Going out from the Bei'an Gate of Miyagi, there is a high wall in the northwest near Haizi that encloses nearly 300 acres of land, which is the branch of the Ming Royal Academy of Sciences.

Originally, dozens of families lived here, but now all of them have been relocated. On the outskirts of this area, there is also a brocade guard unit and a patrol police station, which is responsible for the security of the Academy of Sciences.

As for the headquarters of the Ming Royal Academy of Sciences, it is opposite Guozijian. The main branch of the Academy of Sciences is only about 4 or 50 acres of land, which is far less than the grandeur of the branch here.

The Royal Academy of Sciences is divided into three branches: physics, mathematics and chemistry, as well as a geographical and geological survey center. However, the two branches of physics and mathematics, plus a geographical and geological survey center, would rather be crowded into the headquarters opposite the Guozijian, and no one wanted to come over to join the chemistry branch.

Except that the noise of the researchers and skilled workers of the Chemistry Branch crushing minerals made it impossible for them to think quietly. What's more, the smell of chemical agents and chemical experiments is so bad that there is no real explosion.

In the past year, the Royal Academy of Sciences has suffered as many as 19 casualties due to scientific research, and 16 of them are from the Chemistry Branch, which is a staggering number.

However, the speed of development of the Chemistry Branch has also left other branches far behind, and the Chemistry Branch has grown from 11 people at the end of last year to the present to become a super college with 239 researchers and 448 skilled workers.

At this time, there were only 39 staff members in the Physics Branch, 77 in the Mathematics Branch, and 59 in the Geographical and Geological Survey Center, but just over one-fifth of the number of people in the Chemistry Branch.

What is even more striking is that the Chemistry Branch costs a huge amount of money, accounting for nine-tenths of the Royal Academy of Sciences, so that the accounts of the Chemistry Branch are accounted for separately and are no longer subject to the supervision of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

When the Chemistry Branch was first established, each day's experiments burned enough to fully equip one cavalryman. Today, that number is that number of 15-man cavalry squads burned every day.

The reason why the cost of the chemistry branch is so huge is entirely because all the chemical laboratory equipment must be customized. If it weren't for the rapid development of the glass industry, Zhu Youjian estimated that the experimental funds of the Chemistry Branch would have doubled again.

Behind the high investment in the Chemistry Branch, the results of the Chemistry Branch are good in the eyes of some officials of the Ministry of Rites. Compared with the money-burning of the chemistry branch, mathematics, physics and other disciplines that are deduced with the help of formulas are really cheap and tasteful.

The criticism that some officials of the Ministry of Rites shouted every day that the Chemistry Branch had spent too much money and could not publish anything valuable and that it should be cut and cut out, which almost made the people of the Chemistry Branch panic. However, this matter was finally stopped by Chongzhen, and the price he paid was to put the most profitable mirror-making workshop and daily chemical workshop under the name of the Chemistry Branch of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and put an end to the matter.

With the high profits of the mirror-making workshop and the daily chemical workshop, the chemical branch not only did not shrink in size, but also grew to the current scene.

When Zhu Youzhen walked into the Royal Academy of Sciences with Wang Chengen and other entourages, Xu Guangqi, Jin Nige, Li Zhizao, and Li Ciyu were already waiting for him at the door with a group of academicians of the Academy of Sciences.

Although Li Zhizao is in charge of the Chemistry Branch, he is old and has eye diseases, so most of the daily affairs of the Chemistry Branch are entrusted to his second son and assistant Li Ciyu.

Li Ciyu is nearly 30 years old, and although he is not as tall as Zhu Youzhen, his figure is relatively well-proportioned. He has a gentle personality and loves Western learning more than the way of his master.

However, the Western studies brought by the Jesuits were mainly based on physics and mathematics, and chemistry had not yet become an independent discipline in the West at this time.

When Chongzhen established the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Ming Emperor personally separated chemistry from the natural sciences and made it a separate science. It was only then that Li turned his interest to chemistry.

Zhu Youzhen's memory of chemistry is only inorganic and organic, and as for the specific content and system, he has long forgotten it.

However, for the ancients of this era, Su Changqing, who has systematically studied chemistry courses, is still qualified to guide these ancients who are in the process of exploring the direction of chemical research.

Whether in the 17th century or the 21st century, chemistry is a practical science, and every small step forward in chemistry is based on countless experiments.

Of course, compared with the 21st century's people's understanding of the material world, which can be theoretically designed and then proved in practice, the Ming people in the 17th century wanted to improve their understanding of chemistry, and there was only one way to go.

That is to constantly put known substances together, conduct experiments under various conditions, see if there is a chemical reaction between them, so as to discover a new substance, and then study the new substance to see what it can be used for.

In Su Changqing's eyes, he felt that he could take a shortcut. First of all, all the compounds found in ancient Chinese books, mainly Taoist alchemy, were classified and studied, and then compared with chemical experiments recorded in Europe, and the most basic known chemical elements were first determined.

The first was the study of the composition of the air, and after making a sophisticated scale, the researchers agreed with the emperor's claim that the air contained one-fifth of the gas, allowing life to breathe and maintain burning oxygen; There are also four-fifths of the gas, which can neither breathe life nor sustain combustion, so it is called nitrogen. In Latin, nitrogen means not to support life.

The second is the study of metallic and non-metallic substances, sulfur, phosphorus, carbon, antimony, arsenic, silver, copper, tin, iron, mercury, gold, lead, zinc and other 13 elemental elements. There are also lime, bitter soil, and heavy soil that cannot be purified for the time being.

By renaming these elements, the door to understanding the material world through chemistry has finally opened. By separating the material world into individual elements and then putting them back together, the mysteries of the material world are revealed to mankind.

For some clergy, the process of these chemical experiments is like a microscopic reproduction of God's miracles of creating the world. Zhu Youzhen originally thought that some Jesuit priests might be offended by this and voluntarily quit the Chemistry Branch. But he had apparently miscalculated, and the Jesuit priests were a little amused by such chemical experiments.

What Zhu Youzhen did not know was that the founder of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius Loyola, had always encouraged the monks to study knowledge and use scholarship to fulfill the mission of saving the souls of the Lord.

There was a joke on the Internet that the priests of various congregations were meeting together, and a room of people was doing evening prayers in the church when the lights suddenly went out.

The Benedictine monks continued to chant from memory, and not a single word was wrong; The Franciscan friars took out their guitars and composed a hymn to thank the Dark Sisters for God's gift; The Dominican friars continued to begin their discussion of light as an important medium of divine knowledge; The Jesuits asked whether the sudden extinguishment of the lamp meant that vespers could be canceled from now on;

The Friars of the Order of the Holy Vestment sank into a slow, rhythmic breathing and meditation... The parish priest who presided over the meeting got up and went to the basement, took out the toolbox and went upstairs to change the fuse of the light bulb.

It can be seen that among the various religious orders of Christianity, the Jesuit priests have the most unprejudiced respect for learning.

In addition to making a chemical research design for the researchers of the Chemistry Branch, Chongzhen naturally will not forget to open the basic raw materials of the modern chemical industry, three acids and two alkalis.

The experimental preparation methods of sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and hydrochloric acid have been recorded in detail in the classics of the East and the West. Sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid can be used in the bleaching, printing and dyeing processes of textiles, and are extremely useful chemical raw materials for the textile industry.

However, the danger of three acids and two alkalis is also the biggest culprit in the loss of manpower in the chemical branch. However, because of this, the Chemical Engineering Branch has finally established a relatively complete set of laboratory operation manuals, and has preliminary first aid measures for injuries caused by acids and alkalis.

After several accidents, Chongzhen not only ordered an infirmary to be set up in the branch, but also established a hospital next door to the chemistry branch. In order to ensure that the injured personnel in the chemical experiment can be treated in time, although the current medical measures are somewhat helpless against this chemical injury, it finally dispelled the fear of some of the staff of the chemical branch.

Zhu Youjian came here this time, in fact, mainly to see if the gas generator can be put into practical use. But Li Ciyu obviously wanted Chongzhen to take a look at the new achievements of the Chemistry Branch in the past month or so, lest the emperor really treat their Chemistry Branch as a waste that only burns money and plays.

Li Ciyu took a glass tube of purple test solution and said to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, this is what you said last time, the test solution made of lichen leaching solution on the high mountain, this test solution will turn red when it encounters acid, and it will turn blue when it encounters alkali. With this, we won't be able to make a mistake with acid-base liquids when we experiment..."

Although he was forced to take a basic course in chemistry, Zhu Youzhen still kept a smile and said: "Then you can try to drop the test solution on the paper, and then add a small amount of acid and alkali respectively to turn it into a red and blue test paper, next time you can determine the acidity and alkalinity of the liquid by changing the color of the test paper, and you don't have to take out the liquid so troublesomely..."

Li Ciyu was stunned, and immediately said with great joy: "Sure enough, Your Majesty is still wise, and the minister will try to do it in a while."

Originally, His Majesty did not come today, and the minister also invited His Majesty to visit, since the beginning of the year when the use of sulfuric acid in papermaking and textile drifting, as well as the use of dilute sulfuric acid for wet copper smelting, the production method of this large amount of sulfuric acid has become the top priority research of our chemical branch.

According to His Majesty's contact process, the most important of these is the question of the absorption tower and the catalyst.

The absorption tower is made of lead plates, which is nothing more than a matter of testing several times. Only this catalyst has really made us look for a long time.

We experimented at least hundreds of times, and finally found that some of the insoluble red residues in some of the iron ore retrieved from the camp on the Rehe can act as a catalyst for the transformation of sulfur dioxide, which is insoluble in water, into sulfur trioxide.

In this way, we can significantly reduce the amount of saltpeter and sulfur used. However, after all, the camp in Rehe is outside the customs, and it is really inconvenient to collect and transfer this kind of iron ore.

Chen hopes to find and compare the iron ore mines in the interior of Daming and find iron ore with the same composition. ”