open sea

Chapter 836 Saltpeter
Chaotian Palace is a Taoist temple. There were many Chaotian Palaces in the Ming Dynasty, most of which were built during the Jiajing period of the Taoist emperor. Before that, the Chaotian Palace was in Nanjing.

Chaotian Palace in Nanjing has multiple identities in history. It was first used as the place where Wu Wang Fuchai and Sun Quan forged weapons. Later, it was sometimes a temple, sometimes a school, and sometimes a Taoist temple.

But in the Ming Dynasty, although it was still a Taoist building, there was the Sanqing Hall and the Longevity Hall in front of it, but there was also a Xiyi Pavilion, which also assumed the mission of learning the etiquette of meeting the emperor before the children of bureaucrats.

Chaotian Palace is a good place, and Yazhou really needs such a place. Many gold medals bestowed by Emperor Wanli have not yet been issued. These tribal leaders will go to see the emperor when the situation is stable in the future, but build a Chaotian Palace by yourself?

To be honest, Chen Mu really never thought about such a large-scale project. The largest building complex he ordered to cover was the United Cannon Temple position on Weidao, the Nanyang Military Mansion. Let him go to the Xiuzhen Temple?
But in Jincheng, the people there have long been ready to build large buildings.

The way Wu Zhongxing resettled the people in Jincheng County was similar to that of Chang Sheng. After learning about the way Zou Yuanbiao resettled more than [-] people, he followed suit, but he resettled the people in the four directions of Zhuangyuan Bridge, north, south, east, and west. superior.

Jincheng is a blessed land. In the north, there are towering redwoods that grow to fifteen or sixty feet in size, with a circumference of two or three feet. In the south, there are large gold and copper mines waiting to be excavated, which are inexhaustible. The west coast is full of fishing and salt benefits. In the east, there are mountains blocking the desert, and the mountains have birds and animals for hunting and leather making.

More than [-] immigrant people, together with the people of Zheng Tubu, made Jincheng County more than [-] registered people, resettled across two hundred miles across and thousands of miles across, and did not encounter food shortages like Changsheng County dilemma.

The tens of thousands of people in Zheng Tu's tribe were originally the people under the rule of Jincheng County. Their production did not start with the arrival of the Ming army, nor did it stop because of the battle with the Western army.

What's more, there are particularly large Yi tribes in the north, and there are especially vicious Blackfoot people hundreds of miles away in the northeast.

The Blackfoot people were defeated in the war with Wuzhi County. Now some of the most vicious and unwilling tribes have migrated eastward. Under the education of Pao, he became hospitable.

They are much richer than the Yi people, and Jincheng can get a lot of food through trade with the two big tribes of the Yi people and the Blackfoot.

In all fairness, if a big war made Wuzhi County feel like a governor, then he is now the governor of a province.

Because it is much more difficult to start a county seat than a provincial-level administrative region that has been formed for thousands of years and governed for hundreds of years, and there are much more things to manage.

For example, in addition to the regular work of governing the county and defending the battle, Wu Zhongxing is also compiling the county chronicles, and specially assigns six people from the county to follow him to go deep into various places, understand the way of life of the natives and the common people, and take care of everything on the way. distinguish.

The main purpose is to understand and record herbs and insects with scales and feathers. For example, the huge redwoods used by them. In the county annals, people know this plant as having beautiful tree patterns, soft and tough materials, and can be worn all over the body. Used as medicine, it can be used in construction, bridging, furniture, medicinal materials, animal husbandry and leather tanning.

Needless to say, buildings, bridges, furniture, etc., any tree can provide these uses, but medicinal materials, animal husbandry and tanning are not just any tree.

The roots, leaves, bark, wood, cones and fir knots of Chinese fir can be used as medicine, as the immigrant doctors said.

As for animal husbandry, because Chinese fir grows very large, large geese are widely distributed from the Heishuimohe Islands to here, and are the main livestock of the local people. Some Chinese fir trees that have grown for more than a thousand years usually rot, but the outer layer of the Chinese fir is not. If it is still intact, the local natives will call such a tree a goose pen and raise geese in it.

Tanned leather is the glue extracted from tree bark, just like goose rings. People in the Ming Dynasty usually did not do this. Although people in the Yuan Dynasty already used tanned leather, it was only used for some special purposes. The most common processes are still lime depilation and nitrated tanning.

But here, people use cedar bark to extract a kind of earthy yellow tannin, which is used to tan and dye the leather, which is why the leather goods of the Indians are all primary colors.

This kind of leather is also called vegetable tanned leather, which is very hard and thick.

Wu Zhongxing became more and more comfortable in Jincheng. At this moment, even if he were to be exchanged with the prefect in the country, he would not go.

No one will miss the opportunity to show their talents.

In a very short period of time, four gold gardens, six wood gardens, three rubber gardens, three leather gardens, four grain gardens, two tile gardens, and one nitric acid garden were erected in the north and south of Jincheng County. Each garden is a factory. , but different names are given according to different uses of production.

Jincheng not only makes gold ingots and copper ingots, but also produces flour, wood, leather goods, bricks and tiles, tannin extract, boiled nitrate and other special products.

For a long time in ancient times, people believed that nitrate was a special product of China, because only the Chinese could refine the naturally occurring nitrate.

Of course, this era is different. With the expedition of the Yuan army, saltpeter, known as Chinese snow, was brought to the Arab world, and then spread to Europe, along with the farmers' method of making saltpeter from alkaline soil.

As for alkaline soil, places with less rainfall have more alkali, so the saltsmiths in the Ming Dynasty concentrated in the northwest, so Chen Mu was able to obtain saltpeter from caves.

The huge mountain range running from north to south in the east of Jincheng County blocks the moisture on the west coast, and the lack of rainfall on the east side of the mountain range creates a large area of ​​alkaline soil.

The riders of Heiyunlong ran eastward through the gap in the mountains. They used their horses to step out of the road and found a tribe called the Shouni people in the endless alkaline desert. Hulan, the leader of the horse team, hit it off with them at first sight.

This is a land that has not been plagued by Westerners, because there is no grass here except a few cacti that can be seen here and there.In contrast, the men of the Shoene were good hunters, and those who could not hunt starved to death.

In Hulan's eyes, the excellence of a Mongolian soldier depends on three points. First, he must be an excellent shooter, then he must be an excellent warrior, and finally he must be an excellent cavalryman.

The Shoenes have already taken the first step.

However, Wuzhi County does not intend to let him recruit soldiers on the spot. The soldiers in Jincheng are already much more ruthless. The alkaline soil beneath the feet of the Shoenes who care.

Of course, the arrival of daimyo also brought new technology, manure to make nitrate, but Wuzhi County, which pays attention to people's livelihood, did not use it in the county, because it is fertilizer, not to mention the west coast always rains, the effect is not good, and the output is very low , Saltpeter cannot produce low yield.

China, which has the technology of extracting saltpeter from alkaline soil, has never been short of saltpeter. The alkaline soil in the northwest and the caves in the southwest are the technologies that have made the Beiyang Army's current rounds of warfare, and their guns and guns come out all at once.

If you use the saying of the nitrate maker, it is said that boiling nitrate for a thousand days is not worth a shot of a general; then it takes five counties to make nitrate for a year, and a hard battle for one day.

They are all exaggerations, but boiling nitrate with alkaline soil is better than composting manure, as long as there is suitable alkaline soil, so Jincheng County is also trading.

Wu Zhongxing traded goods and food for furs with the hunters of the Shouni people. After initially establishing trust, he sent people across the mountains and used ruts and horseshoes to step on the road of saltpeter belonging to the Ming people.

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)