I am one year older than Chongzhen

Chapter 227 Fixed Telescope
The new craftsmen can only get wages according to the minimum standard before they show their skills and are recognized.

Even so, the big craftsmen who just came here and got two taels of silver and four buckets of grain without even starting to work are still sighing!
Knowing that this is only the treatment of junior craftsmen in the base area, the salary will be increased by five or even one tael of silver for each promotion.

If you are appraised as a great craftsman, you can get as much salary as the salary of the seventh-rank official of the imperial court.

After seeing the housing prepared for them, getting the monthly payment in advance, and learning about the treatment in the base area.

These master craftsmen who were originally full of aggrieved feelings became calm and began to show their strengths the next day, hoping to be admired.

The first thing Huang Yi did when he came back was to see the development and production progress of artillery and flintlock guns.

The second thing, of course, is to instruct the jeweler to make a few telescopes, and instruct the master craftsman who made the glaze to burn the glaze.

Using the right person can indeed avoid detours. Huang Yi, a layman who only has theory, data, and blueprints, is complemented by a master craftsman with rich practical experience, and the cheating is quite smooth.

The fired glass still has impurities, and it takes time to study the formula and improve the process, so it cannot be used as a lens for the time being.

Craftsmen who are good at processing jewelry and jade are first-class people with ingenuity and ingenuity, and there is no pressure to grind lenses with natural colorless crystals.

Three months later, when the ice and snow were about to melt, with the participation of Huang Yi, three fixed telescopes were finally assembled, with an effective multiplier distance of 32 times.

Compared with binoculars, monoculars are simpler and more convenient, so Huang Yi made ten monoculars, all of which are eight times the distance.

It was impossible to do more, because the natural colorless crystals sent by the Geng family were used up.

In the future, the glass produced in the base area must meet the quality requirements.

In the past few months, the base area has been sending coal and some industrial products to Zhangjiakou.

The most sold are briquette stoves and iron molds for producing briquettes.

The industry in the base area has just begun to lay out, and the products that can be sold are limited, and the silver obtained from selling the goods is far from enough for the purchase expenses, and the gold and silver treasures captured have been consumed to barely maintain.

Accumulation is not as fast as robbery, so Huang Yi will have to fight a few battles in a short time. Fortunately, the Karaqin Tartars snatched back a lot of gold and silver treasures from the capital of the Ming Dynasty last year.

Otherwise, Huang Yi, who is rapidly expanding his army, may really be unable to make ends meet!
I bought a lot of things, not only daily necessities such as dishes, pots and jars, but also saltpeter, sulfur, honey, and liquor, but the bulk was still grain, cotton, and cotton cloth.

"Build walls high, accumulate food widely, and become king slowly!" is the golden rule for success.

It is the consensus of the Han people to have food at home and not to panic.

It is estimated that, together with the farmland reclaimed this spring, the total number of acres will exceed 13 mu.

However, these lands are all newly reclaimed, and the vast majority are thin fields. According to the division of above, middle, and down in the Ming Dynasty, more than [-]% are Xiatian.

It takes time to accumulate, and the degree of fertility in the future will definitely get better every year.

Part of the fields with the best water and soil conditions are planted with wheat, and strive to achieve an average yield of more than one stone per mu.

The rest grow potatoes and sweet potatoes. After last year's experiments, it was found that potatoes are more suitable for the abundant sunshine here, and the output can reach nearly [-] Ming Dynasty Shijin.

In addition, barley and highland barley, which are more resistant to cold and salt, have actually achieved a yield second only to wheat.

Then there is naked oats that like cold and cool, drought-resistant, salt-alkali-resistant, and have a short growth period.

Planting corn in sunny and leeward mountains not only yields corn kernels, but also corn stalks are good fodder.

Anyway, the variety of staple food cannot be single, because the land needs to be rotated to ensure the yield and fertilize the field.

In addition to potatoes and sweet potatoes, which can reach more than 120 catties per mu, the average yield of wheat, barley, highland barley, and naked oats is about one stone, reaching 150 to [-] catties is not too small.

I want to explain here that a stone is a unit of volume, and it is measured with measuring tools, not weighed. Generally speaking, it is unscientific to say how much a stone weighs.

It should be explained how much a stone of rice is, how much a stone of millet is, how much a stone of wheat is, and so on.

Wheat is lighter than rice, so one stone is not more than 150 catties in the Ming Dynasty, but more than 120 catties in the Ming Dynasty. Converted to 150 grams, it should be more than [-] catties.

If the harvest in the base area is decent this year, it is expected to harvest 20 to 5 shi of grain, enough to feed [-] people.

However, the population of the base area has been growing, and Geng Zhanghua, who is not short of money, regards it as a good deed to take in refugees and disaster victims to the base area.

Of course, this also has something to do with Huang Yi boasting that the base needs a larger population, the better.

Geng Ruqi also supports sending refugees and disaster victims out of the country.

Because there are more and more refugees fleeing from Shaanxi to Shanxi and Xuanda, and if they don't try to get the refugees away, the fragile Shanxi will also be affected and become a place full of refugees.

In fact, this is the case in history. First, the people in Shaanxi were in dire straits, and then there were refugees in Shanxi...

But it's changed a lot now.

Because Xuanda officials found refugees in the territory, they gathered and gave each person two bowls of porridge a day, and when they gathered 300 people, they sent two yamen servants to Xuanfu to guide them.

Local officials are not against doing this kind of thing, because the food consumed by the porridge will be compensated according to the population, and they can earn some errand money by saving it.

According to relevant records, the population of the Ming Dynasty was…

Forehead!not sure.

Some think it is at least 2 million, some think it is more than 5000 million, and some say it is [-] million.

Huang Yi didn't think or guess. He just made sure that there were no black households in the sphere of influence in the base area, and that he could count the population with basic accuracy.

History has already destined Shaanxi and Shanxi to be in chaos, and it is also destined that with the assistance of Governor Xuanda, the base area can get a lot of people.

Maybe before the snow falls next winter, the Han population in the base area will break through [-] to [-] or more. Coupled with the population of different ethnic groups obtained from the continuous annexation of the Harqin tribe, the food problem will still be a problem.

Huang Yi won't feel at ease if he doesn't accumulate to the point where the grain stored in the grain depot can keep people from starving to death in the base area even if there is no harvest for a year.

The construction of the high wall in the current base area has already begun. The concrete ground beams and ring beam foundations have been poured, and the city wall filled with gravel, coal gangue, and slag will be 12 meters high after completion. The base is [-] meters thick and the top is [-] meters wide.

This kind of city wall can't collapse after three days of heavy artillery bombardment in this era.

Guangji Grain is in progress, and [-] concrete silos have been completed, and each silo can store no less than [-] shi of grain.

It's a pity that the grain storage is not enough to fill the granary. It has just reached half of it, and it can barely last until the autumn harvest. This refers to the situation where the population is no longer increasing rapidly.

(End of this chapter)