The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 39 Industrial Base Upgrading Ideas
Zhu Jianxuan thought about it for a while and decided that the plan to establish the Wu Kingdom's court institutions should be put on hold:
"Is it time for Wu to establish a formal court organization?"

The prince said:

"Our Ming Dynasty's pioneering work is completely different from the European colonization of America. Even civilian immigrant groups are subject to the jurisdiction of the imperial court.

“If a vassal state wants to recruit civilian immigrants, it needs a government office to issue them documents and be responsible for maintaining basic social order.

“Officials should regularly visit the colonies of various civilian immigrant groups to ascertain the situation and status of the colonies and provide necessary support and assistance.

"If we want to speed up the development of the domain and quickly increase its population, civilian immigration groups are indispensable.

"As long as we spread the news about the Australian gold mine, we should be able to attract civilian immigrant groups."

Zhu Jianxuan was silent for a few seconds:
"This suddenly feels so troublesome. Can we temporarily keep the news of the gold mine secret and let the Guard Corps develop it on their own?

"The Guard Corps hasn't been formed yet, right? If anyone wants to immigrate, can't they just join the Corps?"

The prince seemed to suddenly think of something:
"Brother Xuan, what you mean is that you don't want to recruit civilian immigrants for the time being, so there is no need to establish a royal court so early?

"But this certainly can't maximize the speed of development. Doesn't Brother Xuan want to build as quickly as possible?"

Zhu Jianxuan shook his head and waved his hands:
“I am not very interested in agriculture, or even in business, my main focus is on industrial construction.

“But gold mines, large coal mines, large steel mills, arsenals capable of making artillery and muskets, I do not want private businessmen to get involved.

"So the civilian immigrant groups, when they arrived in Australia, could only open up wasteland and farm, which was meaningless to me.

“Even if there are civilians who want to form an immigration group to go to Australia, I hope to be directly incorporated into the Guard Corps to open mines and build factories.

"But this is just my personal opinion. If my father insists on setting it up, then I can only listen."

After the prince understood Zhu Jianxuan's intention, he finally understood what was going on.

I suddenly felt a black screen in front of my eyes.

Why am I confused again? Why should I take the initiative to recruit a civilian immigration group?

You're just asking for trouble.

Since my father hasn't mentioned it yet, why should I take the initiative to take on the task?
On the one hand, having more things to do is one thing, but if it makes my father more suspicious, it would be even more uncomfortable.

How come I forgot the direction of keeping a low profile again?

Fortunately, I came to my senses after hearing what my brother said. Since he was not interested, I had a reason to turn this matter down.

The prince paused for a few seconds and then said:
“Indeed, large steel mills, mines and arsenals should not be left to civilian factory districts to operate.

"Since Brother Xuan said so, I will go back and discuss it with Father."

Zhu Jianxuan nodded in agreement and continued to chat with the prince for a while.

When the prince took the initiative to say goodbye, Zhu Jianxuan stood up and personally saw him out.

The Guard Corps belongs to the military power. Even if the emperor wants to cause trouble for the prince, he will not let the prince interfere with the military power.

Therefore, if the State of Wu only formed a guard corps, the dispatch of officers could only be decided by the emperor himself.

This will also temporarily prevent the prince from directly influencing future Wu officials.

At the same time, it should also help the prince get out of his current troubles.

"So, brother, you have to thank me."

Zhu Jianxuan muttered to himself and went back to the office to continue working on his own things.

Zhu Jianxuan began to plan the new stage of industrial base upgrading plan.

According to Zhu Jianxuan's understanding, upgrading the technological level is nothing more than doing two cycles.

Look for new materials with better performance and use them to make processing equipment with higher precision.

Use new processing equipment to manufacture production equipment with higher precision, and then use the new production equipment to refine new materials with better performance. Zhu Jianxuan thinks this cycle can be called an engineering cycle, and each link is an improvement on the real thing.

Another cycle is called the technology cycle by Zhu Jianxuan.

Use new theories to guide new experiments, observe new experiments to obtain new technologies, and summarize new technologies to form newer theories.

Both processes are quite simple.

But in practice, it will not only cost a lot of money, but also consume immeasurable manpower and time.

After overall consideration, Zhu Jianxuan finally chose steel materials as the focus of the next stage.

Prepare to try to develop various typical alloy steels.

For example, stainless steel, spring steel, tool steel, bearing steel, armor steel and so on.

In Zhu Jianxuan's impression, the main effective additives of these special alloy steels are basically non-ferrous metals such as nickel, chromium, manganese, and tungsten.

Different non-ferrous metals and different addition proportions can produce different effects and obtain alloys with different properties.

If you want a certain level of resistance to seawater erosion, try adding a little extra copper.

The key issue is the proportion of these materials and the implementation process.

Zhu Jianxuan can still only give a general direction.

Once the material has been optimized, the new steel can be used to make better machine tools.

Finally, new machine tools and new steel materials will be used to produce artillery and rifles with higher technological levels.

Zhu Jianxuan's main target was the basically mature breech-loading rifled cannon.

The propellant used to load artillery and the charge for shells both need to be produced through the acid and alkali chemical industry.

Therefore, it is necessary to explore large-scale industrial production plans for three acids and two alkalis.

At the same time, continue to improve the efficiency of existing steam engines.

Today's reciprocating steam engine has two cylinders, but after the steam passes through the two cylinders continuously, some energy is still retained.

So another cylinder could be added to form the most mature triple-expansion steam engine in the steam age.

In the history of Zhu Jianxuan's previous life, until before World War I, there were still many warships using triple-expansion steam engines.

It was not until after World War II that diesel engines became fully mature and triple-excitation steam engines were gradually phased out from civilian ships.

In other words, as long as the triple-expansion steam engine continues to be optimized, it can be used for many years.

For the overall efficiency of the steam engine, the efficiency of the boilers that provide steam must also be continuously improved.

Zhu Jianxuan plans to try to design a typical new water tube boiler to improve the utilization rate of boiler heat.

The coal is then ground into powder and blown into the furnace by a blower to further improve the combustion efficiency of the fuel.

Once I have mastered all these technologies, I will be able to produce pure steel structure warships.

With pure steel warships, our navy will be able to march sideways in this era.

It will also be possible to produce Ming Dynasty civilian transport ships of tens of thousands of tons, and the efficiency of cross-sea delivery will be increased by another order of magnitude.

By then, conquering America or Africa will not be impossible.

It is difficult to estimate how long these studies will take, and only some preliminary results will be available before the end of the North American War.

It just so happens that I should be able to find an opportunity to go to the vassal state at that time, and then try to design a pure steel battleship in the vassal state. I don't mention this idea now.

(End of this chapter)