Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 584 Ming Dynasty's Technology Tree
"Your Highness welcomes you back to the capital."
"Hahaha, no need to be polite, everyone. Thank you all for your hard work over the past three years."
In May 1629, exactly 40 months later, Zhu Youdong finally returned to Beijing.
The territory of the Ming Dynasty was too large at that time. For Zhu Youdong to inspect a place like this, he had to find ways to understand the real livelihood of the people in each place, so his speed was naturally slow. Therefore, even though he spent more than three years this time, he still could not personally set foot in places such as Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Mongolia.
Originally, he wanted to continue wandering around for a while: the Ming Dynasty still had many domestic troubles, but almost no fatal ones. As for foreign troubles, there was no imminent danger for the time being. So he had every condition to wander around for a while.
However, after Richelieu arrived, during their deep conversation, Zhu Youdong keenly heard the news that Ibrahim had used the whole country's strength to build a large factory with a blast furnace on an island in the southern Black Sea, north of Istanbul. He also invested a huge amount of money and manpower to build an artificial canal between the Don River and the Volga River. He instinctively felt uneasy about such news.
This Ottoman time traveler majored in materials science. In order to obtain support from the Ming Dynasty, he easily came up with the formula for celluloid. What if he has established a firm foothold now and is ready to develop the plastics industry on a large scale?
Speaking of which, Zhu Youdong has attached great importance to the material major since he traveled through time and had his own imperial farm. Over the past few decades, this continuous investment has been considerable. As for the achievements, of course there are many, such as stainless steel and marine armor steel, which were developed by Fangshan himself.
However, Fangshan's material skills seemed to have been focused on alloys. Fangshan had made almost no progress in polymers: for so many years, celluloid was still the only plastic product in the Ming Dynasty.
China has always been like this since ancient times: we must have everything that others have. We must also have what others don't have. Time travelers like Zhu Youdong are no exception.
So after returning to Beijing and resting for a while, he went to Fangshan first.
In 40 months, Fangshan has made some new achievements: the strength of armor steel and artillery steel has been improved again, while the weight is still decreasing. In terms of explosives, Dana explosives have been upgraded again, with greater power and higher safety. Even in terms of bullets, there has been considerable progress - while ensuring that the power is not reduced, the caliber can be further reduced. All of the above have contributed to the further lightweighting of submachine guns and other firearms.
In the electrical research that he arranged before leaving Beijing, the scientists of the Ming Dynasty also demonstrated considerable strength: a glass bottle wrapped with metal platinum sheets inside and outside was full of static electricity, which could provide a stable source of electricity for electrical experiments - this was the Leyden jar in the historical plane.
Not only that, Fangshan scientists also completed the measurement of voltage differences of various metals, and the Ming Dynasty also had the concept of positive and negative electrodes in electricity. It seems that the real battery is not far away.
In terms of agronomy, in addition to the continued improvement of seeds of various fruits and grains, sprinkler irrigation technology has matured and has been followed by Ma Shiying, Ni Yuanlu and others to where it should be, waiting to show its prowess on large farms.
In addition to sprinkler irrigation technology, the Nanyang Rubber Plantation headed by Song Yingxing also began to be able to provide a stable supply of rubber to various industries in the Ming Dynasty.
"Good, very good." Although he was still anxious, the Emperor was almost thirty years old and had been very calm. After taking a quick look at part of the laboratory and listening to the scientists' introduction, he suddenly realized, "Why don't I see Mr. Chang Ji?"
Sun Yuanhua, who had been guiding Zhu Youdong just now, suddenly looked gloomy: "Your Majesty, my master has been ill for half a year."
"Ah! Is the condition serious?"
"The medical professors at Fangshan have held three large-scale consultations, and the conclusions they reached are the same: the patient's life span has come to an end..."
Well, speaking of which, Zhao Shizhen is already 76 years old, which is considered a long life in this era. But...
"I will go to visit Mr. Zhao in person later. Well, I will go to the medical laboratory first."
Speaking of which, in the competition of technology trees among time travelers, at least in the field of medicine, the Ming Dynasty is absolutely ahead.
"Teachers, students and others have continued to improve penicillin over the years. While further increasing production, we have also developed long-acting penicillin. In addition, the production process of streptomycin has also been further improved. Moreover, we continue to draw nutrition from our ancestors and have successfully developed Shuanghuanglian injection, which has a good therapeutic effect on viral colds that are not well treated by penicillin. It also has a good effect on patients with bacterial infections who are allergic to penicillin."
"Teacher, in addition to antibiotics and Chinese patent medicines, there have also been new breakthroughs in the synthesis of anesthetics. Now, there are many types of general anesthetics and local anesthetics, and their safety has been greatly improved. In recent years, the anesthesia accident rate for various surgeries has been reduced to one in a thousand."
"The improvement of anesthetics has given us surgeons more time to further refine the operation. Teacher, in recent years, we have tried to perform thoracotomy and craniotomy. Well, thoracotomy is mainly used for lung cancer surgery. As the teacher said, the proliferation rate of cancer cells is much faster than that of normal cells... Of course, with this new operation, the patient's chance of coming down from the operating table alive is still a little less. Unless the patient is beyond saving, we will not let him undergo such an operation. But in general, as the teacher encouraged us before, I, Daming, can perform operations from head to toe."
"Teacher." After many medical experts gave their reports in their respective professional fields, Wu Youke pulled Zhu Youdong aside and said, "Student has confidential matters to report."
"Oh~" After walking to the corner with Wu Youke, Wu Youke stammered awkwardly: "When the student's assistant was developing a new drug, he accidentally discovered a gas. This gas is highly toxic to humans."
"What?" Zhu Youdong was shocked when he heard this: They actually created poison gas?
After listening to Wu Youke's detailed explanation, he finally came to his senses: This is chlorine. To be honest, this thing is not very toxic, and it is not very effective in combat. However, it is not only the basis for subsequent super-toxic gases such as mustard gas, but also a strong oxidant and super bleaching agent. Hmm? This thing seems to be a raw material for producing plastics, right?
"Who discovered this?"
"Uh, teacher, this boy is called Fu Shan, with the courtesy name Qingzhu. He is now 21 years old. He came to Fangshan on his own three years ago. The student saw that he was quite smart, so he accepted him. Teacher, this boy is extremely talented. No matter what he learns, he can quickly master it. But there is a problem here. He is too smart. He is interested in everything and learns everything. In the long run, he may have the problem of being broad-minded but not specialized. In the past three years, in the first two years, he has completed all the four-year courses of Fangshan Middle School, and his grades in all subjects were topped. In the most recent year, the student asked him to be an assistant in a medical laboratory, but this guy had nothing else to do and messed around, and finally came up with this thing."
Wu Youke was still nagging, but Zhu Youdong was already in a state of panic: Is time running so fast? Fu Shan, who was active in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties in the historical perspective, is now in his twenties?
This was a super talented person. He was proficient in all arts, including music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, and songs. He was at the top level in the Ming Dynasty. He was also a martial arts master, a medical master, and a scholar... At that time, he was known as the "sea of learning" - you say the sea of learning has no boundaries? Fu Shan is the sea of learning.
"Later, I will arrange the collective work of Fangshan Medical Laboratory, and then determine the key research and development direction of the entire Fangshan Research Institute. After these things are finished, you can ask Fu Shan to come to me. I will meet him in person."
"yes."
After saying these words, the two returned to the group of medical experts.
"Everyone, I am very pleased to have you visit the medical laboratory today. More than ten years ago, I was your teacher, but now, your achievements in medicine have surpassed my teacher."
"The teacher is praising me, and the students are terrified."
" Don't be afraid. Your achievements are worthy of such evaluation." At this point, Zhu Youdong changed the subject: "However, as a doctor, you must care about the people. You must develop high-end new drugs and create new surgical methods. Don't forget the people at the bottom."
"During my tour of the country, I saw in many places that many of the lower-class people in the Ming Dynasty still live a hard life. One of the important reasons for the hardship is poverty caused by illness... Schistosomiasis, filariasis, tapeworms, roundworms and even malarial parasites, all kinds of parasites are rampant. In mountainous areas, hyperthyroidism is extremely common. In humid and rainy places, various rheumatic diseases have caused many people to have deformed joints or even paralyzed... If our medicine cannot serve the people, then I feel that no matter how great our achievements in high-end medicine are, we are not worthy of being called a benevolent doctor."
"The teacher's criticism is correct. The student is extremely ashamed!"
"Yes, teacher, the students have petitioned to temporarily leave the laboratory and travel around the country as doctors."
"Hahaha, everyone, you misunderstood what I meant. You are all the top medical elites in my Ming Dynasty. You can set aside a certain amount of time every year to provide free medical services in various places and teach local doctors on the spot. Letting you work as traveling doctors full-time in local areas would be a huge waste of limited medical resources."
"So what does the teacher mean?"
"I wish to ask everyone to work together to compile a concise medical book. This book should cover all common and frequently occurring diseases in our Ming Dynasty, and propose the simplest, most convenient, cheap and effective treatment methods for these diseases. The text must be easy to understand , and the illustrations must be clear. In short, I want the lowest-level doctors in my Ming Dynasty to be able to use this manual to serve the people of my Ming Dynasty and protect their health after a little training."
"I understand now. We must strictly follow the teacher's instructions and compile such a medical book as soon as possible, and do our best to protect the health of the people of our Ming Dynasty!"
