Daming: I asked you to hang yourself, but I didn’t ask you to rebuild the Ming Dynasty

Song Yingxing felt relieved. He stood up and bowed again:

"Song Yingxing is grateful to His Majesty for not giving up, and is willing to do his best for Your Majesty, even if his brain is bruised, he will die!"

"Great!"

Zhu Youjian walked into the hall and helped Song Yingxing up with his own hands. He said seriously:

"I order you to be the president of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Ming Dynasty, which is directly under my jurisdiction. All material needs will be allocated from internal funds!

As for the grade..."

Zhu Youjian thought for a while:

"You were originally a fifth-rank official, but today I am promoting you to a third-rank official.

Wan Wangqing’s family, don’t let me down! "

Song Yingxing was greatly moved. He hurriedly got up and walked into the hall. He bowed to the ground again and thanked the emperor for his grace.

Unexpectedly, he was pulled up by Zhu Youjian.

Song Yingxing was surprised when the emperor smiled and said:

"I have abolished the kneeling ceremony. From now on in the Ming Dynasty, except for Emperor Bintian, princes canonized, and new emperors succeed to the throne, they need to kneel on one knee to perform the ceremony of allegiance;

As well as major ceremonies such as worshiping heaven, earth, and ancestors, you need to kneel down in awe, and other kneeling rituals are not allowed! "

Song Yingxing was shaken. The emperor actually abolished the kneeling ceremony?

Although in the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the need to kneel down when the emperor of Fengtian Palace represents the emperor, when worshiping heaven and earth at the Temple of Heaven and Earth Altar, during the three major festivals, and when officials commit crimes (occupations), there is no need to kneel down for other regular court visits and summons.

("Da Ming Hui Dian": The imperial court honors the nobility. Therefore, the etiquette and classification of officials are based on their grades. There are rituals for bowing, walking and avoiding, respecting superiors and inferiors, and being solemn. Hongwu's 20th year order: All officials meet their superiors. Officials must stand on the steps of the hall and bow to the head office. The superiors will bow their hands. The chief officials will bow their hands. When meeting the superior officers on business days, they will all bow twice. The superiors will bow their hands.

You see clearly, the Ming Dynasty officially stipulated that officials were not allowed to kneel down!

The forty volumes of "Da Ming Huidian" cover the succession of the emperor, the canonization of princes, the canonization of crown princes, etc. There are also detailed records of the court ceremony and the court ceremony. )

However, you can’t stand others’ flattery!

……

Not to mention kneeling to the emperor, many officials even kneel to Shangguan!

In the "Ming Huidian", it is clearly stipulated that officials are not allowed to kneel down and worship. However...

I can't help but feel inferior to them...

Because of the weak knees of officials, the Alchemy Emperor sternly rebuked him more than once...

However, where did Hai Rui's nickname of "Hai Pen Holder" come from?

It was because he strictly adhered to the official etiquette of the Ming Dynasty that he got it!

Kowtow to your superiors, this is an old tradition after the literati came to dominate...

I think back then, at the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Li Jing met Yang Su.

Yang Su sat on the Hu bed (the predecessor of the stool) and refused to return Li Jing's courtesy, so he was called "arrogant and rude" by the scholars, but he was criticized for thousands of years!

However, after the literati became dominant...

Sitting on the bed and not returning the favor?

Go to your uncle!

You have to kneel down for me...

……

Song Yingxing was confused, but Zhu Youjian waved his hand to clear up the trouble.

The emperor asked Wang Chengen to get a stack of drawings.

Zhu Youjian placed the drawings on the desk and asked:

"I have read Song Qing's "Tiangong Kaiwu". I wonder how much Song Qing's family knows about saltpeter?"

Song Yingxing smiled and said: "What I said in "Tiangong Kaiwu" is very clear:

All saltpeter is produced by Chinese and foreigners, but China specializes in the northwest.

If the southeastern sellers do not lead the officials, they will be considered as private goods and will be punished.

Nitrate and salt have the same parent. They are formed by evaporation of moisture under the earth and appear on the ground.

Those near water and thin soil become salt; those near mountains and thick soil become saltpeter.

It dissolves immediately when it enters water, hence the name "nitrate".

In the north of Changhuai and Huaihe River, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, you can sweep the floor in your living room every other day and take a little for cooking. "

Zhu Youjian nodded and said with a smile:

"There is another way - I will have people collect the excrement of the army and build a saltpeter field so that the saltpeter can be extracted."

Song Yingxing was very surprised and asked questions again and again.

Zhu Youjian smiled bitterly and said:

"Although the output of saltpeter in Hanzhong is very considerable, I can't get this saltpeter!

Taking saltpeter from the saltpeter field is a method I came up with out of desperation..."

Zhu Youjian's face was full of bitterness.

It is really rare for an emperor to reach the level of Chongzhen!

You should know that the gunpowder workshops in Beijing produce two tons of gunpowder per day!

The gunpowder workshop in Nanjing is even bigger!

This shows that the output of saltpeter in Ming Dynasty was a very considerable figure.

It is the so-called mononitrate, disulfide and three charcoal. (Two ounces in the front and two ounces in the back)

Calculated according to this ratio, saltpeter accounts for 76% of the weight of gunpowder. (The accurate ratio is 74%, but the saltpeter of this era was impure...)

Including local gunpowder manufacturing workshops, the gunpowder produced in Daming will be more than five tons conservatively!

The weight of saltpeter consumed in a single day - more than three tons, nearly four tons!

That’s more than 7000 kilograms!

however……

Zhu Youjian has escaped from the capital for several months. The saltpeter sent from the local government——

Only a few hundred pounds!

If you are not forced to do anything, who would be willing to play in the shit?

That thing——

The wind is fragrant ten miles away...

……

As a technical madman, Song Yingxing didn't realize the difficulty in the emperor's words. He widened his eyes:

"Your Majesty, can you tell me how the saltpeter is obtained from this saltpeter field?"

Zhu Youjian lowered his head and searched among the pile of drawings, pulled out one and asked Wang Chengen to hand it to Song Yingxing:

"This is the specific method of operation..."

Before the emperor had finished speaking, Song Yingxing had already grabbed the drawing and lowered his head to read it.

I saw text on the drawing that read:

First find an open space and clean out stones and other impurities.

Then dig a hole or cellar, and pour water and lime into it——

This practice is to maintain the temperature of the soil and promote the production of nitrifying bacteria in the soil.

(Bacteria. Wu Youxing, a famous doctor of this era, had already realized the existence of bacteria. He called them "disease" in his book.)

In this way, after a period of "heat preservation", the soil becomes a nitrate field, which can also be called a "nitrate-producing pond."

With a nitrate field, the collected urine from people and livestock is poured in. After about ten months, the soil in the pit will be rich in nitrate.

This time can also be advanced, but the nitrate content will be lower...

Then, the nitrate-rich soil is dug out and mixed with plant ash - the function of plant ash is to remove impurities.

Usually, it should be mixed according to the ratio of nitrate soil: plant ash 3:1.

Then immerse the mixture in water.

Nitrate can be dissolved in water, so a mixture rich in nitrate is obtained.

Plant ash and soil impurities are removed through gradual filtration.

In this way, nitrate water rich in nitrate can be obtained.

Then just boil the saltwater to get high-quality saltpeter.

The saltpeter obtained through the saltpeter field method is several times purer than the saltpeter mined from the mountain.

……

"wonderful!"

Song Yingxing clapped her hands and sighed.

"Your Majesty's method is truly exquisite!"