Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 145: Go East! Go East! Go East!

The fifteenth year of Hongwu was a year in which the Ming Dynasty entered a period of rapid development.

In February, Zhu Yunfeng obtained some production equipment from modern times, and Daming began to officially mass-produce penicillin.

Nowadays, a large number of "Barefoot Doctor Manuals" have been printed and distributed to doctors in various places.

But under current conditions, the best way to prevent smallpox is with cowpox, and even this is not yet popularized and only a very small number of people can use it.

Apart from that, common illnesses are still treated the same old way. Without antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, a cold can be fatal.

The only useful thing is that the "Barefoot Doctor's Manual" covers a wide range of knowledge such as anatomy, physiology, chemistry, plague transmission, and also traditional Chinese medicine theory.

Since many ancient Chinese medicine classics have not been lost, our understanding of modern Chinese medicine can also deepen our understanding of ancient Chinese medicine and thus achieve the prevention and treatment of diseases.

Things like bacteria and viruses enabled ancient Chinese medicine practitioners to have a concrete concept of human illness, thus allowing them to conduct more thorough research on pathology.

There are also surgeries such as appendicitis surgery. Ancient Chinese medicine had surgical operations, but the mortality rate of surgical operations was not low. Nowadays, everyone knows what a sterile environment is and why antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs are needed.

However, without a sterile environment and antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs, the doctors who received the "Barefoot Doctor Manual" could only use boiling water for disinfection and perform the operation directly.

Although this also causes a lot of problems, it is much better than before when we were helpless when faced with appendicitis.

Now that penicillin has been produced, it can greatly alleviate various inflammatory diseases.

The most important thing is to reduce infant and female mortality rates.

In ancient times, when women gave birth, the mortality rate for both adults and children was very high.

Even a royal family like Zhu Yuanzhang, who had adequate medical services, could not fully guarantee that every fetus would grow up healthily.

Therefore, the emergence of penicillin will greatly reduce the bacterial infections that women encounter during childbirth.

of course.

Currently, only the powerful and wealthy can use it.

Firstly, the Ming Dynasty was unable to produce syringes at the moment. Penicillin requires syringes for injections or skin tests, so this thing was indispensable. The limited syringes were all obtained by Zhu Yunfeng from modern times.

Secondly, we have just started doing this, the output is low, and it has not yet been scaled up. Even if it is mass-produced, it is only mass-produced in a chemical factory, and there is no way to say how high the output is.

Therefore, due to various reasons, penicillin is still not popular.

It will take until Zhu Yunfeng gets more equipment, Daming builds more penicillin-producing factories, and Daming is able to make syringes before it can be widely introduced to the public.

But it won't take long.

Because Ming Dynasty certainly cannot make syringes made of high molecular weight polypropylene material, but glass syringes will definitely be no problem.

When I was a kid, barefoot doctors in rural areas all used this.

There was no other way at that time. Our family was poor and we could only use a glass syringe with boiling water to disinfect it and reuse it repeatedly.

The Ming Dynasty was not rich at the moment, so naturally it started out by relying on glass syringes.

Glass is relatively easy to make. Zhu Yunfeng had already mastered the transparent glass manufacturing technology, and Daming was already manufacturing it.

By next year, we will have a stable supply of penicillin and glass syringes, and they will gradually become popular among the public.

In addition to the mass production of penicillin, other scientific and technological developments and industrialization were also proceeding in an orderly manner.

Crown Prince Zhu Biao established the Nanjing Industrial Park in the southeast of Jinling City, at the site of the former imperial farm. Except for some troops left behind, the arsenal was moved to the foot of Zhongshan Mountain in the eastern suburbs.

This place was probably the area around Linggu Temple in Nanjing in later generations. At this time, it was a deserted place with few people.

The industrial park has set up steel mills, power plants, mints, chemical plants, cement plants, manufacturing plants and some research and development and manufacturing institutions to build the steam locomotives currently needed for trains.

Developing and researching steam locomotives is one of the Ming Dynasty’s main tasks now.

As for opening a factory with a steam engine, there is no need for that.

Because electric power is much more efficient than steam power, and the technology we have learned from modern times is very mature, there is no need to start from scratch.

In addition, steelmaking is done in electric arc furnaces instead of traditional converters, and the steelmaking efficiency is also high. There is really no need to use old-fashioned steam engines for textile, smelting, processing and other work.

For textiles, there are electric spinning machines, electric knitting machines, electric printing and dyeing machines, and electric dyeing machines, which can be purchased directly from Hyundai.

Blast furnaces and electric arc furnaces are used for smelting. Zhu Yunfeng purchased some blast furnace dust collectors, blast furnace blowers, blast furnace hot blast furnaces and other equipment, all of which are electrical products and have nothing to do with steam engines.

Not to mention processing.

Therefore, the technology of the Ming Dynasty is currently making great strides. Except for steam engines that power trains, all other power sources are electric.

In March, Zhu Biao ordered the establishment of new-style education schools in Suzhou, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Nanchang and other places to teach mathematics, physics and chemistry and promote the scientific outlook on development.

In the field of educational publishing, he purchased a large number of typewriters and copiers from Hyundai, and asked some scholars to compile Ming's own textbooks based on modern primary and secondary school textbooks, which were promoted in several major cities in the south.

It’s not that the Ming Dynasty didn’t have the ability to promote it nationwide.

In fact, the grain output in the past two years has been too abundant, and the grain price has fallen sharply. The imperial court has purchased large quantities of grain at low prices, and the Ming Dynasty has a lot of grain storage.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty already had the ability to produce its own silver coins. With money and food, it could do a lot of things.

But considering the current educational situation in the Ming Dynasty, more than 95% of the people in the country do not even know how to read. Even if students are recruited, they have to start by learning to read. Naturally, there is no possibility of promoting it nationwide.

Zhejiang and Jiangxi have been gathering places for scholars since the Song Dynasty. They were also the main birthplaces of gentry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The literacy rate was very high, at least over 20% among the people.

Therefore, if we promote it here first, the effect will be much better.

When more people read in the future, we can launch a literacy campaign without stopping to improve the literacy rate, so as to significantly improve the national education level.

As for how to attract scholars to receive modern education, it is also simple. Just include this rigid requirement in the imperial examination.

Zhu Biao studied the reforms of many modern countries, including Japan's Meiji Restoration, the Qing Dynasty's Westernization Movement, and the Western Revolution, etc. His greatest understanding of them was the conceptual understanding.

We must first change the concepts of the people before we can change people’s minds and thus influence the progress of the times.

In the traditional concept of the ancients, reading can indeed change one's destiny.

But what they read was not mathematics, physics and chemistry, but the traditional Confucian Four Books and Five Classics, namely, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Book of History, Book of Rites, Book of Changes, and Spring and Autumn Annals.

Zhu Biao himself read these.

It was for this reason that Zhu Biao realized that this was not going to work and that changes had to be made.

By adding mathematics, physics and chemistry to the imperial examination system, people would realize that only by studying these subjects could they become officials and succeed in life, so naturally a lot of people would study them.

It is not enough to simply treat Confucianism in a one-size-fits-all manner.

There are few scholars nowadays. If we adopt a one-size-fits-all approach, the old knowledge system will collapse before the new knowledge system is established, which will deal a heavy blow to the education in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, Zhu Biao planned to take it step by step, without suppressing traditional knowledge, but adopting a parallel system to solve the education problem.

In April, sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn and other crops were also promoted in large quantities in the north. Zhu Biao recruited people in the south, and the court was willing to pay for travel expenses and a year's worth of food to send landless people in the south to the north to open up land.

The first three years of farming are tax-free, the tax is halved from three to five years, and in the fifth year the land belongs to the cultivator.

In the past, such conditions would definitely attract many people.

However, with the current surge in grain production, many people in the south have gradually reduced their land cultivation.

For example, the original cultivated land area was 20 mu, but now it was changed to 15 mu, and the labor force went out to work, or was summoned by the court to participate in national engineering construction, or changed rice into mulberry trees to switch to cash crops.

This is a sequelae of the huge increase in grain production.

There is too much grain at home, and the price is too low, so we can’t sell it at any price. The income from working outside or participating in construction is significantly higher than that from farming.

In this case, for a household of five, the best option is to reduce farming and send one or two people to work outside.

If it weren't for the deep-rooted traditional Chinese thinking that no matter how wealthy a family's land is, it cannot be abandoned, I'm afraid that large-scale abandonment of farmland would have already occurred.

Therefore, Zhu Biao's policy enthusiasm was actually not very high.

However, even so, it still attracted some people to go to Henan, Hebei and other places to open up farmland.

After all, the population in the early Ming Dynasty was mainly concentrated in the south, and there were few plains in the south, and there were many landless tenants working for landlords, so the court's decrees were also very attractive to them.

In the first half of the year, Zhu Biao implemented a large number of new policies.

For example, abolishing the slave system.

There was no slavery in the Ming Dynasty. As early as the fifth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang cracked down on slavery and did not allow any slaves to exist.

Therefore, servants in the Ming Dynasty could only recognize their masters and mistresses as their parents and did not dare to call themselves slaves or maids.

However, the system of slavery did exist, such as for musicians, beggars, boat people, etc.

Zhu Biao abolished the slave registration system and reorganized the household registration of the people of the Ming Dynasty, dividing them into only two categories: one was the agricultural population and the other was the non-agricultural population.

Including the royal family, officials, and businessmen, as long as they are not engaged in agricultural production, they are non-agricultural population.

At the same time, the population will be re-registered and household registration policies will be formulated.

Zhu Biao purchased a large number of Polaroid cameras, sealing machines and small printers from Hyundai, and asked the Ministry of Household Affairs staff to go to counties across the country to produce identity cards.

The first batch of identity cards in the Ming Dynasty were paper documents.

First, register the household registration information by hand, then scan it with a printer, print it out, take a photo, stick it on the ID card, and then use a sealing machine to laminate it. It becomes a document that is twice as large as the second-generation ID card in later generations.

It’s actually not difficult to make.

Because of modern technology, these cameras, sealing machines and printers are very small and can be carried in one hand. They all use batteries, so just bring some extra batteries.

The key is that registration is cumbersome and the population is small and scattered.

But no matter how troublesome it is, we have to do it.

Under the auspices of the Ministry of Household Registration, the primary task of county and state government offices across the country this year is to carry out household registration.

In addition to these, Zhu Biao also encouraged childbirth, developed commerce, cracked down on landlords, did not allow any slavery and tenant behavior, and all signed indentures were invalidated and replaced with employment and co-tenancy.

He also reformed the law and issued dozens of laws, including the Criminal Law, Civil Law, Labor Law, and Economic Law.

These laws were naturally not copied directly, but modern laws were moved over and then studied and discussed by the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of Justice, which then carried out reforms to modernize them and bring them into line with current national conditions.

After two years of research and development, relevant laws and regulations were introduced one after another, allowing county governments to have laws to follow and traces to follow when dealing with various issues.

With this multi-pronged approach, a large number of tenants were liberated from the landlord class, the labor force quickly became abundant, and more land could be reclaimed, more national projects could be carried out, and rapid modernization could be achieved.

By the second half of the year, Zhu Biao attracted 5,000 households from Hebei, Yanyun and other places with favorable conditions, and moved them to the Northeast to settle down and establish a large number of logging factories.

He even brought more than 10,000 electric saws and several small-power hydroelectric generators to Shenyang to encourage the people to reclaim wasteland in the Northeast.

The reason for this is that the first railway plan was formulated in the second half of the Ming Dynasty.

From Shenyang to Beijing and then to Nanjing.

With modern technology, steam engines are actually not a technical problem at all, and railway construction is not a problem at all.

If Zhu Biao wanted to take action, he could have started building the railway last year.

But it was delayed until this year due to considerations of railway route planning, station construction, radio station establishment and some minor details.

After all, they only have the technology but no relevant railway construction workers, so they naturally need to be cautious.

However, laying railway tracks itself is not a technical job, all you need to do is to control the distance between the tracks. Therefore, after making sufficient preparations, Zhu Biao officially started the railway construction in the second half of the year.

In September of the 15th year of Hongwu, Zhu Biao returned from Shenyang.

It was late autumn, but the temperature in the south was still hot and the sun was shining brightly. One day, at the bank of the Caoxie Gorge River in the northwest of Jinling, at the Nanjing Shipyard, a piece of good news reached the palace.

The ironclad ship was built.

Upon hearing the news, Zhu Biao immediately rushed to modern times and called Zhu Yunfeng, Ji He and Zhu Di, who were playing games at home, to come over and watch together.

The group hurried to Nanjing Shipyard and, under the leadership of the supervisor, came to the inner lake on the river bank.

This is an artificially excavated lake connected to the Yangtze River outside. It is usually used to test the construction of new ships.

At this moment, there is a tall ironclad ship more than 40 meters long and 10 meters wide parked on the lake.

Its overall appearance is ferocious and it is made of welded steel plates. It does not have anti-aircraft guns like the navy of later generations. Its attack method is mainly to place cannons at the muzzles of the cabins on both sides.

The engine is a cargo ship engine that Ji He bought online, and it runs on diesel. Zhu Yunfeng can get diesel refining equipment, but my country does not produce oil, so a large amount of diesel from Hyundai must be stored in the cabin in order to sail long distances.

But even with its many shortcomings, this was the Ming Dynasty's first ironclad ship.

Zhu Biao, Zhu Di, Zhu Yunfeng, and Ji He looked up at the tall warship. Ji He suddenly said, "Do you know where Caoxie Gorge is?"

The three of them actually knew it because they had been there when they went to modern Nanjing, but Zhu Biao pretended not to know and asked, "What place is it?"

"It was the site of the Caoxie Gorge Massacre, where the Japanese killed 5.7 Chinese people."

Ji He said.

"Then let the Ming warships depart from here and sail to the East China Sea!"

Zhu Di said calmly.

It's time to move east.

It is time for Japan to repay the debt it owes to the Ming Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)