Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 111: Ming Dynasty’s Take-it-and-Use Principle

The next day, Zhu Yunfeng and his friends got up from bed with back pain and washed up.

I was exhausted from moving equipment and installing generators yesterday.

I didn’t feel anything at first, but when I woke up from a sleep, the lactic acid started to set in and my whole body ached unbearably.

In the early morning, a drizzle started at the foot of Shangfeng Mountain. The top of the mountain was shrouded in clouds and mist. The nearby woods and bamboo forests were full of fog, like a ghost wall.

In the mist and rain, Zhu Yunfeng, in his pajamas, held a toothbrush and a cup while opening the side door for Pipi dog to go out.

The weather in Hunan has only summer and winter. Now it is August and it is very hot during the day, but they are in the mountains, three or four hundred meters above sea level, and it is still a bit cold in the morning.

The puppy ran in and out of the house happily, ran to the grass on the side of the warehouse to poop and pee, and after he finished, he barked a few times at the slope on the east side of the warehouse.

There were two barking sounds from the Dongpo Mountain. Pippi Dog wagged his tail excitedly, but instead of going out to play with his friends, he ran back.

Golden Retrievers are better in this regard.

The older you get, the more obedient you become.

Unlike Huskies and Alaskans, they will disappear if you let go.

But as soon as it returned to Zhu Yunfeng, it started barking again in the direction of the cellar.

"Wang Wang Wang!"

Zhu Yunfeng was squatting on the floor near the side door brushing his teeth. When he heard some noise and turned around, he saw Zhu Biao walking out of the utility room excitedly.

Seeing Zhu Yunfeng at the side door, he said with a smile: "Good news."

"What good news?"

Zhu Yunfeng lazily asked: "Have you found a gold mine?"

In ancient times, exploration technology was not well developed, and most of the minerals mined in my country were surface mines.

Many deep mineral deposits have never been discovered.

For example, my country's largest gold mine, the Zijinshan gold and copper mine in Shanghang County, Longyan City, Fujian Province, was not discovered until the 80s.

So Zhu Yunfeng had already obtained some mineral information and gave it to Lao Zhu and his team.

However, in ancient society, due to the limitations of exploration and mining technology, it was not easy to dig it out even if the location was known.

"We have found one, deep in the mountains and forests. There are also many other copper and silver mines."

Zhu Biao smiled, then said: "But that's not what I want to talk about."

"If it's not these, what is it?"

"My father led a large army to raid Wulahai and ran into the troops of the Northern Yuan Emperor Toghon Temur head-on, winning a great victory in the battle."

"Oh?"

Zhu Yunfeng was surprised and said, "This is quite interesting. Emperor to emperor, has the ancestor captured the Northern Yuan emperor?"

"No."

Zhu Biao shook his head and said, "He escaped. However, this battle not only defeated the main force of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, but also captured its prime minister alive. In addition, Wen Ying led a small army to raid the Northern Yuan Dynasty's capital, Helin, and swept the Yuan court."

"This Bei Yuan is too bad."

Zhu Yunfeng spat out the foam in his mouth, rinsed his mouth, put his toothbrush in the cup, and walked towards the toilet on the first floor. He said, "Is this worthy of being the mortal enemy of the Ming Dynasty?"

"Since Wang Baobao's death, the Northern Yuan Dynasty has indeed been on the decline, and there is no chance of winning a war with us."

Zhu Biao followed him, saying as he walked, "It's easier to defeat them than to annihilate them. They come and go freely in the desert. We are defending everywhere, but we are outnumbered everywhere. The cost we have to spend is much greater than theirs."

"That's true."

Zhu Yunfeng washed the toothbrush and put it together with the cup in the toilet on the first floor.

This is what agricultural civilization is like. Since the territory is fixed, it often means that it has to passively accept attacks.

Your opponent is a nomadic civilization with no fixed place to live. Even if you are stronger than them, it will be very difficult to find them in the vast grassland of thousands of kilometers.

Didn’t Zhu Di attack Mobei five times but couldn’t find the main force of the Northern Yuan Dynasty?
Once they hide deep in the grassland, your logistical supplies will not be able to keep up, and naturally you will have no choice but to retreat back into the interior.

As soon as you leave, they will come back.

Therefore, nomadic civilization has been a major threat to agricultural civilization for thousands of years. No matter how powerful agricultural civilization is, it cannot completely eliminate it.

"But don't worry, it wasn't the machine guns that destroyed the nomadic civilization, it was the cars."

Zhu Yunfeng smiled and said, "Machine guns can make the grassland people sing and dance, and cars can make their horses tired to death and unable to run away. With the current industrial capacity, it is definitely unrealistic for you to build cars, but since you have guns, it is not too much to give you some motorcycles."

"A motorcycle? Can you do that?"

"It's a minor problem. Basically, motorcycles can be driven on most roads. Motorcycles were created to handle complex terrains."

"it is good!"

Zhu Biao smiled happily.

Imagine that Zhu Yunfeng bought dozens of motorcycles from a motorcycle shop in a small town at the foot of the mountain, modified them, and added a sidecar, that is, a sidecar motorcycle.

There weren't many people on the bus, just a few dozen machine guns, plenty of gasoline, and it rumbled toward the grassland.

Tens of thousands of Mongols on horseback charged towards them.

Then "Da-da-da!"

A volley of bullets from the Gatling gun emitting blue flames would knock down thousands of soldiers and horses.

What a spectacular scene that would be.

"By the way, now that we have electricity, is it time to tow the bed?"

Zhu Biao said it casually.

"Boss, the landlord has to give the tenants something to eat, otherwise they will starve to death and no one will farm for them."

Zhu Yunfeng complained: "Don't you see how much those lathes weigh? Even if they are disassembled, any random part weighs hundreds of kilograms. It's life-threatening."

Today's generators are as light as machine tools are heavy.

People use forklifts to load and unload goods, although they also have forklifts that can be used to put things on the conveyor belt.

But the cellar was too small to accommodate all the items, so the conveyor belt was installed in the backyard.

A new factory building has been rebuilt in the backyard, which is completely enclosed. The back wall has also been demolished to make it easier to move things to the utility room.

This means they still need to move things from the backyard to the cellar one by one.

This is how we delivered the generator before.

The generator is small.

But those lathes were really too big, so they had made the entrance to the cellar as big as possible so that they could barely be moved down.

Even sliding down with a wooden board is not a problem.

The key is that after delivering it to the Ming Dynasty, for every item you deliver, you have to take away another one.

Otherwise it will block the transmission area.

We can't ask the guards to come in and do it.

By then, Lao Zhu will definitely silence him.

Therefore, delivering large items is quite troublesome, even more troublesome than delivering hundreds of tons of seeds and fertilizers.

Zhu Biao sighed, "If it really doesn't work, we will first drag each one outside the underground palace and let the guards take it away before we get the next one."

“Then this is probably going to be a long-term job.”

"Just take it step by step."

"That's fine."

Zhu Yunfeng said, "I'm going to the kitchen to cook. You go call Lao Si and Ji He to eat first. After dinner, get some wires over and set up the wires. We can get the lathe tomorrow." "Okay."

Zhu Biao had just not had breakfast, so he hurried over to report the good news.

Now Zhu has won a great victory in the northwest, and even the emperor of the enemy country has been defeated. According to his instructions, the next step is to return to the capital and then attack Yunnan.

There is no need to worry as Xu Da is guarding the northeast.

After all, Yunnan is a remote area with lush vegetation and abundant miasma, so it is better to be careful.

So Zhu Biao hoped to develop firearms as soon as possible.

If we have guns, it will be much easier to deal with the Mongols entrenched in Yunnan.

But more haste, less speed.

Zhu Yunfeng could only develop industry for Daming slowly, like an ant moving house.

Including various equipment, he has to set up the factory first, or at least have decent business started, before he has an excuse to buy equipment.

Otherwise, if you don’t even have a factory, why would you buy so much equipment?
After finishing breakfast, Zhu Yunfeng first ran to the small truck in the warehouse next door. Zhu Biao, Zhu Di and Ji He followed him and saw him take a big bag from the truck. There was also a big box in the truck.

"Don't just stand there, move."

Zhu Yunfeng shouted.

"What did you buy?"

"This is high-purity sulfur powder and saltpeter powder. In that box are some chemical vessels. There are wires over there. Drag them all over there."

"Good fellow, Fengzi, you are ready to cause trouble."

Ji He cheered up.

Modern firearms all use the relatively safe lead azide as the bullet primer.

The gun itself does not contain explosives. The firing pin ignites the lead azide in the bullet, causing an explosion, which in turn propels the bullet to fire.

However, the first firearms used in ancient times were black powder, and they could not be fired by loading bullets. They could only be loaded with gunpowder first, and then loaded with bullets, or front-loaded, before they could be fired.

Before the invention of rifling and Minié bullets, the power of this type of firearm was impressive. The matchlock guns of the Ming and Qing dynasties were not only low in power, but also had a great risk of explosion.

Therefore, although gunpowder was used on a large scale during the Ming and Qing dynasties, in military terms, firearms were often used as auxiliary weapons in combat. In real fights, cold weapons were still the main weapon.

If Zhu Yunfeng wanted to increase the combat effectiveness of the Ming army, he could actually make high-purity black gunpowder.

If modern steel pipes were sent to ancient times, with mechanical rifling and lead Minié bullets added, their combat power would basically be enough to sweep the world from the 14th to the 15th century.

But the problem is.

It's not like you're traveling in body or soul to ancient times, but with double portals available, it would be too embarrassing to still be using such backward firearms.

Zhu Yunfeng remembered that in December last year, there was a powerful person in Laomei who used a 3D printer to make a pistol with a silencer and assassinated the CEO of a medical insurance company.

Although there is a serious proliferation of guns in the United States, there are all kinds of materials and there is no need to worry about not being able to buy them. There is no limitation on 3D printing technology and they can be made directly.

But think about the No. 1 male gunner in the Japanese server and the assassin in the American server. You can't fall behind others.

"That is required."

Zhu Yunfeng said with a smile: "Now everything is ready, the factory is also set up, and there is a suitable reason to buy a large amount of raw materials, so why not start working?"

"Isn't this thing a bit too dangerous?"

Ji He went up and brought down two bags of high-purity nitrate powder, and said hesitantly: "Nobel was badly injured for making this thing."

"did you see."

Zhu Yunfeng pointed to the corner of the car and said, "There's a bag of diatomaceous earth over there. You have to take it. Nobel was blown up because he didn't add this. If you add this, it will be fine."

Nobel was injured and his brother was killed in an explosion in 1864, and then he developed nitroglycerin in the autumn of that year.

But in 1866, he discovered that if diatomaceous earth was added, not only would the stability of nitroglycerin be greatly improved, but its power would also be greatly increased. This is the famous yellow safe explosive.

So Lao Nuo suffered a lot of unjust attacks. If he had discovered the function of diatomaceous earth earlier, perhaps his brother would not have died.

"Yoshi."

Ji He spoke in his native dialect and said happily, "With this thing, can we make bombs directly?"

"Why, what do you want to do?"

Zhu Yunfeng glanced at him.

Ji Hele said happily: "Of course we have to let Hiroshima and Nagasaki of the Ming Dynasty also test their power."

"Let's wait until the ironclad ship is built."

Zhu Yunfeng said: "It is still too dangerous to go to Japan by wooden boats now. We should get some diesel engines here later. It is unrealistic for Daming to manufacture diesel engines. We might as well build them ourselves."

"Okay, okay, for this goal I have to go online and look up how to build a boat."

Ji He is full of motivation.

Although it is unrealistic to build modern warships, with the current domestic engine power, it should not be a problem to build a small ironclad ship with a displacement of several hundred tons.

The diesel marine engines on the Internet are tens of thousands of yuan cheap, hundreds of thousands of yuan expensive, although it is certainly difficult to assemble. And the Ming Dynasty does not have the welding and shipbuilding technology, but the lack of it now does not mean that it will not exist in the future.

Zhu Yunfeng plans to achieve ocean-going capabilities in the Ming Dynasty next year. Even if the civilian ships are pieced together from various sources, they would be just junk in modern times, but in the Ming Dynasty, they would be world-leading.

"If you ask me, we still need to lay a solid foundation for education. What the Ming Dynasty lacks most right now is technical talents. The three of you should learn the skills well and help teach."

Zhu Biao carried his things and said as he walked, "It just so happens that I have opened a school in the city. Now I have recruited many scholars who are learning basic math and science knowledge, but not the technical aspects. Ji He, aren't you an electrician? Go and teach them. It just so happens that there is electricity now."

"."

The three brothers Zhu Yunfeng, Zhu Di and Ji He kept silent and walked on their way with their heads down.

"Why aren't you three talking?"

Zhu Biao heard no sound behind him, so he turned around and saw that his third brother pretended not to hear anything. He was so angry that he said, "Don't you understand that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish?"

"That's true, but this kind of thing won't be accomplished in a day or two. Even if we go, it won't speed up the progress much. Besides, don't we know our own abilities? If we go, we'll just be misleading the students."

Seeing that he was angry, Zhu Yunfeng had no choice but to explain: "The Ming Dynasty should first adopt the principle of taking what is available and build a self-sufficient educational foundation."

In fact, they understand that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish.

That’s what Big Brother Maou is like.

If we have the atomic bomb, it means you have it, there is no need to make it yourself.

But the teacher said that it was better to have something by himself than to have it from his parents, so he went against everyone's opinion and built the atomic bomb. The roar of a nuclear explosion shocked the world.

But after all, there was a certain industrial foundation in the teacher era, and there were also a large number of scientific researchers returning to China, so in terms of difficulty it was a process from one to one hundred.

The Ming Dynasty started from scratch. Let alone achieving one hundred, even achieving one is countless times more difficult than going from one to one hundred.

What's more, Zhu Yunfeng, Zhu Di and Ji He are not cut out for scientific research.

It would be good enough if they can watch some video materials and have some basic knowledge of chemical engineering and electrical engineering. Asking them to teach others is really overestimating them.

So there are some things that really can’t be helped.

At least when it comes to education, we can only take it slow.

It will probably take thirty to fifty years, and perhaps only if a large number of science geniuses continue to emerge in the Ming Dynasty.

of course.

With its own mature teaching system and knowledge level, the Ming Dynasty could centralize education.

We should first establish such a special education system, specifically gather students from all walks of life to study basic education such as video materials, clarify the basic knowledge of mathematics, physics and chemistry, and then carry out universal education.

But for now, let’s just adopt the approach of taking what is available.

(End of this chapter)