Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 319: Electricity is far away and difficult to obtain, Nature Magazine [Subscription Request]

Under Shen Lin's guidance and introduction, Liu Kuan inspected all the buildings of the first phase of the thermal power station and tested the quality of the buildings on the spot.

Seeing that the construction quality indeed met the required standards, he nodded with satisfaction.

"Now that the first phase of the project has been successfully completed, let's prepare and pick a date to start the second phase."

"We will strive to complete the construction and operational testing of the entire thermal power station before this autumn, and supply electricity to the various government offices in the capital."

Shen Lin nodded and said, "I will do my best to supervise this matter."

Liu Kuan did not make any big promises about providing electricity to the people of the capital.

In the past few years, Zhu Yuanzhang's reforms to various policies, the encouragement of trade and the opening of the sea have accelerated the population concentration in the capital. Now the population of the capital has reached more than 800,000.

If we include some travelers, merchants, etc. living in the capital, the population may be as high as 900,000.

In order to allow so many people to have access to electricity, even if the output of this experimental thermal power station can keep up, the current production of wires and electric lights in the Ming Dynasty cannot keep up.

In fact, electrical wires and electric lights are considered special products in the Ming Dynasty and are not sold to the public - their value cannot be measured in money for the time being.

The manufacture of electric lamps still relies heavily on manual labor by craftsmen, and the yield rate is quite low, which makes the manufacturing cost quite high.

Manufacturing electrical wires is also complex. While silk, cotton, and paper are common materials, creating composite materials is not easy. Rubber, on the other hand, currently relies on harvesting in Central and South America and then shipping it back to Ming, so its value is naturally high.

In addition, there are some other miscellaneous issues.

It can be said that although the Ming Dynasty built a thermal power station with the help of Liu Kuan, and even the Ming Dynasty Palace had electricity, all government offices would also have electricity in the near future.

But there is still a long way to go before ordinary people can have access to electricity...
After Liu Kuan encouraged Shen Lin and other officials and craftsmen, he emphasized the construction safety issues and then left with his entourage and guards.

After returning to the Tiangongyuan Yamen, Liu Kuan began to handle some official documents in his office.

After about an hour, the bells in Tiangongyuan rang together with the bells in the nearby bell tower, and it was time to get off work at 5 pm.

Before he traveled through time, Liu Kuan didn't like working overtime, but he had no choice at that time and had to work overtime in order to keep his job.

Now that he is the head of Tiangong Institute, it can be said that no one except Lao Zhu can make him work overtime.

After tidying up the table a little, he hurriedly left Tiangongyuan, but did not go home. Instead, he took his entourage and guards to an ordinary courtyard facing the street to the north of Cheng'en Temple and Dongshen Palace in the inner city.

This is one of the street shops that Lao Zhu rewarded him with. It used to sell cloth and silk.

On the street side is a storefront about ten meters long and five or six meters wide, and behind it is a large courtyard with east and west side courtyards.

Due to its good geographical location, this cloth shop has brought the Liu family thousands of strings of cash in revenue every year in the past few years.

However, after the beginning of spring this year, Liu Kuan ordered the government to stop the business of the cloth shop, and asked the manager to find a private construction team to renovate the shop inside and out.

When Liu Kuan arrived, the sun had already set and the sky had darkened. Lanterns were hung outside the storefronts and lights were on in the yard.

It can be seen that on one side of the door of this storefront, there is a low-key vertical wooden sign that is very different from the style of this time, with five big words written on it - Nature Magazine!

A young man in the original storefront was wiping tables and chairs. Seeing Liu Kuan come in, he immediately stepped forward and bowed, saying, "Greetings, Master!"

This man was a handyman hired by the community. His name was Wu Xian, he was seventeen years old, had failed in his studies, but he was interested in natural sciences and lived nearby.

Liu Kuan nodded and asked directly, "Is Editor-in-Chief Xu in there?"

"Yes, yes."

Wu Xian answered repeatedly, walked into the yard, and shouted: "Editor-in-chief, the uncle is here!"

Liu Kuan couldn't help but say, "Keep your voice down. Don't shout so loudly that the neighbors can hear you."

"Yes Yes."

Wu Xian was obviously quite nervous and excited when facing Liu Kuan - even though it was not the first time he met Liu Kuan.

When Liu Kuan arrived at the courtyard, Xu Zhen had already come out to greet him. He bowed respectfully and said, "Greetings, Master."

"Brother Xu, you're too polite." Liu Kuan returned the greeting with a smile, then said to Wu Xian beside him, "You should follow Editor-in-Chief Xu's example and address me as Boss. Remember that?"
"

"Yeah, remember."

Liu Kuan and Xu Zhen immediately came to the main hall, only to see a lot of letters on the desk in the side hall, with paper and pen next to them. It was obvious that Xu Zhen was reading these letters.

Speaking of which, Xu Zhen was able to serve as the editor-in-chief of Nature magazine due to some luck.

He was from Zhili. When the imperial court held the first provincial examination a few years ago, he came to the capital to take the test. In a restaurant, he debated with a group of Confucian scholars who opposed the reform of the imperial examination system. As a result, he got acquainted with Liu Kuan, who used the pseudonym Liu Chang, and had a long conversation with him.

Although he vaguely guessed Liu Kuan's identity afterwards, he was determined to take the imperial examination at that time and had no connections, so he did not go to find Liu Kuan.

Unfortunately, he failed the provincial examination that year.

After returning home, he diligently studied Confucianism, mathematics, and natural sciences for three years, and then took part in the provincial examination in the 18th year of the Hongwu reign, thinking he would definitely pass. However, despite his considerable progress, the provincial examination became even more difficult and competitive, and he failed again.

After failing the exam twice, Xu Zhen was devastated and even doubted that he would ever pass the exam in his lifetime.

He also felt that his hard study and closed-door work in his hometown were not making fast enough progress, so he lived in the capital.

He stayed there for one or two years. As he came into contact with scholars from other places, Xu Zhen felt more and more that it was difficult for him to pass the imperial examination.

It happened that last winter, Liu Kuan advertised in the journal "Natural Science", recruiting editors-in-chief, editors and other personnel to prepare for the establishment of "Nature Magazine". Xu Zhen remembered his chance encounter with Liu Kuan and came to apply for the job with a try-it attitude.

At that time, the journal "Natural Science" had been published for more than four years, with a total of forty or fifty issues published at the rate of one issue per month.

In every issue of "Natural Science" magazine, Liu Kuan will disseminate some basic scientific knowledge and introduce some simple scientific experiments.

In addition, the imperial court showed increasing attention to mathematics and natural sciences through the imperial examination system and official schools, and wonderful things attributed to science and technology such as trains, cement, glass, ships, and balloons continued to appear.

After four years, a group of supporters of natural sciences were finally cultivated in Ming Dynasty.

Most of these people were students of official schools, scholars aiming to take the imperial examinations, and most of them were young people.

But there were also many people who were outside the official schools, had no hope of passing the imperial examinations, or were older scholars.

With Liu Kuan's current status, not to mention that the "Natural Science" journal has a great influence in the Ming Dynasty, even if it does not, just based on the appeal of his personal power, if he wants to set up a magazine, there will be many people who want to apply to be employees - even if many people are hearing about the concept of a magazine for the first time.

Therefore, after Liu Kuan placed a recruitment advertisement in the journal "Natural Science", many people came to the capital to apply for the job, including some who were more talented than Xu Zhen.

However, the editor-in-chief of a magazine not only needs to have a sufficient level of knowledge in "natural sciences", but also needs certain management and operational capabilities.

The most important thing is to have good character.

Therefore, after weighing many factors, Liu Kuan chose Xu Zhen, whom he had only met once.

In addition, he also hired three editors with different talents, an artist, and two handymen.

In other words, even including him as the owner, Nature Magazine currently only has eight people. In fact, he, as an incumbent official, is not counted among the magazine's staff.

Liu Kuan and Xu Zhen sat down in the hall, and Wu Xian immediately served them tea.

"Tomorrow the magazine will officially start operating. Are all preparations complete?"

Xu Zhen said, "We've been preparing for so long, so of course everything is ready. My only concern is that most of the readers' submissions are unusable. Even if we only select three per month, I'm afraid they won't be as good as the articles submitted by the boss."

Liu Kuan said modestly, "I just have more knowledge in natural sciences. I'm not that good at writing."

"The magazine has just started accepting manuscripts, so we don't need to set too high standards for the manuscripts. Once we're sure the manuscript's arguments are correct, we can lower our expectations for the depth of the article."

Xu Zhen nodded, "I understand."

Liu Kuan asked again, "How's the advertising and investment promotion matter that I asked you to discuss going?"

Hearing this, Xu Zhen couldn't help but smile.

When he first heard Liu Kuan's suggestion of letting other businesses pay to advertise in the journal "Natural Science", he felt that it was somewhat disrespectful to the journal and difficult to implement.

But when he actually did it, he found that things were very different from what he had imagined.

"Back to the boss, after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, I talked with more than ten suitable merchants. Most of them are willing to do this, and their bids are higher than the last."

Liu Kuan also smiled.

Although he was not short of money and the magazine could make a lot of money by publishing the journal "Natural Science", he still opened up an advertising page to earn advertising fees.

This is equivalent to introducing a new method of publicity to private merchants. I believe that with the intelligence of Ming Dynasty merchants, this method of publicity will be expanded in a short time.

"Have you chosen the first business to advertise?"

Xu Zhen said, "I chose the 'Zhan's Hui Ink Shop'—the quality of their ink is good enough and they already have a certain reputation. In the past two years, they have innovated their production technology, which has greatly increased their output. Now is the time to expand their trade routes to other provinces and advertise."

"Zhan's Hui Ink..." Liu Kuan pondered for a moment, "This is the right choice. When choosing a publisher for our journal, profit is secondary. We must ensure their quality and reputation. We can't sacrifice the journal's reputation for a small amount of advertising money."

"My subordinate understands."

Liu Kuan was interested in Zhan's Hui ink, as it was of good quality and reasonably priced. Therefore, he did not ask any more questions about it.

He tapped the table and said, "Now that we've established a magazine, we can't just publish one type of publication. So I plan to start another publication besides Natural Science."

Xu Zhen became interested and asked, "I wonder if the boss has any requirements for this new publication? Is it about natural sciences?"

　First update.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)