In order to manage such a large area, a wall is obviously not enough. Shanglinyuan is a royal management institution specially established for this purpose. Its official name should be Shanglinyuan Supervisor.
This institution has one left and right supervisor, each with the fifth rank; one left and right deputy supervisor, each with the sixth rank; and one left and right supervisor, each with the seventh rank. There is one official in the Tuan Education Department, one in the Liang Mu Department, one in the Lin Heng Department, and one in the Jiashu Department. They are all in the seventh rank.
There is one chief minister of the Fan Education Department, one chief minister of the Liang Mu Department, one chief minister of the Lin Heng Department, and one chief minister of the Jiashu Department, all of whom are of the eighth rank. In addition, there are a bunch of minor officials of the ninth rank such as dian books and records.
Just looking at the positions of Supervisor and Superintendent, it seems that they are not much, but the Department of Education, the Department of Good Animal Husbandry, the Department of Lin Heng, and the Department of Jiaxu and Vegetables, do they sound a bit related to breeding and planting?
That's right, Nanhaizi is not only a royal wetland park, resort and hunting ground, but also a large farm specializing in providing fresh vegetables, eggs, milk, meat and poultry, aquatic products, and fruits to the royal family in Beijing.
The agricultural, animal husbandry and fishery products produced here were selected by Guanglu Temple before they were eligible to enter the palace, but they could not be directly cooked for the emperor. Guanglu Temple is only responsible for selecting ingredients, cooking ordinary meals and organizing various palace banquets. The emperor's food was solely responsible for the Shangshan Supervisor of the Twelve Supervisors of the Inner Palace, but the ingredients had to be purchased from Guanglu Temple.
How many people lived in the imperial city of the Ming Dynasty? The Bureau of Liturgy has detailed records that by April of the third year of Jingyang, there were a total of 14,076 eunuchs and 1,981 maids in the imperial city of Beijing. After removing the zeros and leaving the whole number, plus the members of the royal family, the price is over 16,000.
It is not an easy task to feed 20,000 children five square meals a day. Not to mention that the chefs have to work several shifts, and the number of people responsible for farming and breeding has to double.
These families who specialize in farming and breeding in the imperial city are called sea households, and they probably come from two sources. Some are farmers who have migrated from various places, and some are eunuchs who have been purified in the palace but were not selected to enter the palace.
According to the records of the Director of Ceremonies, there were more than 40,000 Haihu people working in Nanhaizili alone, belonging to four departments. The Lin Heng Department is responsible for fruits without hormone injection and has planted 180 hectares of fruit trees; the Jiasheng Department is dedicated to pollution-free vegetables and has planted 120 hectares; the Good Animal Husbandry Department provides red meat without water injection and has grazed more than 900 cows and more than 2,000 cows for this purpose. Sheep, more than 1,000 pigs, and more than 300 rabbits; the Breeding Department has a collection of free-range chickens, ducks, and geese, feeding more than 1,000 geese, more than 2,000 ducks, and more than 5,000 chickens.
In terms of enjoyment, every one of the ancient emperors deserved to be beheaded. They spent tens of thousands of manpower and material resources just to feed and drink a handful of royal members. On the contrary, the soldiers who went to fight at the border had to starve from time to time. It would be unreasonable not to subjugate the country.
In fact, Hong Tao forgot about it. The royal farms under the supervision of Shanglinyuan were far more than just Nanhaizi. They surrounded the capital city to Baihe in the east, Xishan in the west, Wuqing in the south, Juyong in the north, Hunhe River in the southwest, and other large and small farms. There are dozens of small ones, covering a total area of more than 4,000 hectares.
Wherever there are special products, such as peaches from Pinggu, walnuts and chestnuts from Miyun, persimmons from Fangshan, apples from Changping, white pears from Mentougou, watermelons from Daxing, etc., a piece of land must be dedicated to Huangzhuang.
"What a sin... Just choose Nanhaizi. Find a secluded place nearby. It's best to use the existing houses or temples and move there as soon as possible. There are not enough houses to build in the future!"
Hong Tao had never been interested in eating, and the more he heard about it, the more he heard about it. Unfortunately, he couldn't make the decision on the number of eunuchs and maids, let alone cancel the imperial palace, so he could only endure it for now.
However, the new site of the Europa Temple already exists. Although the infrastructure of Gonghua City is relatively good, it is difficult to cover up the traces of the residence and training of thousands of people. There are tens of thousands of people working and living in Nanhaizi itself. Although there are many people talking, it is also easier to hide. The large place is suitable for training.
"Don't give up the original site. Tell Matteo Ricci to leave one or two Buddhist monks and a dozen children to cope with the inspection." However, the Europa Temple in the city cannot be given up. It would be good to stay and serve as a liaison station for various workshops.
In the future, no matter which department has something that is not particularly urgent, there is no need to use badges to enter the palace one by one. Instead, the letters can be placed in the Europa Temple first, and then the monks will regularly come to the palace to deliver them under the pretext of teaching language, which will be easier to hide from others.
"Your Majesty, I have already tried the fine steel from the Yongding River Workshop. Compared with the old method, it is stronger and purer, and it saves time and effort. It is really a magical skill! Use it to make a blunderbuss tube that can be more than a foot long, and it can also be filled with powder. Longer, more accurate and more durable.”
Wang An took the order and left, but Zhao Shizhen had no intention of leaving. Seeing that there was no one else around except the little eunuch, he thiefly took out a small paper bag from his belt, unfolded it and put it on the desk, his face full of expectation.
"...How heavy is it?" There is a picture of a musket drawn on the paper. Let's call it a gun for now. According to the custom of the Ming Dynasty, it should be called a gun. Its barrel is very long, exceeding the bird guns and western guns equipped by the Shenji Battalion, and is similar to the big bird guns, but the barrel is thinner and has no bracket.
"This is an imitation of the bird gun from the Rumi country. The barrel is four pounds and eight taels, the total weight is six pounds and five taels, and it is six feet and seven inches long. It has four qian of powder and three qian of projectiles.
Different from the bird gun, Chen's gun is rolled with two layers of fine steel, each section is one foot long, with a total of four sections. Although the gun tube is longer and the weight only increases slightly, it only needs to cool down after ten consecutive shots. I tried more than forty projectiles and could penetrate an inch of thick wood from fifty steps away, and none of them exploded! "
When talking about his proud work, Zhao Shizhen almost forgot about basic etiquette, gesticulating in front of the emperor, spitting foam and flying stars. That is to say, there is no real thing, otherwise he would really dare to load two rounds in the palace.
"Where's the production volume?" Zhao Shizhen said excitedly. Hong Tao sounded a little bored, but he had to pretend to be interested so as not to dampen the other party's enthusiasm.
"If they are made of fine steel by a skilled blacksmith from the Bingzhan Bureau, you can get two of them a month." Zhao Shizhen became even more excited when talking about the output.
In the past, blunderbuss required repeated forging of iron into fine iron. The standard was eight kilograms out of ten kilograms, which was called ten percent off two fine irons. This process alone takes four or five days. Now with fine steel, the time is reduced by one-third.
"Oh, that's it... click, click, click..." But Hong Tao's heart went cold when he heard these words. He tapped his knuckles on the table and fell into deep thought.
"Your Majesty... you can take three pills a month!" Even if Zhao Shizhen couldn't see, he could tell that the emperor was smirking. He gritted his teeth and reported new data.
"Don't be too hasty about the fire gun. Let's get it out first. Let me help prepare the materials and equipment first. I have written down the casting method here. If you don't understand anything, feel free to ask."
In just ten seconds, Hong Tao had already made a decision to temporarily abandon his focus on front-loaded muskets and instead focus on artillery research and development. It's not a front-loading bronze cannon or a Franco machine cannon, it's a breech-loading smoothbore cannon.
The Ming Dynasty's musket manufacturing technology has lagged behind the world's advanced level as a whole, and due to lack of research and development, it can only be imitated. There are roughly three sources, bird gun, Lumi gun and iron cannon.
The musket refers to the European matchlock gun brought by the Portuguese, the lumi gun was introduced from Turkey, and the iron gun is an improved version of the matchlock gun introduced to Japan.
The prototype of the gun imitated by Zhao Shizhen came from Turkey. In the Ming Dynasty, it was called Lumi State, pretending to be Lumi gun. This gun is actually a derivative of the European matchlock gun, but the barrel is made differently.
The French use two to three layers of thin iron sheets to play multi-layer nesting, the British like to roll them directly with thick iron sheets, and those in Central Asia are accustomed to spirally rolling strips of iron sheets onto solid iron bars, at least two layers. The Ming Dynasty and Japan were keen on nesting short tubes about one foot long in multiple layers, and then welding three or four short tubes together to form.
Gun barrels made in several ways will have similar effects as long as the craftsmanship and materials are qualified. However, they all have the disadvantages of long manufacturing time, high process requirements, and low yield.
It takes the skilled blacksmiths of the Bingzhan Bureau to make a musket out of fine steel in as little as ten days, but there is no guarantee of 100% success. If there is a problem in any of the coiling, welding, and chamber repairing steps, it will be scrapped.
According to the level of machining at this time, Hong Tao was unable to find a more efficient solution in a short time. Even if a hydraulic press is used with a mold to directly press the steel bar into a U shape, and then forge it by hand later to shorten the manufacturing time, the result will be a front-loading musket, and at most the match rope will be changed into a flintlock.
A flintlock muzzle-loading musket that uses black powder and round projectiles. Its effective range does not exceed 100 meters. In actual combat, skilled soldiers can fire no more than two rounds per minute. It takes less than half a month to make one. It cannot be used on rainy days. It is cost-effective. It doesn't seem to be going well.
(End of chapter)
