On December 24, Chinese New Year's Eve, Daming is about to bid farewell to the seventh year of Zhongxing and enter the eighth year of Zhongxing.

Looking back on the seventh year of Zhongxing, this is the first year of the Ming Dynasty's expansion of the Quartet, successively annexing Korea, Annam, the Wa Kingdom and the Ryukyu Kingdom, expanding its territory to 900,000 square kilometers, which is equivalent to about one-ninth of the territory previously controlled by the Ming Dynasty.

Throughout the seven years of Zhongxing, in addition to the expansion of territorial territory, the economy of Daming has become more and more prosperous, and various complex technical products have come out one after another.

In terms of technology, due to the successful research and development of the steam engine two years ago, after two years of improvement, steam textile machines, steam lathes and other steam power equipment and foot tailors have also been developed, and the production efficiency of Daming has skyrocketed.

In particular, with the development of the steam loom and the pedal sewing machine, the price of cloth and ready-to-wear in the Ming Dynasty was suppressed, and the price dropped nearly ten times almost all at once.

In the past, sewing a piece of clothing, from the weaving of the cloth to the sewing of the clothes, required a lot of labor, time-consuming and laborious, and the cost was extremely high. As a result, ordinary people can only afford to wear clothes made of ordinary coarse cloth, and they have to spend their own time sewing, and silk and other high-class clothes can only be worn by the real rich and officials, big landowners, etc., and now, the price of ready-to-wear clothes has fallen, and the people have money leftover, and many ordinary people can afford to wear one or two silk and other high-class clothes.

The Ming Dynasty first introduced three crops of sweet potato, corn and potatoes with very high yield, and solved the problem of eating the people at once, as long as they worked, no people would be starved, and now the problem of clothing for the people has been solved.

Although I dare not say that it is okay to reach Chengdu without closing its doors at night, the crime rate has been greatly reduced, and many prison cells are almost empty.

With the strong support of Zhu Cijiao, after two years of continuous improvement and research and development, the steam locomotive has reached the last moment, and I believe that as long as it is improved three or two times, it will be able to come out, and then Daming will open the era of rail trains.

It is worth mentioning that after Zhu Cihe's intentional or unintentional mention, the first generation of two-wheeled bicycles in the Ming Dynasty came out at the end of March, which was developed by a pair of carpenters who were originally carpenters.

Carpentry is largely similar to machinery, sometimes replacing wood with iron and steam is the best machinery, and the development of various machinery by Daming is indispensable to the participation of some top carpenters.

For example, the steam locomotive, in fact, is the most current technology and the most complex relationship, it was difficult to complete the development without more than seven or eight years, but due to the participation of some top carpenters in the Ming Dynasty, a large number of bold ideas were put forward, so that the research and development continued to make breakthroughs, and the research and development speed was shortened by more than three times.

Steam locomotives can be developed so quickly, and there is naturally no difficulty in bicycles.

When the bicycle first appeared, the people of Daming did not believe that the two-wheeled bicycle could run on the road, after all, this violated the people's previous cognition, but when one day, the designer of the bicycle, two craftsmen each rode a bicycle on the streets of Nanjing, the people were stunned, coupled with the vigorous publicity of the Daming Daily, the bicycle was gradually accepted by the people and became a fashion.

Zhu Cicheng immediately issued an order in the name of the imperial court to attract investment, establish bicycle factories, and begin to produce bicycles in large quantities.

Sometimes the whole people production, the whole people research and development can make the technology continue to improve, now there are bicycle parks in all provinces, as many as hundreds of the country, maybe one day when these bicycle factories are left less than ten, Daming's bicycles have developed to a very high level.

As early as the invasion of the Indonesian archipelago and Malaya, Zhu Ci ordered to find rubber, and ordered the Academy of Science and Technology to develop pneumatic tires with rubber.

Pneumatic tires are not a difficult technology, as long as the concept is proposed, it can be developed very quickly. Indeed, as Zhu Ciji expected, in less than four months, rubber pneumatic tires were developed, which can be completely practical, not only used in bicycles, but also used in horse-drawn carriages and ox carts.

In the beginning, the common people were as suspicious and unacceptable as the original bicycles, but when some horse-drawn carriages or ox carts with pneumatic tires continued to march on the mainland, overtaking one carriage after another with wooden wheels and ox carts, the people who had a little spare money began to try to install pneumatic tires for their carriages or ox carts.

Pneumatic tires have gradually become an indispensable thing for people.

With horse-drawn carts and ox carts with pneumatic tires, transportation efficiency has suddenly more than doubled.

Originally, if a horse could only pull 300 catties of goods with wooden wheels, now it can pull at least 600 catties or more, and the speed of pulling the cart is faster, and the economy of the Ming Dynasty in the seventh year of Zhongxing has further prospered, and the emergence of pneumatic tires has undoubtedly contributed a lot to this.

The Institute of Science and Technology has also gained a large amount of money through the sale of technology, etc., and now it does not cost a penny to the national treasury, but can even replenish the national treasury.

In the entire seven years of Zhongxing, the annual income of the Ming Dynasty exceeded 140 million taels of silver, equivalent to 14 billion silver dollars.

Among them, the largest contribution is undoubtedly commercial tax and customs tariff, accounting for almost seventy percent, due to the research and development of various steam-powered machinery, the price of goods in the Ming Dynasty has been doubled, especially in terms of ordinary cloth, almost ten times.

Silk, tea and porcelain were almost monopolized by the Ming Dynasty, and the other two did not drop much, but although the price of silk was not as serious as that of ordinary cloth, it also fell more than three times.

In order to make the treasury more money, the Ming undoubtedly did not want the price of silk and other monopoly goods to drop too much abroad, so the tariffs on these monopoly goods were extremely high.

No matter when, monopoly is the most profitable, the price is set arbitrarily, sometimes the cost of one percent, is indeed ten times the price, the Ming Dynasty has developed for thousands of years, the civilization is advanced, many things are only the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty rarely buys anything from outside the Ming Dynasty, which makes the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade deficit terrifying.

Many European businessmen who came complained and protested to the Ming court many times, but the Ming court ignored them.

No, although they are dissatisfied, silk, tea and porcelain are still indispensable things for their European countries, and importing them into Europe can also make them a lot of money, after all, these European merchants who came to come still have to import a large number of goods from the Ming Dynasty.

Because silk is one of the monopoly commodities and the price is expensive, the tariff on silk alone has exceeded two billion silver dollars a year.

The treasury of the Ming Dynasty is more and more abundant, although the number of troops in the seven years of Zhongxing has been used many times, and the four countries have been destroyed one after another, and the Mongolian steppe and other places have been added, but the silver dollar of the treasury has not decreased, but increased, for this reason, at the end of the year, Zhu Ciji once again ordered to expand the size of the Ming army, the number of regular troops expanded to 30 armies, 600,000 people, and the garrison army expanded to 1.3 million, the Ming soldiers are strong and strong, such a huge force, plus the two major naval fleets, the Ming Dynasty is prosperous, deterring all countries.