Emperor Ming Dynasty

Chapter 923 Steel
"Your Majesty, the reason why the Beijing camp in Annan was victorious is that although King Qin and General Zhu's mansion commanded the merits, we, the Secretary of Arms, also contributed a lot."

At this time, Lang Zhong, the Secretary of the Arsenal of the Ministry of War, led the way, while pleading for credit for himself.

The entire Ministry of War has five departments: military selection, staff, vehicles, arsenal, and ordnance.

Arsenals are similar to ordnance, but they are very different.

The Ordnance Department is responsible for the research and production of ordnance, while the Arsenal Department is responsible for storing and replacing ordnance, and is also responsible for the procurement of daily equipment such as robes, tents, and saddles in the army.

Naturally, this also includes military rations.

With the development of the commodity economy, textile supplies in the military, such as tents and uniforms, must be purchased from outside, even the processing of military rations is the same.

Today, a large amount of military rations are stored in the entire warehouse.

This does not refer to ordinary rice or wheat, but processed military rations that can quickly supplement nutritional consumption.

During the shogunate period, military rations were rice with bean dregs, salt, shredded pork and other things added, mixed together and fried for easy transportation.

Add some water, boil it and it will be a pot of mush, with salt and meat, it can be said to be rich in nutrition.

Because it is fried, it can even be eaten directly in an emergency, saving the trouble of setting up a pot and starting a stove.

"Today, we add sugar to fried rice, which not only tastes better, but also quickly restores soldiers' physical strength."

The doctor said proudly: "It only takes a handful of rice mixed with water to feed a soldier."

"good."

The emperor nodded appreciatively.

Because fried rice is cooked food, its shelf life can reach two months in winter, but it will stink in ten days at most in summer.

Of course, under normal circumstances, a war would be over in a month or two at most. Fried rice is very good, and it can be processed in the rear.

Therefore, in the warehouse, there are densely packed meat, beans, sugar, salt and other materials, and there are other storage places for rice.

"His Royal Highness King Qin said that although Annan's fried rice is good, it will not last long. However, he greatly appreciated our long stick buns."

The so-called baguettes are French baguettes granted by the emperor, long bread baked out.

This kind of bread is highly praised in the West.

Hard ones can be used as weapons.

Shelf life is also long, can reach about two weeks.

Perfect as a military ration.

Hearing such words, the emperor nodded slightly.

Compared with the previous dynasty, the logistics support of the Ming army is really excellent.

Take fried rice as an example, carrying twenty catties of fried rice can enable a soldier to fight for half a month.

Logistics transportation efficiency has also been greatly improved.

The scope of the battle has also doubled.

Of course, what the emperor remembers is naturally canned food.

He came here this time because of the canned food.

"Make a box of iron sheet, then seal it with military rations, then block the cork, and then boil it in boiling water for half an hour..."

Zhu Yixi thought about his experience and began to direct.

The production of cans is very simple, that is, to make a tin box in the shape of a wine bottle, then pour fried rice into it, and block it with a cork.

Cook for half an hour, and the air inside will be exhausted, which is high-temperature sterilization.

Finally, seal the cork with wax to prevent air and bacteria from entering, so that the shelf life of the military rations can be extended.

This is Napoleonic canned food.

However, people used glass at first, and later it became a horseshoe-shaped military ration can.

Obviously, wine bottle-shaped cans are the most suitable for today's situation.

Who would dare to disobey the emperor's order?

The iron factory immediately made molds, poured molten iron, cooled it, and then mass-produced cans.

Zhu Yixi looked at it seriously, and weighed it with his hands.

There are three types of cans.

One volume is one catty, four inches high, four inches high, and two inches wide, just like a dictionary.

Medium is five catties, about the size of a satchel.

The largest one is the size of a drawer in later generations and holds ten catties.

They are all neat cubes, easy to stack and not easy to occupy space.

However, cost is its biggest constraint.

Even the smallest tin can weighs one catty, and the largest weighs almost ten catties, which is as heavy as military rations.

In other words, if you transport ten catties of military rations, you have to transport ten catties of tin cans, which is too stressful in the later stage.

But the benefits are obvious.

Resistant to storage.

long-term storage.

Of course, even with the explosion of iron production, pig iron costs ten cents per catty, which is much higher than the cost of cloth bags.

Zhu Yixi's brows were filled with joy as he watched a series of procedures, and he said in a deep voice, "Take these back, I want to see how long he can preserve them."

"Yes!"

No one dared to delay, and three carriages were fully loaded before the group returned to the capital.

The emperor was thinking about this group of military rations.

In ten days, he asked people to open several cans of the three kinds of food, all of which could be eaten.

After fifteen days, you can still eat.

20 days, still can eat.

One month later, the emperor's interest remained undiminished and he was still experimenting.

Still edible.

Apparently, canning worked.

"With this batch of canned food, most of the pressure on the grassland has been relieved in vain."

The emperor smiled: "Shunzhi, do you think you can live at ease after escaping to Lake Baikal?"

"Just wait, there will be a few years of blessings to enjoy."

For more than ten years, Zhu Yixi has never forgotten Man Qing.

Although the imperial court never sent troops, at most they sent troops to Mobei, but no one knew how obsessed the emperor was with the destruction of the Qing Dynasty.

The biggest reason for not sending troops was the distance.

It is nearly two thousand miles from Lake Baikal to Beijing.

If you are walking on the grassland, without a map to navigate, you can even go three thousand miles by twisting and turning.

In other words, there is at least a month's journey.

As for fried rice, it can last for ten days at most, and if you go deep into the grassland, you will be lured and attacked.

Before he was sure, Zhu Yixi never dared to take risks.

After all, when there was no accession to the throne, there was no choice to take risks, but now that there is a pinch in hand, there is no need to take risks.

Reading through the history, it is absolutely necessary for the grassland people to go south, the Han people lead the way. For example, those who destroyed the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty were basically Han people.

The counterattack of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Li Jing's destruction of the Turks, seemed very enjoyable, but in fact it was led by a traitor.

In a certain situation, the vast grassland is difficult to move without a leading party.

It can even be said with certainty that the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang did not perish Beiyuan was because of the lack of grassland leading parties.

There is no way, the grassland is still under the rule of Beiyuan at this time, and it still maintains a whole.

Zhu Di's Northern Expedition failed repeatedly, which is the best proof.

But now, with canned food, the army can march for a long time without fear of food shortages, and the danger on the grassland is reduced by half.

At this time, even if you get lost, you don't panic if you have the can in hand.

It was the right time to attack the Manchus.

A plan was made in his heart, but after being the emperor for so many years, Zhu Yixi naturally lost his impulse, so he must think twice.

As Zeng Yingzhi reported, the 20-strong army of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was difficult to restrain unless it was a [-]-strong Beijing battalion. We must be more careful, otherwise it will be another civil war.

"With the canned food, what is lacking now is an opportunity—"

Whispering, Zhu Yixi let go of her impulse.

He can wait.

It's even okay to wait a few more years, just to allow the prince to join the army and accumulate some prestige.

Today's prince is immature but inappropriate.

Thinking of this, Zhu Yixi couldn't help sighing: "I still love my son!"

Of course, with too many sons, it is inevitable that we can only pick the key points to take care of, and the prince must be the key point.

With care in mind, Zhu Yixi left without the comfort of the past, and began to patrol around.

If the Northern Expedition, then the most important thing is the war horse.

But now in the Monan area, there are vast horse grazing lands for anyone to choose from, and even the Ministry of War does not have a permanent horse farm.

"In the Beijing camp and the frontier army, there are about [-] batches of war horses. Among them, the Beijing camp has about [-] horses, and there are about [-] rough horses..."

"The Military Maintenance Department of the Beijing Battalion only set up a horse training ground at the foot of the West Mountain. About ten thousand war horses are being trained. Basically, all of them come from Suiyuan and Chahar horses. After half a year of training, they will be sent to Beijing. Battalion and Frontier Army..."

In other words, the vast Monan area has become the source of war horses for the imperial court, and there is no need to intentionally raise them, just buy them.

In this way, the cost of the imperial court was greatly saved, and there was no need for turning cultivated land into pastures, encouraging horses, etc.

Although herdsmen don't like raising horses, they are more willing to raise cattle, but the price of horses is better, and they are also tax-free, so the number of war horses naturally doubles.

"Nowadays, in the market, rich and wealthy families always have horses and carts. I don't know anything else, but people always have horses and carts."

Yangle has a wide range of news, and he is smiling at this time.

"What is the market price of a war horse?" the emperor asked casually.

"To let the Lord know that this ordinary horse is worth three and fifty yuan silver dollars." Yang Le said softly, "It's worth two cows."

"A good war horse costs a hundred dollars."

"good."

The emperor nodded in satisfaction, feeling more and more happy.

Only when there is a market will the herdsmen have the motivation to raise horses. Otherwise, in Monan, where the war has disappeared, who would want to raise delicate and expensive horses?
"Go, go to Zunhua and have a look."

Zhu Yixi ordered casually.

Soon, a group of people boarded the rail carriage.

As early as last year, the imperial court built the railway track from Beijing to Zunhua, and now it is still going north to prepare for Shanhaiguan.

The reason why we made a detour to Zunhua is because of its status.

Zunhua, which is also near Tangshan, was not only the center of iron smelting in later generations, but also the largest iron smelting place in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

There is no way, the conditions are unique, and it is the closest to the capital, so it naturally attracts the attention of the court.

Therefore, the railway tracks built are mainly for the transportation of iron materials, and not many people walk.

It took only three hours for the emperor and his party to arrive at Beijing Zunhua, which is three hundred miles apart.

In other words, the speed of the rail carriage has reached fifty miles per hour.

It seems that the speed is very high, but an ordinary carriage can travel thirty miles an hour on the official road, and fifty miles is really not fast, just like the speed of electric cars of later generations.

However, it is justifiable for safety reasons.

When we arrived in Zunhua, the sky seemed to have changed color. Blast furnace chimneys pierced into the sky, emitting black smoke, which seemed to blacken the clouds and make the sun lose its brilliance.

It's fun to say that there is only one government-run iron factory in Zunhua, and the output is not high. Ninety-nine percent of the iron is produced by private iron factories.

The people in the Ministry of War are not stupid.

The government-run iron yards are expensive and the quality is uneven. It is better to buy cheap and good iron from the private sector.

The phenomenon of democrats advancing and officials retreating is very common.

Even official kilns serve the inner court and never sell them.

In addition to the iron factory, porcelain factory, silk and satin factory, etc., the same is true. The people advance and the officials retreat, and the imperial court is just a procurement supervision.

Not to mention, such as wine making, tea, etc., the Ming Dynasty has not intervened for 300 years.

This is the benefit to the people enacted in the early Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, compared with the Song Dynasty, the wine, tea, vinegar, etc. in the Ming Dynasty have always been very cheap, and ordinary people can afford it.

Zhu Yixi didn't have the mind to re-implement the official operation.

Just think about those state-owned enterprises. They can't stop in the 21st century, let alone now?
However, although there are very few state-owned and government-run iron factories, there are tax-collecting yamen. It is really convenient to collect money directly from the furnace.

The head of the Commercial and Taxation Department in Zunhua hastily came up to say hello.

Hearing the emperor's inquiry, he carefully said: "Your Majesty, the size of the iron yard in Zunhua is 130 nine middle schools, and half of them are opened by the nobles of Chaozhong."

"The tax is generally collected according to the blast furnace. Only one furnace can be smelted a day, which is about three thousand catties, so three silver coins are collected."

"There are 670 blast furnaces in Zunhua, which can earn 6 silver dollars per month."

"That is to say, one penny per catty of iron?"

The emperor made a calculation in his mind, which surprised everyone.

They did not expect that the emperor could do mental arithmetic.

"It's not that high. The price of a catty of pig iron on the market ranges from five to ten yuan."

Zhu Yixi actually calculated that it produced 6000 million catties a month, or [-] tons.

In future generations, this is what any steel factory can produce, but today, it is an extremely exaggerated figure.

He once read a historical material that the annual output of Fujian Province is only [-] tons, but Zunhua achieved it in a month.

Blast furnace coal ironmaking is really not to be underestimated.

Now that blast furnaces are popular all over the world, I am afraid that the pig iron production of the entire Ming Dynasty must be increased by at least five or six times!

"Your Majesty is wise." The chief complimented: "It is precisely because of the low tax that the common people can afford iron. Now a hoe in the market is only fifteen yuan.
According to the old man, in the Ming Dynasty, a hoe cost at least [-] or [-] renminbi, but in this prosperous age, it has never been seen in the past. "

"Don't you accept wrought iron?" The emperor waved his hand, he heard too much flattery.

"The ministers are waiting in Zunhua, but there are only a dozen or so people, and there are so many iron yards, it is really too much to take care of them, so they are all collected with pig iron..."

"Ok!"

The emperor was noncommittal.

"Do you know the general purpose of pig iron?"

"Many are for repairing railway tracks, others are for making agricultural tools, such as plows and hoes, and the rest are for building armor for the court."

Sure enough, the construction of railway tracks promoted the soaring of iron production.

The market determines output.

(End of this chapter)