Although under Chongzhen's suppression, the politically loose alliance led by Huang Liji was unable to retaliate against the Donglin Party after the Huangji Palace meeting. But the atmosphere that had eased between the two disappeared again.

According to Chongzhen's meaning, in order not to hurt the reputation of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, the case of Huang Zongxi tried by Liu Hongxun was quietly covered up.

After the meeting of the Imperial Palace, Liu Hongxun submitted his resignation to the emperor in the name of foot disease, and Chongzhen did not follow the usual practice to retain, and directly agreed to Liu Hongxun's resignation.

Huang Zongxi's case was taken over by Yuan Keli himself, and the original public trial was canceled, and the venue of the trial was shifted from the Criminal Department to Liangxiang.

When Yuan Ke decided the case, the Daming Times and public opinion in the capital began to discuss the candidates for the champion, the top eye, and the flower in the current department.

The scholars and the people of the capital, who were still paying attention to Huang Zongxi's case, were suddenly attracted to attention. Although there are still some people who still have not given up paying attention to Huang Zongxi's case, in this overwhelming publicity, the voices of these people are quickly drowned out.

Eight or nine days later, a brief news story appeared in the most remote corner of the Daming Times. Yuan Keli, the secretary of the Criminal Department, concluded the trial of Huang Zongxi's case, and Huang Zunsu was not convicted of some of the charges, and Huang Zongxi accepted the conclusion of the case and returned to his hometown today.

When this news came out, it happened to be the day of the temple examination that the scholars were most concerned about, so there was no wave.

At the Tongzhou wharf, a haggard young gentleman was escorted by two sturdy family members and boarded an official boat. Behind them, a middle-aged servant followed closely behind them with a package.

Then Liu Zongzhou, Yuan Keli and an official walked to the official boat, Yuan Keli pointed to the young scholar, and said to the official who was carefully accompanying him: "If you go south to Jinhua, Zhejiang this time, you must send him back to Shaoxing Mansion, don't let him run back halfway, and don't let him have any accidents." ”

"Please rest assured, the student will definitely send Huang Taichong back to Mrs. Huang, and he will not dare to slack off on the road." The official said respectfully.

Liu Zongzhou looked at Huang Zongxi, who was silent, and couldn't help but sigh and said to him: "I know you are very uncomfortable now, but the matter in Beijing is not so simple to distinguish right from wrong.

Our acquaintance with your father will not allow you to fall into this mud pit as well. You have a widowed mother and two younger brothers, and if something happens to you, who else in the family can support the household? ”

Although Huang Zongxi is stubborn, he also knows that these two elders have no ill will towards him.

But he really felt angry, so he said to Liu Zongzhou and Yuan Keli: "The two uncles are both well-known righteous men and gentlemen in the world, why don't you persuade Your Majesty to sweep away the traitors in the court, but instead want to be in the company of these traitors and evils, and don't let Taichong go to appeal to Your Majesty." Father... My father's death was so tragic..."

Huang Zongxi was full of anger, and when he mentioned his father, his eyes immediately turned red, and he couldn't help but feel sad. Liu Zongzhou and Yuan Keli couldn't help but feel sorry for it.

Liu Zongzhou was silent, and Yuan Keli was silent for a long time before he sighed and said: "Those who don't plan for a lifetime can't plan for a while; Those who do not fight for the overall situation cannot fight for one place.

After the death of the first emperor, he took the throne as a younger brother and brother. Your Majesty is grateful not to forget brotherhood, which is a matter of course.

But after His Majesty ascended the throne, he exiled Wei Zhongxian and Cui Chengxiu, which shows that His Majesty is not so completely at ease with the eunuchs.

The colleagues of the party who were exiled during Wei Gelding's reign are now returning to the dynasty one after another. It can be seen that His Majesty is not bewitched by the eunuchs and disgusted with his own party.

I wait for today, first of all, to gain His Majesty's trust, and then we can slowly overturn the case for the martyrs of our party. If it is too hasty, and make His Majesty suspicious of us and other party members, it will only push His Majesty to the eunuch party.

Your Majesty is now a young man, and his mind is unpredictable. If I can't get along with the eunuchs, it's hard to say which side he will be on. Rather than forcing His Majesty to make a decision now, it would be more appropriate to wait for the moment.

It's a good thing that you're avenging your father, but it's not the right time. I hope you will go back to study at home this time, and when the opportunity comes tomorrow, there will naturally be a day when the clouds and fog will clear..."

After the Huangji Hall meeting, Chongzhen focused on solving the problem of soda ash and caustic soda. Soda ash can be converted into caustic soda by causticization, so as long as the amount of soda ash is solved, it is enough.

Soda ash, also known as sodium carbonate, is used in soap, papermaking, glass production, and can also be used as a flux in the metallurgical industry.

Caustic soda is sodium hydroxide, and its first use is to make soap, then to make paper, and as for other uses, it seems that it is not possible to use it now.

The difference between the above two is that caustic soda is highly corrosive. For a long time, the alkali used in the glass factory and soap workshop under the name of the palace was purchased from the market.

There are three types of alkali on the market, which are soil alkali, grass alkali extracted from plant ash, and trona block.

Soda ash alone accounts for 30% of the raw material, while caustic soda used in soap also accounts for 15%.

Since the Chinese New Year, the output of glass factories has increased, and the iron smelting industry has begun to habitually use soda ash as a co-solvent.

As a result, the alkali price in the market began to rise. The soil soda doubled to one cent of silver per catty, while the refined soda ash rose to one and a half silver per catty.

The alkali used in the capital mainly comes from Zhangjiakou. The alkali in Zhangjiakou comes from the alkali lake on the grassland of Inner Mongolia, and the texture is very good.

However, in the past, alkali was not used for any other purpose than washing. Therefore, the production of soda has been growing quite slowly.

However, under the impetus of Chongzhen, the most primitive glass factory established in the capital, and the amount of trona it consumed, also quickly affected the commerce of the Ming Dynasty.

For example, in the past, some small tribes near the alkali lake went to the grassland of Inner Mongolia to sweep the ground in the alkali lake, and they were afraid that if they swept too much, the price of alkali would fall.

However, after the beginning of spring this year, these tribes found that neither the merchants who came to the tribe to collect alkali nor the merchants who transported the alkali to Zhangjiakou for sale, did not encounter the problem of not being able to sell the alkali.

And the Ming businessmen, who have always liked to lower prices the most, have also been rare and generous, and implemented unlimited purchases according to the prices of previous years.

However, the alkali lakes in Inner Mongolia are all in Wanhudi, Ordos, which is the Inner Mongolia region opposite Yulin.

The large increase in the demand for alkali in the Zhangjiakou market cannot immediately increase the output of soda in the mouth. These tribes can only agree with the Ming Shang that they will bring more mouth alkali next time.

Some businessmen began to try to hire people from the mainland to collect soda in the lake, and the small tribes, who originally only regarded soda mining as a sideline business in winter, began to settle down near the lake, occupying a rich lakeshore, leaving some people to collect soda professionally.

Chongzhen did not know what was happening in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. All he knew was that the price of alkali in the market had risen as fast as possible, and what was worse was that some merchants had begun to play the trick of hoarding.

Originally, the alkali price in Beijing was quite cheap, after all, Beijing is not far from Zhangjiakou, and the cheap and excellent alkali was first transported to Beijing, and then transferred from the Grand Canal to the south.

In addition to the excellent quality of the mouth alkali, the vast saline-alkali land east of the capital to the coastal area has sufficient raw materials for plant ash alkali production.

However, what is surprising is that after entering April, the alkali in the capital is actually out of stock. In order to solve the problem of alkali raw materials, Chongzhen ordered the Sihai Commercial Bank to participate in the sales route of trona in Zhangjiakou and the grasslands of Inner Mongolia.

In addition, the communes established in the counties under the rule of Beizhili were allowed to establish soil alkali factories and soil nitrate factories, which were purchased by the Sihai Commercial Bank in a unified manner to save the emergency.

In addition, it is ordered to find the origin of trona near the Nanyang Basin, where trona is produced. With the efforts of various measures formulated by Chongzhen, the alkali price in the capital finally stabilized the price.

When he was busy solving the problem of the source of alkali raw materials, Chongzhen did not give up, and paid attention to the horse-drawn light railway and the construction of the iron-smelting plant.

The railway of Zuo'anmen-Chongwenmen-Chaoyangmen, You'anmenwai-Liangxiang-Zhuozhou, Fuchengmenwai-Shijingshan-Mentougou, the three light railways have been launched.

The You'anmenwai-Liangxiang-Zhuozhou railway was built later, and the other two railways were built first. For these three railways, the palace only invested more than 50,000 yuan.

The rest of the shares fell into the hands of eunuch officials who studied Choi Cheng-so. When Liu Hongxun was aggressive and wanted to wipe out the eunuchs in the DPRK and China in one fell swoop, these officials realized that without the protection of the emperor, not to mention their official positions, even their family property may not be able to be kept.

When they followed Wei Zhongxian to kill all the Donglin party members, destroying the unspoken rule that the party struggle failed and the officials did not be liquidated when they retreated to the township, they never thought that the Emperor of the Apocalypse would ascend to heaven so soon.

How cruel these officials were to the liquidation of the Donglin Party at the beginning, they understood how bad their fate would be after the Donglin Party overturned the case.

When Feng Quan and Cui Chengxiu smashed nearly one million taels of capital in the railway and Tangshan Iron Smelting Plant, the news of Chongzhen's reward immediately came out.

These eunuch officials thought they had found a shortcut to the emperor. It is to invest in various factories and railways that are organized and built in the palace.

In fact, when the investment plan for three railways with a total length of more than 200 miles was announced, the price of railway in the capital began to rise immediately.

The shares of the two iron-smelting plants in Mentougou and Tangshan, both of which are coal-iron complexes supporting mines and coke plants, were immediately snapped up. It is the most important thing for Chongzhen, and it is an industrial base near Gyeonggi in the future.

The size of the Mentougou Iron Smelting Plant is only about one-third of that of the Tangshan Iron Smelting Plant, but Mentougou is well equipped with various resources and the existence of many small coal mines here, which is enough to provide qualified industrial workers.

What Chongzhen has to do is to turn the coolies who have not yet awakened the consciousness of the workers in these small coal mines into real conscious industrial workers.

Only workers who have a high degree of organizational discipline, a high spirit of unity and cooperation, and represent the most advanced productive forces, especially material productivity and technological innovation, can be called industrial workers. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of peasants at work.