Bringing the Railway to Daming

This visit of the Goryeo delegation was naturally a huge event for Goryeo, but for the Ming Dynasty, it was just a relatively ordinary event.

The Ming Dynasty's current military focus is still in the Western Regions, and its business focus is in Southeast Asia. As for the progress of affairs in Korea and Japan, it is just proceeding according to plan.

The Goryeo delegation was received by people from the Ministry of Rites, and Goryeo's request for submission was also controlled by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Cabinet and the Ministry of Rites, and had nothing to do with Liu Kuan, the director of the Tiangong Academy.

Although he held the title of Minister of Rites, he was in charge of educational reform and was not involved in diplomatic affairs.

In the past year, in addition to presiding over a series of work in the Tiangong Academy, he mainly assisted the Ministry of Rites to continue educational reform, and assisted the Publishing Bureau of the Propaganda Department of the Tongzheng Academy to pilot the "Publishing Law", and finally continued to improve the "Ming Dynasty Patent Law".

In order to come up with this patent law with the characteristics of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Kuan, together with some relevant officials from the Tiangong Academy, collaborated with some officials from the Dali Temple and the Ministry of Justice for three years. Now, the "Patent Law of the Ming Dynasty" is finally about to be released.

Fengxian Hall.

Zhu Yuanzhang patted the hardcover copy of the Ming Dynasty Patent Law beside him and said with a smile, "This is arguably the most detailed, comprehensive, and rigorously worded law I've ever seen."

"In my opinion, we can officially implement this patent law next year to encourage the people of our Ming Dynasty to invent more."

Although Liu Kuan was confident in this law, he was relieved to see that Zhu Yuanzhang was satisfied and praised him.

He then said, "Your Majesty, in order to ensure the implementation of the patent law, a patent office must be established."

Zhu Yuanzhang asked with a smile, "Since you mentioned this, I believe you have also considered the matter of the Patent Office?"

Liu Kuan said: "In addition to ensuring the implementation of the Patent Law, the Patent Office will also shoulder the important task of continuously optimizing relevant legal provisions based on actual conditions."

"To implement the patent law, we must have a group of officials who have a sufficient understanding of technology, inventions, and creations. Tiangong Academy has trained a number of such officials in the past few years, but they are not many."

"Therefore, I believe that the Patent Office's branches should be located at most in the provincial capitals."

Zhu Biao, who was also in the hall, couldn't help but remark upon hearing this: "Isn't it too little to have only one patent office per province? In provinces as large as Huguang and Sichuan, it would be quite difficult for people living in remote areas to reach the provincial capital."

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "Your Highness, it's nothing for ordinary people to have difficulty applying for patents. This is actually a threshold. It means that after someone has made an invention, they must be confident enough to believe that their invention is useful to the country and the people and can make money before applying for a patent."

"Otherwise, with so many people in the Ming Dynasty, if anyone came up with something new and applied for a patent, how many officials would be needed to get the job done?"

"The most important thing is that many of these patents are bound to be useless, or even not patents at all. If the threshold is too low, it will greatly increase the relevant administrative budget, and even make people ignore truly useful patents."

Zhu Biao suddenly understood.

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded and said, "Liu Kuan is right—it's like disaster relief. We give relief food to the people to help them survive and get through the hard times, so we can't give them too much."

"If we give them too much, they will become dependent and won't want to go back to farming even after the disaster is over. Instead, they will become a bunch of lazy people, which is not good for the court or the people."

Liu Kuan added, "In fact, I have set up another threshold for ordinary people to apply for patents. That is, they need to pay a certain fee, and the Patent Office will review, register and protect their patent rights."

"In addition, once the patent is approved and generates profits, the imperial court will also take a small portion of the patent fees to cover various expenses for protecting its patent rights."

"That's the way to go!" Zhu Yuanzhang was even happier. "In this way, the introduction of this Patent Law will become a policy that truly strengthens the country and enriches the people!"

Liu Kuan said, "But if that's the case, the Patent Office will not only need officials who can review patents, but also officials who understand the law. They will even need the right to communicate and negotiate with the judicial authorities."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Since we have decided to implement this patent law, we will naturally not be stingy with the power we should give."

"Well, when you return, write a memorial to the cabinet regarding the establishment of a patent office and submit it. We'll try to finalize it before the end of the year so it can be officially implemented when the government opens next year."

"The minister obeys the order."

Liu Kuan left the palace and returned to Tiangongyuan. Seeing that it was already past four o'clock in the afternoon, he prepared to pack up and leave his post and return home on time at five o'clock.

As soon as he finished cleaning up, an official from the Aviation Bureau came to ask to see him.

The clerk came in and handed over a document, saying, "Director, Director Tao will preside over the first official test flight of a hydrogen airship tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM. Please be present to provide guidance." Liu Kuan knew that the Airship Research Institute under the Aviation Administration had made a breakthrough this year, but he was still quite surprised to hear that a test flight of a hydrogen airship was about to take place.

After reading the letter, Liu Kuan said, "Okay, go back and tell Director Tao that I will be there on time tomorrow."

"Yes, I resign from my humble position."

The clerk responded and left.

The next day.

Liu Kuan, accompanied by several officials and dozens of guards from the Tiangong Academy, arrived at the shore of Xuanwu Lake before nine o'clock. He saw that the periphery of the area had been under martial law by the emperor's personal troops, but many officials and craftsmen from the Aviation Bureau were standing by the lake (scientific researchers from the official departments of the Ming Dynasty were also considered officials).

The reason for choosing the shores of Xuanwu Lake for the test flight is that the "dock" for building and mooring airships is built in the northeast corner of Xuanwu Lake.

As you can tell from the word, a boat is a type of ship, and an airship is actually a spaceship, so there is nothing wrong with using a "dock" to build it.

When Tao Chengdao saw Liu Kuan coming, he took officials from the Aviation Bureau to greet him.

"This humble official pays homage to the Court Director."

Liu Kuan returned the greeting and said with a smile, "Dong Ning Earl is polite."

The two exchanged a few pleasantries and then came to the dock with their staff.

The dock of an airship is different from that of a boat after all. Half of it is built on the water. The airship with a huge airbag is docked in the dock, which is particularly conspicuous.

Perhaps because of the reference to relevant information from later generations, the airship airbag developed by Tao Chengdao and others was similar to Liu Kuan's impression, like a huge torpedo.

The airbag looks huge because of the comparison with the pod below. As a test product, the airbag is actually only five or six meters long and more than ten meters wide.

Tao Chengdao explained, "According to the information provided by the Director, we currently only have the ability to build hydrogen airships. Given hydrogen airships and our current technology, a rigid airship is the best option."

"Today, the entire 'Feitian Test No. 1' airbag skeleton is made of carefully selected bamboo, wrapped in special cotton cloth to form the outer shell."

"The actual airbags are actually hidden inside the shell. They are divided into nine parts. They are made of special fabric and waterproof coating that we specially developed. They are large enough to hold hydrogen..."

Although the information about airships in later generations was provided by Liu Kuan, when it comes to understanding the experimental airship in front of him, Liu Kuan is obviously not as good as Tao Chengdao, the person in charge of the research and development.

Therefore, when Tao Chengdao introduced, Liu Kuan listened very carefully.

Compared with the mature hydrogen airships of later generations, this experimental airship still has some shortcomings, such as the propulsion device.

Later airship propulsion devices used diesel engines, but Tao Chengdao's experimental product drew inspiration from the legendary solitary flying wood carving and used a spring-like device to store mechanical energy as the power of the propulsion device.

However, with the materials currently available to the Ming Dynasty, the mechanical energy stored in the clockwork device is only enough to help the airship take off or fly a short distance in the air.

In order to make up for this shortcoming, Tao Chengdao led the researchers of the Aviation Bureau to put a lot of effort into the tail wing.

"Director, please take a look. Our prototype has a slightly larger tail, and there are eight of them. They serve not only as the airship's rudder and elevators, but also as its sails!"

Then, Tao Chengdao talked about his ideas and the principles behind designing this set of airship tail fins.

Liu Kuan found that even he found it difficult to understand it all at once and he had to use his brain to understand it.

After a long while, Tao Chengdao finished his explanation and prepared to send someone to start the airship and conduct a flight test.

At this time, an official came to report, "Director of the Court, Director of the Bureau, the Crown Prince and His Royal Highness Prince Lu are here with a number of people." (End of this chapter)