Outside the west city of Beijing, there is Longwan Ferry.
At the end of the day, there were several large boats parked here, and a large group of people gathered on the shore, seemingly saying goodbye to each other before boarding the boat. But if you look closely, you will find that more than half of them are wearing southwestern trousers. Some of them are wearing barbarian clothes, while the other half are wearing official uniforms.
This was when the Lifanyuan was sending back various chieftains who had come to the capital from Yunnan to pay homage to Mu Ying. Zhu Yuanzhang could not keep dragging them back, so he agreed to their request to go back after several visits.
Most of the chieftains or chiefs are anxious to go back, not because they are afraid of being usurped, but because those who dare to come to the capital are confident that nothing will happen to them; mainly because they have been out for more than a month and the weather is about to get cold. .The global temperature at that time was lower than now. Although the vegetation in Yunnan would not dry up in winter, the wild animals were also in winter. The chieftains needed to prepare for the winter, so they were anxious to go back.
Except for those who missed their relatives, the people below seemed happy to miss Shu. According to the tradition of the Chinese dynasty, foreigners who came to the capital were treated well and their food and clothing were better than what they had at home. Of course they were not willing to go back.
But there was a person from the chieftain, ranging from the chieftain's younger brother to the most ordinary tribesman. Although he did not show much desire to go back, he was obviously relieved when he arrived at the dock today.
Of course they are the people from the Jiuhua Sandusi of Lin'an Prefecture in Yunnan Province. They were worried about being discovered by Zhu Yuanzhang a few days ago, but today they were finally relieved.
Dragon Zhehei said quietly to Long Shangdeng: "Dad, we can finally go back. The people who came to the Lifan Courtyard to call us out many times in the past few days and carefully checked our faces were probably here to trace the origin of the poison. , it really scared me so much that I was afraid of being discovered.”
Long Ping'er was concerned about other things: "I don't know who is going to poison whom? We have been living in seclusion these days. Except for the Ming Dynasty's canonization ceremony of the emperor's grandson, we don't know anything about other things."
Dragon Zhehei said: "How many times have I told you not to talk about this matter anymore. You haven't returned to our chieftain yet."
The two of them stopped talking. After waiting for a while, the people from the Lifan Yuan completed the necessary procedures for sending the barbarians back and asked them to get on the boat and go back. From here, they would take the boat along the river to the southwest of Huguang Province near Guangxi. place, then disembark and walk back to your toast.
Everyone in the Long family was in a hurry to get on the boat. Only Long Ping'er, although he got on the boat with everyone else, remained standing at the stern. The boat had sailed so far away that the walls of the capital could hardly be seen clearly. Long came up. Advising Ping'er to go into the cabin to rest, Long Ping'er said: "The capital of the Ming Dynasty is really so prosperous. I couldn't imagine it before coming here. Brother, do you think we will have a chance to come to the capital again in the future?"
Long Shangdeng replied casually: "There will be opportunities, there will definitely be opportunities."
Long Ping'er knew that he didn't mean what he said, but he could no longer see the capital clearly, so he could only follow his elder brother into the cabin with a look of regret.
Yunxi returned to Wenyuan Pavilion of Wenhua Palace, and after thinking about it, he would wait until he went to Qianqing Palace to have dinner with Lao Zhu in the evening before telling Lao Zhu what happened at Chang's house. He rested in the dormitory for a while, then came to the study to get some I got ready to read the memorial that Lao Zhu criticized last night that was sent over by the young eunuch of Jinshen Palace this morning.
He opened the window, feeling the cold air from Xianbelia hitting his face, sighing secretly that he had to endure the days without glass windows. Then he sat down, spread out the folding book, and suddenly thought: Didn't he just have a baby?
Is it Zhuangzi? This Zhuangzi can not only provide himself with money, but also serve as a place to conduct scientific experiments!
Thinking of this, Yunxi no longer had the intention to read the memorial. He thought: Although he didn't have any craftsmen, he could go to the south of the city to hire them. Craftsmen's households did not have national work tasks all year round, so it would be better to take on some private work in their free time.
Make some money and improve your life.
Of course, private work involving ordnance, such as gunpowder and armor is not allowed, but other things are fine. What Yunxi wants to improve now is glass and cement. These two are very useful, and they are not like sunbathing.
Salt also has to be produced on a large scale.
But the problem is that Yunxi doesn't know how to make glass and cement. Glass is better. Yunxi remembers that the Venetians should have made glass by this time. Westerners can make it, but there is no reason that Easterners can't; but cement is
It’s hard to say, Western countries only invented it in modern times, so we can only give it a try.
In addition, Yunxi also wanted to build large-scale steelmaking. In his previous life, Yunxi was born in a family of workers in a steel factory. He was very familiar with ironmaking and steelmaking. But because of his familiarity, he understood how difficult it was to make steel. The soil of the 1950s
What the French blast furnace produces is only pig iron, not steel. Processing it into steel requires other steps. Not to mention, just building a blast furnace is very difficult.
The refractory bricks and slag-forming agents of the Ming Dynasty were not up to the level after the Industrial Revolution, and this was a gap in production technology that could not be solved in a short time. At least Yunxi could not solve it in a short time. The only thing he could change
The only solution is to change the power from charcoal or coal to coke. Moreover, the investment in building a blast furnace is too high. Yunxi doesn't have that much money to spend on experiments now, so he can only wait until he becomes emperor.
Yunxi's thinking expanded to thinking about science and technology as a whole. Many people may not have imagined that although China's scientific and technological level was generally higher than that of Western countries in the early Ming Dynasty, it was far behind the West in astronomy and geography.
Already.
Since Dong Zhongshu carried forward the theory of induction between heaven and man, in China, astronomical issues and geographical issues have all become philosophical issues. Although our observation technology of astronomical phenomena has been improving, no one has been studying it, or has not been allowed to study it.
The causes of various astronomical phenomena. In real history, until the end of the Ming Dynasty, China's research on the causes of astronomical and geographical phenomena was not much different from that of the Han Dynasty. There are still many people who believe that the sky is round and the earth is round.
During the Hongwu period, many scholars in Western countries at the same time believed that the earth was a sphere. Although they could not prove this at the time, it did not prevent them from believing that Copernicus' heliocentric theory was also based on the concept of 'earth'.
That's fine, but the problem is that the study of astrophysics is the starting point of the modern scientific system. Kepler's three laws, the law of universal gravitation, etc. together mark the initial establishment of the modern scientific system. If the modern scientific system cannot be established,
Regardless of whether it is the same as the scientific system established by Newton and others, it will only be a matter of time before China is surpassed by Western countries.
Therefore, Yunxi believes that the theory of "influence between heaven and man" must be broken. However, Yunxi has no idea how to break this theory that is generally accepted by everyone.
Yunxi was pacing around the room, thinking about this problem. It wasn't until Wang Bu knocked on the door and told him that it was the first moment of You hour that he was shocked to realize that he had done nothing all afternoon.
Thinking about this.
After reacting, Yunxi looked at the memorials piled on the table and was about to cry. But it was soon time to have dinner with Lao Zhu, and there was no time to read. Yunxi could only grab a few and look at them.