Traveling through history leaving a name

Chapter 331 Matteo Ricci

The current Machinery Manufacturing Bureau already has tens of thousands of workers, making it the most numerous of the eunuchs' yamen.

But even so, Zhang Qingfeng is still not satisfied, and he plans to continue to expand the scale and manufacture more machines and products.

Apart from the lack of scale, what restricts the development of the Machinery Manufacturing Bureau is the scarcity of talents.

Apart from collecting various craftsmen from the folk, Zhang Qingfeng can only cultivate them by himself.

For this reason, he played to Emperor Wanli, asking him to set up a training course for technical talents, which is specially used to train industrial talents.

Emperor Wanli thought that Zhang Qingfeng was just setting up a place to train craftsmen, so he readily agreed to Zhang Qingfeng's request.

With the consent of Emperor Wanli, Zhang Qingfeng directly drew 240 taels out of the more than 40 million taels of silver earned each year, and then built a large area of ​​cement buildings in a large area of ​​the industrial zone.

40 taels of silver is equivalent to [-] million copper coins, which is not a small amount.

However, the money was earned by Zhang Qingfeng. Apart from being greedy for ink, Zhang Qingfeng has the right to use 30.00% of the profit to do other things. After Emperor Wanli knew about this matter, he just marveled at the generosity, and then he didn't ask any questions. .

For those who can make more money for him in the future, his attitude is very conniving.

40 taels of silver were thrown down, and a school built with steel and concrete was built in just half a year.

The whole school covers an area of ​​150 mu, which is equivalent to about 300 meters in length and width. There are three two-story teaching buildings and more than 50 classrooms.

In addition, there are six dormitory buildings, a library, and an experimental building.

In addition to these, there are canteens, canteens, stadiums and so on.

Of course, this is something.

During the construction of the school, Zhang Qingfeng did not stop expanding the machine bureau.

In various trades, he designed and built machines of all kinds.

For example, in terms of agriculture, Zhang Qingfeng designed several kinds of agricultural machinery for sowing and harvesting. In addition, there are rice mills, flour mills and so on.

In the papermaking industry, Zhang Qingfeng designed shredders, beaters and other machines. These machines can not only save a lot of manpower, but also increase the efficiency of papermaking many times.

In the printing industry, Zhang Qingfeng once again brought out movable lead type printing technology. It is impossible for Zhang Qingfeng to give up this kind of thing that can spread civilization quickly.

This technology has long been popularized in the West, but it has not been introduced into the Ming Dynasty.

In addition, there are many industries that Zhang Qingfeng lets the craftsmen figure out for themselves. If he can invent useful technologies, he will be rewarded heavily.

Among them, a craftsman invented an oil press powered by a steam engine, and Zhang Qingfeng directly rewarded the worker 100 taels of silver.

Such a reward immediately made everyone in the entire manufacturing bureau jealous. In the following time, technologies in many industries were invented and created one after another.

The weight of these technologies varies, no matter what, as long as they are useful technologies, Zhang Qingfeng will not hesitate to reward them.

Of course, the reward money is also awarded based on the evaluation of technical level.

"Palmprint, there is a foreigner with blue eyes and white skin who wants to see you."

One day, one of Zhang Qingfeng's eunuchs and eunuchs approached him and said.

"Foreigner?" Zhang Qingfeng was surprised.

"Yes, it's a very strange name called Li Ma Tiao." The eunuch under his command explained to Zhang Qingfeng.

"Is it Matteo Ricci? Where is he?" Zhang Qingfeng asked his eunuch.

"It's just outside the yamen." The eunuch said.

"Take him to the living room to entertain him, and I'll be right over." Zhang Qingfeng said to his eunuchs.

Foreigners with blue eyes and white skin, who came to China in this era, are probably the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci.

In order to enter China to preach, this guy worked hard for more than 1601 years, and only in [-] AD did he get the opportunity to settle in the capital.

In order to preach in Daming, Matteo Ricci pretended to be a monk from Tianzhu at first.

Later, he found out that monks were not very popular in the Ming Dynasty. On the advice of the scholar-bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty who made friends with him, he grew his hair and beard, and then put on Confucian clothes.

When Matteo Ricci came to the Ming Dynasty, he gained a lot of insight for the upper class of the Ming Dynasty, such as world maps, globes, maps of all countries, wall clocks, coronas, mitring mirrors, geometric primitives, and so on.

During his nearly 30 years in the Ming Dynasty, he made friends with many upper-class dignitaries of the Ming Dynasty, translated a lot of Western scientific knowledge, and taught great scientists like Xu Guangqi.

Matteo Ricci has never been back to Europe since he came to the Ming Dynasty. The main reason for his belief in not returning to Europe is because of the friends he made in the Ming Dynasty.

It's just that Zhang Qingfeng didn't expect that Matteo Ricci would come to visit him.

According to history, Matteo Ricci obtained the right of residence in the capital in 1601, and has lived in the capital for more than three years now. He is equivalent to a Western envoy.

After Zhang Qingfeng tidied up his clothes, he went to meet Matteo Ricci in the living room.

Entering the living room, Zhang Qingfeng saw that there were only two people in the hall other than the eunuch who was receiving him.

Of these two people, one is a white old man wearing a black square hat, black Confucian clothes, and a white beard.

Next to the old white man was a middle-aged Han man in his 40s.

"Hello! Who are you?" Zhang Qingfeng first bowed to the two of them.

While speaking, he looked at Matteo Ricci curiously, wanting to see what the famous Italian missionary in history looked like.

"I am Matteo Ricci, Mr. Zhou. I have taken the liberty to come to visit you. Please don't blame me if you disturb me." Matteo Ricci also saluted Zhang Qingfeng and said.

"Is your official language so good?" Zhang Qingfeng asked Matteo Ricci in a surprised tone.

"I have been in Daming for more than [-] years, and I can speak fluent Daming official dialect long ago." Matteo Ricci said to Zhang Qingfeng with a smile.

"Who is this?" Zhang Qingfeng turned his gaze to the middle-aged man beside Matteo Ricci.

"Master Zhou, I'm Xu Guangqi, a disciple of Mr. Matteo Ricci. I just passed the Jinshi examination this year. I hope you can give me more advice in the future." Xu Guangqi introduced himself to Zhang Qingfeng.

"It turns out that he is a Jinshi. Zhou Qingfeng is polite." Zhang Qingfeng bowed his hands to Xu Guangqi and saluted.

"I wonder why you two came to see me?" Zhang Qingfeng asked the two of them.

"I heard that Mr. Zhou is a child prodigy who is rare in a thousand years. Matteo Ricci is very curious, so I came here to meet you." Matteo Ricci said to Zhang Qingfeng.

While speaking, he opened a box on the ground in front of him, and then continued to say to Zhang Qingfeng: "This is a gift I brought for Mr. Zhou, I hope you will like it."

Matteo Ricci handed the box to Zhang Qingfeng. Zhang Qingfeng looked inside and saw two scrolls and a spherical object inside the box.

After careful identification, Zhang Qingfeng realized that it should be a globe.

It's just that the seven continents and four oceans described on the globe are different from the seven continents and four oceans in Zhang Qingfeng's memory.

(End of this chapter)