Chapter 1026
The God
Pan Yun raised an eyebrow: "Why do you say that, Father?"
"Tell me if the rumors I've heard outside are true?"
Pan Yun smiled but remained silent.
Pan Hong understood that this was most likely the case.
He perked up and studied even harder. Thank goodness, after seventy or eighty years, the salaries of Ming Dynasty officials had finally increased instead of decreased.
Before the New Year, Japan sent back two ships of silver, which docked at Tianjin Port. At the same time, the customs duties of Tianjin Port and Quanzhou Port were also sorted out and sent back to the capital.
Because of the rectification of officialdom and the emperor's special attention, the tax revenue from the two ports and the silver from Dasen Township were all transported back to the capital without any problems, and the loss in the treasury was minimal.
With the addition of national tax revenue, the national treasury was unusually full.
The emperor knew that for the country to prosper, the people must also prosper, and true happiness lay in the joy of the entire nation.
So he first distributed the pensions owed from last year, then exchanged all the paper money in the officials' salaries for silver and copper coins. After the New Year, the funds for spring agricultural assistance were also allocated. Looking at the remaining money, and thinking that several ports would be opened this year, the new emperor waved his hand and took advantage of the great opportunity of the reform of the bureaucracy to improve the treatment of officials.
Firstly, it motivates officials to work hard and bring benefits to the country;
Secondly, it helps to quell discontent arising from the reform of officialdom.
Thirdly, it aims to unite the hearts of the officials and enhance the credibility of the court and the imperial family.
Sure enough, after the assessment method examination was completed, the emperor issued an edict to improve the treatment of officials, and officials across the country were happy and less resistant to the troublesome assessment method.
Sharpening the axe won't delay the work of chopping wood. In order to improve the efficiency, integrity and honesty of the officials and support the emperor's new policies, Pan Yun and the Ministry of Works worked hard and created many items suitable for production and promotion among the people in just half a year. At the same time, they also vigorously promoted the items selected from the people, including bicycles.
Of course, the inventor didn't call it a bicycle, but a pedal bike. The frame was mainly made of ash wood, while the chain and joints were mostly made of metal.
The inventor was a young man from the Qianhu Office of Runing Prefecture in Henan Province.
He was both a soldier and a craftsman, and his family had been making bows, crossbows, guns and spears for generations in the army, with ash wood being the most commonly used material.
When Pan Yun saw the bicycle abandoned in the corner of the Ministry of Works, she was stunned and thought she had met someone like her.
After finding the inventor's information in the Ministry of Works, he flew to Runing Prefecture that very night and met the young man named Wei Wei.
He said he got his inspiration from unicycles.
Wheelbarrows are fast and easy to carry goods that far exceed one's own weight. If people could also sit on wheelbarrows and carry themselves, wouldn't that be both labor-saving and fast?
He had been thinking about this matter on and off since he was a teenager, but because of the heavy labor in the army, he did not study it in depth.
But when Pan Yun announced the search for new items, Wei Wei stayed up all night to turn his idea into reality in order to receive a reward.
He failed thirteen times, but finally made a bicycle that satisfied him on the fourteenth attempt.
Wei Wei proudly said, "I've personally tested it. My pedal cart can carry 300 jin (150 kg) of goods, which is 2.4 times faster than walking."
Pan Yun gave him a thumbs up.
Wei Wei was even more proud, boasting, "My bicycle was submitted for selection and passed the Ministry of Works' assessment. I won the ninth prize, receiving a bonus of sixty taels. The Henan Provincial Administration Commission, knowing I won an award, gave me a separate bonus of fifty taels. The Prefect of Runing Prefecture gave me thirty taels, and our Thousand-Household Office gave me twenty taels. The cost of my fourteen trials was thirty-nine taels. The remaining money is enough for my family to live on for ten years." Wei Wei was unaware that the person sitting in front of him was the Imperial Preceptor, a story he had told many times before.
Their commander was also keen to take him out and show him off to various garrisons.
Therefore, when he repeats this story, he can tell it in a very vivid and interesting way.
When Pan Yun returned to the Ministry of Works, he not only retrieved Pan Yun's bicycle and named it Weixing, but also awarded him an extra hundred taels of silver and sent someone to deliver a message: "I hope you will continue your efforts and make new inventions."
Wei Wei, who hadn't had time to calm down and think for a long time, was stunned for a whole night when he received this reward and message passed down through the ranks. The next day, he politely declined the Qianhu's suggestion to hold an award banquet for him and then locked himself up to focus on creating his own weapon.
He decided not to disappoint the Grand Preceptor's expectations and rewards; he was determined to create other, better artifacts to repay the Grand Preceptor and His Majesty!
The second thing that amazed Pan Jun was a letter.
A letter written to the Si Nong Temple and her.
Since she took up her post in the Ministry of Works, Pan Yun has attached great importance to agriculture.
After textile machines and firearms, agricultural implements were the first to receive significant improvements.
Furthermore, after extensively collecting inventions, they gathered the most diverse range of artifacts and improvements to agricultural tools.
However, agricultural progress is not only due to agricultural tools, but also to improvements in seeds and fertilizers.
Pan Yun could foresee that the Ming Dynasty would soon experience a major industrial boom.
However, food is the most important thing for the people, and agriculture is the foundation of the country, so agriculture must never be neglected.
To this end, Pan Jun specially searched for agricultural books in the Lingjing materials and copied them one after another about seed cultivation methods, farming methods and fertilizer production.
All of it was handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture, so that they could study it, print it, and distribute it to the Ministry of Agriculture in each county, where the Ministry of Agriculture and the county magistrate would work together to promote it.
There was a scholar in Southern Zhili who failed the imperial examinations repeatedly, so he went home to farm. He bought a published agricultural book from a bookstore and tried to make fertilizer according to the method of composting it. As a result, the compost pile exploded, and it didn't just explode once.
Every compost he made exploded, twice a day.
The scholar was completely baffled. After studying it for a while, he couldn't bear to throw away the waste fertilizer. He thought it was all soil fertilizer and it would be a waste to throw it away, so he spread it on the field. As a result, last autumn's harvest was bountiful, with the yield per mu increasing by 1.3 times. Moreover, he also discovered that the exploded fertilizer pile emitted a pungent smell. On a whim, he mixed the stuff with wood ash and other things, and it exploded on the spot, creating a crater more than three meters deep.
Fortunately, he found the smell too bad and decided to take a break. So he turned around and left, intending to take a shortcut home. Just as he jumped off a ridge, there was a loud bang behind him, and he was blown to the ground.
When he woke up, he couldn't hear in his left ear. At the same time, a cow that was tied not far away was blown away. The cow was so big that it bled from all seven orifices and died.
The scholar found it too terrifying, so he wrote a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture and Pan Yun, firstly to remind the Ministry of Agriculture that there was a problem with their composting recipe;
Secondly, he hoped that the national advisor could answer why his composting process resulted in a massive explosion.
By the end of the letter, the scholar had moved from questioning the composting recipe to metaphysics, wondering if he had committed heinous crimes in his past life, which led to his repeated failures in the imperial examinations and his being exploded by something filthy in this life. (End of Chapter)