Great Zhou Empire: Kill Zhao Kuangyin at the beginning

Chapter 447 Mass Innovation (Special thanks to book friend Wanderer Bookworm for 2 monthly tickets!)

After an absence of nearly three years, Zhang Yong returned to Bian Jing and suffered from complaints from his wife Li Fangyi for several days. He had to immediately prepare a marriage for his eldest son Zhang Xingzhou to appease his wife's anger.

When Chai Zongxun learned about this, he personally stepped forward to help Zhang Xingzhou find a suitable wife. The candidates included Li, the second granddaughter of Li Tao, Duke of Li Wenzheng, Zhang, the third daughter of Grand Tutor Zhang Qixian, and Zhang, the eldest daughter of Jingsheng, the commander-in-chief of the Third Corps and "Duke of Pingxi", as well as more than a dozen other ladies from prominent families and high-ranking officials, all of whom were both virtuous and beautiful.

After more than a month of getting to know each other, Zhang Yong's family unanimously chose Li Tao's second granddaughter Li as his wife.

The wedding was scheduled to be held on December 20th, before the New Year's Eve of the 33rd year of Kaixi, at the residence of "Duke Wusheng".

Emperor Chai Zongxun specially bestowed a hundred treasures, personally inscribed a plaque with the words "A Happiness for a Hundred Years" as a gift, and sent He Yao, the chief eunuch in the palace, to represent the emperor in attending the wedding.

The wedding banquet had a thousand tables every day, which lasted for ten days in total, and the number of guests exceeded 200,000. All the subjects of the Great Zhou Dynasty spread the rumor that the family of "Duke Wusheng" was favored by His Majesty.

A few days before the New Year's Eve of the 33rd year of Kaixi, Chai Zongxun specially summoned Yan Su, the president of the "Royal Academy of Sciences", to Yanfu Hall to ask him about the development of folk science and technology in recent years.

After the greeting, Yan Su held a book in his hand and reported to Chai Zongxun word by word the development of folk production skills in the Great Zhou over the past decade.

“Your Majesty, since the 20th year of Kaixi, when Your Majesty issued an order to support innovation among people who are good at inventing production technologies, more than 100 academicians of the Royal Academy of Sciences have reviewed more than 220,000 R&D applications from the private sector, an average of more than 18,000 applications per year.
A total of more than 600 applications were approved and received R&D funds, accounting for about 0.3% of the total applications.

The total amount of research funds actually issued was more than 6.5 million taels of silver, with an average of 10,000 taels of silver allocated for each research and development project.

Chai Zongxun was quite satisfied. He suddenly remembered the unsupervised corruption of a certain expert in his previous life who spent 1.8 billion to feed pigs and openly fooled the public's IQ. He couldn't help but ask:
"Lord Yan, I have instructed you to strictly control and regularly inspect the use of silver for these research and development projects. What is the actual situation?"

Yan Su hurriedly bowed and said:

“Your Majesty, I, the professors of the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Military Virtue have regularly reviewed all research and development projects and found that none of them were falsely posed by the applicants to defraud money.

Every item and every use of silver and money is recorded in detail.”

Chai Zongxun nodded slightly and said:

“That’s good.

If anyone dares to defraud my special technological innovation funds in the name of research and development, no matter who they are, I will kill as many as possible!

This regulatory system should be customized and implemented unchanged for a long time.

My dear Yan, please continue to report."

Yan Su said:
"I will obey your majesty's order!
Your Majesty, after more than a decade of encouraging research and development, more and more people in our Great Zhou have gradually realized the importance of production skills. More and more families have let their children study engineering from an early age and encouraged them to innovate and invent, and no longer regard it as "not doing their job properly" or "having strange and cunning skills."

According to statistics as of this month, over the past decade, a total of 162 research and development projects have been successful, covering more than 20 production categories including construction, textile, water conservancy and irrigation, iron smelting, papermaking, and logging.

There are nearly 200 other research and development projects that are progressing steadily.”

Chai Zongxun was very pleased and said:
"Very good! In just over ten years, more than one hundred technical innovations have been encouraged, which is a remarkable achievement!

My will must be conveyed to the ears of the people in every state in the country: the court encourages the people to conduct research and development of various production skills. As long as it is truly feasible, no matter whether the final research and development results are achieved, as long as it is real research and development, there will be no blame and no accountability.

The imperial court also strongly encourages purely theoretical research without practical results! Let the people who have expertise in this area feel free to boldly carry out research and apply for projects! "

Yan Su was moved and said:
"Your Majesty, Holy Ming!
Your Majesty is truly the emperor who values ​​production skills the most in the history of China! With your Majesty's generous encouragement and financial support, I believe that there will be an endless stream of skilled people among the people of our Great Zhou, and they will continue to promote the innovation of production skills."

Chai Zongxun nodded and said:
"My dear Lord Yan, I am busy with state affairs. Although I attach great importance to the research and development of folk production skills, I don't have time to take a closer look on weekdays.

Lord Yan, pick out some important new inventions and tell me about them."

Yan Su said:
"Yes, Your Majesty.

In my opinion, there are two significant technological innovations made by talented people among the people in recent years.

The first item is the reeling machine that was improved and innovated by Lou Fan, a man from Huzhou, who summarized the production techniques of previous generations.

This machine is driven by a belt and generates power through foot pedals. The silk is wound around the bobbin, and the production efficiency is nearly 6 times higher than that of the original hand-spinning machine.

The second item is the "Erdoumen" invented by Qiao Weiyue, the Huainan Transport Commissioner, who summarized folk production technology and improved it.

This technology is a canal lock in the form of a double lock, which greatly improves the river transportation capacity.

Qiao Weiyue said in his memorial:

"Wei Yue planned to open the Gusha River from the end of the river to the Huaiyin Mopankou, a total of 40 miles. He also built five dams from the north of Jian'an to the Huaihe River. Wherever the boats went, they would go up and down ten times. The heavily loaded ships would unload their grain and pass by. The boats would sometimes break down and lose the grain. The soldiers would take advantage of this to commit crimes and steal.

Wei Yue first ordered the construction of two sluice gates at the third weir of the Xihe River, with the two gates more than 50 steps apart and covered with houses. A county gate was set up to accumulate water and drain it when the tide was low. A cross bridge was built on the shore, with earth and stones piled up to make the site solid. Since then, all the malpractices have been eliminated, and boats can travel back and forth without delay. "

According to the actual measurement after the restoration of the lock in Zhenzhou section of the Yangtze River, 500 workers and million yuan were saved every year. Previously, ships could only carry dan of grain, but after the lock was built, ships with dan of grain could pass.

Only Your Majesty knows it clearly. "

China's textile technology has a long history, and textile technology was born as early as five thousand years ago in primitive society.

The term "reeling cart" first appeared in "Records of the Grand Historian: Biography of Li Si", which records the story between Li Si, the prime minister of Qin, and Fan Ju, the prime minister of Zhao during the Warring States Period. Li Si and Fan Ju were important prime ministers of the two countries at that time. There was a debate between them. Li Si defeated Fan Ju with his eloquence. Fan Ju repeatedly made mistakes in the debate and was finally forced to be speechless by Li Si. After that, Fan Ju's friends persuaded him to follow Li Si, but Fan Ju said: "I am not a reeling cart person, I can't follow blindly."

With the "Kaixi Prosperity" led by Chai Zongxun, the commodity economy of the Great Zhou Dynasty developed rapidly, the textile industry also flourished, and the accumulation of skills accelerated. Finally, Loufan, a man from Huzhou, improved the manual reeling machine into a semi-automatic pedal reeling machine.

The invention of the "Erdoumen" re-locking technology was born in response to the prosperity of the Zhou Dynasty's maritime trade.

With this technology, the commodity transportation capacity of the ports and river cities in Da Zhou can be greatly improved, promoting the development of production and trade.

(End of this chapter)