Daming: I, Yang Xian, really govern Yang!

Zhu Biao was not in a hurry to leave, because education reform involves the country, especially the sudden addition of a Ministry of Education, and there are too many details that need to be determined.

For example, the transfer of personnel, the transfer of officials, the division of responsibilities, grades, various systems, etc.

These things need to be worked out initially.

Originally, Zhu Biao should have discussed these matters with Hu Weiyong, the left prime minister of Zhongshu Province, but now it seems that Zhu Biao obviously has no such intention.

Yang Xian has been preparing for education reform for many years. He answered the questions raised by Zhu Biao in every detail, and even gave solutions to many problems that Zhu Biao had not thought of.

Yang Xian said: "For education at the primary school level, it is best for the imperial court to implement compulsory education, which means that schools should not focus on profit."

After all, although the Ming Dynasty has been in a period of rapid economic development in recent years, most people can finally live a subsistence life with enough food and warm clothes.

But if a huge sum of money in education expenses suddenly arises at this time, not every family can afford it.

If only wealthy people can go to school then, it will completely defeat the original intention of this education reform.

According to Yang Xian’s plan, in the primary education stage, children’s tuition fees will be waived if possible.

The best case scenario is that children only need to pay for textbooks and their own stationery.

Zhu Biao simply calculated the cost of a primary school.

Let’s not mention the cost of school construction. From now on, every year, there will be daily maintenance fees for buildings, facilities and equipment, salaries of faculty and staff, office expenses, scholarships for students, etc.

A school would need to pay a conservative 5,000 taels a year.

Assuming that one primary school is built in one county, there are nearly 1500 counties in the Ming Dynasty. This means that the court has to spend 750 million taels of silver every year on education expenditure alone.

This is an astronomical sum of money.

You must know that before the reform of the tax system, the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty was only 1000 million taels.

After the tax reform, Hongwu's tax revenue reached an astonishing 2500 million taels of silver in four years.

Then after another six years of rapid development, coupled with the Shijianshan silver mine in Japan, in the ninth year of Hongwu last year, the Ming Dynasty's annual fiscal revenue had reached its current peak of 4000 million taels.

But with more income, Daming had more places to spend money.

Infrastructure, military firearms and warships, various scientific research in the west, plus the tens of thousands of additional government officials after the reform of subordinate staff last year are also a huge expense.

The imperial court did not have that much extra money.

This 750 million taels of silver does not include the initial cost of building the school.

Once the education expenses start, it is not a matter of one or two years, but a big project that lasts for decades or even hundreds of years.

Even if he gritted his teeth in the past two years and asked the Ministry of Revenue to withhold the money, it still wouldn't work.

Because it's not sustainable.

Yang Xian saw Zhu Biao's embarrassment, shook his head gently, and said with a smile: "You can't spend so much money."

Zhu Biao said with some worry: "I have already made the most conservative estimate. I can't cut the teachers' salary."

"No need."

Yang Xian smiled and said: "As long as a national school operates properly, not to mention turning losses into profits, at least it can be done so that the court does not need to put money into it."

"What's going on?" Upon hearing this, Zhu Biao suddenly became interested and asked repeatedly.

Zhu Biao couldn't think of any other ways in which the school could make money besides opening a school that did not charge students tuition fees.

Yang Xian didn't show off and said, "Purchase sponsorship."

The word "sponsored" first came from Liang Huijiao's "Biography of Eminent Monks, Interpretation 2, Dao'an" of the Southern Dynasties: "Because the White Horse Temple is narrow, a new temple was built, named Tanxi, which is also the residence of Zhang Yin in Qinghe. The wealthy elders, and With additional sponsorship, we can build a five-story tower and build a house worth four hundred.”

In ancient times, in addition to sponsoring monks to build temples and pagodas, local gentry sometimes also provided financial support for private schools.

But it was a private school after all, and it was still different from the schools run by the imperial court today.

New situations will naturally lead to new methods and situations.

Yang Xian then said: "You can use the name of the school teaching building to raise funds locally. The person who donates all the construction costs of the teaching building has the final right to name the building. Of course, the name cannot violate public order and good customs."

"Your Highness, think about it, the local gentry have a lot of money in their hands, and all they want is how to become famous. Now this great opportunity is in front of them, how could they miss it. You know, as long as this elementary school still exists. , then their names will be preserved along with the teaching building and the school for decades or hundreds of years."

Zhu Biao thought for a while, if he really wanted to do what Yang Xian said, not to mention the wealthy gentry, even the nobles would rush to donate.

This can greatly reduce the cost pressure when building a school.

This is just the first step.

Yang Xian said: "The second step is to sell supporting facilities and attract businesses to settle in."

"Although tuition is free, students still need to spend money on daily expenses, ranging from pens, ink, paper and inkstones, various snacks and food, to various books and three meals a day. You have to spend money to buy these."

"Now with the continuous development of Ming Dynasty, people's lives will get better and better, and their spending power will become stronger and stronger. The business of these shops opened in the school will definitely be good. The school can fully cooperate with those willing businessmen Reach a collaboration, let them come in and sell goods, provide the venue for free, and the school will take 30% of the profit, which means you can earn a lot of money just by sitting down."

Zhu Biao's eyes were opened today.

He never imagined that the school could still be run like this.

What Zhu Biao didn't know was that the business of canteens and canteens in schools in later generations was not going to be very good. Slightly larger schools would be beaten to death every time they were put out for bidding.

Of course, these can only make up for some losses. The imperial government's education subsidy will still be a large sum of money every year, but this number will be controlled within an acceptable range.

No matter how poor you are, you cannot lack education.

Xu Miaoyun, who was far away in the capital, silently watched Yang Xian's operations these days with a smile on his lips.

There seemed to be nothing in this world that could stump him.

Spring passes and autumn comes.

time flies.

In the tenth year of Hongwu, in this year, in addition to the reform of subordinate officials and education reform implemented by Yang Xian.

Regarding the imperial court, Lao Zhu also took some actions.

Two points are particularly noteworthy. One is to severely punish eunuchs who discuss politics. In this year, the Ming Dynasty government strengthened the supervision and punishment of eunuchs in discussing politics to prevent eunuchs from monopolizing power.

The second is that the memorial can be sent directly to the emperor. After Li Shanchang was replaced, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the way the memorial was handled this year, so that the memorial could be sent directly to the emperor, which improved the efficiency of decision-making.

The third is the report of the crown prince's decision on political affairs. In this year, the crown prince Zhu Biao officially gave him the power to directly rule on political affairs and began to prime minister's government affairs.

The name is Prince, which is actually equivalent to the executive deputy emperor.

In addition, Ming Dynasty began to launch attacks on surrounding small countries that did not accept currency colonization. Among them, Tubo, which often harassed the southwest border of the Ming Dynasty, was the first one. The Tubo country was not a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, as early as the Tang Dynasty, Tubo had begun to invade the Central Plains.

Tubo is a country with a small territory and relatively small resources. Although the Tubo Dynasty has some resources in Tibet, it is difficult to effectively develop and utilize these resources due to the dangerous terrain and inconvenient transportation.

On the contrary, the Central Plains dynasty had a vast territory and abundant resources.

Therefore, the Tubo Kingdom hopes to attack the Central Plains Dynasty to obtain more resources and land to maintain its own survival and development.

During the Tang Dynasty, almost from beginning to end, it was in a battle with Tubo.

During the period of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, the two sides had a limited-scale conflict, and the Tang army repelled the Tubo army; during the periods of Emperor Gaozong and Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty was on the defensive and preserved the Western Regions; during the period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, the Tubo army was on the defensive. During and after the Anshi Rebellion, Tubo took the opportunity to control the eighteen prefectures of Longyou and four towns in Anxi, and once captured Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty.

This shows that the country of Tubo is at least militarily powerful.

Of course, the Tubo Kingdom in the Ming Dynasty and the Tubo Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty are two different concepts.

Because the Tubo Dynasty was already destroyed in the Yuan Dynasty, but after the Yuan Dynasty was destroyed, the Tubo Xuanwei Division, which was originally included in the Yuan territory, declared independence.

This is how the current Tubo Kingdom came into existence.

Regardless of its territorial area or strength, it is not the same as the original Tubo dynasty.

But such a Tubo country is still dreaming about the past glory of its ancestors.

I just don't know what it means.

The general who led the troops on the expedition was Liang Guogong Lan Yu. Regardless of others, in terms of his ability to fight alone, even if there were many tiger generals in the founding Ming Dynasty, he could still be ranked in the T1 ranking.

Of course, the little Tubo was not a problem, but within half a year, the Tubo royal family was captured alive.

After returning from the country's destruction, Lan Yu became even more arrogant and domineering.

After this battle, Lan Yu looked at the entire Ming Dynasty, and there were probably not many people he could take into consideration.

Even the big brother, Li Wenzhong, who had just destroyed Goryeo, was no longer in Lan Yu's eyes at this time.

This side of the palace.

Although Lao Zhu always said that he was fifty years old, his body was very handsome. This year, Lao Zhu's fifteenth son was born, named Zhu Zhi.

That is, the original time and space, the first King of Liao in the Ming Dynasty.

Here in Yangzhou.

Yangzhou Normal University held it very successfully.

It should be said that Yang Xian's original letter to scholars all over the world was very successful.

There are many ambitious young people enrolling in the school, and there are also many talented people. Many of them are not the kind of desperate scholars who have no choice. They have given up their original bright future.

There are many people who have resigned from government service and are engaged in the education industry.

Looking at these energetic young people, Yang Xian will feel that there is hope for Ming Dynasty and that there is hope for his merit points.

This year.

Another event happened that was worthy of being recorded in the annals of history.

That was the Ming Dynasty Military Factory, where the breech-loading gun was finally successfully developed.

The previous difficulty in developing breech-loading guns was mainly air tightness.

If the existing firearms are changed to rear-loading type, the air leakage will be severe and the bullets will not be able to shoot far at all, only twenty or thirty steps at most.

This problem can be solved if the power of gunpowder is increased, but this can easily cause the chamber to explode.

If this problem cannot be solved, no matter how many advantages a breech-loading gun has, this one alone will be a death sentence.

With the development of steelmaking technology, a series of industrial revolution products such as lathes emerged.

The military factory finally produced seamless steel pipes, and with the seamless steel pipes used to make gun barrels, Yang Xian directly upgraded the original gunpowder.

The reason why there was no continuous increase in the power of gunpowder was because when the iron quality of artillery and muskets was not good enough, doing so rashly would only cause the firearm to explode, rather than increase the power of the firearm.

The alternative to black powder at this stage is smokeless gunpowder.

Making smokeless gunpowder is not complicated.

First, you need to make nitrocellulose, soak cotton linters in a mixture of sulfuric acid and nitric acid, then take out the cotton, wash it and dry it, and you will get nitrocellulose.

Then use sulfuric acid and alcohol distillation to prepare ether, use a mixture of ether and alcohol to dissolve nitrocellulose, and then add light agent graphite and passivation agent camphor as stabilizers to make a solid. The solid is tableted and divided into particles to produce It is a smokeless gunpowder that is two to three times more powerful than black gunpowder.

Now that a breech-loading gun has been successfully developed, the metal-cased bullets paired with it are naturally indispensable. .

The material used for the bullet casing remains the same as before, and is made of copper.

A metal-cased bullet consists of a primer (detonator), propellant, cartridge case, and warhead.

In terms of warheads, pointed long gun warheads are not difficult to make.

Not to mention that there are now industrial lathes and various other tools. Even if it is purely handmade, it will not be a problem with the craftsmanship of the Ming craftsmen. However, it will not be mass-produced.

All bullets produced by the military factory are copper-skinned lead-core bullets, and the processing dimensions are strictly in accordance with Yang Xian's requirements. Although the production capacity is smaller than the previous paper-cased bullets, the craftsmanship is absolutely not picky.

As for the cylindrical cartridge case, the wire drawing process is used to directly produce the copper tube, and then it is cut into sections.

In terms of propellant, that is, gunpowder and smokeless gunpowder, Yang Xian has already solved it for them.

The only difficulty is the primer (detonator), which is mercury fulminate.

Mercury fulminate is the earliest detonating explosive and is highly sensitive to flame, needle puncture and impact. For more than 100 years since its invention, it has been an important component of detonator charges and percussion caps.

However, mercury fulminate has relatively poor stabilizing properties and is highly toxic. Percussion charges containing mercury fulminate are prone to corrosion of the barrel and cartridge. In later generations, it has been replaced by another safer lead azide.

But now, let alone lead azide, even the invention of mercury fulminate is full of difficulties.

You must know the original time and space, and the detonator was an invention at the cost of life.

Now even though Yang Xian has provided a complete process for mercury fulminate, due to the poor stability of this gunpowder, accidents still occurred during the research and development process.

Two gunpowder experts accidentally caused an explosion during debugging.

One person was slightly injured and the other was seriously injured and disabled. (End of chapter)