My Daming New Empire

Concubine Zhaoyi and Concubine Jing both lowered their bodies slightly, and said: "This matter requires a lot of honor, Your Highness. If it can be done, we will definitely follow His Highness's lead."

Separated from them, Zhu Zhanji returned to Xingqing Palace.In Xingqing Palace, the sound of drum music from Fengtian Palace can still be heard.

"Let Jin Kuo come to see me..."

Li Liang hesitated for a while and said: "Your Highness, Eunuch Jin is building a workshop in the farm according to your order! Do you want to send someone to call him back?"

Zhu Zhanji looked around and felt the lack of talents more and more. "You go to the Supervisor of Rituals and ask Wang Yan to send me a hundred servants who understand business. The manpower will be borrowed from me for the time being, and the salary will be paid by me alone."

The Supervisor of Rituals is currently the largest internal prison in the palace. It not only manages the internal prison and the internal treasury, but also manages the business of customs and internal treasury all over the country. It is not a great pressure to dispatch a hundred servants who understand business.

Now all his affairs can only be managed by the servants, but the servants in the palace have their own rules, even if he wants more people, he can't exceed too many.

But now it's just the construction of the research institute, the construction of the industrial zone, and the preparations for the navy. The more than 300 servants he has on hand are assigned to each of them.

Now there are only a few unsuitable young eunuchs and maids left in Xingqing Palace, and they can only borrow people from outside.

For the time being, he can only deal with it like this. When he gets married, the number of servants will increase a lot, and there will be more manpower by then.

As for the generals, he can mobilize a group of them but let them fight and let them manage business, that is, laymen lead experts.

If he wanted to truly expand his power, he still had to attack the civil service system. Unfortunately, he couldn't reach out for the time being...

(Concubine Zhaoyi was titled posthumously. I write this now just to identify this person. As for Concubine Jing, she was actually married when Zhu Gaochi ascended the throne, and he died ten months later. The party should not take it too seriously.)

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Ma Zhide's family arrived in the capital in the first lunar month, and immediately selected a suitable place for building a kiln on the north side of Xiamaqiao Farm, that is, at the foot of Zhongshan Mountain.

However, the officials of the Ministry of Rites believed that the cave dwellings were too close to the royal mausoleum, which would damage Fengshui, so they did not allow ground breaking at the foot of the mountain.

Zhu Zhanji also felt that he had neglected this point. Anyway, the first thing he had to do was to maintain the majesty of the royal family, so he asked Ma Zhide to re-select the site.

Under the leadership of the servant Ma Zhide, he re-examined several places, and finally re-selected a place suitable for building a kiln at the foot of Fangshan Mountain.

It is located in the upper reaches of the Qinhuai River. Although it is a bit far from the capital, the transportation is convenient, and you can go directly to the palace by rowing.

Zhu Zhanji also took a look in person in February.I found that this place is more suitable than Zhongshan, because there is still a small quartz mine here.

More importantly, the composition of the stones here is complex, not only large areas of limestone, but also marl composed of calcium silicate.

For firing cement, especially the most elementary Portland cement, this stone is in great demand.Moreover, it is far away from the capital city, so it will not cause too much pollution nearby.

At the beginning of building the kiln, Zhu Zhanji gave Ma Di a task, asking him to use this marl to make powder, and then burn it with limestone to form a new condensed powder.

Ma Di admires Zhu Zhanji very much now. Although Zhu Zhanji did not teach him much knowledge, even though Zhu Zhanji can ask some questions that he has never thought about, they are thought-provoking.

For example, they live on a ball, but when their heads are facing down, why don't people fall off?Why do tides ebb and flow?Why does it rain, wind and thunder?

Ma Di thought he was very smart, but he didn't know why Taisun raised any of these questions.

This also aroused strong doubts in his heart, and he felt that he had to figure out these things no matter what, and the meaning of his life seemed to be for these.

In the closed and relaxed environment of the Young Army, while receiving a strict education, he was able to conduct various researches and experiments with his uncle as he wished.

In this environment, he felt like a fish in water, and his life was extremely fulfilling.

He carried out Zhu Zhanji's order correctly, and Ma Zhide didn't question it at all.

If he was a little worried at the beginning, but now that His Royal Highness has made it clear that he wants to marry his daughter, he would rather shed his blood for the grandson.

Not to mention the fame after becoming a noble relative, with this status, their Ma family must have flourished for at least three generations.

At this time, no matter what Zhu Zhanji asks him to do, he will do it with his heart.

At the end of February, under the work of craftsmen day and night, eight cave dwellings were built side by side at the northern foot of Fangshan Mountain.

These eight cave dwellings have different shapes and functions, only two are for firing colored glaze, the other cave dwellings will be for firing blue bricks, coking, and porcelain respectively, and one is built according to Zhu Zhanji's instructions Shaft kiln.

This kind of shaft kiln is similar to an iron-making kiln, with a special ventilation duct that can blow air through the water row.

It is said that this is the kiln for firing vanadium that Taisun saw in ancient books. After the kiln is built with refractory clay, the temperature of the fire can be raised to the level where iron can be smelted.

With this high temperature, any stone can be fired into powder.

Even if some people disagreed, it was Taisun's order, so everyone built such a cave according to the strict requirements of the Ministry of Industry for building kilns.

In modern times, with advanced industrial equipment and rotary kilns, it is very simple to burn cement.

But in this era, there is no stone crusher, and it can only be crushed by manpower.Therefore, in the cement manufacturing process of two grindings and one firing, an additional firing process must be added to save more manpower.

The cave dwelling was completed at the end of February, but it had to wait for drying and drying in the shade. In addition, it was rainy in spring, so it was not until the tenth day of March that the first test of this stone cave could be carried out.

The half-broken stones knocked in a kiln weighed tens of thousands of catties, and after being baked at high temperature for a day, they became much more brittle.

At this time, the fire in the cave was turned off, and the stones were brought out again, and they were ground into powder by manpower and stone mills.

At this time, according to the firing strategy given by Zhu Zhanji, add a small amount of clay and lime powder, and then put it into the cave for high-temperature firing.

After leaving the kiln again, the ash powder is ground again after cooling, and the stone powder becomes extremely fine.

Everyone was full of anticipation, mixed half of the river sand into the mud powder, then added some gravel, added water, stirred well, and spread it on the road.

Several wall builders smoothed the soft mud surface together, and then quietly waited for a miracle to happen.

Taking advantage of everyone's inattention, Ma Di secretly tried it with his hand, but before he could use any force, his fingers sank into it.

He quickly withdrew his finger, feeling a little suspicious in his heart, could this really turn back into a hard stone?

Chang'an Avenue, Naval Command.In the main hall, Zhu Zhanji and Liu Jiang met with the navy general who followed Zhang Fu back to Beijing to report on his duties.

"Your Highness, overjoyed..., Your Highness, overjoyed..."

The voice from outside the main hall came from Feng Yu Wang Tong, the others did not dare to stop him, allowing him to rush directly into the hall.Liu Jiang and the others also stopped discussing.

Without waiting for Zhu Zhanji to speak, Li Liang reprimanded loudly: "Your Highness is discussing military affairs, so yelling, how decent!"

Of course, these words were not for Zhu Zhanji to listen to, but to let several generals know that the people around Zhu Zhanji are not people who don't understand the rules.

Wang Tong swung his hands in a circle, and then panted and said: "Your Highness, Fangshan Kiln is ordered to try out cement, and it's done today!"

When Zhu Zhanji saw him, he thought that this should be the case. His task was to coordinate the relationship between the Ministry of Industry, Minzhuang, and Youjun in Fangshan Kiln.If the cement hadn't been successfully developed, he probably wouldn't dare to come back just like that.

However, I was still very happy to hear that he had confirmed the news. He stood up and said to Liu Jiang: "Captain, today's topic will be postponed for the time being. Let's go to see the cement first..."

Liu Jiang looked at the garrison and capital commanders who returned from Jiaozhi, and said with some embarrassment: "Your Highness...is this cement very important?"

Zhu Zhanji woke up immediately, bowed to the generals with a smile and said, "I'm a bit out of control after learning that the country's heavy weapon has been successfully developed. Please forgive me."