After the cabinet meeting ended, Zhu Youzhen, who walked out of the Wenhua Palace, looked at the snowflakes flying in the air, suddenly stopped, and stretched out his hand into the air to catch it, "It's snowing." ”

The cold snowflakes fell on his forehead, and suddenly his somewhat drowsy mind cleared up a lot. Wang Chengen took the Huang Luo umbrella from the hands of the eunuch who ran in small steps and blocked the sky above Chongzhen, "Your Majesty, are you going back to the Qianqing Palace or going now?" ”

Zhu Youzhen took a step forward, preventing Wang Chengen from continuing to follow with the Huangluo umbrella, and said, "This snow is not big, so there is no need to cover it." Go to Wuying Palace, didn't Tian Wenming come back, go and summon him. I want to hear what he's seen in the area in the past six months..."

Tian Wenming still has the title of the imperial secretary, and soon after he returned to the capital, he went to the imperial secretariat to make a report. The imperial secretariat was set up in the side hall of the Wuying Hall and the duty room outside the noon gate, and after being summoned by Chongzhen, Tian Wenming soon followed the eunuch who passed the message into the Wuying Palace.

When he saw Tian Wenming again, Zhu Youzhen was obviously a little stunned, but he quickly covered it up. The two chatted together for a full hour, and Chongzhen invited him to have a simple lunch together.

Although Tian Wenming studied in the Guozi Prison for a while, he preferred to mingle with the people in the market, and did not get along too much with those prisoners who might enter the official career, and after being appreciated by Chongzhen, he quickly went out to Beijing to study the habits and breeding grounds of locusts, so he had not yet learned some bureaucratic habits.

For example, when Jin met the emperor, there were those things that should be said, those things that should not be said, and so on. Generally speaking, concealing evil and promoting good is the only way for officials to report to the emperor, otherwise no one knows whether the content of their report will offend some officials in the court.

However, Tian Wenming, who does not learn and has no skills, has never been exposed to this way of being an official when he was in Guozijian. He didn't follow the right path to enter the official career, so he didn't have any guidance from a teacher or the same year, so in front of Chongzhen, he said everything that should be said and what should not be said.

Compared with Tian Wenming's search for a suitable environment for locust reproduction along the Yellow River, and the several methods he experimented with to curb locust reproduction in the local area, Zhu Youzhen felt that the biggest harvest was the customs and customs that Tian Wenming saw along the way.

Compared with the dry report of Xu Xianchun and others, Tian Wenming's stories made Chongzhen understand the daily life of the people along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.

Under Wang Chengen's constant hints, Zhu Youzhen had no choice but to end the conversation, after all, he still had a scheduled itinerary this afternoon, and he could not continue this conversation.

Before the conversation ended, Zhu Youzhen said to Tian Wenming: "The time of this conversation is still a little shorter, and I still have a feeling of unfinished. In this way, when you go back, you will write a booklet of what you have seen and heard on this trip out of Beijing. Don't use any kind of folding, just write a diary, write down what you see every day after you leave Beijing in spoken language, and then send it to me to see. ”

After talking with the emperor for nearly an hour, Tian Wenming's mood seemed much calmer. He was still annoyed, at first because he was too nervous in front of the emperor, some things were a little upside down, but now when he heard Chongzhen's instructions, he hurriedly replied: "After the minister goes back, he will start writing, and he must let His Majesty see the minister's report as soon as possible." ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded and said, "Well, you can concentrate on writing this diary at home in the past few days, and you don't have anything to do in the Imperial Secretariat now, so you don't have to come over to order something." In a few days, I'll have someone arrange your new job. ”

Tian Wenming respectfully agreed to the emperor, and then bowed and left the room. When he went out of the door, Zhu Youzhen asked Wang Chengen beside him with a somewhat unswerving face: "What's the matter with the black blue on his face?" Was it a beating? Is there anyone else in the capital who dares to attack the court officials? ”

Hearing Chongzhen ask this question, the corners of Wang Chengen's mouth suddenly rose, he suppressed the smile in his heart, and explained to the emperor: "Your Majesty guessed correctly, the bruises on the faces of the Tianshe people were beaten, but they were not others, they were his new concubines." ”

Wang Chengen's answer made Zhu Youzhen stunned, and he immediately calmed down and listened to Wang Chengen tell an interesting story that happened to Tian Wenming.

When Tian Wenming returned to Beijing, he brought back a pair of father and daughter, who originally said that they would accept this daughter as a concubine, but this father and daughter were originally the lower ninth-rate performers on the rivers and lakes, and the Tian family was a big family in Tongzhou, and now Tian Wenming has become an official again, which was naturally strongly opposed by Tian Wenming's father.

It is said that when Hita's father rushed to the capital to drive the father and daughter out of Tian Wenming's mansion, there was a conflict between the two sides, and when Tian Wenming stepped forward to dissuade him, he was punched in the face by the woman.

Zhu Youzhen blinked his eyes and said thoughtfully: "Was this Tian Wenming rescued by this father and daughter when Shangqiu was captured by the homeless thieves?" ”

Wang Chengen thought for a while before replying: "Back to Your Majesty, it was this father and daughter who did it. ”

Zhu Youzhen thought for a while, then said with a smile: "Even if the two sides have different backgrounds, but after all, they saved Tian Wenming's life, since Tian Wenming himself promised, then he should honestly fulfill the contract.

This Tian Wenming did things for me, and almost lost his life. Well, let me do him a little favor. You go and give an order, arrange a background for that father in Jinyiwei, and let them settle down in the capital first.

Then he ordered to give Tian Wenming's main room a title as a reward for his hard work in Beijing this time. Well, go and inform the queen again, let her arrange a time to summon Shimoda Wenming's wife and concubine. Come to think of it, the Tian family won't have any complaints..."

The Bunsiin Temple, located in the eastern part of the city, was originally just a cramped place for Ouchi to make silk, paintings, and other handicrafts. Since Chongzhen ascended the throne, he has made a big move on the Wensi Academy, and has sent many hardware craftsmen from the Baoyuan Bureau to come here.

By November of the first year of Chongzhen, Wensi Institute had expanded into a mechanical research center with 42 production institutes, covering an area of 120 acres, nearly 10,000 craftsmen of all kinds, and a machine production factory.

When Xu Xingsheng accompanied Chongzhen into the gate of Wensi Courtyard again, he could see that some old buildings were being demolished, and some courtyard walls were being opened, looking like a large construction project.

Xu Xingsheng followed on the side and introduced to Chongzhen: "These buildings have been built for too long, and the internal space allocation is not reasonable, it is difficult to install new machines and machine tools, and the cost of rebuilding is too high, so the minister decided to demolish this old building and build a single-storey permeable space factory according to the newly developed frame building structure of the Ministry of Industry..."

Zhu Youzhen looked at the exquisitely carved beams that were discarded on the side, and the window lattices with hollowed out patterns, and felt a little sorry for a while. In the future, this garbage can probably be called a work of art.

However, he quickly turned back to his mind and continued to focus on Xu Xingsheng's renovation plan for the Wensi Academy. In this era, the streets and alleys of the capital are almost everywhere with eye-catching artworks. But there was no factory to find with black smoke and noisy machines.

In the history of his knowledge, only the monotonous machines and the greasy workers who were covered in grease could create material wealth that could ensure that the people of this country, every one of them, had the leisure to appreciate what is beautiful in life.

It's not like this era, although the people have created countless works of art, but it is only a small group of upper-class people who can appreciate this beauty elegantly. Most ordinary people, exhausted from trying to fill their stomachs and those of their families, still have time to observe the beauty of art around them.

“… Based on our research on various workshops and industries over the past year. We found that screws, nails, and gears are the most widely used, and the standardization of the specifications of these parts not only expands the market for the use of these parts, but also saves a large part of social resources.

In order to standardize the production of these parts, it is necessary to minimize manual work and instead process them by machine. Because the machine doesn't get tired and it doesn't make mistakes. As long as the craftsmen who operate the gear are processed in accordance with the specified process and precision, then at least 90 or more of the 100 gears produced are qualified.

Although good workers process 100 gears, the pass rate has more than the example of the machine. But when the number of machined parts grows to 1,000, or 10,000, the pass rate of machine production exceeds that of the best workers..."

Zhu Youzhen listened carefully to Xu Xingsheng's introduction, and inspected several of the most advanced machine tools made in the Wensi Academy, most of which are powered by animal power or manpower.

These machine tools are mainly used for cutting processing, thread lathes, gear processing machine tools, horizontal boring machines, grinding machines, milling machines, planers, etc. Although these machines look rough and weird, Chongzhen sees them with relish. In his opinion, these more than ten machine tools undoubtedly represent the highest achievement of Ming craftsmen in manual skills.

Next, as long as the power problem is solved, then the door of a new era can be regarded as opening a gap for him. After Zhu Youzhen looked at these machine tools, he turned back to Xu Xingsheng and said: "The achievements of Wensi Institute this year are quite good, in addition to continuing to improve the research of these machine tools, you should also consider that if there is a change in power, then the machine tool should be modified to adapt to the new power source."

In addition, there are many rivers in the south, so Wensi Institute can send people to the south to look for a suitable place to build a machine production workshop powered by water power. Then compare it with the machines here to see if these machines can still work stably with different power..."

In addition to these machine tools, Wensi Institute also showed Chongzhen several new products, one is tooth powder, and the other is a toothbrush. Tooth powder made from calcium carbonate with a little mint crumble, although not as comfortable as the toothpaste of later generations, is much better than brushing your teeth with salt.

Zhu Youzhen tried it once, and he was full of praise, and asked Wensi Institute to send a batch to the palace first. He also said casually: "You can also experiment with mixing these tooth powders with glycerin to see if you can make a paste, which is much more convenient to use than tooth powder." ”