Recently, Zhu Gaoxu has been running every night, and his weight and energy have been maintained. But he rarely cared about the specific affairs of the DPRK and China.

Gao Xianning, the secretary of Dali Temple, recommended a six-rank official to Zhu Gaoxu, who is said to support the change of the law and is quite talented.

That person's name is Song Li, the prisoner of the Guozijian was born, and his reputation is low, and he can be an official because he has caught up with a good time. During the Hongwu period, there was a shortage of civil officials in the imperial court, and many people who did not have much serious fame were selected to join the ranks.

Song Li worked as a magistrate, an official of the household department, and treated floods, and the highest position was the secretary of the Ministry of Industry in the Yongle period; But during the "Abolition of the Prince" period, he stood in the wrong place, and although Wu Dechu was exempted from the death penalty, he was demoted to the head of the six-rank official household department.

Zhu Gaoxu is very interested in Song Li, if Song Li is really worthy of the big responsibility and has been promoted; Then the officials in the court must be able to feel that the turbulent storm of the previous court has passed.

However, Zhu Gaoxu did not immediately reuse this person, he wanted to find an opportunity to see Song Li's talent for himself. Because Wang Anshi in the Song Dynasty had a drawback in changing the law, he paid too much attention to the camp and the old and new parties, so that some mediocre people stood in the right position and were reused, but they did a bad thing.

Song Li was still the head of the Liupin Household Department, but he got an errand. Zhu Gaoxu ordered him to form the "first mint" of the "central bank".

It turned out that the Ming Dynasty had a "treasure banknote lifting division", and there were branches such as the paper making bureau, the banknote printing bureau, the treasure banknote library, and the line library, which belonged to the household department. At that time, Yu Bao's credit was getting lower and lower, and Zhu Gaoxu decided to stop printing more treasure money; The treasure money that rewarded the vassal kings and nobles was changed to add salt citations.

Treasure money and salt introduction are both policies that accumulate many evils. Zhu Gaoxu decided to cut off the "treasure money lifting division" among them, and then he could only transfer the disaster to the salt and make it more indiscriminate.

The officials and eunuchs of the Treasure Money Lifting Division have not been abolished, and now they have changed their name to "Central Bank". All the government offices, treasury, and personnel have been retained, and most of the officials are currently in a state of having nothing to do and taking care of their official duties. As a result, there was little opposition.

The national policy of stopping the printing and distribution of Daming treasure banknotes has not caused any impact for the time being, and there is no mess to clean up.

Because the Ming treasure banknotes are very magical, the imperial court and the government have always only issued but not received; Spending it is spent as money, but taxes and so on do not collect treasure money. Since the state has never made a promise, there is no need to fulfill the aftermath.

So the imperial court silently did not print or issue treasure money, and everything was fine. Anyway, the Ming court trying to find a way to harvest the wealth of the common people is not a matter of one or two things, it is nothing more than a broken jar.

Of course, this wonderful situation is also one of the reasons for the low credit of treasure banknotes......

On this day, after Zhu Gaoxu carried out daily rituals at Fengtianmen, he left the palace with his entourage of honor. If the emperor officially traveled to worship and so on, the scale of the ceremonial guard was much larger. Today's emperor's guard of honor is not large, mainly composed of the cavalry of the Jinyi Guard and the Han General and the Yulin Left Guard, focusing on defense rather than pomp.

A group of people went out of Hongwumen, passed by the big school, and went straight to the "First Mint". The place is on a tributary of the south of the Qinhuai River, not far from the gate above the outer Guo.

Gao Xianning, the secretary of Dali Temple, was in Zhu Gaoxu's carriage, in the same car with the emperor.

Gao Xianning's voice suddenly said: "The Holy Lord forgives the sins, when the Song chief was on an errand, Weichen mixed a little personal matter. ”

Zhu Gaoxu lowered the curtain, looked away from the window, and turned his head to look at Gao Xianning.

Gao Xianning clenched his fists and said: "That workshop, which was originally a newly built place for the Shouyu Iron Works, has a large number of houses, utensils, and dams. The Song lord ordered the construction of a mint, so he took a fancy to the iron works that had not yet been used here.

Director Song thought of a way. He found Xia Butang and persuaded the household department to exchange some of the treasure money left in the treasury of the 'Treasure Money Lifting Division' for the newly built iron factory with the Southern Department of the Imperial Palace. ”

Zhu Gaoxu nodded. I thought in my heart that I was going to use the treasure banknotes, but the treasure money could still be spent, but the value might be lower.

Gao Xianning continued: "In this matter, because of the huge amount of money deposited, the Shouyu Sinan Department took advantage of it. Weichen put forward a condition to the right envoy of the king, and wanted to use the people and craftsmen of the imperial division to do an experiment. In Jingshi and Chengdu Prefecture, find a way to measure the sun shadow at the same time to verify the theory of the circle of the earth. ”

When Zhu Gaoxu heard this, he immediately glanced at Gao Xianning with a surprised expression, and said after a while: "I know." ”

Gao Xianning didn't say anything more, as if he had figured out what Zhu Gaoxu meant.

The group continued on their way until they reached the mint next to the dam. Song Li, the head of the household department, took the officials of the original treasure money lifting department and some craftsmen to welcome them outside the gate, and knelt on the ground to make a big salute.

Zhu Gaoxu got out of the carriage and beckoned: "Everyone, you are flat, no courtesy." ”

Everyone thanked him, and Song Li bowed forward and asked Zhu Gaoxu and others to come in to inspect.

Song Li was a civil official in his forties, wearing the cyan round neck of a low-level civil official, and his cheeks were very thin, so that the wrinkles were more obvious, and he was a little old. His face was very ruddy, and he seemed to be a little excited and nervous.

This is also an old fritter in officialdom, and has gone through the officials of the five dynasties of Hongwu, Jianwen, Yongle, Hongxi, and Wude. The emperor himself came to inspect his errands, and he must have taken it very seriously, and Song Li should have realized that the time for him to return to the center of the court was just around the corner.

Song Li's hat and robe were covered with plaster, but no one said that he was out of honor. As soon as everyone walked into the workshop, they were covered with some dust in the smoky environment.

The contents are fairly organized, but there are a lot of tools used by various craftsmen, as well as stoves, sand, copper, etc., and the open hall is filled with dust and smoke. The craftsmen have stopped working, but the stove is still burning, and the water exhaust-powered blowers have not completely stopped.

The rising smoke, the sound of clanging instruments, gears and various instruments filled the hall, and Zhu Gaoxu had a feeling of a factory. He had joy in his heart, so he didn't dislike the slightly harsh environment at all.

Song Li said in front of Zhu Gaoxu: "The ministers have made a batch of new copper coins, and they want to wait for a few days to inspect them, and then they will be presented to the imperial court." ”

As he spoke, he took a few copper coins from the plate that had been brought to him, and presented them with both hands.

"Huh!" Zhu Gaoxu took the copper coin in his hand and immediately blurted out a surprised sound. This copper coin is a little different, the bright one is very smooth and exquisite, the appearance is very good, and the size and texture are almost the same.

Zhu Gaoxu observed for a while, glanced at Song Li, who was vaguely proud, and said, "Isn't this cast?" ”

Song Li immediately said: "Holy Wisdom! The ministers first used clay fan casting, but there was no word, and then used steel fan and hydraulic forging to make it. ”

Song Li walked briskly for a while, and pointed to a structure with a huge forging hammer next to the wall: "Holy Lord, the ministers will use this thing to forge and press. The fake house of the Imperial Sinan Department has collected the skills of ancient and modern craftsmen in different categories. With the books he edited as evidence, the ministers recruited craftsmen who were proficient in skills from all over the country in the name of the household department to enter Beijing and make instruments. This thing was specially built by the Southern Department by using the improvement of water drainage, water cone, drain cone and other techniques, according to the will of the minister. ”

He pointed to various iron and wood structures and introduced with great interest, "The hydraulic water wheel is very large, and it is connected by gears and sliding chains, so it can easily pull up the forging hammer weighing thousands of catties." Originally, the wooden teeth and load-bearing were not enough, so we used wood and iron to combine, and the forged iron parts were riveted to make gears......

The iron parts were forged with row cones, which were previously used to scoop grain; After the renovation of the Southern Department Iron Works, it was used to forge armor pieces. We used a larger row cone to forge the iron gears. ”

Zhu Gaoxu listened very carefully, and he was very interested in these things. Some of the techniques were even beyond the knowledge he could remember.

"Gangfan?" From time to time, Zhu Gaoxu asks a question, "How to make steel?" ”

Song Li said: "Shanxi has a method of making steel, and the previous Hongwu cannon used steel; The Shouyu Sinan Department has obtained the skills from Shanxi and compiled them into the library of the Counterfeit Academy. The minister is responsible for finding people, and he only understands a rough idea, and steelmaking must first make charcoal (coking). The art of charcoal smelting has existed since the Tang Dynasty and is now very complete. ”

He said: "The most difficult part of the steel model is not the steelmaking, but the engraving of words and patterns on the steel. The mint used a hydraulic wheel drilling machine from the Southern Department to complete the work, otherwise it would be difficult to do it if it was carved by manpower. The delicate scale of the iron factory also made the size of the steel fan consistent, so that such a copper coin of the same size could be produced. ”

Zhu Gaoxu was very interested in observing the steel fan under the forging hammer, many of which were placed in a small hole in a disc, divided into upper and lower models.

After looking at it for a while, Zhu Gaoxu understood, first put the cast copper coin in the steel fan below, and then cover it with the steel fan above, and the forging hammer fell down, so that both sides of the copper coin could form a pattern.

Not far away, there are also some hourglasses on the board. Song Li saw Zhu Gaoxu looking at the hourglass, so he immediately said: "The copper water in the mud fan must be cold for a period of time before it is forged; But it can't be cold, and when the copper is a little soft, hot forging can be formed. Therefore the hours are to be counted. However, the weather is cold and warm, the copper water is cold and warm, and the cold time is different, so the craftsman must adjust the length of the hour appropriately. ”

When Zhu Gaoxu heard this, he said: "You can improve the process and adopt assembly line operations." Each group of craftsmen only does one step, just like a craftsman who observes copper water and takes clay, if he does only one thing repeatedly, he will grasp it very accurately in the future. ”

Song Lizuo said: "The minister's decree." ”

Zhu Gaoxu said again: "When minting silver coins, there should be no square holes in the middle; Forged steel fan, the side edge should be engraved with shallow lines. ”

Song Limian was puzzled.

Zhu Gaoxu said: "After all, silver is a precious material, so it is necessary to prevent someone from scraping the silver material from the side, causing the silver coin to shrink." ”

Song Li immediately understood, first with a look of surprise on his face, and then sincerely bowed: "Holy Wisdom! ”