the imperial examinations, only relevant scholars and students will study them.

Who among the scholars in Huangzhou Prefecture would read this stuff?

Academic journals are placed here, unread for decades, and most of them are still brand new.

As evening approached, Wang Sheng was ordered to urge again.

"Leave now."

Xie Yan responded, picked up the dozen or so periodicals he had selected, and walked to the lending counter on the third floor: "I want to borrow them to read at home, please register."

This librarian was a temporary worker hired by the prefectural school, and he was a juren himself. He was a part-time worker, which not only allowed him to receive a salary, but also made it convenient for him to study on weekdays, and it was also respectable to talk about it.

The administrator obviously knew Xie Yan and asked in great surprise, "Mr. Xie Liu is actually proficient in chemistry?"

Xie Yan smiled and replied, "I occasionally study it. Do I need to pay a deposit to borrow it?"

The administrator said, "No need, just register."

It doesn't matter if a journal that has not been read for decades is lost, especially since the person in front of him is the son of the Tongpan family.

I went downstairs carrying more than ten academic journals, and found that the carriage was already waiting on the street.

As soon as Xie Yan climbed into the carriage, the things in his hands were immediately snatched away by his mother.

Wang Yitong flipped through it and checked it a few times, with a puzzled expression on her face: "Do you really understand it?"

Xie Yan could only find excuses for himself: "I have gradually become more sober these days and found that math, physics and chemistry are easy to learn. I seem to have been enlightened by the impact."

Wang Yitong obviously didn't believe it, but she thought it was a good thing for her son to read serious books, so there was no need to keep asking questions.

That night, my father didn't come home for dinner again, and I didn't know what he was busy with. Anyway, he had lost a lot of weight in recent days.

After eating two bowls of dinner, Xie Yan returned to his bedroom and continued to read the borrowed journals to make a summary.

He wrote:
First, Emperor Taizu left behind the periodic table, proposed the particle theory, and gave the two terms molecule and atom.

Second, some Ming Dynasty chemists had proposed the "Dalton's Law of Partial Pressures" and optimized the particle theory on this basis, giving a half-wrong and half-correct explanation of molecules and atoms.

Third, based on the results of the previous chemist, people began to question the distinction between molecules and atoms given by Taizu. They believed that there was only one kind of particle, which could be called a molecule or an atom. But it was better to call it an atom because particles could not be divided any further.

Fourth, there are still chemists who believe that there are two different types of particles: molecules and atoms.

Fifth, some chemists have proposed the law of multiple proportions, and for nearly twenty years, chemists have been trying to determine the mass of atoms.

Sixth, chemists do not believe that gas atoms (molecules are mistakenly considered atoms) have the same volume because this statement is counterintuitive.

Seventh, chemists believe that elemental gases are single atoms because the consensus among all schools of thought is that atoms are combined by electrostatic forces, so identical atoms cannot be combined together.

Note: The seventh point is very fatal. It led the chemists of the Ming Dynasty to a dead end. Now an academic authority has proposed to measure the density ratio of different element gases, so as to measure the relative mass of atoms. This method of measurement will never give the correct answer, and the periodic table cannot be verified.

eighth……

Xie Yan listed a total of seventeen points and then immersed himself in writing his paper.

This is a paper based on pure theoretical conjecture. Before the advent of high-precision balances, it was impossible to verify it through experiments.

In another time and space, more than 70 years after the "molecular theory" was proposed, it was verified by a high-precision balance. For most of these 70 years, chemists dismissed the molecular theory.

Does the Ming Dynasty have high-precision scales now?
Probably not.

Xie Yan didn't bother to care about these things. He was only responsible for writing the paper. He just let fate take it as to how many people believed in it.

The first draft of the paper was completed that evening.

The next day, additional revisions were made.

On the third day, I copied it and sent it out.

Next, Xie Yan began to read books in great pain - studying the Four Books and Six Classics!
Science students also have to learn this stuff, but the exams are much easier than for arts students. Anyone with a normal brain can pass it. It can be understood as ancient Chinese, history and politics.

After finally getting familiar with the Analects, my second brother Xie Kan came in with a newspaper: "The court has made another big move."

"What big move?" Xie Yan asked.

Xie Kan said:

"Split up Zhejiang. Separate Pingjiang Prefecture from Zhejiang Province, and place Wuxian, Wujiang, Kunshan, Changshu, and Jiading counties under the jurisdiction of Nanjing Jinling Prefecture."

"Split up Huainan. Separate Anqing Prefecture from Huainan Province, and place Huaining, Taihu, Susong, Wangjiang, Wankou, and Tongcheng counties under the jurisdiction of Hubei Province."

"The Imperial College was established in Kunming. All students from Yunnan, Guizhou, Jiaozhi, Guangxi, and Guangdong went to Kunming to study there."

"Students from Fujian, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Nanyang studied at the Imperial College in Nanjing Jinling Prefecture."

"The prefect of Jinling in Nanjing will be called Jinling prefect from now on. Increase the number of Nanjing's imperial guards and raise the military rank of Nanjing's general by half a level."

"In many governor-general offices in Nanyang, the governor-general's official rank has been demoted by half a level."

"All existing railways in the country with private shares will be redeemed and confiscated by the court."

"Restore the prefecture and county immigration order. Local officials must report the number of immigrants every year. If the death rate of immigrants exceeds the limit, they will be dismissed immediately. The local immigration funds that were diverted for other purposes in the early years must be fully restored and used specifically for immigration."

"Do you understand?"

Xie Yan nodded and said, "Zhejiang and Huainan provinces are too rich, so a piece of their territory was cut off from each of them. The court was wary of scholars in the south, so some students were thrown to Kunming and some to Nanjing. At the same time, the court strengthened its control over Nanjing and the overseas governor's office. The court completely controlled all railways through redemption. There were too many unemployed people in the local area, which easily led to civil unrest, so a group of immigrants were emigrated every year."

Xie Kan praised: "You are so young, but you can see things clearly. You will definitely achieve great things when you become an official in the future."

“Isn’t it all clearly written?” Xie Yan didn’t find it difficult to understand.

Xie Kan clapped his hands and said, "Abolishing child labor and reducing supernumerary officials are just appetizers. The real reform has just begun. The officials in the court are really courageous!"

Xie Yan smiled and said, "Isn't immigration the prefect's responsibility?"

“Hahahaha, that’s right,” Xie Kan also laughed, “This time it’s the prefect’s turn to have a headache. Our father can just stand by and watch the fun.”

Xie Yan reminded: "But our father is in charge of the money."

Xie Kan was stunned: "That's right, Dad has to scrape together the money to organize the immigration. Oh, my dad is almost worried to death."

"Did those officials obey?" Xie Yan asked.

Xie Kan said, "How dare we disobey? The higher-ups have temporarily delegated power, so the government can quickly dismiss the regular clerks. One third of them were dismissed in one go, and the original non-regular clerks were asked to take exams, and those who passed the exams were immediately transferred to regular clerks. They also began to investigate the Zhong family's tax evasion, and announced that the Censorate would also send people to investigate, making an example of those big families. With all these things, the clerks were all motivated!"

Xie Yan laughed and said, "That's quite mean."

Directly fire one-third of civil servants, and then let temporary workers take an exam, and as long as they pass the exam they can be converted to regular employees.

Wouldn't this scare the civil servants?
Wouldn’t this make the temporary workers crazy?
……

More than a month has passed and the summer vacation is almost over.

Luoyang.

Royal Society of Ming Dynasty, Chemical Society.

A young chemist in his forties walked into the vice president's office holding a paper and said, "Teacher, this paper seems to be nonsense, but it also seems to make some sense. I'm really not sure."

The vice president was an old man who put on his glasses and read carefully. He frowned after reading the introduction. When he finished reading the paper patiently, he sneered, "Nonsense!"

The young chemist seemed to want to say something but hesitated. In the end, he did not speak again and left silently with the paper.

In another time and space, it was half a century after the molecular theory was proposed that people gradually began to pay attention to it, and another twenty years passed before it was confirmed.

Because to mainstream chemists at the time, molecular theory was counterintuitive and counterintuitive, and it conflicted with their years of research results.

This old vice president is a leading figure in today's chemical world.

Once the molecular theory is established, it will be tantamount to overturning most of his research results!

The young chemist returned to his office and the more he read it, the more he felt that it made sense.

Although this article overturned the basic consensus of all schools in the current chemical community - atoms are combined by electrostatic forces.

But it does propose a possibility and research direction.

The young chemist scratched his head. The molecular hypothesis in this paper was too scary. It was equivalent to digging up the theoretical foundation of all current schools of chemistry.

If this paper is confirmed, all chemists in recent decades will become fools!
Fortunately, it cannot be confirmed.

With the physical and chemical tools available at the time, it was impossible to obtain accurate experimental data.

But for this kind of paper, there will definitely be people who will work hard for it.

The young chemist returned home and tossed and turned that night, unable to sleep. He simply did not sleep, took out the records of various experiments he had done before, and compared and calculated them according to the ideas of molecular theory.

Still no result can be calculated, because the measuring tools at that time are too imprecise, and the experimental gas inevitably contains impurities.

After staying up all night, he didn't go to sleep at dawn and started writing letters to his friends with dark circles under his eyes.

(End of this chapter)