I want to be emperor

Chapter 639 The Power of Little Ice River
According to the general concept of later generations, the first industrial revolution appeared in the 60th century in the [-]s!

But in fact, the steam engine appeared and applied earlier.

The industrial steam engine, which can be used to pump water in mines, is still in its earliest stages, that is, the Newcomen steam engine, which was invented and started to be used in the early eighteenth century...but this did not bring about the first industrial revolution.

So... the invention and application of the steam engine is not the beginning of the first industrial revolution.

So what was the beginning of the first industrial revolution?
A kind of hand-spinning machine that looks very simple in the future: Jenny spinning machine!
This thing directly increased the production efficiency of spinners by several times or even dozens of times. Coupled with the shuttle loom that had been invented before, it directly caused the textile industry to explode instantly.

This explosive increase in production efficiency has never happened in human history, let alone what a steam engine can bring.

The steam engine, to put it bluntly, is just a source of power, which is not fundamentally different from water power or animal power.

Why did the invention of the jenny textile machine become the beginning of the first industrial revolution?
Because it has brought about the explosive development of the textile industry, and the development of the textile industry has directly driven the wave of mechanized production and brought more demand for industrialized products, such as various mechanical equipment.

Then all kinds of machinery and equipment sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain, allowing the entire production system to quickly enter the era of machine production!

The emergence and application of a large number of mechanical equipment has also prompted people to want to obtain stable power that is more stable, more efficient, and less restrictive than hydropower.

At this time, the steam engine ushered in its real spring!

The steam engine improved by Watt finally replaced the water power and became the source of industrial power, thus opening the steam engine era.

The industrial development of the Great Chu Empire is actually very similar to the industrial development process of the later generations of the original time and space.

They all started from the textile industry, and then detonated the entire industrial system into mechanized production, greatly improving the production efficiency of all walks of life.

The difference is that the textile industry explosion in the original time and space was full of chance and spontaneous guidance of the market.

The textile industry explosion in the Great Chu Empire was purely the result of official guidance and promotion.

In the early days of the establishment of the Great Chu Empire, even before it left Huguang, it had already begun to develop various textile machinery, and vigorously promoted the popularization and application of textile mechanized equipment.

In the end, there was Hantian Textile Company, and then there was the private Suqin Textile Company.

The emergence of the new textile industry, relying on the low cost brought by the huge production efficiency, instantly crushed the traditional textile industry, and then, like a tiger out of the cage, it blossomed all over the land of China in just a few years, and exported a large amount, becoming It became the fist export commodity of the Great Chu Empire.

Even because of the strong dumping of the imperial textile industry, the natives of various countries directly blocked the market from the merchants of the Great Chu Empire to protect themselves. In order to protect the interests of the domestic textile industry, the top leaders of the Great Chu Empire launched a series of Nanyang wars without hesitation. Controlling the whole of Nanyang, and now thinking about fighting in India, is to escort the empire's mechanism cloth!
The explosive development of the textile industry not only brought mechanized production, but also war!

This is why the invention and application of the mere textile machine will become the beginning of the first industrial revolution. The impact of this shit on human civilization exceeds any invention in human history!
Within the Great Chu Empire, the vigorous development of the textile industry not only allowed a large amount of capital to enter it, but also absorbed a large number of people for employment, and the textile industry has become the power engine of industrial development!

The demands of a large number of upstream and downstream industries brought about by the textile industry directly stimulated the development of all walks of life in the Great Chu Empire.

The textile industry needs more and better machinery and equipment, the textile industry needs more and better means of transportation, the textile industry needs more and better infrastructure such as roads, bridges and factories, and the textile industry needs more and better...

Today's medium and large textile factories are all equipped with hydraulic equipment. These hydraulically driven spinning machines and looms produce cloth with unimaginable efficiency in the manual era.

Where did these machines come from?

Naturally, it was produced by those machinery factories.

How do these machinery factories produce these equipment?Naturally, materials and better processing equipment are needed, that is, industrial master machines
The industrial mother bed has promoted the research and development of a series of advanced machine tool equipment represented by Hantian Machinery Company, and also promoted the development of a series of raw material production and R&D machinery represented by Daye Iron and Steel Company.

The interlocking and intersecting needs eventually led to the current mechanized production of the Great Chu Empire.

The Great Chu Empire, which has already applied mechanical production on a large scale, actually entered the stage of the industrial revolution before the invention and application of the steam engine.

Now, Luo Zhixue is about to add another booster to the industrial revolution of the Great Chu Empire: the steam engine!

Luo Zhixue was able to predict the grand occasion after the large-scale use of steam engines at the industrial level.

It is precisely because of this that he is looking forward to the large-scale application of steam engines more than anyone else!
On October 16th, [-]th year of Chengshun, the Dachu Empire Mansion newspaper officially published reports on many supporting policies to support the research and application of steam engines and further promote mechanized production.

However, many people don't have much feeling about this. After all, many people don't know what a steam engine is. Even other companies in the machinery industry, it is impossible to get involved in the steam engine industry at this time.

It's not that it can't be done, but that it can't be done...

The industrialized mass production of steam engines is an extremely large project that requires the support of huge funds and technical capabilities, and it is impossible for ordinary machinery companies to handle it.

Even if Dangtu Machinery Company, Guangzhou Machinery Company, and Tianjin Machinery Company want to do it, although their own funds are huge, they still need to apply for special loans from financial banks, and the loan data is not small.

In terms of application, apart from mining companies, especially coal mining companies, only some companies that are far away from rivers and cannot effectively use water power are more concerned.

But then again... In fact, there are really not many places without rivers... After all, hydrodynamic equipment does not have to be driven by big rivers.

In fact, small rivers are also possible. With appropriate diversion channels and sufficient drop, even small rivers can be dammed and used as a source of power.

And there are too many small rivers in the land of China.

This is also the reason why water power equipment can develop rapidly. Water power seems to have geographical restrictions, but this reality is much smaller than people imagine.

As far as county-level areas are concerned, it is rare to say that a county does not even have a small river... In the early days of the Great Chu Empire, a large number of local small machinery factories invested by government and county-level local finances were established under the leadership of government-run capital. These small machinery factories that produce agricultural tools, tools, and cooking utensils for daily use are all built by the river.

This is also the reason why the three major machinery companies that entered the steam engine industry all set their targets on mineral enterprises, especially coal mining enterprises.

After the formulation of the policy to support the development of the steam engine industry, Luo Zhixue temporarily shifted his attention away from the steam engine.

Although the steam engine industry is important, it is only a part of the many affairs of the huge empire. It is impossible for Luo Zhixue to spend time on it for many years. It is already an exaggeration to pay attention to it for more than a month, and it is enough to pay attention to the empire. Officials said they valued the attitude of the steam engine.

After the officials knew Luo Zhixue's serious attitude, the next matters would naturally be handled by these officials.

Even if these people don't know what the steam engine is for and what kind of strategic significance it has, it doesn't prevent them from working hard to support the development of the steam engine.

Come on, it's normal!
At the end of October, Luo Zhixue resumed his daily work and daily schedule after finishing the steam engine and other affairs.

On weekdays, there is a morning meeting, and then documents are reviewed, and then some senior officials are interviewed, and some special meetings are held.

At intervals of five or six days, Luo Zhixue would also take a vacation for himself. After the morning meeting, he would not do other things, but return to the harem to accompany the concubine and children.

Of course, he also often goes to see the dance of the Royal Music and Dance Company.

The Royal Music and Dance Troupe has already choreographed a lot of dances using new costumes, which look quite innovative. Sometimes when they see the rise, Luo Zhixue will personally come down to guide their dance moves, and contribute to the development of the empire's dance culture. make some contribution.

The other concubines in the harem also gradually heard about the new dance costumes of the music and dance troupe, and then they also bought styles or simply brought all the ready-made clothes, and then put them on for Luo Zhixue to taste.

Luo Zhixue also expressed acquiescence to the concubines' conscious pursuit of higher artistic aesthetics and better clothing culture.

Over time... even the always dignified Queen would sometimes blushed and put on all kinds of new clothes that she had previously regarded as immoral when she was serving the bed.

This makes Luo Zhixue have to lament that no matter what era, people's pursuit of beauty is the same.

But then again, watching Queen Wang wear some weird clothes in her own opinion is also quite interesting, and it can also rekindle some passion for Luo Zhixue for this wife who has been blessed along the way.

Even the king and empress reluctantly came into contact with these new styles of clothes, which meant that the cultural reform of women's clothing in the Great Chu Empire had formed a small wave in the harem.

Luo Zhixue boldly predicts that in the near future, this kind of clothing culture reform will gradually spread to the outside world.

First, it was introduced to those powerful women who were qualified to enter the palace and had access to the concubines in the harem, then to ordinary middle- and upper-class women, and then to ordinary families.

This top-down reform is not the first time in the Great Chu Empire, nor will it be the last time!
There are good things, and there are bad things, and it is impossible to use a unified standard to measure the quality of this phenomenon.

When the Great Chu Empire began to set off the revolution of the steam age, the Great Chu Empire also ushered in the cold winter season. In Luo Zhixue's feeling, this winter seems to be colder than previous years.

Over the past ten years, Luo Zhixue has deeply realized that the winters of this era are colder than those of later generations.

These days, even Guangzhou in the south can have a heavy snowfall for you to see...
And in Jinling City in the Jiangnan area, every winter there will be a long period of heavy snow and severe cold. Although the temperature will not be tens of degrees below zero as in the north, heavy snow is also a problem for the Jiangnan area. It was very cold.

Winters were colder during the Little Ice Age, which isn't really a big deal...

The real problem is the frequent extreme, freak weather!

For example, during the rainy season, it should rain or not, but when it is not the rainy season, there is a sudden rainstorm that lasts for several days...

As a result, it has led to either drought or flood... Especially the abnormal weather during the spring plowing and busy summer seasons will bring great trouble to agricultural production.

Every year in the Great Chu Empire, more or less places are hit by extreme weather, or extreme cold, or continuous drought, or flooding, which leads to local food production reduction or even failure.

As a result, the Great Chu Empire invests a considerable amount of manpower and material resources in disaster relief every year, and the "relief with work" for disaster relief has never stopped for more than ten years, and the scale has always maintained a relatively large scale .

This year's winter cold wave seems to be more serious. Luo Zhixue looked at the heavy snow falling continuously outside the window. He didn't need anyone to tell him that he knew that many places would definitely be affected by snow disasters this year.

But what he is worried about is not the so-called snow disaster. For the northern regions where wheat is mainly grown, more snow in winter is more conducive to the harvest in the coming year. In the cold winter season, snow can keep the soil warm in the severe cold weather of tens of degrees below zero. , accumulate water to benefit the fields, and can also inhibit pests.

The auspicious snow heralds a prosperous year!

Even in the central and southern regions, winter wheat is planted in many places in winter, and snow is also beneficial.

As for the rice-growing areas further south, rice is not planted in winter...it usually starts to be cultivated after spring.

The pure cooling is to some extent beneficial to the food production of the Great Chu Empire, especially the production of wheat.

As for things like colder weather freezing people to death... These things are actually small things... Even if such things seem huge in later generations, in this year of the seventeenth century, even in the Great Chu Empire, even in the Great Chu Empire, In normal winter, there will be a large number of people who are homeless or do not have enough warm clothes, and people who are weak will be frozen to death... This is the norm.

At the beginning of his early years, Luo Zhixue would still frown at the number of people who froze to death in severe cold weather reported in a certain place.

But now...he has seen similar reports that if the number of frostbite injuries is not too exaggerated, he usually just skips it and transfers it to the relevant department for normal processing.

However, this year's winter is even colder, which is quite abnormal even in the Little Ice Age, which makes Luo Zhixue a little worried about whether there will be a large-scale extreme abnormal climate in the coming year.

After all, extreme weather does not exist alone, and often follows a series of related reactions.

Luo Zhixue's fear became a reality in a few months!
Following Chengshun's 16 year winter, after spending the severe cold, in the spring of the second year, many southern areas that should have rained did not rain!

In January 17 of Chengshun, many places in the south reported that the local rainfall was insufficient in previous years, making it difficult to sow rice in spring.

Especially in the Jiangxi region, several of the worst counties have not even had rain since last summer, and even the large-scale snowfall last winter perfectly escaped these counties.

Local officials reported that the water levels of many local rivers have seriously dropped, and some irrigation storage lakes have dried up.

The governor of Jiangxi even reported that the continuous large-scale drought has caused the water level of the Ganjiang River, the main artery of the local river, to be far lower than in previous years. Even a large area of ​​​​the outer lake of Poyang Lake has disappeared, leaving only a dry and cracked lake bed.

This degree of drought has exceeded the disaster resistance of the local water conservancy facilities built in Jiangxi for many years. In the memorial, the governor of Jiangxi has formally applied for a large amount of funds and a large number of water tools from Jinling in a very serious tone to alleviate the local drought. , Keep the spring plowing as much as possible.

At the same time, it is also warning Jinling: the grain output in Jiangxi will be greatly reduced this year. If decisive and effective measures are not taken, it will lead to widespread famine!
After seeing the report, Luo Zhixue couldn't help sighing. He had worked hard for more than ten years to build various water conservancy facilities, but he still couldn't handle the extremely abnormal weather.

Little Binghe is too damn pitted!

In the past ten years, Luo Zhixue has built a large number of water conservancy facilities throughout the empire through various means, such as providing relief with work and infrastructure construction in the three five-year plans for agricultural development.

Including building water storage lakes, diversion canals, drilling wells and many other measures.

It is all to fight against the extremely abnormal climate of the Little Ice Age and ensure the stability of food production as much as possible.

However, in the contemporary era of lack of modern construction machinery, the construction capacity is actually very limited. It is impossible to complete the construction of a large amount of earthwork with just a few excavators and some muck trucks like the future generations.

When we can only rely on hoes, poles and baskets, and all the work can only be done manually, the capacity for infrastructure construction is actually very limited. Even though it seems that a lot of manpower and material resources have been invested, and it took several years to dig out the diversion canal, the actual effect It would be better for later generations to randomly recruit an engineering team to work for ten days and a half months.

The local water conservancy facilities in Jiangxi are no exception. Compared with other feudal dynasties, the local water conservancy facilities in Jiangxi have far surpassed. This kind of surpass is not more than a little, but several times.

However, I still can't handle the extreme weather where it hasn't rained since last summer, and it hasn't rained until now in spring!

In Jiangxi, especially the central region, the large-scale reduction in grain production this year has become a foregone conclusion. Even if the Great Chu Empire organizes a large-scale rescue, there is no water in the local rivers... How much can emergency water trucks be used in the past? effect?

Of course, what should be rescued still needs to be rescued, and Jinling should provide a lot of funds and various tools, and keep as much grain production as possible.

However, for Luo Zhixue and even the high-level officials of the empire, the core issue now is not to save the local food production, anyway, it will not save much...

God has not rained in a large area for a long time, why are you so helpless?
The question now is how to solve the relief problem after the large-scale reduction in grain production.

On the one hand, it is the problem of the decline of farmers' income caused by the reduction of grain production or even the failure of harvest.

On the other hand, it is actually more important, that is, a large-scale reduction in local food production or even a failure of harvest will lead to an imbalance in the local food supply, and a large-scale food shortage will lead to large-scale famine.

Once the famine occurs, then the trouble will be big.

A large-scale famine will form a large-scale famine wave. After all, people don't want to starve to death... They will go out to escape the famine in order to survive.

This is how large-scale refugees come, and large-scale refugees can easily evolve into insurgents or rebels, etc. At that time, the scourge will not be tens of thousands of people, but hundreds or even tens of millions of people. implicated.

Just like the continuous turmoil in the Shaanxi-Gansu region in the late Ming Dynasty!
The Great Chu Empire was built on the corpse of the Ming Dynasty, and it is natural to conduct various detailed studies on the demise factors of the Ming Dynasty in order to learn lessons and make changes.

And the large-scale famine caused by natural disasters and man-made disasters is what the Great Chu Empire values ​​most, and it is also the most vigilant against the source of disasters.

In the eyes of the upper echelons of the Great Chu Empire, they would rather be completely defeated in foreign wars and lose thousands of miles... than see the hinterland provinces fall into turmoil.

The defeat in the foreign war has cost the land to pay compensation. As long as the empire is given some time to recover, it will be able to fight back sooner or later.

If the internal control is out of control, then it will really be over.

Therefore, the upper echelons of the Great Chu Empire, whether it is the emperor Luo Zhixue or the senior officials, are all very vigilant against this kind of internal loss of control.

Apart from the rebellion of careerists, the main and most important reason that can lead to internal loss of control is naturally the large-scale reduction in food production caused by natural disasters and man-made disasters, and then famine.

So after receiving the warning report from Jiangxi, Luo Zhixue immediately convened a meeting of all the ministers in front of the imperial court. Except for the ministers of counselors and co-organizers who were on duty on a daily basis, other ministers who were not on duty in the palace were called in. The ministers in Beijing were also called in.

More than 20 important imperial ministers gathered together, including military generals, to discuss how to solve the famine problem in Jiangxi that will inevitably occur this year.

In the usual imperial meeting, Luo Zhixue usually just sits on it, watches a play and eats melon seeds, listening to the arguments of the courtiers.

But in today's meeting, Luo Zhixue set the tone from the very beginning:
"First of all, try to save as many local crops as possible. If the local grain production capacity can save the next grain, then the relief pressure of one grain of grain will also be reduced in the future."

"When necessary, the military should provide cooperation and cooperate with local construction engineering companies to carry out necessary emergency construction such as diversion canals and well drilling."

"As for funds and other resources, etc., I don't think there is much to say. You will discuss a detailed plan later."

"Second, and most importantly, we must prepare for the inevitable reduction in local food production from now on, and the most important thing is the transportation of food. There must be no mistakes."

"God can stop the grain harvest in Jiangxi, but I absolutely can't let the people of Jiangxi have no food!"

"This is my bottom line!"

"All follow-up policy guidelines must be carried out around this bottom line."

Having said that, Luo Zhixue looked up and looked around:
"This matter concerns the life and death of millions of people, and my ugly words come first."

"Whoever tries to cheat me on this matter, I will take the heads of his whole family!"

(End of this chapter)