The recruits started training, and when the recruits were training, our Zhu Lang was under high temperature. It was a small blast furnace with a maximum of 4.8 meters and a minimum of only 2.2 meters; the wall thickness of the furnace wall was 28 cm and a maximum thickness of 42 cm. The cylindrical furnace body, the furnace body was all made of red brick mortar, and the inner layer was covered with refractory mud; the bottom was equipped with a firewood outlet, an air inlet, and an iron outlet.

This small blast furnace used to be an important role in the making of steel by civil method.

Why do you need to build such a small blast furnace? Because glass firing requires high temperatures. Such a small blast furnace can reach high temperatures with oil added... oil is necessary.

Because the raw materials of glass are very simple, they are actually sand and lime, which can be easily obtained in ancient times.

With the raw materials, the fire is then started.

Mix these raw materials together and stir evenly before putting them in the cave to fire. The firing temperature must reach about 1,600 degrees.

The firewood, coal, and coke we use are not 1,600 degrees, but there is oil. In ancient China, there was too much oil, which was too much to withstand the pressure of geological movements, and they all flowed to the ground, so this was easy to get.

If the name oil is not yet known as oil, there were many other names in ancient times, namely: squid water, stone paint, stone fat water, and tinea oil. Just change it and ask.

As long as you can heat the temperature to 1600 degrees, burn the sand, lime... these things into even, bubble-free liquid glass, and it will be simple afterwards. Just pour the liquid glass into the mold you want to cool.

It can be a variety of molds, glass cups, glass bowls, glass accessories, glass decorations, glass lions, glass peacocks, and even glass dragons representing the imperial power.

The first glass item that Zhu Lang made was a hovering glass dragon, which was used to give to Zhu Yuanzhang. You should know that Zhu Yuanzhang was actually very interested in glass items.

In ancient times, glass was a luxury in any country, and no powerful man could not be uninterested in glass.

Glass was not perfected until the 13th century, and it was not until the 17th century that glass began to become popular. Before that, glass was a luxury item, and there were poems about "grape wine luminous cups" in Tang poetry. This luminous cup is a glass cup.

Glass, known as glazed in ancient China, was a high-end product that only nobles could use. Its price is equivalent to gold.

The reason why Zhu Lang couldn't wait to personally control the glass was because the ancient shipbuilding industry was too expensive. During the Yongle period, Zheng He spent 6 million taels of silver to the West. Such a huge expense was equivalent to twice the annual revenue of the treasury at that time.

The above expenses do not include the original shipbuilding expenses. The average cost of building and repairing a ship is 1,600 taels of silver. Each time the fleet sails, the average cost of construction and maintenance is hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

If the shipbuilding expenses are added, a 32-meter sea boat...even if the price of a naked ship is calculated, the "length-width ratio" of ocean-going ships is about twice that of a river and about twice that of a lake-going ship. It should not be an exaggeration to infer that the same length of ocean-going ships in terms of "materials" use more than one-third more than ordinary ships.

Moreover, the materials used for ocean-going sea ships should not be worse than those used for canal ships, so make it from nanmu!

The material price for a "bottom ship" of a canal ship should be about 160 taels based on the length and width ratio of the ocean-going sea ship.

Geometry: If the polyhedron is equally larger than n times, then the area of ​​each face should be larger (n squared) times. This is used to compare the equilateral polygons, and the difference should not be too much.

The average length of the ocean-going ship we took before was 32 zhang, which is 4.7 times the same amount of the canal ship built according to the length and width ratio of the ocean-going ship, so the shipbuilding area should increase by about 22.1 times.

From this we infer that the material silver for building a long-distance marine ship is: 160*22.1=3536 taels and the sea ship should be a double-bottomed boat (I can't find whether the canal boat is a double-bottomed boat here), but the "bottomed boat" always needs to be added to the "bottomed boat". The basic objects on the ship cabin and other ships are a complete "naked boat". Because the material used for the ship gang and other objects do not need to be considered for pressure and other factors, the material used may not be too high, but where is the area? It should not be too much to double the cost of the "bottomed boat" as a material silver for the "naked boat".

From this we can find that the material of a 32-meter-long ocean-going marine ship is 3536*2=7072 taels of silver.

This is a naked ship, and then various facilities are added to this naked ship, so all of which need at least 10,000 taels of silver each, one ship, ten ships are 10,000 taels, and one hundred ships are 1 million taels.

To form a fleet of some size, one hundred ships should still be necessary. Building a ship requires one million taels of silver, and hundreds of thousands of silver are required for repair every year. This ship can be completely different from that on land. It needs to be maintained and maintained every month.

Zheng He's voyage to the West not only did not bring huge wealth to the Ming Dynasty, but also caused huge wealth outflows.

Through the large amount of rewards to "tributors", China's copper coins continued to flow out, resulting in scarcity of domestic copper coins and depreciation of paper money (Da Ming Baochao). During the Xuande period, the prices of rice, cotton and other materials increased by 50 times compared with those in the Hongwu period, and the prices of cloth increased by more than 300 times.

Inflation has severely hit the development of industry and commerce and seriously damaged the interests of ordinary people. As the lecturer Zou Ji wrote a memorial: "There has been a ban on money from abroad since it was banned, but now it has exhausted all the world to deal with it, which can be said to be a mistake."

In addition to spending a lot of reward money over the years, Zheng He's voyage to the West for twenty-eight years was also incredible. Every time Zheng He went to sea, there were more than 200 ships of all sizes, and each ship was counterfeited by more than 5,000 taels of silver.

Luo Dengmao wrote in "The Romance of the Western Paradise of the Three Treasures Eunuchs": "This ship is numerous, made in detail, and used in a large amount. It must be enough to save money and food to support the world."

Not only that, the emperor also had to give large-scale rewards to the fleet officers and soldiers, such as Yongle gave "200,000 ingots of money and colored coins once every nine years."

During the reign of Emperor Yongle, ministers wrote letters to "Foreign Treasures to Get Treasures" and suggested stopping their voyage to the West. In 1421, due to financial difficulties, Emperor Yongle stopped voyage to the West.

After the Ming Renzong Zhu Gaochi ascended the throne, he ordered that "all the national treasure ships in the Western Ocean will be stopped." Emperor Xuanzong of Ming Dynasty recovered after ascending the throne and ordered Zheng He to carry out his seventh long voyage. Then the Ming Dynasty felt that the financial resources could no longer support the long voyage, so the voyage to the Western Ocean was finally stopped.

So what Zhu Lang has to do is not to give up the matter of going to sea to build ships, and it is burdened with the Ming Dynasty's taxes, because if there is a burden, it will definitely be ordered to stop. As long as it is stopped, the Ming Dynasty will lose a good opportunity to expand outward.

This is why Zhu Lang needs to make glass as soon as possible. As long as the glass is made, Zhu Lang will support the financially and have money to do his own business, so it will not hinder the court. As long as you don’t spend the money from the Ministry of Revenue, you can’t make a fuss even if you want to make trouble. Why do you make trouble? If someone spends his own money to do his own business, what’s the problem with you?

Just after Zhu Lang lowered his head and took a sip of water, Qiao Ren behind him shouted happily: "Your Highness... the first glass product is made."
Chapter completed!