Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 638 Looking at Daming Through the Telescope

The general examination has long since ended, but more than 2 candidates have not left the capital.

Because they are all waiting for the rankings to be released.

These days, if it is the college examination and the rural examination, it is still possible to go home and wait for the results to be released.

After all, the college and township examinations haven't left the province yet, so those who are close will receive the news within a day or two, and those who are far away will receive the news within a day or two.

Moreover, it takes at least a year after the college and township exams are completed before the follow-up exams, so there is no need to wait at the exam place.

Just like Fan Jin, after finishing the provincial examination, he walked away hungry for two days and went home to wait for news.

This general examination is different. Candidates for the general examination must go to the capital to take the examination no matter how far away they are. Moreover, if they pass the examination, they will be listed on the list of tributes, and they will then have to take the palace examination.

There is only one month between the general examination and the palace examination, and it turns out that in the absence of trains and ships, the time spent in farther provinces is more than one month just to catch up with the examination.

If you go back and receive the news that you have passed the exam and entered the list of tributes, it will definitely be too late to come back to take the palace exam.

Therefore, if the tribute list is not released, it is unlikely that the general candidates will leave the capital. This is a custom that has continued for hundreds of years. Even if there are trains and ships, the general candidates will still not leave the capital.

Even if many candidates know that they do not do well in the exam, they will take chances and wait to see the result.

After all, other candidates may not do well in the exam, right?

If most candidates do not do well in the exam, there is still hope for the list.

Not to mention, there are quite a few candidates with this idea.

Originally, everyone thought that the Gongshi list would only be released a day or two before the imperial examination, because there were too many people participating in the imperial examination this time.

Everyone has seen the crowds. In the past, there were only a few thousand people, and they had to wait at least half a month for the announcement. This time, there are more than 2 people. They have to wait a day or two before the palace exam.

Unexpectedly, when there were still ten days before the palace examination, the Ministry of Rites would post a notice all over the capital, on the fifth day of March, at [-] o'clock in the morning, the rankings would be released on time!
The entire capital city was immediately stirred up, and many candidates were rushing to tell each other.

The release of the rankings ten days before the palace examination was indeed beyond the expectations of most candidates.

In the early morning of the next day, the square outside the Gongyuan in the capital was already crowded with people before the Mao hour.

This tribute courtyard is newly built, covering half a street. There are more than [-] examination sheds in the tribute courtyard. The square outside the tribute courtyard is naturally not that small.

After all, candidates have to line up and search before entering the examination room. If the square is not big enough, how can it hold [-] to [-] candidates.

This square is big enough to accommodate 5 to [-] people without any problem.

The archway where the list is posted is also much larger than before, and it is no problem to post a list of thousands of people.

The problem is, the location of this archway is a bit strange.

The archway where the list was released was actually at the very edge of the square, and it was still inside a huge semicircular pit.

This point really made the examinees feel strange, why did they dig a huge pit with a radius of nearly one mile and a depth of half a foot?
And this huge pit is still on the side of the road. If they want to enter the Tribute Academy to take the exam, they have to go around half a mile to bypass this huge pit, or they have to go down the steps and walk into the half-foot-deep giant pit. Go up for nearly a mile, and then walk up from the opposite steps.

Isn't this a scam?
This is even worse when the list is released.

Because at most Wanlai people can squeeze into the huge pit, other people can only stand on the semi-circular steps, or they can only stand on the square above.

From such a long distance, it is impossible to read the words on the list clearly!
While all the candidates were discussing, the door of the Tribute Court suddenly opened.

What's going on here?

All the candidates looked back with surprise on their faces.

It's not even Mao time yet!
Didn't you say that the list will be released on time?

As a result, those who walked out of the gate of the Gongyuan were not Jin Yiwei, nor were they soldiers from the Beijing camp, nor were they servants of the Ministry of Rites.

At this moment, it turned out that twenty or so shopkeepers of Daming Western Firms came out of the gate of the Gongyuan, and each of them was followed by a flatbed truck.

What the hell is this?
All the candidates are inexplicable.

These are the shopkeepers of the Daming Company, and many people have seen them, because these people are the shopkeepers on duty in the various shops of the Daming Western Company on West Chang'an Street, and many people have even seen the waiter pushing the cart behind them.

Everyone is waiting for the list to be released, why is the Daming Western Company here to join in the fun?
Soon, everyone understood.

Because the shopkeepers of the Ming Dynasty western shops took the waiters pushing the carts to the left and right, and after they lined up outside the gate of the Gongyuan, they put up signs on the carriages one after another.

The sign also said in big characters: Telescope for sale, a telescope that can see clearly for about two miles, ten taels of silver each, only for candidates to buy, the quantity is limited, if you want to buy it, hurry up.

As soon as the sign was erected, all the candidates were blown away.

Of course they know what a telescope is, and some candidates have even borrowed other people's telescopes to play with.

However, almost no one among the candidates can afford it.

Because that thing is too expensive.

The telescopes brought by the European barbarians cost at least a few hundred taels of silver each.

However, the telescopes produced in Ming Dynasty have always been only provided to the generals of the Ming army, and the folks simply cannot buy them.

As for the reason, it is actually very simple.

Originally, there were not many telescopes made by the Ming Ministry of Industry, and they were all high-precision, with a viewing distance of five or even ten miles.

Naturally, it is impossible for Taichang to sell this kind of telescope. If it falls into the hands of the enemy, won't it cause trouble for himself?
However, he had already had the idea of ​​selling the telescope, even before the renovation of the Gongyuan in the capital.

After all, as long as this thing is produced in energy, it will be huge profits.

How much can a telescope cost?

After the glass is mass-produced, it is worthless at all, and the two lenses basically only need to calculate the processing fee.

The two cylinders with glass mirrors were worth a little money, because they were made of copper skin.

However, the cylinder made of copper skin can be made into a mold and pressed with a steam locomotive.

In this way, the processing fee can be ignored, as long as the cost of the copper skin itself is calculated.

In other words, as long as the telescope can be mass-produced, the lenses can also be processed by steam machine tools, and the cost of that telescope is just a few taels of copper, even if the energy consumption and labor of the steam machine tool are included, the total cost is less than one. two silver.

And there are not many things available for entertainment these days, as long as the price of the telescope is not too high, there is no need to worry about sales.

The problem is to achieve mass production.

Taichang's original idea was to design a steam machine tool that could grind lenses, and the sight distance of the mass-produced telescope could be a little farther than the telescopes in European countries.

This accuracy is not the biggest problem. Since Da Ming can even make telescopes with a viewing distance of more than five miles, telescopes with a viewing distance of about two miles will naturally not have any accuracy problems.

The reason why the telescope has not been mass-produced is mainly due to the material and processing technology of the glass.

Ordinary glass is not the same as crystal. In terms of material, ordinary glass is easier to break and crack than crystal.

Such ordinary glass is actually not suitable for telescope lenses, and burrs and cracks are easily formed during processing.

Moreover, ordinary glass is much more difficult to polish than crystal after processing.

The Ministry of Industry did not have sufficient awareness of these problems at the beginning, and their improvement direction was not right.

They have always thought it was a problem with polishing powder, so they have been letting old craftsmen try various polishing powders.

In fact, the material is the most important problem.

They always thought that there was only one kind of glass, so they never thought about adding various materials and trial-producing different glasses.

As a result, the effect is naturally not good. After several years, the problem of mass production has not been solved.

It wasn't until Taichang raised the issue of material research and the idea of ​​various alloys a few days ago that they realized that there may be more than one kind of glass.

They added a variety of different ingredients and tried it out, and they really fired a glass that is especially suitable for processing into telescope lenses.

This kind of glass can be machined completely, basically there will be no burrs and no cracks.

This is a big deal. Once the telescope lenses that can only be slowly ground by old craftsmen can be processed by steam machine tools, the production efficiency will increase hundreds of times in an instant.

Originally, the Ministry of Industry gathered a group of experienced old craftsmen, and they could only make a few high-precision telescopes in a day.

Now it only needs a few old craftsmen to start machine tool processing, and it is not a problem to make hundreds of telescopes a day.

Of course, the precision of this kind of telescope cannot be too high, and the viewing distance cannot reach more than five miles.

Although the material of the glass has been improved, the real high-precision telescope can only be made by experienced old craftsmen with the assistance of steam machine tools.

However, such progress is already enough, and there is no problem at all with the sight distance of the telescope lens processed by the steam machine tool reaching about two miles.

Ever since, this scene outside the Gongyuan appeared.

The Ministry of Industry worked day and night to manufacture [-] ordinary binoculars with a viewing distance of about two miles, and specially let the shopkeepers of Western companies sell them outside the Gongyuan.

Naturally, this was also Taichang's idea. He wanted to give these candidates an appetizer through the telescope, so that all candidates could see the amazing achievements of technological progress, and at the same time let these candidates advertise for free.

Ten taels of silver for a telescope is really too cheap.

These days, the telescopes in European countries are not mass-produced, and the processing level is far lower than that of Da Ming.

The telescopes they make cost at least several hundred taels, and you may not be able to buy them if you have money.

When the examinee saw the notice board erected, he immediately became overwhelmed.

They finally understood why the archway for posting the list was built in a huge pit, because with a telescope, they could look at it from the square outside the huge pit.

Of course, the premise is to have a telescope.

Ever since, all the candidates outside the pit with ten taels of silver flocked frantically to the shopkeeper of the Daming Western Company. Even, many people inside the pit rushed up after hearing the news, frantically flocking to this side.

Although Juren is not very rich these days, there are still many people who can spend ten taels of silver.

What's more, some of them were not recruiters at all, and they didn't ask about their identities at all when they saw that the shopkeepers of the Daming Western Firms were frantically joining in, trying to take advantage of the opportunity.

The [-] telescopes housed in exquisite wooden boxes are decreasing at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the candidates who have not squeezed in from outside are almost cursing in a hurry.

Candidates who bought binoculars were different again.

They all feel that they are worth the money with the exquisite and unusual wooden box.

This wooden box is really beautiful. Not only is the surface painted with cloud pattern paint, but the four corners are also covered with copper skin engraved with dragon and phoenix inscriptions, and there is an unusually exquisite copper plate embedded in the middle.

Supervised by the Ministry of Industry of Ming Dynasty, it is a high-precision telescope.

Just these two lines of characters look high-end and elegant!

After opening the exquisite wooden box, the telescope wrapped in fluffy cloth inside is even more exquisite, and the copper lens barrel even has engravings of flowers, birds and animals.

So, how accurate is this telescope?
Many people can't wait to raise their binoculars to look.

Suddenly, there was another burst of exclamation in the whole square.

This telescope is too clear, and the viewing distance is much farther than the telescope made by the barbarians in Europe. From a distance of about two miles, even the strands of hair can be seen clearly!
A telescope can see many things.

In the present Daming, the processing level is really not ordinary high, and the technical level is not ordinary high, and the European barbarians are simply not comparable.

If you take the price of junk from barbarians in Europe, it would not be a problem for the telescope made by Daming to sell for 1000 taels in Europe!
(End of this chapter)