My life skills in Daming Liver

Liang Mengyuan and Lorenzo followed the flow of people into the Crystal Palace with unyielding emotions.

The first exhibit in the Crystal Palace shocked Liang Mengyuan and Lorenzo.

Behind the steel fence, a huge machine was steaming, and the levers and gears connected to the machine were moving over and over again.

There was no manpower, no water power, and no livestock to pull it.

Just relying on coal and water to make this machine move, even medical students like Liang Mengyuan and Luo Lanzuo saw the endless possibilities in the future!

A workshop does not have to be crowded beside a river, just such a machine can drive other machines.

Liang Mengyuan also thought of more. This strange machine could replace the power of water flow and the power of livestock.

There will be horse-drawn carriages propelled by such machines on the road.

Machines can replace livestock and they can replace the wind.

Cargo ships propelled by this machine will appear on the sea.

Only then did Liang Mengyuan understand what Su Ze meant by a brand new era.

This machine is a new era, the beginning of a new era!

Many people wanted to take a closer look at this machine, but unfortunately for the sake of confidentiality, there was an iron fence surrounding the steam engine far away.

Lin An, who was following the crowd, covered his mouth and said to Renfu next to him:

"Old Ren, isn't this the machine you designed?"

Ren Fu looked at it carefully, shook his head and said, "This is not my machine. My machine is bulkier than this one, and the materials used are worse than this one, but the principle should be the same."

Ren Fu and Lin An came to Nanjing to look for opportunities.

Although the steam engine was developed, the sales volume of the steam engine was not satisfactory.

Ren Fu and Lin An concluded that manpower was still too cheap.

The power provided by the steam engine is not large and can be completely replaced by manpower and animals. In order to maintain the operation of the steam engine, a boilermaker who adds fuel and an engineer responsible for daily maintenance are needed.

Since you have spent this money, why not just buy livestock or hire people?

Su Ze naturally understands these principles.

As a historical researcher, Su Ze knows very well what "historical myths" are.

In order to simplify understanding, the textbooks of later generations, coupled with the widespread dissemination of self-media, have made ordinary people's understanding of history full of "mythical" perceptions.

Just like the steam engine, it seems that as soon as the steam engine appears, it can solve all problems and drag the whole world into the steam age.

Another example is the emergence of certain systems, certain theories, the publication of certain works, and the emergence of certain scientific theories. It seems that as soon as these things appear, they will be widely recognized by the world and be immediately canonized as sacred truths.

In fact, when the steam engine first appeared, the world was just shocked by the sophistication of this machine, but not many workshop owners were willing to try to use steam engines to replace water power and animal power.

When some advanced social theories first appeared, they often received criticism and hostility. When some scientific theories that transcended the times were first proposed, they were criticized as fallacies and heresies.

In the continuous history of mankind, there is no so-called historical node, nor is there a 180-degree turning point.

Some are just gradual, and some are new things that are slowly being accepted by the world.

The wheel of history rolls forward, but it does not immediately smash all old things with a bang.

At this expo, Su Ze gave up the most important exhibition hall to steam engines, just to popularize steam engines to the public and let workshop owners know about this new technology.

Only when steam engines attract more people's attention, more people begin to study machines and equipment related to steam engines, more people begin to improve steam engines, and more inventions related to steam engines appear, can Southeast Asia enter the era of steam engines.

However, the door to the industrial era has opened, and Su Ze is optimistic that this era will come soon.

Su Ze, who was optimistic, did not expect that Ren Fu had already built a similar steam engine at almost the same time as him.

Ren Fu saw the steam engine in the exhibition hall. When he saw the nameplate of the machine, Lin An pointed at the steam engine and said:

"Old Ren! This machine was designed and manufactured by the Grand Governor himself!"

Ren Fu also saw Su Ze's name on the nameplate of the booth, and he couldn't be more excited.

He was not dejected because his invention collided with Su Ze's. Instead, he was excited because he and Su Ze were on the same road.

Everyone knows that today's industrial achievements in the southeast almost all come from Su Ze's "Tiangong Kaiwu" and the first batch of engineers trained by Tiangong College.

As a pioneer in the southeast, Governor Su personally manufactured a steam engine and placed the machine in the most eye-catching position in the exhibition hall of the expo. Doesn't this prove that steam engines are the future?

Ren Fu determined his direction and determined to continue researching and improving steam engines after returning to Hangzhou, so that steam engines could enter thousands of workshops and let the roar of steam engines resound throughout the earth!

But not everyone is as excited about steam engines as Ren Fu is.

Most people look at the steam engine and think it is an exquisite "toy" and an ingenious invention of Su Ze, but not everyone can see the value of the steam engine.

Liang Mengyuan and Luo Lanzuo were like this. They followed the crowd around the steam engine and walked to the next exhibition hall.

The second exhibition hall is the clock exhibition hall. There are various clocks and watches here, and what everyone can see as soon as they enter the hall is a giant clock.

This clock has a square dial. In addition to using numbers to mark the twelve hours, it is also engraved with the twelve zodiac signs as decoration.

Liang Mengyuan had already seen this zodiac clock from the newspaper. It was said that a huge bell tower would be built next to the Bell and Drum Tower in Nanjing. This clock would be a pendulum clock placed on the top of the bell tower.

It was exactly nine o'clock in the morning, and when the hour hand reached the twelve o'clock position, the giant clock chimed. The nine melodious chimes made everyone inside and outside the exhibition hall know the time clearly.

Lorenzo was very interested in these clocks. At Li Shizhen Medical College, many experiments had to be accurate to the minute, and some even needed to be accurate to the second.

Suturing important parts must be completed within a few minutes, patients with cardiac arrest must undergo cardiopulmonary resuscitation within a few minutes, and it takes a few minutes for a drug to enter the human body and take effect.

Science has become more and more connected with time. In the industrial era, time is accurate to minutes and seconds, completely breaking the concept of time in the agricultural era where work was done at sunrise and rested at sundown.

Lorenzo was interested in an exquisite clock, but when he saw the price of the clock, he quickly looked away.

Liang Mengyuan fell in love with a delicate pocket watch. This pocket watch can be carried around and the time can be read anytime and anywhere. However, the price of this pocket watch is not something ordinary people can afford.

In addition to these ordinary clocks, there are also marine clocks used to determine time at sea and chime clocks used in factories. All kinds of clocks make ordinary citizens in the southeast crazy, and they also make foreign businessmen crazy.

Anthony, the Portuguese trade representative in the southeast, looked at the exquisite pocket watch made of tortoise shell, gold hands, and inlaid with gems. He could imagine what kind of sensation such exquisite things would cause when shipped back to Europe.

No king or queen could refuse such a luxury product, and no watchmaker in Europe could produce such a work of art.

Anthony looked at the high price, but thought that he could get more from this pocket watch. He couldn't wait to contact the manufacturer of this watch and wanted to buy this pocket watch immediately.

Like Anthony, the Spanish nobleman Liguez saw this pocket watch and immediately determined that the owner of this pocket watch should be their great king Philip II of Spain. He also wrote down the name of the manufacturer. I am going to buy this pocket watch immediately after the exhibition.

Leaving the clock exhibition hall, Liang Mengyuan and Lorenzo came to an exhibition hall full of glass.

This evoked painful memories of Lorenzo, who was trying to make a fortune in Guangzhou with a cabin full of Venetian glass, but in the end he almost went bankrupt.

The various glass products could no longer please Lorenzo, but he soon found something that aroused his interest.

A one-meter telescope said to be able to see mountains on the moon.

A microscope that can be placed on a table and can see the cell walls of plants.

Various optical instruments such as sextant used at sea.

Lorenzo's expression darkened. The epidemiology he studied had made great progress by relying on microscopes. Almost every time, the causes of diseases were discovered under microscopes, and Cao Wang could no longer see all of this.

The Yersinia pestis specimen extracted from the plague by Cao Wang is stored in the research center of Li Shizhen Medical College, and the manuscript written by Cao Wang himself is also placed in the display room.

Liang Mengyuan understood what Lorenzo was thinking. He patted him on the shoulder and asked him to follow him. The two of them went to the next exhibition hall.

Ren Fu and Lin An were not very interested in the first two exhibition halls. They had already arrived in the third exhibition hall in advance, where there were various machines.

From textile looms to various machines that I can’t even name, craftsmen in the southeast seem to have a passion to replace all work with machines.

In Lin An's opinion, most of the machines here are of little value, but the two of them still looked at them with gusto.

Foreign businessmen were not very interested in machines. The Portuguese Anthony and the Spaniard Liguez quickly passed the machine exhibition hall, followed by the Southeast export products exhibition hall.

Not to mention cotton, silk, tea, and porcelain, these traditional export products, soap, matches, strong spirits, and iron daily necessities are increasingly becoming the top products of the Southeast.

Lin An's factory also has a small booth in this exhibition hall to display various matches produced by their factory.

The dazzling array of goods is dizzying. This expo has become an exhibition of southeastern industrial products. Among the exhibits brought by other countries, except for some semi-mechanical and semi-handmade firearms brought by the Portuguese and Spanish, the rest The countries participating in the exhibition brought agricultural products and minerals.

The most ridiculous thing about this is that several envoys claiming to be Siamese brought a peacock and a rhinoceros as exhibits.

However, this kind of exhibit attracted people's attention and made Siam a little limelight. Even the newspaper published half a page to introduce this southern country.

Just as the people lingered in the Crystal Palace, a letter of credence from the Ryukyu Kingdom was submitted to the Southeast Cabinet.

After Chief Minister Xu Wei saw this letter of credence, he immediately convened a cabinet meeting. Although a consensus was quickly reached, it was reported to Su Ze, the governor of the southeast.

Su Ze received this letter of credence and postponed his plan to continue going north.

The content of Ryukyu's credential is very simple, but the content is exciting enough, that is, the request of the leader of Ryukyu is included!

Ryukyu once lived a good life. When the Ming Dynasty banned the sea, Su Ze used the skins of Ryukyu envoys to conduct overseas trade under the guise of tribute trade.

At that time, Ryukyu was the most important port in East Asia. Japanese, Nanyang, and Westerners would all stop at Ryukyu and trade here.

But with the opening of the sea to the southeast and the prosperity of coastal ports, Ryukyu's good days are gone forever.

Southeast's own port has a lot of goods, convenient transactions, and complete financial and legal services. Southeast has armed ships to protect the port security.

Who would still do trade in Ryukyu?

Ryukyu became a transit port for some ocean-going ships, or a wharf for Japanese merchant ships to trade loose goods, thus losing its advantage as a foreign port.

But Ryukyu also lived a good life in those years. As the saying goes, it is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it is difficult to go from luxury to frugality. After living a good life, no one wants to live a hard life.

The Ryukyus originally followed the Han system of clothing and also spoke Chinese using Chinese characters. In fact, it is no different from Chinese culture.

The answer to this question is obvious to those upper-class people in Ryukyu who have the ability to go to the southeast.

For example, Lin Changqing, who served as the Ryukyu Tributary Envoy, had already recognized his ancestors in Fuzhou and became a Chinese descendant again. Now he is a large merchant operating a fleet.

At first, some Ryukyu nobles were unwilling to annex, but since the option of annexing the southeast began to spread on Ryukyu Island, Ryukyu people organized several rallies, all demanding immediate annexation.

Now, even the leader of Ryukyu himself was unwilling to stay in Ryukyu. Ryukyu simply sent a letter to Nanjing, requesting that the southeast be included.

Naturally, Su Ze would not refuse the fat meat that was delivered to his door. He accepted the Ryukyu Neibu with one stroke of his pen.