Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 347
Prince Tang's son has gone crazy!
Zhu Yujian's crazy act of burning the ledgers in public and selling his life deeds spread throughout Nanyang, causing a thousand shock waves.And his subsequent measures to abolish all unfair agreements, turn the tenants into hired labor, and pay the tenants wages on time every month made Nanyang people believe that the heir to the Tang Dynasty has gone crazy!Obviously there are a lot of untouchables who are free and everyone takes it for granted no matter how they are exploited. If you don’t need to pay a lot of money to ask them to work for you, isn’t that crazy, what is it?The craziest thing is that this man also set aside money to help those tenant farmers repair their houses, buy a large number of steel farm tools and distribute them to the tenant farmers, um, yes, and build a school for the tenant farmers' children to read and write!Did he think his family had too much money, or did he have the illusion that those muddy legs were uncles?

"I see, this son must have been bewitched!"

"Humph, in my opinion, he is a weasel giving New Year greetings to the chicken, and he has no good intentions!"

"Isn't that called Wu'an kindness? If this is a weasel giving a New Year greeting to a chicken, can you give me a New Year greeting too?"

"Probably because he felt that his ancestors scraped the ground too hard, he was embarrassed, and wanted to make up for it?"

"Hmph, he still has to pay for the sins his ancestors have done!"

"Look, look!"

Tang Wangfu's actions were like throwing a boulder on the lake, causing thousands of waves, and the whole Nanyang City was shaken. The streets, alleys, teahouses and restaurants were talking about him everywhere.The common people were surprised and somewhat skeptical and disbelieving. Merchants who thought they had seen the world were ridiculed, while landlords with tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land looked as ugly as they could be.Ordinary people probably thought it was a good thing, but for the landlords, it couldn't have been worse.The labor contract issued by the Tang Palace is to manage two meals a day, work for four hours a day, and extend it appropriately during the busy farming season. You can get 2000 yuan a month—one tael is equivalent to the current 600 yuan. Yuan, this basic salary is equivalent to the current [-] Yuan, and if there are other handymen, it will be calculated separately.Of course, the most attractive thing is that if you work for the Tang Palace, your children can go to the clan school run by the Tang Palace, and your wife and daughter can also work in the factory run by the Tang Palace, with an extra salary!It is hard for people who have not struggled at the bottom to imagine how tempting these conditions are for a poor farmer. This is a terrible situation. Those muddy legs have not sharpened their heads and squeezed into the farmland of the Tang Palace. Their tenant farmers It is very likely that there will be no one left overnight!

Landlords bemoaned that it was becoming more and more difficult to grow fields.Wuyang Guard expanded wildly, and a large number of military fields and factories attracted an astonishing number of laborers. If they hadn't raised the treatment of the tenant farmers in a timely manner, allowing them to eat well and dress warmly, the tenant farmers would have run away long ago!After finally offsetting the influence of Wuyang Guard, the Tang Palace came again!A unique advantage of the Tang Palace is that the contract between the farmers and the Tang Palace has a time limit. Once the time limit expires, the farmers can choose to renew the contract, or they can choose to cancel the contract, but the military households cannot, and the military households have to revoke their military registration. , with the approval of the Ministry of War, this undoubtedly gave farmers more room for freedom.Elephants fight, the grass suffers, and the Tang Palace makes it clear that the chariots and horses will compete with Wuyangwei for labor. Naturally, these little flowers and grasses are going to be in bad luck!

How to do?
Thinking of this, the landlords' heads are as big as a bucket, and they only hope that Zhu Yujian's head is only hot for a while, and the fever will subside.

It's a pity that Zhu Yujian's "illness" doesn't mean to get better, on the contrary, the more sick he gets, the worse he gets.A few days later, a large number of agricultural tools were transported to the Tang Palace, and then they were distributed non-stop. Shovels, shovels, hoes, plows, rakes, sickles, hatchets, axes, hammers...everything is made of high-quality iron or even high-quality iron. Those farmers who have been plowing the land with a little iron covered farm tools have never used such good ones, and they all stared at this bunch of guys in a daze.With these farm tools, their working efficiency has been doubled!Then, the cement from Wuyang was brought in by boat. Under the guidance of the craftsmen from Wuyangwei, the farmers mixed sand, gravel, lime and cement in proportion to make mud, and began to repair the canal.Some fields far away from the river also started to drill irrigation wells. A screw pump was brought from Wuyang. Lift up the wellhead, install the handle and twist, and the water will be sprayed out from the pump... The enthusiasm of the farmers is unprecedentedly high, and they can do whatever they want, and they are very active. This scene is very familiar to everyone———Wuyangwei didn’t do it back then. That's it!

Not only that, Zhu Yujian also had a strong interest in running factories.He first set up a large drainage truck at the place where the water was turbulent. Everyone wondered, this area is wasteland, without your Zhuangtian, why set up a water truck there?It wasn't until the factory was built that I realized that this guy was going to run a factory.But what does this factory have to do with the waterwheel?
Seeing a few foreign devils struggling to install a strange-looking machine, and using a complex system to connect the machine with water power, Zhu Yujian asked the same question: "What does running a factory have to do with a water wheel? "

Yang Menglong pointed to the machine and asked, "What is this?"

Tang Wang Shizi felt that his IQ was underestimated: "This is another question? Saw!"

Yang Menglong asked: "Do you know what the saw is for?"

The prince of Tang Dynasty said: "Nonsense, of course it is used to saw wood!"

Yang Menglong said: "It's good if you know! Now let me tell you the relationship between the factory and the waterwheel. This machine is called a hydraulic sawmill. As the name suggests, it uses water power to drive the saw to cut wood!"

A red-haired foreign devil laughed and said in not very authentic Chinese: "This kind of machine is becoming more and more common in our Netherlands."

Zhu Yujian was taken aback: "The saw is driven by water power to cut the wood? No more manpower?"

Yang Menglong said: "Of course manpower is needed. How can no one send the wood to the saw? How can no one start the saw? Its greatest advantage is its high efficiency. It takes half a month's wood with manpower, but it can be sawed in a day." It's over, it's easy."

Zhu Yujian said: "Actually, this is completely unnecessary. Just use people to saw it, and you can feed a few more people..."

Yang Menglong said: "I know you have a good heart, but you need money to do good deeds... Falk, have you installed it? If it is installed, I will show you the power of this hydraulic sawmill!"

The Dutchman named Fokk knocked down the last rivet and said: "Okay, okay!" After flipping the switch, sure enough, driven by the waterwheel, the complex transmission system started to move successfully, and the more it moved, the more it moved. The faster it is, the band saw that drives the sawmill whimpers and spins.Two foreign devils struggled to lift a piece of wood with a diameter of one foot, sent it to the sawing machine, aimed at the fast-spinning saw and pushed it over... The grinding sound of sawing wood resounded throughout the factory, like a fountain of sawdust. Under Zhu Yujian's almost horrified eyes, this section of wood that would take at least two days of sawing with manpower was sawn in half in a blink of an eye, and then sawed off the corners to make it better. Then continue to push it to the sawing machine...with a little effort, this piece of log has become a pile of planks!
Yang Menglong is very satisfied with this efficiency: "It's not bad, as long as the river continues to maintain this flow rate, these sawing machines can process at least [-] to [-] cubic meters of wood in a month."

Zhu Yujian walked up to the sawing machine and looked around and touched there, almost lying down and taking a bite of the saw blade.His heart was beating wildly. This was the first time he saw a large machine that did not need to be driven by human power. You can imagine the shock in his heart!He stammered: "It's...really driven by water!?"

Yang Menglong said: "Of course! Electric machines are the best, but unfortunately there is no electricity, so I can't play with them, so I have to use hydraulic sawing machines. Fortunately, the hydraulic power is strong enough to effectively drive these large machines, otherwise I would have to sit on wax."

Zhu Yujian looked at the machinery being installed and was amazed by it.These machines were all made by Yang Menglong and the group of craftsmen. After two years of intermittently researching, many skilled technicians joined in. Finally, they got the guidance of Father Robben and other foreign devils, and finally they were completed.Currently, due to technological constraints, only hydraulic sawmills and hydraulic hammer machines have been developed. More complex and precise machinery such as drilling machines, boring machines, and planers have not yet been developed. We have to wait for Father Robben and others to bring lathes from Europe. After learning from it, I know how to do it——After all, the commander-in-chief Yang Menglong is only half a bucket of water and not very reliable.But even this was enough to amaze Zhu Yujian.

Another factory that Yang Menglong helped Zhu Yujian run was a nail factory.Nails are a good thing. Ships, houses, and even waterwheels are inseparable from them. Until now, China has no factories specializing in the production of nails. Most of the craftsmen adapt to local conditions. Either let the blacksmith make as many as they need, or use mortise and tenon joints. , gluing instead, often want to buy but nowhere to buy —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Yang Menglong also suffered enough from not being able to buy even the most common nails, so he worked hard to build a set of production equipment for the production of various nails.According to him, as long as the operation is sufficient, the nail processing factory can produce at least [-] tons of nails a month.Zhu Yujian was very interested in this factory that could produce [-] catties of nails a month. After the machine was adjusted, he asked the craftsmen to drive to the machine and try to produce some nails for him to see.

As a result... After that, every time he saw the iron factory, he took a detour.Noisy, it's too noisy, he will never forget the huge noise when the hydraulic power drives the knife bed and hammer to cut and beat metal!

It is worth mentioning that these two factories swallowed tens of thousands of taels of silver from the Tang Palace, which further confirmed the rumor that "Tang Wang is crazy": if he was not crazy, who would spend so much money to buy a lot of machinery? ?Even if it only costs half the money, the boards sawed by the hired workers can be piled up into a hill!

What’s more worth mentioning is that it only took less than a year for Zhu Yujian’s two factories to start making profits...

When Zhu Yujian went crazy, the whole of Nanyang was going crazy.On the basis of the post road, with Nanyang City as the center, a concrete road project hundreds of years ahead of schedule was rolled out in sections. The government's request is that at least four horse-drawn carriages can pass side by side on the county-level cement road, and the town-level one. It goes without saying that if two cars pass side by side, this is a jaw-dropping undertaking.This big project has won the support of the vast majority of people in Nanyang, because the benefits of cement roads are too obvious. The road surface is smooth and hard, and it will not be muddy even under heavy rain. Not to mention horse-drawn carriages, even heavy Taiping carts can ride on it It runs fast, and the best thing is that it is almost indestructible for ten thousand years. After it is repaired, there will be no need to worry about road construction in the future. If such a project is not supported, then what do they support?Merchants from other places and local gentry all contributed money and strength. Nearly [-] strong laborers wielded hoes and shovels along the road, leveled the roadbed, and compacted the ground. They worked in full swing!

At Nanyang Chengguan, a phosphate fertilizer processing plant also started construction.The plant will use the nearby high-quality phosphate rock from Jingxiang area to provide sufficient phosphate fertilizer for the surrounding counties.Due to the use of hydraulic machinery, the production efficiency is much higher than that of the phosphate fertilizer processing plants in Wuyang and Tongbai. Coupled with the high grade phosphate rock, it can produce at least 150 tons of phosphate fertilizer a month.The Nanyang government has sent celebrities and gentry to Jingxiang to negotiate with the local clans that control the phosphate mines, and try their best to ensure the supply of phosphate rocks, and it is best to buy the mines.If the negotiations are successful, a larger phosphate fertilizer plant will be built here. By then, the monthly production capacity of the two phosphate fertilizer plants will reach [-] tons. There is still a certain gap to meet the needs of the entire Nanyang area, but this is already a A very remarkable achievement.

Over in Wuyang, construction of two giant steel-making blast furnaces has begun.Although the 250 tons of molten iron in one furnace has been amazed by the people of Nanyang, Yang Menglong said that I am tired of this small-scale production method. Many skilled craftsmen have joined hands to create it. Below, two [-]-ton steelmaking blast furnaces are about to emerge!When these two blast furnaces are put into operation, Wuyang will have the terrifying ability to produce [-] tons of molten steel at a time!As for the technology of the twenty-ton small blast furnace... Yang Menglong has already put it up for auction. Anyone who wants to play can take it and pay a small amount of money.

Wuyang is about to become the city of steel.

Everyone likes steel and phosphate fertilizers, and seeing the increase in production, everyone is naturally happy.However, there are some things they don't welcome, but they can't escape: the sulfuric acid plant has also come to Nanyang.A sulfuric acid plant is not a good thing. It pollutes a lot. Everyone hates it, but without it, phosphate fertilizers and other things are useless.

At the same time, a 250-ton steelmaking blast furnace broke ground in Luoyang.Yiyang belongs to Luoyang, and Yiyang Iron Mountain was famous all over the world as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period. It was the largest iron mountain in the world at that time, and it was rich in high-quality ironware.At that time, Yiyang was the territory of South Korea. Relying on Yiyang Iron Mountain, the armor of the Korean army was strong, the sharpness of swords and guns, and the strength of bows and crossbows were the best in the world. Therefore, it was known as "Strong Korea". Wuyangwei took the past, and the application of many new technologies will make the ancient Yiyang Iron Mountain glow with new vitality.

At this point, Yang Menglong's territory has begun to take shape: Nanyang, Ruzhou, and Luoyang, three points and one line.In these areas, the resources he desperately needs such as food, steel, coal, wood, etc. are readily available. There is an inexhaustible super salt mine underground in Wuyang County, just waiting for him to dig them out.At the same time, he is still working hard to develop the flax industry. After flax cultivation is promoted, he will be self-sufficient in strategic resources such as chemical fertilizers, grain, steel, coal, wood, salt, and cloth.Thanks to him, more and more hydraulic machinery and advanced concepts were accepted by the people. The powerful productivity broke through the constraints like a fountain and spewed out from the ground, bringing new vitality to this ancient land.

At the same time, a military revolution is brewing.A hundred years later, later generations called the military, industrial, agricultural, and educational reforms he single-handedly promoted as "Heluo Fenglei".

More than 2000 years ago, in the face of the declining national power and the aggressive northern wolves, King Wuling of Zhao was determined to innovate and carried out a great reform with the Hu people as his teachers. Defeating the Xiongnu, destroying the Zhongshan Kingdom, and defeating the Qin Army in the Yanhe Mountains made the Zhao Kingdom rise rapidly and became a powerful country that could keep pace with Qin.This great reform is called "Hufu Fenglei." However, Hu Fufenglei is not a thorough reform, it only makes Zhao's military strength stronger, but the agriculture and economy have not been developed accordingly. The country's downfall sowed the seeds of disaster.However, Heluo Fenglei's reforms are all-round, covering industry, agriculture, economy, military, education, culture, technology...everything is covered.Although it is not very eye-catching now, it can only be regarded as a dark cloud, but in the near future, this dark cloud will cover the sky, and thunder and thunder will resound through this ancient land.

(End of this chapter)