Chapter 7 New Year’s Eve Dinner (1)

In a flash, the five years of Chongzhen came to an end. This year was a year of rapid progress and leap forward in the Ming Dynasty. The economy, military, culture and education have developed greatly with the investment of large amounts of funds from the court and local governments. In particular, the tax revenue reached an astonishing 40 million silver dragon yuan, plus the income of Shanghai trade and key industries controlled by the country and the share income of Spark Fund. The total treasury income in Chongzhen in the five years actually reached an appalling 10 million silver dragon yuan. This data was summarized into various departments of the court, shocking the entire cabinet, and then the entire cabinet fell into ecstasy!

In fact, such an achievement was not achieved overnight. Since the court opened a maritime ban, established customs, and imposed tariffs, the court's tax revenue was the same year, almost exponentially explosive. More than 300 years ago, the Southern Song Dynasty could reach 10,000 yuan in tax revenue based on a corner of the south of the Yangtze River, which was almost equivalent to the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty in the fifth year of Chongzhen. At that time, the Southern Song Dynasty's court was already in great decay and could still achieve such economic achievements, relying on the opening-up policy of commerciality and the prosperity of maritime trade. Now the Ming Dynasty has stabilized and its territory has surpassed the Northern Song Dynasty.

The domestic political landscape is gradually improving, the people are at ease, and policies are gradually relaxed, so it is not uncommon to achieve the current achievements naturally. In addition, a large amount of gold and silver from Japan, Europe and other countries flowed into the Ming Dynasty in exchange for silk, ceramics, tea and other items. The astonishing trade surplus allowed the Ming Dynasty to earn a lot of benefits. With real money and silver, it is naturally impossible to dig a hole and bury it. Especially in the second half of the year, an investment trend was formed in some cities along the southeast coast, and all walks of life seemed to have begun to integrate. The first person to take the lead had tasted the sweetness and formed a booming trend.

In terms of agriculture, under the leadership of Song Yingxing, the grain output of the Ming Dynasty has increased significantly with the exception of the affected prefectures and counties. If calculated based on the total amount, the food and clothing of the people in the Ming Dynasty should be fine, and there are even a lot of surpluses. Of course, this is an ideal state. Last year, the high-yield fields with a high yield of five stones per mu accounted for about 5% of all arable land area, and most of them were concentrated in Huguang, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and especially the rice production reached a peak. The high grain price suddenly dropped. This year, the exemption of grain tax in some provinces has expired. The court no longer needs to pay a lot of money to purchase the surplus grain in the hands of the people. Granary silos in various places have also been established, which indirectly promoted the development of some grain-related industries, such as brewing wine, making edible vinegar and producing MSG.

In terms of industry, metallurgy, steelmaking and copper shaping have made leap forwards, and steel production has increased exponentially. The court has gradually regained the power of private mining and mining, gathered a large number of steelmaking technicians and workers, and formed two major steel production groups, Baosteel and Panzhihua, one in the south and one in the north, firmly occupying 70% of the national steel industry, and coal production has also increased tremendously. In addition to being used in industrial production, the people have also begun to use it in large quantities, gradually replacing traditional firewood and charcoal and becoming the main raw material for urban people to burn fires. However, the regional impact of this fuel is the key to transportation, which is a huge problem, so it can only radiate to some areas. It will take a long time to promote it in coal-deficient areas.

In other aspects, such as textiles, the planting area and output of cotton have increased leapfrogly, especially the new cotton removal technology, which greatly improves the speed of cotton seed removal. The emergence of new spinning wheels, private workshops to centralized production, from raw material collection and acquisition to production and sales, has gradually embarked on the process of quantitative change to qualitative change.

What we have to say here is the emergence of the brand. Of course, there is also some contribution from Zhu Yinglong. If it were not for his promotion, the women in the harem would not have thought that the brand would have such a huge effect. This is just like the reputation of the merchants "no deception". The harem established the "Acacia Bird" garment group. With the powerful design and leading model ability of the harem, a large number of exquisite women's clothing entered the Ming Dynasty's clothing every time. Several popular styles were launched in spring, summer, autumn and winter every season, which attracted countless Ming women and became a commonplace. Zhu Yinglong even issued an order to relax the folk's use of clothing colors. It only added some restrictions on some styles and patterns. In addition to not being able to use them by the people, he also burned a fire on the ready-made clothing. Women in the world all called Zhu Yinglong "the most enlightened emperor in the history of the Ming Dynasty!"

The success of the "Acacia Bird" clothing brand has made the merchants who smelled bloody smells move. As many brands have been established, such as "cuckoo" and "woodpeckers" and bamboo shoots spring up after a rain. In an instant, merchants from all over the country have their own font sizes and trademarks.

Education is a part that Zhu Yinglong is very concerned about, especially after the reform of the education system and the imperial examination, education was the top priority. Zhu Yinglong ordered the Ministry of Education to become two normal colleges directly under the Ministry of Education, with campuses located in Beijing and Nanjing respectively, to cultivate teacher talents according to the new textbook model. Later, both colleges became the cradles of teachers in the Ming Empire.

Next is the military aspect. The court now has to spend almost 40% of the national treasury income on military aspect. Zhu Yinglong and the other four ordered the harem to spend some funds on the development and development of weapons. Zhu Yinglong introduced the "equipment generation, development generation, design generation" policy of the later Republic into the weapons research of the Ming Empire. From the air to the underwater, as long as the talents who can help military purposes are gathered together and concentrate their efforts to do big things. This is the benefit of a large number of people. If one head doesn't work, just three, three doesn't work, just thirty, thirty, thirty, three hundred, three thousand, and thirty, all are fine!

As long as the country pays attention to it, a large amount of capital investment will develop rapidly. Although it is limited to technology and production capacity, too advanced firearms have not yet appeared. However, after continuous research by researchers and Zhu Yinglong's knowledge of guns and cannons, the flintlock fire gun gradually changed from front to backward. The new flintlock fire gun led by Dai Cang not only has a large extension of its life, but also used explosive ignition technology for the first time, which means that the attack was initially completed.

The development of fire guns, but the manufacturing requirements of this kind of fire gun are too high. Under the current production level, mass production is relatively difficult and expensive, which is not suitable for promotion and equipment. Moreover, the manufacturing process of bullets is relatively complicated. Without the help of a lathe, almost all of them need to be completed by hand. This gun is a noble gun, so it can only be put away and slowly study its supporting mass production process. Until the advent of steaming car beds, this kind of fire gun was mass-produced, but this does not mean that the firearm will not be replaced by a new generation.

Although firing guns cannot be mass-produced directly, their advantages and components can be used in the current flintlock fuses. For example, the production technology of gun barrels cannot meet the technical indicators of seamless steel pipes in later generations, it has become the most advanced steel pipe production process in this time and space. From iron pipes to steel pipes, the life of flintlocks has not only doubled! The length of the barrel has also been greatly reduced, and the application of sight, shooting accuracy and effective shooting distance have increased exponentially. It is worth mentioning that Dai Cang and other military specialties

Under Zhu Yinglong's prompt, his telescope was successfully developed into a scope. When the firing gun was not produced energy, he successfully developed a sniper firing gun. When he learned that this gun was successfully developed, Zhu Yinglong was ecstatic and learned that this gun was under a certain amount of gunpowder, the effective range was 500 meters. Although it was a bit expensive, it was a weapon tailor-made for special forces. Zhu Yinglong issued an order to produce small batches and equip the troops in a small amount. This firing sniper rifle will become a nightmare for enemy officers on the battlefield!

However, the cost of this kind of gun is really expensive. The cost of a gun can be made in the flintlock rod used. Including the manufacturing of the scope, it may be even higher, because it all depends on hand polishing, and the scrap rate is quite high, and basically every gun has a certain difference. In other words, if a firing sniper rifle is used, he can only use this rod in the future. If he changes something else, he will need to adapt again, and a large number of bullets can find the previous feeling. It is definitely a very expensive personal item. According to the algorithms of later generations, the cost of cultivating such a sniper rifle is probably to be the last pilot, but that's why it's worth it.

Besides, technology has always been considered a strange skill, and the sages are disdainful, but the progress of society is inseparable from the progress of science and technology. Confucianism has always been the main focus of ignorance of the people. In their minds, education of the people is actually to teach the people how to create wealth for them to squander and achieve their reputation. However, those who are truly capable are workers with low social status. Although the Chinese nation has never lacked creativity, under the suppression of Confucianism's arrogance, arrogant but bullying the weak but fearing the strong, although they have achieved great achievements like the four great inventions, they have been strangled step by step with creativity and imagination, and found the Europeans who were eaten by raw meat and drink blood and plundered, and caught up with them. They even had only a few hundred years of feudal history, surpassing the ancient China.

Civilization created an incomparable scientific myth, which brought heavy disasters to the ancient Chinese civilization. However, from this moment, Zhu Yinglong would never allow this situation to reappear again. Therefore, he almost suppressed the opposition of Confucianism with iron fist, and divided a separate department in the cabinet, the Ministry of Science and Technology, which was specifically responsible for funding scientific and technological research and the promotion of related advanced technologies. Facts proved that he succeeded. The technological inventions funded and produced by the Spark Fund brought huge wealth to the Ming Dynasty. The money returned to the treasury every year made many people shut their mouths of opposition. Zhu Yinglong also gave out 10% of his income every year to provide various basic theoretical research to some scholars and celebrities, looking forward to the emergence of various epoch-making "theorems" and "laws" in the Ming Dynasty, so that Newton could go to hell!
Chapter completed!