I

  Chapter 896 892【Petroleum】

   Early morning.

  It rained last night, and the heat has eased a little.

  Zhao Han didn't go to the office directly, but wandered around after breakfast. The summer in Nanjing was too hot for him.

  A few princes and princesses came talking and laughing, and happened to bump into the emperor.

   "Are you going out of the palace?" Zhao Han asked.

  Zhao Furong said: "Reporting to my father, the school is on holiday today, and the weather is cool, so I went to the eastern suburbs racecourse to play."

   "When you get married soon, you will be called father emperor, not daddy?" Zhao Han said with a smile.

  Zhao Furong said: "The queen mother admonished her to make her calmer in the future."

  The second princess, Zhao Hanjin, held the hem of the skirt, twirled it on the spot and said, "Daddy, is my dress good-looking?"

  Zhao Han nodded: "Looks good, where is the new style?"

  Zhao Hanjin said: "Pleated skirts are popular in Suzhou recently, and they were changed from Yuehua skirts. I heard that many daughters in Nanjing wear this."

   "Not bad, but it's a bit of a waste of time." Zhao Han commented.

  Women in the Ming Dynasty wore horse-faced skirts, which consisted of seven panels. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, seven pieces became ten pieces, with more and denser pleats, swinging in the wind like moonlight spreading, hence the name "Yuehua skirt".

  Nowadays, the pleats continue to increase, often dozens, and more than a hundred, so it is called "pleated skirt".

   They are all worn by rich ladies, but poor people really can't afford them.

  Daughters of low-level families usually wear horse-faced skirts, which are good-looking and save labor and materials.

  Zhao Han took a few casual observations and saw how the princes and daughters were dressed, so he knew that today was going on a blind date in the suburbs. As for the blind dates, they were either children of official families or students of Jinling University.

  The princesses are all dressed in fashion, and the princes are naturally chic. For the convenience of riding horses, they all wear dragging clothes.

  They went to the East Palace to join the prince. Today, the prince led the tour, and the concubines didn't get involved.

  Due to the cool weather, the princesses did not wear Zhaojun hats, so they were not afraid to show their faces outside.

  The academic thoughts of the new dynasty are varied, and the social atmosphere is becoming more and more open, especially the establishment of universities, middle schools and primary schools, so that unmarried women no longer live in the boudoir. Even things like Zhaojun hats are simply sun visors, and the function of hiding women's faces and necks is weakened.

  The custom of foot binding has also been completely curbed. There is a special article in elementary school textbooks describing the dangers of foot binding.

  It's a pity that corsets can't be changed. First, because of traditional aesthetics, literati like small breasts. Second, it's not easy for the government to check. You can't let people take off their clothes. What if they are born with flat chests?

  Baykov was ordered to have an audience with the emperor. He had just arrived outside the Donghua Gate when he saw the royal family’s carriages leaving.

   A team of guards cleared the way in front, Prince Zhao Kuanghuan led the chariot on horseback, Li Yong and other Eastern Palace officials were willing to accompany them. The rest of the princes were also riding horses. The princesses and princesses rode in carriages and lifted the curtains to enjoy the scenery of the market.

   "Prince!"

  The people watching on the street, suddenly someone shouted loudly, which immediately attracted a burst of laughter.

   Zhao Kuanghuan's myopia is only 300 degrees, and he usually does not wear glasses when going out. He didn't know who was calling him, so he let go of the rein and bowed his hands over there, so more and more passers-by shouted "Morning, Prince", "Try my cake, Prince, it's delicious"...

  Going further east, there were already several people waiting at the gate of the city. They were Zhao Kuanghuan's former classmates. They have already graduated from university, but they will have an exam next year. During this period, they can review and consolidate themselves, and they can also travel around to increase their knowledge.

   "These are the nobles of China." Baykov watched the convoy go away, quite envious of the aristocrats here.

  He himself is a Tsarist Russian nobleman and has lived in Moscow for a long time, but his quality of life is better than that of small businessmen in Nanjing.

  As the capital of Russia, the current population of Moscow is only about 100,000.

   About 22 years ago, the first handicraft workshop (hydraulic ironworks) appeared in Russia. Today, there are less than 10 handicraft workshops in Russia, and serfs are mainly used in the workshops, with the exception of a few managers and craftsmen.

   During the Little Ice Age, all countries were equal, and no one could escape.

  1601-1603 Great Russian Famine, floods in summer, snowstorms in winter, crop failure in many places, more than 2 million people starved to death in three years, accounting for one-third of Russia's national population. Following the death of the Tsar, internal and external troubles, Russia entered a decade-long period of chaos.

  Before the Great Famine, the retrospective period for serfs to escape was 5 years, and if they successfully escaped for 5 years, they could become freemen. After the Great Famine, the look-back period was extended to 15 years.

  Until now, life-long traceability, even if you run away for a lifetime, you will still be a serf if you are caught!

   Today, Russia's population has recovered to more than 5 million, of which 90% are serfs. How can such a country develop?

   Even in the military field, Russia will bully Poland.

  At this time, Poland was in a terrible mess. Natural disasters and man-made disasters, the nobles seized power, and the Ukrainian uprising merged into Russia. Russia had just beaten Poland to surrender, and Sweden led troops to kill it, scaring Russia to form an alliance with Poland.

   Just this year, the first Northern War started, and Sweden is about to single out the coalition forces of Russia, Denmark, Poland and Austria. On the way, Sweden was stabbed in the back by Brandenburg, and the coalition forces of various countries were still beaten. If the Netherlands hadn't suddenly come to intervene, Denmark would have been almost annexed by Sweden.

   Baykov looked at everything around him with fear and greed in his eyes.

  It would be great if such a rich place could be conquered. The Russian nobles could grab goods that would never be spent in a few lifetimes, and they could turn all the peasants in the countryside into serfs! But China is really terrible, rich and powerful, it is impossible for Tsarist Russia to win.

   Baykov was brought into the Forbidden City, and he couldn't help but compare it to the Kremlin.

  The Kremlin, the perimeter of the city wall is 2235 meters.

  As for the Forbidden City in Nanjing, the circumference of the imperial city is 10.23 kilometers, and the circumference of the palace city is 3.45 kilometers.

  The more he walked in the Forbidden City, the more Baykov's greed was suppressed, and fear grew like weeds. He waited in a side hall, no tea, no food, just waiting, from morning to afternoon.

  Do not eat or drink, tired and hungry.

  This is different from the treatment of envoys from other countries. Baykov has communicated with envoys from all countries in Zhongshan Temple. They praised the majesty of the Forbidden City, the greatness of the Chinese emperor, and even the tea and pastries in the palace.

  All the messengers have tea and pastries, why is it that I don’t have one?

  The more Baykov thought about it, the more panicked he became, feeling that the rhetoric he had prepared might not work in front of the wise Chinese emperor.

  …

   It was of course Zhao Han's intention to call people over and wait from morning to afternoon.

Lin Zhi, a doctor of the Ministry of Industry, is reporting the situation at the moment: "The Ministry of Industry and colleagues from the Qintian Academy were ordered to go to Sichuan to investigate. In Fushun and Rongxian, craftsmen used bamboo and wood as dodders (gas pipelines) to cross mountains and rivers. The river stretches for hundreds of miles, and earth gas (natural gas) can reach various salt fields in an instant."

   "How to cross the river?" Zhao Han asked.

  Lin Zhi replied: "Bury the dodder tube in the bottom of the river."

   Well, Zhao Han is convinced.

  It was only the middle of the 17th century. Sichuan not only boiled salt with natural gas, but even built hundreds of kilometers of pipelines, and buried natural gas pipes at the bottom of the river.

  In fact, as early as a hundred years ago, the natural gas pipelines in Fushun and Rong counties were two to three hundred miles long.

  In another time and space, the Ming army, Qing army, bandits, and thieves ravaged repeatedly, completely destroying this advanced production technology.

  According to Li Juehui's "Town God's Temple Records", he returned to his hometown in the 11th year of Shunzhi, that is, last year in this time and space. What he saw was this: In Fushun County, there are only 13 residents left. The area from the North Gate to Shuijing Street has become a tiger den, and tigers live in groups directly in the city.

  At that time, salt merchants and salt workers either died or fled, and more than 90% of the salt wells were abandoned. Until the Qing Dynasty sent magistrates to manage them, only 99 frying (salt) pots remained in Fushun and Rong counties.

   "Can you write down the drilling method?" Zhao Han asked.

  Lin Zhi said: "Every step has been recorded, with pictures and texts."

  Zhao Han nodded in approval: "Very good, it can be promoted in other places with well salt."

  The sudden drilling method in Fushun drilled a well nearly 200 meters deep in the Song Dynasty. Later, during the Daoguang period, the world's first thousand-meter-deep well was drilled.

   Currently, the deepest salt well in Fushun is about 500 meters.

   "Have you found oil yet?" Zhao Han asked again.

  Lin Zhi said: "According to historical data, we have searched all over the country, but have not found it yet. However, there is a ready-made oil well in Jiading (Leshan), Sichuan, which has been used for 134 years and has not been exhausted."

  The oil well in Leshan was purely an accident. I planned to drill a salt well, but I dug a few hundred meters deep, but black oil came out.

   Then use it for cooking salt and lighting, anyway, they have already been typed.

  According to "Yuan Tong Zhi", there were two oil wells in Yanchang County, Shaanxi Province in the Yuan Dynasty, but that oil well was much shallower than that in Leshan, and it was mainly used to treat ringworm in livestock. The name "petroleum" appeared in Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan". In the Song Dynasty, Kaifeng had a workshop for making fierce fire oil.

   An earlier record is the "Shui Jing Zhu" of the Northern Wei Dynasty. At that time, oil was used as lubricating oil for water conservancy rice pounders.

Zhao Han said: "Don't be in a hurry to find oil. The Ministry of Industry and Qintian Academy sent a few people to Jiading (Leshan) to study whether it is possible to extract lighter and more usable oil from oil. Try something like Distilled like liquor, beware of fire, everything is about safety.”

   To put it bluntly, Zhao Han wanted kerosene.

   This thing is easy to refine, and gasoline can also be produced together. But with the current level of technology, gasoline is not very useful, but kerosene can be used for lighting, and asphalt can also be used in construction.

   Moreover, only the original distillation method is used, and the utilization rate of crude oil is not high.

   "Yes!" Lin Zhi didn't know what the emperor wanted to do, anyway, he just followed the order.

  As the number of scientists in Qintian Academy increased, Zhao Han asked these people to communicate with various departments. For example, mints, various mines, water conservancy departments, map drawing departments, etc. under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry. There are also shipyards and gun factories of the Ministry of War.

  The official establishment of scientists is still in the Qintian Academy, and at the same time they are seconded out, so they can get two salaries.

  If you do a good job, you can choose to leave Qintianyuan and go to other related yamen for promotion.

  Lin Zhi bowed and stepped back, but Zhao Han was looking at the ceiling.

   Once kerosene is produced on a large scale, it will be equivalent to a lighting revolution, and people all over the country will switch to kerosene lamps. Of course, rich people will not, the early kerosene smoke is too big, and the throat is pungent and very uncomfortable.

  Workers...can go to work with lights on at night.

  Zhao Han withdrew Piaoyuan's thinking, and ordered: "Bring that Rakshasa ghost in!"

  (end of this chapter)