Five days passed in a flash, and the Japanese envoy had already received news from home. He finally endured the humiliation and signed the world's first indemnity treaty.
The compensation paid by Japan would eventually go into the national treasury, so when the news spread, all the civil and military officials in the court were jubilant.
The common people don't care what the reason for starting the war is. They only know that the imperial court won the war and forced other countries to pay 80 million taels of silver as compensation to the imperial court.
Eighty million taels is such a huge sum of money!
They work hard all their lives, and if their family has a savings of 60 or 70 taels, they are already considered wealthy in the village.
When Yinreng learned about this, he felt it was a pity. He had agreed to pay the compensation, but he should have ceded back some land!
However, the influx of 80 million taels of silver was also a good choice for the silver-poor Qing Dynasty.
In the next ten years, in order to repay its debts, Wodao will definitely step up the sale of all domestic materials, especially various minerals. He has to notify Yinzhen and ask him to lower the price a little.
The sound of firecrackers crackled outside again, indicating that another factory building had been completed.
The construction of a factory building is much simpler than that of a dormitory building. Yinreng planned to build the factory buildings in the military factory into single-story buildings, so one building could be built in just over a month.
At the same time, the formula for lime also appeared on Kangxi's desk. Along with the formula, there was also a sketch of cement used in building a dormitory building and a small brick made of lime gravel.
After reading the letter sent back by Dachun, Kangxi took another careful look at the sketch, and finally took the lime brick in his palm.
After looking at it for a while, Kangxi hurried to the Imperial Household Department with the recipe.
If this lime is really as strong as described in the letter, it might be able to change the current architectural landscape.
Apart from anything else, this thing is a magic weapon in the field of water conservancy. Although he doesn't know much about the ingredients in the formula, the cost should not be too high.
You should know that in the past, the adhesive used in the construction of reservoirs and dams was glutinous rice, and glutinous rice is a food!
When he arrived at the Imperial Household Department, Kangxi directly handed the formula to a manager in charge of steel smelting, asking him to make cement within three days, then mix it with sand and gravel to cast it into stone slabs, and regularly water the stone slabs to prevent them from cracking.
Although the person in charge didn't understand what was going on, he was obedient and immediately went to look for materials after accepting the task.
Five days later, the person in charge came to Kangxi and said that the stone slab had solidified and asked Kangxi to give the next instructions.
When Kangxi heard this, he threw down the table full of memorials without saying a word and went to the place where the stone slabs were being poured.
Looking at the stone slab in front of him that was one foot square and four inches thick, Kangxi personally picked up a hammer and knocked it hard.
"Duang!"
There was only a dull sound coming from the stone slab, and the recoil force from the hammer handle made his palm numb.
Looking at the stone slab again, there was only a small sunken hole on it. Kangxi was very surprised.
"Good, good! Good stuff!"
After Kangxi witnessed the extraordinary properties of cement firsthand, he was overjoyed.
He directly ordered the cabinet ministers, as well as the ministers and left and right vice ministers of the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Revenue to come to the palace for discussions.
An hour later, a dozen elderly people gathered at the Imperial Household Department's workshop.
The dozen or so people looked at Kangxi sitting in the courtyard drinking tea with a bit of surprise.
They were summoned in such a hurry that I thought something big had happened, but the eunuch who led the way actually brought them all to the Imperial Household Department.
What strange things could happen in the Imperial Household Department?
Everyone was muttering in their hearts, but no unusual expression appeared on their faces.
"Your humble servant pays homage to His Majesty!"
"Are you all here? Get up!"
"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
Kangxi stood up from his chair and waved to everyone to follow him.
"I called you here today because the Crown Prince has come up with something great in Weihaiwei, and I want you to take a look at it."
Hearing the obvious boasting in Kangxi's tone, everyone had different thoughts, but they all curled their lips subtly.
The prince is not in the capital, but it seems that the prince's shadow is present in all the big and small events in the capital.
The most important thing is... if he is an ambitious and healthy prince, they can still rely on him. Adding icing on the cake is not as good as providing timely assistance, but who can say that adding icing on the cake is not a favor?
Now, the prince is a person who cannot tolerate any sand in his eyes, but he is still...
No matter how much Kangxi praised the prince, they would not push him.
Kangxi pointed at the cement brick and said,
"This is what the prince made. Erdenbu, come here and try hitting it with this hammer!"
"yes!"
The Minister of Works, Sochorolo Erdenebu, walked out of the team with a confused look on his face, reached out to take the sledgehammer from the eunuch's hand, and smashed it hard at the cement brick!
"Duang!"
The same dull sound rang in everyone's ears. Erdenbu's hands were numb from the shock. Kangxi looked at him with a smile.
“How hard is it?”
“Very hard!”
Erdenbu told the truth.
The others watched quietly, but the doubts in their eyes grew stronger and stronger.
Isn't this just an ordinary slate?
Can this be regarded as a treasure by the emperor?
The Emperor praises the Prince too much!
Before everyone finished complaining in their hearts, they heard Kangxi say,
"Do you know how this stone slab was made?"
"Made it?"
Erdenbu widened his eyes.
Can stone slabs be made?
"good!"
Kangxi waved his hand, and several craftsmen from the Imperial Household Department came up to the crowd carrying dry cement, cement mortar, and a basket of blue bricks.
Kangxi pointed at those things and introduced them.
"This is the cement the prince has made. After drying in the shade, it becomes cement slabs! Besides this use, the prince also described several other uses in his letter. The most important of these is that this cement can replace glutinous rice paste as an adhesive!"
In fact, the recipes and other things were compiled by Dachun and others and sent to Kangxi.
When these words were spoken, even the high-ranking officials who had never worked in the Ministry of Industry were surprised.
Being an official these days requires a lot of knowledge, especially since you will occasionally be sent out to build dams or provide disaster relief, so this group of people knows very well the importance of glutinous rice mortar.
However, although sticky rice mortar is effective in bonding bricks and stones, it cannot solidify into stone slabs on its own.
What's more, the hardness of this stone slab is so high that even blue bricks cannot compare to it.
Kangxi said that this thing could replace glutinous rice mortar, but they were skeptical.
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