Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 303: Rubber Wire! Annual Income! [Subscription Request]

Hearing that they were from the Rubber Application Research Institute, Liu Kuan roughly guessed what the matter was. (The previous chapter has been revised)

When he arrived at the living room of the Second Courtyard, he saw a young clerk in black sitting there rather stiffly.

Hearing the sound of Liu Kuan coming in, the clerk immediately stood up and bowed, "I am Lu Heng from the Rubber Application Research Institute, greeting the director."

Liu Kuan did nothing and asked directly: "What happened to the rubber factory?"

Lu Heng said, "Returning to the Institute, it's good news - we have developed a rubber wire that meets the requirements of practical applications!"

Although Liu Kuan had anticipated this, he was still very happy when he heard the actual news.

Since the exploration fleet returned to the Ming Dynasty with more than 30,000 kilograms of rubber in June, the rubber has been transported to the capital and stored in special warehouses.

Liu Kuan then proposed to set up a "Rubber Application Research Institute" under the Tiangong Institute to specialize in the processing and application of natural rubber.

Old Zhu naturally had no objection to this matter, and sufficient funds were allocated.

After the Rubber Application Research Institute was established, Liu Kuan assigned it two main tasks: one was to develop rubber wires with practical application value; the other was to develop rubber tires and wheels with practical application value.

The exploration fleet brought back natural rubber that had only been roughly processed, and there were many problems that needed to be solved before it could be used in practice.

Fortunately, the researchers had the guidance materials provided by Liu Kuan, which was equivalent to following a map, and the research progress was naturally greatly accelerated.

Even so, Liu Kuan was somewhat surprised that the Rubber Application Research Institute was able to develop suitable rubber wires in less than half a year.

But considering that today is the winter solstice, most of the departments and institutes under the Tiangong Institute are on holiday, but the people at the Rubber Application Research Institute are still working. Liu Kuan knows that it is no luck that the institute can complete a large task so quickly.

"It is indeed a happy occasion," Liu Kuan said with a smile. "Please wait here for a moment. I will explain to my family and then go to your institute to find out the situation. Your ambassador, Wang Guangqin, is here, right?"

"Yes, of course."

Wang Guangqin is not only the chief officer of the institute, but also the main force in researching rubber application issues. Wang Guangqin is also a scientific research talent discovered by Liu Kuan in recent years. Although he is not as outstanding as Li She and Guo Tianwen in talent, he is very rigorous in his work and very diligent.

The applied research of rubber does not require high talent, but rather requires complicated and rigorous experiments, which is suitable for talents like Wang Guangqin.

The Rubber Application Research Institute is also located in the Shihuishan area. In the early Ming Dynasty, there were not many people living in Nanjing, and the emperor's personal army camp was nearby, making it convenient for the army to protect the institute nearby. It was indeed a good place to establish a research institute.

After Liu Kuan arrived, he was led into the laboratory by Wang Guangqin.

There were several rubber wires arranged in the laboratory, one end of which was connected to the animal-powered generator in another room, and the other end was connected to several carbon filament lamps and a very primitive electric fan.

Wang Guangqin was already in his early forties. In order to facilitate experiments, he wore a tall hat and a Tang Dynasty scarf on his head and a casual suit with narrow sleeves. Although it seemed a bit strange to people of his time, he was very capable in Liu Kuan's eyes.

As Liu Kuan surveyed the wiring in the lab, Wang Guangqin explained, "We actually developed this rubber wire a few days ago. We just need to conduct various experiments to test whether its performance meets basic usage requirements."

"Now that all the tests have been completed, only this final service life test remains, which will take a long time to complete."

Liu Kuan nodded and asked, "How long have these rubber wires been in use?"

"Returning to the director, it has been used day and night for more than three days and nights."

Liu Kuan walked around the laboratory and sniffed. He didn't smell any burnt smell of rubber, so he mentally accepted the research results of Wang Guangqin and others.

When he picked up the wire connected to the electric fan and felt no heat, he felt even more satisfied.

Speaking of which, these rubber wires are not made purely of rubber and copper wire. They also use the wire results previously developed by the Electrical Research Institute, that is, an insulating material composed of rubber, silk, cotton, paper and other materials.

Therefore, these rubber wires in front of us are actually wrapped in two layers of insulation - the first layer of composite material needs to wrap the copper wire, so it has better insulation and is more resistant to high temperatures; the second layer of composite material is mainly rubber, which is more tough and has certain anti-freeze properties, but its insulation is relatively poor.

This relatively mature wire design is also one of the sources of Liu Kuan's confidence in these wires.

After the inspection, Liu Kuan said to Wang Guangqin, "You can continue the service life experiment of this type of wire, but you can already start researching the large-scale production process."

"If we can produce a batch of rubber wires before the New Year, we can work with the Electrical Research Institute to install electric lights in the palace!"

"By next year, perhaps we can install electric lights in all the government offices in the capital, so that our Ming emperor and his ministers will no longer have to suffer from the dim light of candles and smoke!"

"Even in the future, when the technology and production processes related to wires and electric lights mature, they can even enter the homes of ordinary people, allowing thousands of households in the Ming Dynasty to light up brightly at night!"

Wang Guangqin and the others' eyes lit up after hearing Liu Kuan's words, revealing a look of fascination and excitement. A few people at the research institute had previously secretly complained about working on a day off, but now, no resentment remained, and they were eager to roll up their sleeves and work for another three days and three nights.

Wang Guangqin even bowed and said, "Just wait and see, Director. We will do our utmost to research the production process as quickly as possible so that Your Majesty, your colleagues, and even the common people can use electric lights and wires as soon as possible!"

Liu Kuan nodded first, then said, "It would be best if we could finish this before the New Year, but don't put too much pressure on yourself. Safety is paramount, whether in experiments or production. Remember that?"

"Yes, please keep this in mind!"

Afterwards, Liu Kuan inspected several other projects of the Rubber Application Research Institute, mainly tire research projects.

Natural rubber needs to be vulcanized to achieve the properties required for tires, requiring more experiments. Furthermore, the research institute previously focused on rubber wires as its primary research project, so the development of rubber tires naturally progressed much more slowly.

Coming to another laboratory, Liu Kuan saw the institute's recent achievements in this area, a solid rubber tire.

Wang Guangqin said, "If the carriage is equipped with these solid rubber tires, it will definitely go faster and carry more cargo."

"But this type of tire breaks down easily, and if the damaged part is a little bit large, it will be difficult to repair and use it again."

"Rubber currently needs to be sourced from America, which is expensive, so this type of solid tire is difficult to use on a large scale. As you, the Dean, put it, the cost-effectiveness is too low."

"Then continue the research," Liu Kuan said with a smile. "After all, there's no urgent need to improve the performance of our carriages in the Ming Dynasty right now. The previous iron-wood composite tires have been used for thousands of years, so we don't mind using them for a few more years."

Wang Guangqin understood what Liu Kuan meant.

Electric wires were something that did not exist before the Ming Dynasty. Naturally, the sooner they were put into practical use, the sooner they would bring great changes to the Ming Dynasty.

Rubber tires simply made wheels better, but their importance and development priority were not as high.

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Time flies, another month has passed, and it is the end of the 19th year of Hongwu.

The various government offices of the Ming Dynasty became even busier before they were closed.

On this day, Zhu Yuanzhang was reviewing memorials in Fengxian Hall while listening to Zhu Biao's summary of the Ming Dynasty's financial situation this year.

"This year, apart from the frequent autumn floods in Huguang and Susong, and the spring and summer droughts in western Henan, no other regions have experienced disasters that have a significant impact on grain production."

Liu Kuan has been in the Ming Dynasty for nearly five years. Not only the Ministry of Works has been influenced by him, but the entire Ming Dynasty court has been greatly influenced by him.

For example, Zhu Biao, in the past, would never have used such plain and simple language to report to the old Zhu. Not to mention, his words also contained many words from later times.

But at this time, neither Zhu Biao nor Zhu Biao himself felt that there was anything wrong.

"Although floods are common in Huguang and Susong, many ditches and dams have been built with cement in the past few years, so the people haven't suffered serious damage, and grain production hasn't decreased much."

"The drought in western Henan also benefited from the repair of local ditches, and the harvest was reduced by only 20% to 30%."

"There was a locust plague after the drought, but the local government followed the imperial court's instructions, fully mobilized the people, and used various methods to prevent the locust plague. As a result, there was no locust plague after the drought."

"Add to that the bumper harvests this year from the military and civilian settlements in Dongfan Island and Luzon. Therefore, this year, the Ming Dynasty collected over 39.18 million dan of grain from the fifteen provinces and seven major military governorates (excluding the two major military governorates in America) through various tax items, including summer and autumn taxes!"

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang stopped reviewing the memorial and couldn't help but smile.

This is nearly 40 million dan of grain tax in kind!
He remembered that in the fourteenth year of Hongwu, when Liu Kuan had just traveled through time, the total tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty was only more than 26 million dan of grain.

In just four or five years, it has increased by more than one third!

Although this was due to the fact that the Ming Dynasty had taken over Yunnan, Beibei, and Liaodong, and had established military farms on Dongfan Island and Luzon Island, it was also closely related to the fact that he had changed various domestic policies in recent years based on the inspiration he got from Liu Kuan.

As the saying goes, conquering the world is difficult, but ruling it is even more difficult. Since ancient times, the emperor's posthumous title of "Wen" has been respected over "Wu", which also shows that civil governance is more difficult to achieve than military achievements.

It was hard not to be happy that he was able to increase the court's grain tax revenue by more than one third in just four or five years.

What's more, grain, which now comes mainly from land tax, is only a part of the Ming Dynasty's total fiscal revenue.

　First update.

　　[Historically, during the Hongwu period, the amount of grain in the fiscal revenue remained stable at around 30 million dan, so this article uses the figure of nearly 40 million dan.]

　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)