Zhu Ci had also previously wondered whether the Little Ice Age would have already passed by the time they were cultivated.
After all, the Little Ice Age would not maintain this temperature forever; as time passed, the average annual temperature would rise.
However, he ultimately felt that even if they weren't very well-suited to the current environment, it wouldn't matter; after all, there would always be colder places, such as the Siberia side.
Moreover, the more diverse the species, the better. At most, it would just be money down the drain; it didn't matter, he could afford the loss.
Zhu Yujian and the others were not worried when they heard there were no results, he pointed upward and asked, "What is done in those upper floors?"
There are so many floors.
Fu didn't waste any more words and turned around directly, saying, "Let's go, I'll take you to have a look."
Huh?
Take a look?
Climb ten floors?
No, right?
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Author's Note: Zhu Ci: Hmph, in the future, my painting would be praised for looking like a photograph, yet you actually look down on it? Meow leaves a paw print on the wheat ear map. jpg
Next update tomorrow morning at six o'clock
Chapter 211
Regarding the confusion of the three, Fu Qingsheng gave them a strange look and said, "Who said anything about climbing the stairs?"
Huh? If we don't climb the stairs, how are we supposed to get up?
They followed Fu curiously to the side and then entered a small room.
That room was too small, barely enough to hold six or seven people at most, after walking inside, one could still feel the floor shaking slightly.
Yan Yingyuan observed the room and saw that one side of the door had numerical markings while the other side had a bell, he couldn't help but ask, "What is this?"
Fu raised his hand and pulled the rope beneath the bell, the bell let out two crisp rings.
Immediately after, the attendant who had been following Fu closed the door with great skill, then everyone felt the ground sway beneath them as the entire room began to rise slowly.
Only then did Fu say, "This is a positioning elevator commissioned by His Majesty."
Huh?
A positioning elevator?
They all knew what an elevator was, but such things were mostly used by craftsmen; however, this "positioning".. what did it mean?
Before they could even ask, they felt the elevator come to a halt. Once the doors opened, they saw the number two written on the opposite wall.
Fu led them out while saying, "This is the second floor."
As Zhu Ci walked out, he glanced at the elevator with its doors closed and asked, "Can we reach any floor using this?"
Fu replied.
Zhu Yujian pondered for a moment and felt he somewhat understood why it was a positioning elevator; did "positioning" mean fixed floors?
But how was it done?
He was extremely curious.
Fu also knew of their curiosity and led them directly into a very spacious room, saying, "A sand table of the Research Center is placed here."
The three of them had seen the massive sand table occupying a significant area of the room at a single glance.
The style of the sand table was very unique; it looked as if real mountains and rivers had been shrunk down. Upon closer inspection, one would discover that those plants were made from various dyed feathers.
Of course, what was truly captivating was not these things, but the buildings planned upon it.
On the sand table, besides this single building, there were several other buildings, all enclosed within a single large industrial park.
Next to the sand table, there was a wooden board detailing the overall planning for the Research Center; one could tell at a glance that its scale was quite large.
Zhu Ci could not help but say, "How many years will it take to build this? Five years? Ten years?"
"His Majesty designed it with a twenty-year plan in mind." Fu did not mind revealing a bit of Zhu Ci's thoughts to them.
The Little Emperor was right; the fundamental reason many court officials are incompetent nowadays is that their vision is limited.
The upheaval of the mountains and rivers made them not dare to think about the future; now, all he needs to do is make everyone believe in this future.
Whether or not they can take back Beijing, at least their hold on this half of the country in the South remains very secure.
With expectations for the future, one becomes more long-sighted when doing things.
Therefore, Fu bringing the three of them to the Research Center was not a sudden whim, but rather a plan that had been in place for a long time.
Zhu Ci fell silent for a moment after hearing this.
Twenty years.. He and Zhu Ci are only eighteen years old now, they haven't even lived twenty years of their lives, yet his imperial cousin is already thinking about what will happen twenty years from now.
Actually, if you calculated carefully, even if twenty years passed, they still wouldn't be forty, so it didn't sound quite that long.
Yan Yingyuan and Zhu Yujian exchanged a glance, feeling somewhat invigorated.
Looking closely at the sand table again, they were still young and strong; if nothing unexpected happened, they should be able to see that day.
After taking another look at the sand table, the group was once again attracted by a model nearby.
That is a model of a positioning elevator.
Since elevators already existed during this period, Zhu Ci only needed to make improvements to this thing rather than creating it from nothing, making it much simpler overall.
The outermost layer of the elevator was a vertical wooden shaft, the room they were just in was a wooden cabin. The entire structure was reinforced using mortise and tenon joints supplemented by iron hoops. There were guide rails on both sides of the cabin, very thick iron chains were located at both the bottom and the top.
The entire elevator system utilized two ratchet winches: one to pull the carriage upward, the other to control its descent and slow it down.
However, all of this still relied on manual labor, so Fu Qingsheng's ringing of the bell was simply to inform the people in the control room which floor they were going to.
Of course, the sound of the bell cannot reach the control room; it is just that this rope is connected to the control room, there is another bell at the other end of the rope in the control room.
The greatest use of this bell is to let the person inside the cabin know how many times they have shaken it.
As for the numbers on the other side of the carriage door just now, they were actually just frames; the real numbers were engraved on the corresponding floors, so that the current floor would be displayed once it reached that level.
In addition, this elevator has an anti-fall well system; although it is somewhat crude, it still ensures safety to a certain extent.
Because the model was crafted as an exact replica of a real positioning elevator, it was fully functional, except for the fact that it could not carry people.
So Grand Secretary Fu sat there watching three people whose combined age exceeded a hundred years having a blast in the elevator.
Then they ran off to take the elevator from the first floor to the tenth, from the tenth floor back to the first. If it hadn't been so late, Fu suspected these three might actually want to live in the Research Center.
However, many rooms in the Research Center were still vacant, so if they wanted to stay, there would indeed be plenty of space.
As he was leaving, Zhu Ci looked at the windows of those unused rooms and asked, "Why do the windows here feel completely different?"
The windows of the Research Center were generally larger; currently, they only had frames, lacking the window frames found elsewhere, the wooden boards felt strange.
Fu glanced at him and said, "His Majesty said that in the future, all of these will use glass windows."
Zhu Yujian asked, "Hmm? Glass windows? Is it glazed tile? How.. how much would that cost?"
Yan Yingyuan shook his head and said, "It is not entirely a matter of money; a glazed tile bed is not even as good as a Ming-style tile window."
Glazed tile is expensive, but even with the Little Emperor's financial resources, it might not be impossible; after all, they don't need to worry about money.
Fu said casually, "His Majesty says that glass is different from glazed tile."
Zhu Ci asked curiously, "In what way are they different?"
Fu thought for a moment and said, "His Majesty's exact words were that it is even clearer than crystal."
Hmm? Clearer than crystal?
Zhu Ci felt an immediate, restless itch in his heart; at his current age, he was naturally curious about everything, he couldn't help but ask, "Where is it?"
Fu shook his head. "His Majesty said there is no time to study that right now; currently, the war must take precedence, we cannot waste too much money and resources on this matter."
Zhu Ci..
Fine.
As they walked out of the Research Center gates, Zhu Ci, who was playing with the Macaw, asked Zhu Ying, "Has the Western Soda Ash been brought back?"
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Author's Note: Zhu Ci: This macaw is incredibly resilient; its only flaw is that it knows how to curse. Cat and macaw facing each other, spitting profanity. jpg
Next update at 12:00 PM~
Chapter 212
Western Soda Ash is actually pure soda ash, which is also the raw material for making baking soda.
Before Zhu Ci traveled through time, this thing could basically be bought anywhere, was very cheap, had many uses. As a result, he never expected that after his transmigration, he would actually get stuck on this.
Of course, it wasn't that it was completely impossible to make, it was just that Zhu Ci wasn't sure if the glass formula he remembered was actually real.
After all, he had forgotten most of what he had learned in junior and senior high school; much of his knowledge had been absorbed from the internet. As everyone knows, it is difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood on the internet, so he simply asked Zhu Ying to bring back some soda ash when he went to sea.
Western Soda Ash is this very thing.
If the formula is confirmed to be correct, then he will study how to mass-produce soda ash.
Of course, he wasn't making glass to install windows for the Research Center, but to prepare for various subsequent experiments.
As the scale of the experimental fields expanded, more and more thermometers were needed. He couldn't keep relying on buying glass tubes from the outside to make them, could he? The cost was simply too high.
Zhu Ci had realized that the money in his hands was never enough; as long as he had some money, he would always want to stir up some new project.
Research on rice and wheat is ongoing, it is hard to say when results will be achieved, but Zhu Ci always felt that he could not place all his hopes on these two crops.
It was truly because disasters had been occurring continuously over the past two years; although they had not caused a massive impact, Zhu Ci noticed that precipitation had been decreasing more and more during these recent two years.
Before his transmigration, he could never have imagined that the water towns of Jiangnan would be associated with the word drought, yet reality was just so. As precipitation decreased, some places even began to suffer from locust plagues.