Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 102 The Iron and Steel Industry
The external situation is turbulent.

At this time, the south of the Yangtze River is still singing and dancing.

In order to stabilize the hearts of the people, it is mainly the hearts of the gentry.

Zhu Youjian ordered Jin Yiwei to concentrate all its energy on the collection and deployment of external military intelligence.

In China, Dongchang has no longer caught wrongdoers on a large scale and with high frequency.

The whole south of the Yangtze River became very quiet.

Except for the Huaiyang area, tens of thousands of people are still training.

In Yingtian, Suzhou, Songjiang, Hangzhou and other prefectures, due to the influx of a large number of northern population, coupled with the stimulation of the one-year tax exemption policy.

In the winter of Chongzhen's 17th year, the commodity economy in the south of the Yangtze River appeared in a deformed and abnormal state of prosperity.

The silver coins of the Ming Central Bank continued to be minted.

Wealth is constantly concentrated here like the flowing water around the whirlpool.

It seems that the world is at peace.

Zhu Youjian has already begun to let Liu Zongzhou, Minister of Rites, prepare to open an Enke.

In order to win the hearts of scholars in the world.

At the same time, when Daming still controlled the land in the north, more scholars from the north moved south.

In addition, some time ago, the gentry were killed too much, and the court urgently needed a large number of talents to supplement them, so it was imperative to open Enke.

This also made people in the world think that the war seemed to end like this.

The 17th year of Chongzhen was not the end of Ming Dynasty, but a new beginning.

After all, the events of the Song Dynasty are still in our ears. Maybe the Ming Dynasty will become like the Southern Song Dynasty, and it will be southeast, and become the Southern Ming Dynasty. Many people will think so.

Otherwise, the Ming emperor Zhu Youjian would not have stayed in the newly established armory all day long, and even the frequency of court meetings would not be as high as before.

Only the censors will say that His Majesty is lazy.

But more people think optimistically that the overall situation of the world has been settled, and we can still live in the south for a hundred years in peace, so His Majesty will no longer think about being so nervous in the first few months, and pay attention to some strange skills Kinky.

The civil servants began to focus on the struggle for political power.

There are more and more memorials to impeach Ma Shiying and others, and more and more memorials to invite the prince to study. There are also those who advise Zhu Youjian to choose a daughter of a good family and concubines, and some advise Zhu Youjian not to get close to eunuchs.

In short, these small internal matters began to be taken seriously by these DPRK and Chinese officials.

Zhu Youjian didn't bother to pay attention to the struggle between the Dongdonglin Party and the Eunuch Party and the Northern Officials Alliance.

As the emperor, no matter who scolds who is bloody, no matter how heinous the crime is, he will not let it happen, or at most show a small punishment.

Anyway, military power and financial power are in his own hands, and Zhu Youjian feels that these people can't make much trouble.

Sometimes Zhu Youjian also wondered if the Donglin Party began to report and impeach so desperately, whether they deliberately put smoke bombs to paralyze themselves, so as to cover up a bigger conspiracy.

However, Zhu Youjian, who is familiar with history, believes that the biggest conspiracy is that Zuo Liangyu will lead his troops eastward.

But the lifespan of Huang Degong, Yuan Jixian and Zuo Liangyu will let the Donglin Party understand what the general situation is over.

Zhu Youjian still focuses on Manqing who currently only occupies Shuntianfu, Jizhou, Shanxi and other places.

Without water transport, grain from Huguang, and taxes from Jiangnan, it would be impossible for Dorgon's Qing Dynasty to gain a foothold in the pass.

Spring next year.

The real enemy is the Tartars!

Zhu Youjian has been chanting silently like this all the time, not daring to take it lightly for a moment.

In the past few days, he almost ate and slept with Song Yingxing as an emperor.

Zhu Youjian is preparing to completely set up the shelf between Daming's theoretical research in natural science and the development of science and technology.

Song Yingxing is considered to be a relatively versatile person in the field of natural science and technology applications. Zhu Youjian decided to impart all his understanding of later generations to him, hoping to let Song Yingxing help him build the entire science and technology system of Ming Dynasty.

Now there are more than 1 craftsmen under the Daming Ordnance Institute, plus a group of scholars with a certain foundation in natural science, such as Song Yingxing.

Zhu Youjian is confident that Daming will advance to a higher level in the field of science and technology in a short period of time.

After all, the Ming Dynasty at this time is not the late Qing Dynasty in the original history.

With him as the emperor taking the lead, and a group of scholar-bureaucrats who have opened their eyes to see the world follow, it will not be like the Han bureaucrats in the late Qing Dynasty who had to fool the good old Buddha in order to change the country and had to deal with the obstacles of the diehards.

Daming is still an agricultural country in essence.

And in this era, the small peasant economic system has begun to enter its end.

In the future, industrial countries will dominate the world.

What Zhu Youjian has to do now is to turn Daming into an industrial country dominated by a commodity economy in the south of the Yangtze River.

As mentioned earlier, the humanistic foundation of Daming already exists, and Jiangnan is already well-developed in commerce and open-minded, so it is naturally more suitable for the ancient empire of Daming to be reborn here.

The basis of a country's industry is heavy industry.

Before the theoretical knowledge of chemistry was fully popularized and before the emergence of chemical industry, the foundation of heavy industry in Ming Dynasty was iron and steel smelting.

Whether it is a cold weapon or a hot weapon, its quality is closely related to Daming's steel production level.

The fact that the Han Dynasty was able to completely abuse the Huns was not the result of the development of the Han people's steel industry.

Now, if Zhu Youjian wants to improve the quality of weapons, especially the quality and service life of firearms, as well as the improvement of new firearms, the production level of steel smelting needs to be improved.

"Put the willow sticks side by side on the wall, dry the sludge in the sun, and use a sieve to sieve out the flour. After the pig iron juice in the furnace directly enters a pond, one person quickly sprinkles wet marl into the pond, and the other People use willow sticks to stir quickly, and when the willow sticks burn to two or three inches, they will turn yellower, and after cooling down, they can be divided into squares, or beaten into cylinders."

Song Yingxing replied while wiping off his sweat: "Your Majesty, if you burn it like this, you can forge various brittle wrought irons and steels by burning willow sticks. Steel, so that a variety of firearms and artillery can be manufactured with different requirements for brittleness."

"Not only that, but your method can save the reheating process of pig iron, the cost has been reduced a lot, and the working hours have also been reduced a lot. This method should be promoted immediately!"

Zhu Youjian had a background in science and engineering in his previous life. Although he didn't know much about the specific iron and steel process, he also knew some basic knowledge of iron and steel smelting.

The ironmaking method proposed by Song Yingxing can be regarded as a relatively advanced ironmaking technology at present. The carbon content of molten iron is determined by the amount of willow wood burned. In fact, willow wood is used as a reducing agent to promote the oxidation reaction of molten iron.

I have to admit that this is a very innovative idea.

Although people in ancient times did not know that the difference between steel and iron lies in the carbon content, this series of frying and smelting method can only rely on one hundred steelmaking, that is, non-stop beating to determine the carbon content of steel and double-chamber frying and smelting. There is no doubt that the method still needs to be improved a lot.

However, Zhu Youjian is still not satisfied with this. In his opinion, Daming's steel smelting can go further.

(End of this chapter)