Chapter 797 Broken jar

Recently, Zhu Gaoxu will run every night, and his weight and energy have been maintained.But he rarely takes care of the specific affairs of the court.

Dali Temple Minister Gao Xianning recommended a sixth-rank official to Zhu Gaoxu, who is said to support reform and is quite talented.

The man's name is Song Li, who was born in the Imperial College and had a low reputation. He was able to become an official because he was able to catch up with the good times.

During the Hongwu period, the court was short of civil servants, and many people who had no serious fame were selected to be officials.

Song Li worked as a local official, served as an official of the Ministry of Revenue, and treated floods. At the highest position, he was the Minister of Works of the Ministry of Works in the Yongle period. However, he was in the wrong place during the period of the deposed prince. Although Wu Dechu was exempted from death, he was demoted to the head of the Ministry of Revenue.

Zhu Gaoxu was quite interested in Song Li. If Song Li was really capable of taking on a great responsibility and being promoted, then the officials in the court would definitely feel that the previous turmoil and turmoil in the court had passed.

However, Zhu Gaoxu did not reuse this person immediately. He wanted to find an opportunity to see Song Li's talents by himself.

Because Wang Anshi's reform in the Song Dynasty had a disadvantage, he paid too much attention to the camp and the old and new parties, so that some mediocre talents took the right position and were valued, but they ruined the big things.

Song Li was still in charge of the sixth-rank department of the Ministry of Revenue, but got an errand.Zhu Gaoxu ordered him to form the First Mint of the Central Bank.

It turned out that there was a Baochao Tuijue Department in the Ming Dynasty, which also had branches such as the Paper Copying Bureau, the Printing Bureau, the Baochao Library, and the Running Database, which were affiliated to the Ministry of Revenue.

The credit of Yu Baochao was getting lower and lower, so Zhu Gaoxu decided to stop printing more treasure money; the treasure money rewarded by the vassal kings and nobles was changed to adding more precious salt.

Baochao and salt indices are both policies that have accumulated a lot of problems.Zhu Gaoxu decided to cut off the Baochao Tuju and then he could only pass the disaster onto the salt to make it even more abused.

The officials and eunuchs in the Baochao Tuanju Division were not laid off, and now they have changed their name to the Central Bank.

All the yamen offices, warehouses and personnel have been retained, and most of the officials are currently in a state of having nothing to do and receiving official salaries.

Therefore, there are almost no objection.

The national policy of stopping the issuance of the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes has not yet had any impact, and there is no mess to clean up.

Because the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes are very magical, the court and government have always only issued but not collected; spending them is used as money, but taxes and other things do not collect treasure banknotes.

Since the country has never made any promises, there is no need to fulfill the aftermath.

So the court had to silently not print or issue treasure money, and there was no problem with everything.Anyway, the Ming Dynasty's attempt to reap the wealth of the common people was not a matter of one or two things, it was nothing more than a breakup.

Of course, this wonderful situation is also one of the reasons why Baochao is not creditworthy...

On that day, after Zhu Gaoxu performed daily etiquette at Fengtianmen, he brought his followers to the palace with his ceremonial guard.

If the emperor officially travels to sacrifice, etc., the scale of the ceremonial guards will be much larger.

Today's emperor's ceremonial guards are not very big. They are mainly composed of the cavalry of the Jinyiwei General and the left guard of the Yulin Guard, focusing on defense rather than pomp.

The crowd left Hongwu Gate, passed by the large schoolyard, and went straight to the First Mint.The place is on a tributary on the south side of the Qinhuai River, not far from the gate above the outer wall.

Gao Xianning, the Dali Temple minister who was traveling with him, was in Zhu Gaoxu's carriage with the emperor.

Gao Xianning's voice suddenly said: The emperor forgives the crime. When the Song commander was working, the Wei minister got involved in some private matters.

Zhu Gaoxu put down the curtain of the car, moved his eyes away from the window, and turned to look at Gao Xianning.

Gao Xianning clasped his fists and said: That workshop, which was originally a newly built place of the Shouyusi Iron Factory, has a large number of houses, utensils, and dams.Chief Song received an order to build a mint, so he took a fancy to the iron factory that had not yet been used.

Master Song thought of a way.He found Xiabutang and persuaded the Ministry of Revenue to exchange the newly built iron factory with the remaining treasure money in the warehouse of the "BaoChaoTijus" for the ShouSouth Office.

Zhu Gaoxu nodded.I thought to myself that I planned not to use Baochao, but Baochao could be spent, but the value might be lower.

Gao Xianning continued: In this case, because the amount of money deposits is huge, the Guardian Office took advantage of the Nan Office.The Weichen then asked Wang Youzeng to use the troops of the guarding department to do an experiment.In the capital and Chengdu Prefecture, we find ways to calculate the sun shadow at the same time to verify the theory of earth's roundness.

When Zhu Gaoxu heard this, he immediately looked at Gao Xianning with a surprised look, and then said after a moment: I understand.

Gao Xianning didn't say anything more, as if he had figured out what Zhu Gaoxu meant.

The crowd continued to move forward and finally arrived at the mint next to the dam.

Song Li, the head of the Ministry of Revenue, brought the officials of the Baochao Tuijue Department and some craftsmen to the gate and knelt on the ground to perform a big gift.

Zhu Gaoxu got off the carriage and waved: Everyone, please don’t give me a gift.

Everyone thanked him, and Song Li bowed forward and asked Zhu Gaoxu and others to come in to inspect.

Song Li is a civil servant in his forties. He is wearing the green round collar of a low-level civil servant, and his cheeks are so thin that his wrinkles are more obvious, making him look a little old.

His face was very rosy, and he seemed to be a little excited and nervous.

This is also an old official in the officialdom, and he has experienced officials from the five dynasties of Hongwu, Jianwen, Yongle, Hongxi and Wude.

The emperor came to inspect the errands he had done in person, and he must have attached great importance to it. Song Li should have realized that the time for him to return to the center of the court was just around the corner.

Song Li's hat and robe were covered with mud, but no one said he had mistreatment.Because as soon as everyone walked into the workshop, they were covered with some dust in the smoky environment.

The things inside are quite organized, but various craftsmen use a lot of tools, including stoves, sand, copper and other things. The open hall is filled with dust and smoke.

The craftsmen stopped working, but the stove was still burning, and the water-powered blower did not stop completely.

The storm of smoke, the sound of equipment running, and the gears and various equipment fill the hall. Zhu Gaoxu has a factory feeling.

He felt joy in his heart, so he didn't dislike the slightly harsh environment at all.

Song Li said in front of Zhu Gaoxu: I have made a batch of new copper coins. I was about to wait for a few days to check it, so I presented it to the imperial court.

After he said that, he picked up a few copper coins from the plate he brought and presented them with both hands.

Hey!Zhu Gaoxu took the copper coin in his hand and immediately blurted out a surprised voice.

This copper coin is a bit unique, it is very shiny and exquisite, and it looks very good, and the size and pattern are almost the same.

Zhu Gaoxu watched for a while, then glanced at Song Li who was vaguely proud and said: Isn’t this just cast?

Song Li immediately said: The wisest emperor!Chen and others first cast it with clay flakes, but there was no word, and then they were forged and pressed with steel flakes and hydraulic force.

Song Li walked a light walk for a while, pointing to a structure with a huge forging hammer beside the wall: The emperor, the minister and others used this object to forge it.The fake court of the Guardian Sinan Office collects the skills of ancient and modern craftsmen in different categories.Based on the edited books, the minister recruited craftsmen who were proficient in skills from all over the country to make equipment in the name of the Ministry of Revenue.This thing was specially built by the South Administration using water drainage, water cone, and plating cone to improve it, according to the wishes of the minister.

He pointed to various iron and wooden structures and introduced enthusiastically that the hydraulic wheels are very large, and connected by gears and slide chains, the forging hammer weighing thousands of kilograms can be easily pulled up.It turns out that wood teeth and load bearing are not enough, so we use wood and iron to combine forged iron parts to make gears...

Forging iron parts are also water wheel forging hammers, which were used to pound grains before; after the Nanshu Iron Factory was renovated, it was used to forge armor and armor pieces.We used a larger forging hammer to forge the gear iron parts.

Zhu Gaoxu listened very seriously and was very interested in these things.Some techniques, even beyond the knowledge in his memory.

Steel fan?Zhu Gaoxu asked a question from time to time, how to make steel?

Song Lidao: Shanxi Provincial Administration and the General Office had the method of making steel, and the former Hongwu cannon used steel; the Nan Office of the Guardian had obtained skills from Shanxi and included them in the fake academy library.I am responsible for finding someone, and I only know a general idea. I need to make steel first to make charcoal (coking).The charcoal refining skills have been available since the Tang Dynasty, and now they are very complete.

He said: The emperor clearly understands that the most difficult part of steel model is not making steel, but carving words and patterns on steel.The Mint was able to complete it by using the water wheel drilling machine from the Nan Bureau. Otherwise, it would be difficult to do if it was carved with human power.The exquisite scale of the iron plant also makes the steel model the same size, so that copper coins of such a size can be made.

Zhu Gaoxu was very interested in observing the steel pattern under the forging hammer. Many of them were placed in a small hole in a disc, divided into upper and lower patterns.

After looking at it for a while, Zhu Gaoxu understood that he would first place the cast copper coins in the steel font below, then cover them with the steel font above, and then drop the forged hammer to form patterns on both sides of the copper coins.

There are still some hourglasses on the chopping board not far away.

When Song Li saw Zhu Gaoxu watching the hourglass, he immediately said: The copper water in the mud must be cold for a while before being forged; but it cannot be cold and it must be a little soft. It can only be formed by hot forging.Therefore, the time needs to be calculated.However, the weather, copper and water, and the cold and cold times are different, so the craftsmen need to adjust the length of the time appropriately.

When Zhu Gaoxu heard this, he said: You can improve the process and use assembly line operations.Each group of craftsmen only takes one step, just like a craftsman who observes copper water and takes mud patterns. If he only does one thing repeatedly, he will grasp it very accurately in the future.

Song Li bowed and said: I will receive the order.

Zhu Gaoxu said again: When casting silver coins, there should be no square holes in the middle; forged steel patterns, shallow lines should be engraved on the sides.

Song Li was puzzled.

Zhu Gaoxu said: After all, silver is a expensive material to prevent anyone from scraping the silver material from the side, causing the silver coins to shrink continuously.

Song Li immediately understood, first showed surprise, and then sincerely bowed: The Lord is wise!