Those who can hold a seat at the big conference table in Jiujian Hall are all important people. They are either former Confucian scholars or important ministers of the Guangzhou court, and there are many knowledgeable people among them.
But none of these people could recognize the two good things Yan Yuan held that were related to the national destiny of the Ming Dynasty for three hundred years.
"Jian Guo, please stop being so secretive. We are so inexperienced that we can't recognize him."
"Jian Guo, this thing looks like stone and some kind of soil... What is the use of this thing?"
"Is it a gem? It doesn't look like it!"
"Jian Guo, please tell me, what are these two things?"
Zhu Heji smiled and shook his head, saying: "Look carefully, everyone... these are not two things, but three treasures!"
"Three treasures?"
"Dirt, stones, what else?"
Zhu Heji reached out and picked up the porcelain bowl filled with soil, then poured out the soil in the porcelain bowl and raised the porcelain bowl, "Look, what is this?"
"This is...a bowl. It doesn't look very round!"
"It's just a white porcelain bowl...the color is quite nice. Is it some kind of famous porcelain?"
Zhu Heji said: "This is called milk white porcelain. It is made by adding cow bone powder and quartz stone powder to the porcelain clay... This kind of milk white porcelain has excellent hardness, color and light transmittance. . This bowl was casually made by the craftsmen of the Huangpu Iron Works. If it is fired by a famous porcelain craftsman, it will definitely be made into the high-quality products we are waiting for. The Gu family has already sent people to Chaozhou, Zhangzhou, and Quanzhou to invite local porcelain masters to take a look. Yes. If they think it’s useful, I’ll teach them this method.”
What Zhu Heji took out was a piece of bone china porcelain, which historically appeared in Europe at the end of the 18th century. After the appearance of this kind of porcelain, it was quickly sought after by wealthy people from various European countries. It also helped the European porcelain industry to catch up and destroy most of the jobs of Chinese porcelain - don't underestimate this!
What is porcelain made of?
Made of soil!
This is a good deal of exchanging soil for silver!
For more than a thousand years, porcelain has been a top industry.
Moreover, Chinese porcelain has long established an extremely strong brand effect. Before the emergence of bone china, there were almost no competitors, and it was simply a matter of profit.
After the emergence of bone china, China quickly lost this top industry of "exchanging land for money".
Also in the late Qing Dynasty, with the strong rise of Japan's silk industry, another top industry monopolized by China for two thousand years, the silk industry, also completely declined.
Tea, sugar, and ironware, the three industries that were still dominant in the world at the end of the Ming Dynasty, all fell by the end of the Qing Dynasty!
In addition to ironware, China's porcelain, tea, silk, and sugar were all very profitable and had a monopoly status.
Their total loss caused China to completely lose industries that could quickly accumulate industrial capital at the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century...Without the profitable industries, China's road to industrialization would of course be extremely difficult. .
Now it was Zhu Heji's turn to lead the new Ming Dynasty in "capitalization". He naturally had to do everything possible to retain these advantageous industries. In addition, we must try our best to eliminate the advantageous industries of Westerners--of course, zero-dollar purchases!
Zhu Hecai did not believe that Europeans could achieve industrialization by shearing sheep...
After talking about bone china, Zhu Heji grabbed another stone with a surface covered with crystals and said, "This is called struvite. It was a treasure collected from the desert island of Dongsha by the prisoners of the Shang family army!"
"Guano?" Qiu Hui, who has raised ducks, immediately understood, "Is this fertilizer? Duck manure is a good fertilizer!"
"That's right!" Zhu Heji nodded, "This kind of struvite is mostly produced in overseas desert islands. It is formed by the defecation of birds on the sea for millions of years... It is an extremely high-quality fertilizer. Gujia On Huangpu Island, people opened a rice field and used struvite as fertilizer. The yield was twice as much as that of a rice field without guano fertilizer!
With this kind of good fertilizer, we Ming people will be able to suffer less from famine in the future! "
Zhu Shunshui, a bachelor, asked with interest: "Are there many struvites on Dongsha Island?"
"Not too much," Zhu Heji said with a bitter smile, "but if the imperial court could mine Dongsha's dung before the Jiashen disaster, it might be able to alleviate the world's famine. And the world is so big and boundless, a guano island like Dongsha will definitely There are many more...Mr. Shunshui, do you think this matter of opening up the sea is related to the mouths of hundreds of millions of people? And the food of hundreds of millions of people is the foundation of the country and the world for three hundred years? "
Zhu Shunshui nodded and said: "Zhiyu once traveled to the East and Southeast, so he knows how big the world is and the vastness of the four seas... The former Ming Dynasty was closed to the outside world and failed to use the wealth of the four seas to support the people of the world. This was a big mistake. also!
If Emperor Taizu Gao had known that the guano from overseas could support the common people of the Chinese dynasty, he would not have followed the ancestral precept of seclusion. "
Eating is politically correct for Chinese people!
If what Zheng He brought back was struvite that could feed people, then going to sea would be politically correct!
Zhu Heji spent so much effort (actually it was the prisoners of Shang Jiajun who helped) to obtain so many struvites, not to feed many people now... but to develop now and in the future!
One is to use "guano to turn food" to turn overseas interests into political correctness!
The second is to provide guano fertilizer for the pioneering people - it is very difficult to colonize a barbaric land, and the probability of starving to death is not small! Guano fertilizer can significantly increase grain yields, which naturally increases the success rate of development.
"Bone china can be exchanged for silver, and bird droppings can be turned into food." Zhu Heji said as he picked up an unground white stone. "This stone is called dolomite. It is produced everywhere and is not rare. .
But it's so useful... it can be used to make bricks! "
"Making bricks?" Guo Youde, Minister of the Ministry of Industry, became excited upon hearing this. "Sage, do you want to use these white bricks to build a house?"
"It's not about building a house," Zhu Heji said with a smile, "but about building a furnace...a furnace for making iron and steel!"
Bricks made from dolomite are excellent refractory materials and can withstand temperatures of more than 2,000 degrees Celsius. Moreover, this is an alkaline material. Furnaces made of it can be used for dephosphorization. Together with desulfurized quicklime, it can solve the problem of high sulfur and high phosphorus in iron ore - most of China's iron ores are high in sulfur. High phosphorus, coupled with the fact that sulfur in coal dissolves into molten iron caused by coal-based iron-making, removing sulfur and phosphorus has always been a big trouble.
Therefore, when the easily mined and high-quality iron ore is exhausted, the quality of China's ironware is a bit worrying... and most of the ironware produced in Foshan, a major iron smelting town, contains excessive sulfur and phosphorus.
The reason why Zhu Heji was not busy making steel guns and steel cannons, but tossing sugar and copper bombs, was because he knew that Foshan could not provide a large number of light flintlock guns, nor could it make high-quality iron cannons.
Unless we get the dolomite stove and dolomite crucible out first!
However, although there are Baiyun Mountains in Guangdong, there are no large dolomite mines, so Zhu Heji had to wait patiently. It wasn't until Zheng Jing took over most of Fujian that he sent people to find some dolomite and gave it all to Huangpu Iron Works for trial use. The iron piece that saved Da Boling's "breast" last time was made from iron produced in the dolomite furnace of Huangpu Iron Works.
Zhu Heji said: "With this kind of dolomite, our Foshan iron industry can reach a higher level... However, the promotion of dolomite refractory bricks, crucible furnaces and coke ironmaking is not an issue. It’s too late for me to take charge. Old Taishan, Nine Thousand Years Old, Master Qi, Master Guo, I’ll leave this matter to you.”
Qiu Hui, Eunuch Pang, Mr. Yu, and Mr. Guo are all "great gods" who cannot afford to offend Foshan Iron Industry. Among them, Qiu Hui was the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi and a local leader in Guangdong. Eunuch Pang has a "central bank" in his hand. Mr. Yu is the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel and the Minister of Zhongshu, that is, the deputy prime minister. Master Guo is the Minister of Industry, and he is in charge of military industry orders!
Zhu Heji then said: "Before the Gu family sends troops to the Northern Expedition, you find people for the Gu family, and the Gu family will pass on this craft to them... They don't need to pay tuition, as long as they Just send some disciples and apprentices to go north with the Gu family."
