Song Dynasty: Yuan Dynasty, you didn't expect this, did you? I'm still alive.

The thirteenth year of Cheng'an (1411).

Zhao Xi's grand plan for ten thousand years—no, for ten years—has entered its countdown.

Four more years.

Two full years had passed since Zhu Di acquired that steam engine.

Zhou Shiheng tried every method he could find.

The cylinder inner wall was polished again and again with an oilstone, the piston was replaced with no less than ten different materials, the sealing material was tried from asbestos rope to oil-soaked cowhide, and the boiler pressure went from low to high and then back to low.

The machine could move, but it was always lacking a final push.

If the rotation speed cannot be increased, the steam is consumed very quickly, and the cylinder and piston will be stuck together as a block of iron after running for half an hour.

He stared at the groaning machine and finally admitted one thing: it wasn't that his skills were lacking, but that the industry of the Ming Dynasty was inadequate.

The problem lies in two places.

The first is the boring machine.

He was only in charge of steam engines at the shipyard, and he only knew the name of the mother machine that could "polish iron parts until they were as shiny as mirrors," but not its details.

Even if he knew the principle, it wouldn't matter—where would the blades come from?

The hardest material for knives in the Ming Dynasty was high-carbon steel, which could barely cut wood, shave bronze, and chew wrought iron, but it was afraid of heat.

Once the temperature exceeds 200 degrees Celsius, the blade begins to soften, like a piece of butter melted by the sun.

The heat generated by friction when boring a cylinder is far more than that.

The blades used in the Song Dynasty were made from special iron ore from the Lion Kingdom, which is heat-resistant, hard, and can cut iron like mud.

But that thing didn't exist in the Ming Dynasty.

Even if it existed, Zhou Shiheng didn't know how to identify it from a pile of dark stones.

He couldn't overcome the hurdle of materials science.

He suddenly had an absurd thought: even if you took Lütt himself out of his coffin, threw him into the Ming Dynasty, and gave him a whole team of craftsmen, he still couldn't build the same steam engine.

Without iron sand from the Lion Country, rubber from Southeast Asia, and the sophisticated temperature and pressure measuring instruments of the Gewu Academy—even a skilled cook cannot make a meal without rice.

Thinking about it this way, Zhu Di's crazy northern expeditions weren't entirely unreasonable.

Resources are always the foundation of development, especially when technology is still far from advanced.

Why was the Song Dynasty so strong?

Its strength lies in its vast territory; almost every product in the world that you can name can be found within its borders.

From rubber in Southeast Asia to cotton in the Americas, from saltpeter in India to silver in Peru, they had everything you could want.

What about the Ming Dynasty?

They don't even know what's buried underground in this part of the Central Plains.

Zhou Shiheng sighed.

Even if the Song Dynasty ultimately defeated the Ming Dynasty, it was through numerical superiority, without any technological element whatsoever.

Of course, this has nothing to do with him anymore.

He served as Minister of Works for two years, rising from a commoner to this position, which can be considered a worthwhile achievement.

The steam engine he spent countless amounts of gold and silver to build ultimately failed to be put on the ship.

It's not that it can't be installed—with paddle wheels, the ship can still move.

However, paddle wheels took up space on the ship's side, leaving no room for cannons; steam engines were inefficient, and their power was not as reliable as that of sails.

Even if you install it, it's a double-edged sword—it's neither useful nor worth discarding.

Fortunately, Zhu Di did not mind.

He was already very satisfied that he could build it.

So none of the steam engines accumulated over the past two years were installed on ships; instead, they were all crammed into the raw silk factory.

Zhou Shiheng has spent far too much money in the past two years, and with Zhu Di's warlike nature and one northern expedition after another, the national treasury has long been depleted.

We must rely on the raw silk factory to earn back the money.

The raw silk factory is operating at full capacity, producing silk that is white and even, and its price is almost half that of handmade silk on the market.

When the news spread, the weavers in Yingtian Prefecture looked at each other in bewilderment.

After several years of devastation by the Song Dynasty, the textile industry along the southern coast of the Ming Dynasty has been almost completely wiped out.

In Songjiang, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Jiaxing, cloth shops closed down, looms stopped turning, and weavers flocked to the inland areas with their families.

But they still had one last paradise – Yingtianfu.

At the foot of the imperial city, right under Zhu Di's watchful eye, Song Bu could not get in.

At least not openly.

As for whether it happens secretly, nobody knows, and nobody dares to ask.

In short, thanks to this invisible wall, the textile workers and cloth shops in Yingtian Prefecture have barely managed to survive until today.

Then the imperial court's raw silk arrived.

The price is much lower than the market price.

The cloth shop owners' hands trembled as they looked at the account books.

They accepted that the Song people were taking away their business.

After all, they are overseas people, and the cloth woven by machines is cheap and of good quality. If you can't beat them, you can't beat them.

But your imperial court is also trying to seize it?

You're one of us!

Then there's nothing more to say.

Bankruptcy, huh.

One after another.

Cloth shops closed, weaving workshops ceased operations, and weavers carried their bedding rolls out of their workshops, standing on the streets of Yingtian Prefecture, looking around blankly.

Their ancestors made a living by weaving cloth, but now they no longer need to weave cloth.

Where can we go?

do not know.

All they knew was that the number of refugees on the streets was increasing day by day, and the security situation in Yingtian Prefecture was getting worse day by day.

The memorials from the Prefect of Shuntian Prefecture were flying into the palace like snowflakes, all urgent reports of disturbances by displaced people and rampant banditry.

Zhu Di was stunned for a long time after receiving the memorial.

He realized he had fallen into a logical trap.

He always believed that the coastal textile workers were reduced to refugees because of Song cloth, so as long as Song cloth was squeezed out of the Ming market, the Ming textile workers would naturally have food to eat.

This logic is simple, clear, and irrefutable.

So he fought against the Song people, against smugglers, and against coastal officials, until he was exhausted.

Song Bu can no longer enter Yingtian Prefecture.

However, his own raw silk factory employed far fewer people than the weavers it had squeezed out of business.

As soon as the machines start running, at most one out of ten weavers can enter the factory; the other nine pack up and leave.

That's not right.

He simply opened a factory, and the textile industry in Yingtian Prefecture has become this wretched state.

The Song Dynasty was full of even bigger factories, wouldn't that mean there would be refugees everywhere and streets filled with starving corpses?

What's the difference between that and hell on earth?

But why is the Song Dynasty still thriving, even prospering?

He thought about it for a long time and finally came up with an answer.

In order to promote development, the emperors of the Song Dynasty allowed the people to become vagrants; in order to maintain order, they carried out physical elimination of these vagrants.

hiss.

He's a ruthless person.

He originally thought that he had already been cruel enough by executing Fang Xiaoru's ten clans, which was unprecedented.

I didn't expect there to be such an expert.

Zhu Di placed the memorial back on the table and tapped the cover lightly twice with his fingers.

If the Song Dynasty could be so ruthless, so could he.

For the survival of the Ming Dynasty, some sacrifices were unavoidable.

He will bear the blame for the suffering of the people.

"Issue the decree. Open the granaries and distribute grain, just enough to keep those refugees from starving."

"Raw silk factory—keep going, don't stop."

. . .

In the same year, the Song Dynasty court issued an order.

Rebuild Ryukyu.

The scale of the war against the Ming Dynasty would be enormous, and the pressure of transporting supplies from Luzon would be too great, so Ryukyu would need to be developed into a material storage center.

From 1276 to 1411, a full 135 years.

One hundred and thirty-five years ago, the Holy Ancestor Emperor and his ministers were forced to leave Ryukyu.

One hundred and thirty-five years. Five generations.

Today, the Song people have once again set foot on this land.

The call to counterattack the mainland has begun.

The massive war machine of the Song Dynasty officially began to operate. Large quantities of grain were continuously drawn from all over the world, and countless gunpowder and equipment were produced in factories. Military stocks, which had been sluggish for more than a decade, began to fluctuate strangely.

Some far-sighted people began to build positions, while many others couldn't hold onto their shares and chose to liquidate them.

In the same year, famine struck India, affecting millions.