Chapter 13 The Steam Engine (2), (3)(1/2)
(Updated two chapters together, please vote for me)
Sun Jingxuan, Jiang Yue, and Lin Fu directly talked about the steam pump, pressed their hands on the drawings, and said: "I have carefully read the structural drawings, and I have made suggestions for the Machinery Manufacturing Department's plan to trial-produce them at the Lishui West Slope Coal Field in the next year.
I have some different ideas; tonight’s banquet is the New Year’s Day, and I can’t just drag you here to talk about this matter after today, so I’ll just do it today…”
"Twenty thousand Huai yuan is a bit much, and we can save some more." Jiang Yue opened the steam-driven window paper through Lin Fu, and he could already see a wider world. For more than a year, although he had received both
In the Machinery Manufacturing Department, all the trivial matters were left to his deputy. His thoughts were almost entirely devoted to steam engines. He also knew that the prototypes currently built were both crude and expensive.
In fact, Jiang Yue once presided over the construction of the most sophisticated astronomical instrument in the world, the hydraulic armillary sphere. It can be said that he is a master of classical machinery and has learned from ancient and modern times. The key axis of the four-wheeled carriage Huaidong built in his early years was designed by Jiang Yue.
In addition, the improvement has been put into practical use; and the Blackwater Ocean Channel has been out of navigation for nearly a hundred years, and it was Jiang Yue who first produced complete information - with the work of nearly a hundred craftsmen Jiang Yue gathered, in just one year, he could only
Steam prototypes were built to this extent.
Twenty thousand Huaiyuan can recruit two thousand laborers, and the new water pump built with such effort may not even be able to keep up with the two to three hundred people who use manpower to drain water day and night. Without Lin Fu's strong support, it would be impossible to
It is undoubtedly a foolish dream for a coal yard to take the initiative to adopt such an expensive and crude water pump.
"It's not enough to just trial production in the Lishui coal field," Lin Fu interrupted Jiang Yue's words and said, "The eight coal sites in Lishui, Xuanzhou, Huaiyang, Xiling, Putang, Zhuxi, Shouzhou and Yuanzhou Luxi
Each factory will try to produce this water pump, and the military department will allocate another 200,000 silver dollars to you. At this stage of the work, you no longer need to go to the coal yard to keep an eye on it. You will assign eight groups of craftsmen to make improvements independently.
You can coordinate the trial production model in Jiangning..."
If Lin Fu didn't vigorously promote it and just trial-produced a new set of pumps in a coal field, it might take thirty to fifty years, maybe hundreds of years, before the steam engine could be miniaturized and practical...
He hopes to see steam ironclads roaming the East China Sea in his lifetime, so what if he doesn't hurry up?
"It may be a bit stressful to trial-produce eight sets of water pumps at once." Sun Jingxuan asked hesitantly. Thinking that too many things had happened today, he hesitated to object directly.
According to the standards of the old military system, two hundred thousand silver dollars was enough to provide food and salary for a town of soldiers and horses.
After the Privy Council-controlled Finance Bureau merged the taxes of the Ministry of Accounts, this year's total annual income has just reached 20 million silver dollars. Two hundred thousand silver dollars seems to be only one percent of this year's annual income, but there are too many key things to do.
Sun Jingxuan and Lin Mengde discussed and planned to allocate only 200,000 silver dollars to the Machinery Manufacturing Department next year.
At this time, Lin Fu had to spend an additional 200,000 silver dollars to trial-produce a coalfield pump. How could Sun Jingxuan not think it was extravagant and wasteful?
Sun Jingxuan has been in charge of shipbuilding, iron smelting, equipment, armor and other matters in recent years. Naturally, he attaches great importance to the development and practical application of craftsmanship, and is very clear about the significance of this. In fact, Jiang Yue has been in charge of machinery manufacturing since last autumn.
As a company, his main personal energy was invested in the design of steam engines. In addition to the nearly a hundred craftsmen directly used, they also provided strong cooperation in creating trial-produced pipe machinery, cylinder blocks, rod wheels, ordnance supervisors and iron smelting supervisors.
After investing a lot of manpower and material resources, it was with the support of Sun Jingxuan that the trial model that seemed to be put in front of Lin Fu was produced. It was also Sun Jingxuan who gritted his teeth and supported Jiang Yue to pay 20,000 silver dollars to the Lishui West Slope Coal Field first.
He was trial-producing a new water pump, but he never thought that Lin Fu would suddenly increase the budget tenfold.
The war application prospect currently seems to be the brightest, and all the princes in the Privy Council have high hopes for it. Lin Fu himself is always paying attention to the progress of Brisulfan. Sun Jingxuan only plans to allocate a budget of less than 40,000 silver dollars for further development next year.
Lin Fu himself prefers to call it gunpowder. The Northern Expedition may not take more than three years. He wants to promote it to the entire army within three years. The main reason is that the cost is too high and it is not possible at the moment. Mass production. If new firearms and artillery cannot be equipped in batches, they will not have a significant effect on improving overall combat effectiveness.
Therefore, from Lin Fu's point of view, the research and development work related to Thiosulfan must continue, and a small number of elite soldiers will be selected to gradually try out the new weapons. However, from Lin Fu's point of view, it is not as urgent as the steam engine.
"Yan Hu will probably want to rest for a while. The past few years have been fierce, and I will also want to rest in Jiangning for a while to straighten out the many relationships," Lin Fu said. "If nothing unexpected happens, tomorrow In the next year, they will only invest troops in Haidong to help the Zhen family seize the Korean Peninsula. Whether to seize the entire Korean Peninsula or let the Zhen family and the Li family rule the Korean Peninsula is another matter. However, the scale of the war in the next year will be far smaller. It will be as intensive as this year, and I will ask you to take a breath..."
"If there is no big military plan tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, the trial production of eight sets of water pumps will be barely enough, but the machine manufacturing can save 200,000 silver dollars." Sun Jingxuan said.
The annual income that Huaidong can control at this time is almost two and a half times the annual income of Yanjing Center before the Northland was lost. Even in this situation, an additional 200,000 silver dollars have to be drawn out, and the ordnance supervisor has to go out. If you squeeze it, you can know how tight the branch is.
Lin Fu smiled and said to Jiang Yue: "Look at the frown on Mr. Jingxuan's face, if you don't help me use these two hundred thousand silver dollars, then I will be criticized for your extravagance and lewdness." ! But don’t put too much pressure on yourself,” he paused for a moment and said, “Of course, I asked the coal yard to try out the new water pump first, and it’s not without some trade-offs...”
"In today's world, water power has advantages that are far inferior to human and animal power. However, there are too few coal mines with water power. At present, there is only one in Zhuxi, Yizhou. Sun Shangwang wrote a letter saying that Zhuxi coal has water power and is very cheap. There are There are still huge profits to be made in Mingzhou and other places by shipping and selling; Hu Qiaoyi also wrote to say that the price of coal in Mingzhou is 20% lower than that in Jiangning - all the coal consumed in Jiangning is produced in Lishui, Xuanzhou, etc. The transportation canals are connected, and the furthest water transportation is only 200 miles. If I count Xuanzhou, the coal in Lishui can be drained with new equipment, which reduces the price of coal by one-third. If you do the math, the whole country is smelting iron. How much coal and stone are consumed in a year by industries such as porcelain, lime and brick tiles? How much coal and stone are consumed in a year by large cities such as Jiangning, Weiyang, Hangzhou, Mingzhou, Pingjiang, Chongzhou, Jiangxia, Tanzhou and Jiangzhou? Coal! You can calculate how much money Huaili, Xuanpu and other six major coal mines will save in a year?"
Lin Fu was determined to temporarily control the world through the "Chongguo Gongfu-Privy Council" structure. In addition to firmly controlling military power, there was another, and it can be said to be a more important measure, which was to continuously strengthen the financial power that the Privy Council could directly control.
Lin Fu took the five counties of Chongzhou and Yizhou Island as private fiefs. In addition to the private fief income and sea trade fees, as early as after the Jiangning War, Lin Fu declared the mines in various places as public ownership in the name of the Political Hall, and set up a mining supervisor under the Privy Council. The Division is responsible for managing the mines; and the Workshop Division is responsible for managing the workshops of the world.
In later generations, in addition to the income from private businesses and directly operated factories, customs duties and industrial and mining value-added taxes are all direct sources of income for the Privy Council.
Before Huaidong, almost all of this income was not included in the central government's annual income. Instead, it was embezzled by the gentry and wealthy families in various places. Almost no one could estimate its scale. Therefore, after the Jiangning War, Lin Fu requested that the mines and
The affairs of the workshops were all under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council. Chen Xiyan, Cheng Yuqian and others who were in charge of the central committee at that time did not object. However, due to the devastation of the war, the gentry and country forces were suppressed to the extreme. Even if they wanted to object, they were far from able.
Twist into a force.
The workshop is second to none.
Everywhere was plowed by the flames of war. Even though the workshop industries in a few places such as Weiyang, Pingjiang, Hangzhou, and Danyang were not damaged by the war, they were still directly connected with Huaidong due to the weaving and dyeing, silk making, shipbuilding, iron smelting, porcelain making and other industries.
The gap between controlled factories was too big and they were eliminated. At present, the large-scale factories and workshops that are really profitable are mainly concentrated in Chongzhou, Jiangning and other places, and they are easy to control.
What Lin Fu set out to do in the middle and late stages was mainly to control the mines scattered in various places, so that the mines would no longer become an unprofitable source of wealth for the gentry and villagers everywhere.
Although coal burning has a history of four to five hundred years, and almost every county has a large number of coal cellars, but it was destroyed by wars that lasted for several years or even more than ten years. After the Jiangning War, it was still normal under Jiangning's jurisdiction.
There are only two main coal mines left: Taihu Xiling and Xusi Huaiyang.
In order to take back the mining rights in Xiling of Taihu Lake, Lin Fu sent 3,000 soldiers to station in Changxing for three months before negotiating the terms. The kilns were divided and governed by the original mine owners, but in addition to the original donation from the local government.
, and an additional tax on mineral rights was levied at a rate of one out of ten and returned to the central government; this also became a common practice for the Privy Council to deal with private kilns in the future.
The Huaiyang Coal Field was actually built after the Xuzhou War. Lin Fu ordered Li Wei to restore the old kilns in Xuzhou and expand production to supply iron smelting and people's daily needs in Shanyang, Chongzhou and other places. It itself belongs to Huaiyang.
Direct control of the east - at that time, Sun Shangwang had just laid the first coal well in Zhuxi, Yizhou.
In order to meet the demand for millions of baskets of coal a year for the population of more than 100,000 households in Jiangning, Lin Fu directly confiscated the old kilns in Lishui, Xuanzhou and other places, and recruited thousands of hungry people and prisoners of war to expand production for the miners.
In order to ensure the use of coal for the Putang iron yard, large-scale coal mining was carried out in the coal hills south of Putang; and after the Huirao War, the coal from Putang was taken through waterways and entered Fuliang to be used exclusively for the porcelain firing in Fuliang.
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Fuliang, later known as Jingdezhen, was famous for its porcelain smelting at that time, but its porcelain industry was famous throughout the world. The Fuliang tea industry, which once produced five million kilograms of tea per year, was completely destroyed.
Lin Fu used Yang Zichen to govern Jiangzhou, and temporarily placed Fuliang, Duchang and other counties under the jurisdiction of Jiangzhou Prefecture, hoping to restore Fuliang porcelain and tea industries as soon as possible...
After the Yuanzhou War, the old kilns in the Luxi Coal Field were also taken over as public property, and prisoners of war were used to dig coal and stone to supply Yuanshui, Ganjiang and other cities that could be reached by waterways. Dong Yuan also dug coal kilns in Shouzhou, which were quite large-scale.
Lin Fu envoy Ning Zechen led his troops to seize Shouzhou. Naturally, he mercilessly took over the old kilns in Shouzhou as public property and wanted to invest manpower to expand production.
Excluding the coal produced in Luxi, Shouzhou and Taihu Xiling, the coal mines in Huaiyang, Lishui, Xuanzhou, Zhuxi and Putang alone produce more than 20 million baskets of coal a year so far.
, worth five million silver dollars, and gained nearly a quarter.
It is precisely because of the huge demand for coal and the existence of a large amount of cheap coal in coal mines that it is possible to endure the crudeness, bulkiness and high cost of the new pumps in the early days. It is also because they are put into practical use as soon as possible that the new technology will truly take root.
Go down and be nourished and developed instead of being shelved on the shelf.
Of course, Jiangning City used to be the most important coal-burning place in the world. Nearly two million baskets of coal had to be transported in every year to make up for the shortage of firewood. The devastation of the war and the continued decrease in population did not reduce Jiangning's consumption.
The amount of coal has almost doubled.
On the one hand, under the control of Huaidong, Jiangning Workshop has even improved on the basis of recovery in the past two years - more importantly, the war has severely damaged the traditional production model.
In the past, men farmed and women weaved, and weaving was self-sufficient; after the devastation after the war, the top priority in various places was to resume farming, and almost all labor forces were invested in farmland, water conservancy, roads and other matters; the traditional family weaving and dyeing production model was destroyed,
And the high-quality and low-priced new cloth from Huaidong took advantage of the opportunity - the traditional charcoal-making industry also completely collapsed, allowing high-quality and low-priced briquettes to smoothly begin to enter ordinary farmers' families.
If the traditional governance model were to return the situation from chaos to chaos, the first step should be to restore the self-sufficient natural economy in various places; Lin Fu was very different. He used the war to destroy the original natural economy, but took the opportunity to destroy it.
Jianghuai, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan and Hunan, Guangnan and other places form a huge market for the dumping of primary industrial products...
Due to the collapse of traditional weaving and dyeing, charcoal making, house building and other industries, a large amount of labor was saved, which even made up for the labor shortage caused by the decline in population due to the war; and the significant reduction in population after the war made more land available
More labor to farm—
In the past, in the Jianghuai area, the average household had ten acres of land, and a household of four people, a couple and children, only needed the husband to cultivate ten acres of land and earn thirty dan of grain, while the wife would weave, dye, or raise silkworms at home to supplement the family income, and during the slack period,
At that time, the men in the village helped each other to build and repair houses. Now the couple can cultivate fifteen or even thirty acres of land, and obtain forty or even eighty shi of grain, as well as the cloth and farm tools needed for life and production.
, ceramics, bricks and other materials, you can sell food for exchange - this process seems simple, but in itself it is a substantial improvement in production efficiency.
At least in Huaidong, Pingjiang, Danyang, Hangzhou, Huzhou, Mingzhou and Jiaxing, in recent years, the per capita grain output has been much higher than before the war - this is due to the large-scale use of iron farm tools, and also due to the low-level
The formed industrial, mining and commercial system promotes production efficiency.
Based on the traditional governance model, it is difficult to imagine that after Huaidong fought two major battles in one year, it could continue to transport a large amount of weapons from Huaidong, Qifu in Jiangnan, and eastern Zhejiang to the two lakes and Jiangxi.
Food to stabilize local people's livelihood.
Of course, the formation of this process also requires places with developed industrial industries such as Chongzhou and Jiangning to be able to provide so many primary industrial products to such a large population; and the river transportation system dominated by the Yangtze River provides the market for primary industrial products.
With the necessary cheap transportation conditions, the new cloth from Huaidong was transported to Ganzhou in the hinterland of Jiangxi via the Yangzi River, Poyang Lake, and Ganjiang River for two to three thousand miles, and the freight accounted for less than 10% of the selling price.
In Lin Fu's memory, after the Jiangnan region was fully developed during the Song and Ming Dynasties, the commodity economy rapidly expanded, and traditional workshops such as weaving and dyeing, silk making, porcelain burning, and ironware developed greatly. Later scholars even believed that the Song and Ming Dynasties
During this period, capitalism had sprouted in the Jianghuai region, and it was not without reason.
Lin Fu was not yet able to accurately judge how different the world he lived in was from his memory, but the traditional commodity economy in the Jianghuai region was quite developed at that time. This can be seen from the early years of the Lin clan's management of Shanglinli, and the Dongyang Township
The party has long been inextricably linked to the commercial activities of the world - this is also the fundamental basis for Lin Funeng to vigorously develop maritime trade, build factories, develop banks, and expand maritime trade in Jiangning and Huaidong.
Right now, the first choice Lin Fu faced was whether to speed up the process or cut off the process.
To establish and strengthen the central imperial autocracy in the new dynasty, this process must be interrupted.
The growing power of factory owners and merchants, the formation of a broader overseas market and a more closely linked domestic unified market, the large-scale population flow, the demand for a large number of skilled workers, the use of new machinery and new technologies,
Significantly improving production efficiency, further enriching life and survival materials, allowing more people to receive education, will greatly promote the enlightenment of people's intelligence, and will also strengthen the relationship between the traditional bureaucratic group and the landlord class who rely on the profits of land rent for production.
In addition, it will create more groups with inconsistent interests and even sharply opposed groups - the divine right of kings will inevitably go bankrupt.
In Lin Fu's memory, some emperors in later generations were clearly aware of the destruction of imperial power by this process, so they deliberately tried to forcibly interrupt this process. Seclusion was only a typical means of interrupting this process.
If there was only one country and one nation in the whole world, that would be fine.
To be continued...