Then he went to the Planning Institute and applied for lead, tin and antimony. These are the three necessary metals for casting lead type. Especially antimony. Without antimony, not only will the effectiveness of the lead type be greatly reduced, but its lifespan will also be shortened.
"It would be better if there was bismuth." Zhou Dongtian vaguely remembered that this kind of thing was also needed to cast lead characters.
"Bismuth is definitely not possible. Lead and tin are OK. Antimony is a little more difficult." Wu De said.
The reason why it is difficult to say is not that there is no antimony in China. On the contrary, China in this time and space has a lot of antimony, both in the form of ores and metal products. The problem is that people at that time confused antimony and tin. The largest antimony mine in the world - Hunan
The tin mine was mined in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, it was thought that this place was a tin mine, so it was named like this.
Since there is no concept of antimony, Guangzhou Station can only say that it wants to buy tin when buying antimony. As for whether it is tin or antimony, it has to be shipped back for metal composition analysis.
"So far, I haven't bought antimony yet." Wu De said, "But Guangzhou Station has sent people to Hunan to buy antimony. If you are not too anxious, just wait a few days."
In addition to making lead type, antimony is also useful in making pyrotechnics. The combination of demands from several aspects led the Guangzhou Station to finally send a special procurement team - and the remote exploration team also sent people - to Hunan. Stop by.
Go to Jiangxi and Hubei to see if there are any non-ferrous metal minerals that have been developed in this time and space. Several provinces in the Huguang area are major mining provinces.
"Haha, why don't you just come to me directly? I have antimony here." When Zhou Dongtian came to the last stop - the Ministry of Metallurgy to talk about the casting of lead characters, Ji Wusheng smiled and patted his shoulder.
"You have?!" Zhou Dongtian perked up.
"It's indeed a bit of a personal item." Ji Wusheng nodded, "The quantity is not much. This thing can increase a little every three to five, but the quantity is not large. I am too lazy to report it every day, so I thought I would just accumulate more and report it together. Anyway, antimony is not rare.
No one suspects me of corruption."
He took him to a warehouse in the non-ferrous metal workshop of the Metallurgical Department. More than a dozen antimony ingots were lying in the warehouse, and there were also about a dozen boxes containing fragmentary antimony ingots that had not yet been remelted. They were all very small in size.
"It's really yours! Where did you get it? Didn't you say you've never bought antimony before?"
"It's true that I haven't bought it, but there is antimony in the money." Ji Wusheng said.
The non-ferrous metal workshop under the Ministry of Metallurgy has a long-term task, which is to melt, refine and recycle copper coins and scrap metal objects collected from various channels. Whether they are copper coins or various scrap copper and iron, they are actually alloys, including
There are various nonferrous metals that can be recycled after purification.
"The most recycled coins are various small copper coins cast privately. Locals say they contain a lot of lead. In fact, not only do they contain lead, but they also contain tin - and a lot of antimony as well."
As for daily utensils, most of them are pewter ware and tin ware, and a lot of them contain antimony mixed as tin. In this way, these antimony are recovered in bits and pieces.
"Although it's not much, it should be enough." Ji Wusheng said, "If you find it useful, I will report the number to the Planning Institute immediately. Once the procedures are passed, it will be done."
"It's a little less, but it's enough for the time being." Zhou Dongtian thought, since he has sent people to purchase the follow-up antimony, he will continue to arrive.
After solving the problem of type casting materials, he left the rest of the type casting process and printing press manufacturing to a group of engineers from the machinery factory - they would choose the optimal movable type printing press solution based on the data.
Zhou Dongtian only made one request: It would be best to design two different printing presses, a small machine that can be driven by workers' hands or animal power, and a large machine that uses machine power. The former he plans to put in the Ming Dynasty in the future
He wanted to set up a printing factory on the territory of Nanjing, especially in Nanjing. Zhou Dongtian was already preparing to re-enact the past events of Leizhou in Nanjing, defeating the engraving printing industry in Sanshan Street in Nanjing in one fell swoop and establishing a brand new printing empire. The latter was of course placed across the public
occupied areas were used.
He asked the Planning Institute for a batch of "purified" apprenticeships and planned to send them to Hu Qingbai to study.
"This batch of apprentices don't need to teach anything else. The key is to teach them how to read. It's not the end of the story after they learn 800 commonly used characters. They must know at least 3,000 Chinese characters." Zhou Dongtian said, "And they must know both simplified and traditional Chinese.
"
"Good guy, your demands are too high. You need to learn so much in three months?" Hu Qingbai smacked his tongue, "You have to have a surprise education with cramming and corporal punishment."
"It's up to you. If the corporal punishment of female students can make teachers feel full in class, they can also choose female apprentices - they should be stronger. I'm still pointing them to type." Zhou Dongtian said, "By the way, you also need to understand
Pinyin, Pinyin must be good!”
The main purpose of knowing Pinyin is to facilitate word recognition. If you have an all-in-one casting and typing machine, this requirement is actually not required.
Zhou Dong worked nonstop and rushed to Si Kaide's place again, asking to sign up for the "Trade Inspection Mission to Jiangnan." The purpose was naturally to inspect Nanjing's printing industry.
"There is no inspection team to Jiangnan. There are only trade inspection teams to Liaodong and Southeast Asia. Those who go to Jiangnan are people to open trading stations. Are you going?"
"I want to go!" Zhou Dongtian affirmed.
"Okay, but you should talk less when you go, and obey the instructions on everything on the way."
"No problem, I mainly want to go see it. I won't be here for a long time."
The news of the formation of two trade expedition teams in the north and south has moved the minds of many people who are interested in being dispatched abroad. Many people are daunted by the training required to be sent to the Ming Dynasty, but being sent to Southeast Asia or Liaodong does not require "Da Ming transformation", especially
This is Southeast Asia. Not only can you enjoy the tropical atmosphere, but you may also be able to pick up a few foreign girls. There are more than a dozen people who have signed up to join the Southeast Asia expedition team.
The purpose of dispatching the Southeast Asian expedition team is to conduct a thorough investigation of the situation in Southeast Asia, especially to collect information about the Dutch. According to the assessment of the Foreign Intelligence Service: the Dutch are the most threatening European opponents of the Crossing Group. Therefore, the Dutch East Indies will be inspected
The company has made it a priority.
Lando spat, and the spit flew into the dark sea and disappeared immediately.
He was unemployed, and had been unemployed for a long time. He had not found any new work since his unsuccessful expedition with Aragones.
After Aragones's ship reunited with Liu Xiang's fleet, they once again tried to gain a foothold near the Pearl River Estuary. Gelanzani instructed him to secretly obstruct them so that they could not succeed. There was no need to do anything. Liu Xiang just wanted to
They used the power of the Spaniards to attack Zheng Zhilong and warned him not to "cross the border", not wanting to really let them gain a foothold.
As a result, Aragones ended up fighting Zheng Zhilong's men as the main foreign aid in Liu Xiang's fleet in a confusing encounter. In terms of performance, the Countess of Scarborough performed very well.
With the tall hull of the sailing ship and superior artillery fire, Aragones fully satisfied his desire for combat performance and taught the "Chinese barbarians" a severe lesson.
But when Zheng Zhilong's fleet began to release fire ships, Aragones had to turn around and run away. If he lost the large sailing ship, he would be finished. As a result, the crew members on the ship who had pieced together the ship were in a hurry and let Scarborough know.
The Countess ran aground and was immediately besieged by countless "junk ships". The Zheng family's sailors swarmed up and killed all the Malay sailors on the deck who had lost their fighting spirit in a moment. Just as Aragon was entering
When Si was about to die, Liu Xiang's boat came up and finally saved his life. However, the Countess of Scarborough, this luxurious "Spanish lady", was completely reduced to nothing after being trained into a bad shape by the boss.
Prisoners of Zheng Zhilong.
Lando almost died in the chaos. In fact, Aragones was able to get allies to come to the rescue only because of the vz68 submachine gun Lando had hidden on his body. He hid in the mizzen tower and kept harvesting the incoming Zheng with burst fire.
The enemy was afraid of the fierce firepower and stopped moving forward. A group of Zheng family sailors then installed cannons on the deck and prepared to bombard the mizzen mast. Lando then used a submachine gun to kill them one by one, and finally stopped this attack.
attempt.
After being rescued, he thanked God repeatedly - Weiss Lando had never been a devout believer. In the more than ten years he had been a mercenary, he had never encountered such a dangerous and desperate situation. If Liu Xiang's men did not come to the rescue
, I was stuck on that ship, and even if I couldn't use my great skills, I would either end up being cut into several pieces, or I would be forced to jump into the sea - and most likely I would be drowned alive.
"If I had known earlier, I would have gone to Manila to mess around."
Weiss Lando, an Italian-American, 35 years old, participated in the Bosnian War as a volunteer, first for the Muslims and then for the Croats. After the war stopped, he and a few partners started a small-scale arms smuggling business.
As soon as the business started to pick up, the business went wrong in Iraq, and most of the goods were lost. In the end, they were hunted in the country. In desperation, they took the last bit of goods and prepared to go to Thailand to sell to local gangs.
Just one day before arriving, they were suddenly hit by a strange storm on the South China Sea - one minute it was clear and clear, and the next minute there was a strong wind, and it felt like the ship was being sucked into a whirlpool.
Lando even vaguely remembered that the sky in the distance was still blue and there were no storm clouds. Then they all lost their memory.
When he woke up, only three of the five people on the boat were left. One of them was dead. Lando tried to continue driving the boat, but found that the GPS navigation system had become blank and the data had all returned to 0. All navigation equipment
All were useless, and even the radio was completely silent except for the hiss of electricity. Even the maritime satellite phone had lost its signal.
The remaining two people used the sextant test to prove that theirs had deviated from the original route by more than 500 nautical miles. This data surprised them - the chart showed that they had arrived not far from Dongsha Island.
This made Lando and others panic. Dongsha Island is the territory of the Taiwanese army, and there are marines on it. If your ship is inspected, no country's royal laws allow the smuggling of weapons. How can you get away with this?
?Furthermore, Taiwan is more loyal to his motherland than he is to his own country. If he is caught, he will definitely be transferred back. With several federal felonies and no parole for many years, he will have to wear orange uniform for the rest of his life.
The clothes and pants are getting better.
They quickly started the engine and headed for the open sea, but the magnetic compass and TACAN navigation system were completely confused. The pointer on the compass was spinning slowly in circles and could not point to true north at all. Lando and others complained incessantly, and in the chaos, the fishing boat
We sailed to a deserted island and almost ran out of gas.
It was on this desert island that Lando first realized that he had encountered something strange or scary. He used a sextant and charts to calculate countless times to prove that he was on Dongsha Island.
But let alone the Taiwanese Marine Corps, there is no trace that an army was ever stationed there. Lando has been to many deserted islands. As long as someone has lived on the island for a long time, there will definitely be traces. If one
An army was stationed there, leaving more artificial traces - at least the reinforced concrete reservoirs will be left behind, and the foundations of the barracks and outposts will certainly be preserved. But there are only some traces of the presence of local fishermen.
All the electronic equipment remained silent. The radar screen was completely blank - Lando knew that the Dongsha Island area was on the route to Taiwan, and there should be many cargo ships passing by. But the radar only showed a very small number of small reflections that seemed to be fishing boats.
point.
No one could explain this problem. Lando could only think that his sextant was inaccurate.
After some discussion, the two survivors decided to abandon the ship - the fishing boat had no oil and contained some ammunition. They first disposed of the bodies of their companions, then packed up the items on the ship, opened the sea valve, and carefully sank the ship.
It went down. The location was carefully selected so that it could be easily picked up later - in his imagination, he would be able to come back in a few months.
Encountering wind and waves on the way, the rowing boat capsized, and was rescued by a group of strange fishermen. Their shabby fishing boats and strange appearances made him think that he was in a corner of Indonesia. In the end, he was confused and confused.
He was sent ashore, and was escorted by men holding spears and wearing armor. Only then did he realize that he had encountered something incredible.
After a series of twists and turns, he was finally handed over to a man who looked like a European priest. The priest asked about his origins in several languages, and he finally understood one - Italian.
From Father Anders, Lando learned that this was "the 1627th year after the birth of the Lord Jesus." He screamed and fainted on the spot.
When he woke up, he had already arrived in Macau. After looking at the street scene in a daze, Lando finally admitted the reality - a man with a gun to make ends meet would never give up to the environment. He immediately resumed the Italian game he had almost forgotten.
With his limited knowledge of history, Lando knew that people who spoke English were not welcome among the Portuguese.
Lando slowly made a name for himself by running errands for Father Anders. He claimed that he was a descendant of a rural noble family in Parma, Italy, and had served as a volunteer in the Balkans - the latter was true, but the former was not.
Total bragging: Lando's grandfather was born in this village, and he was very impressed by a declining aristocratic family in this village. He often talked about this family with young Lando. The so-called children of the Palma family that Lando made up were based on this family.
It was a model. Even the coat of arms was plagiarized and then slightly modified.
The only problem was the English he often blurted out. Lando had no choice but to claim that he had been a prisoner of the British and had stayed in England for several years. As for how an Italian could have become a prisoner of the British, Lando could only continue to make up nonsense about himself.
He served the Catholic King of Spain, as was common among Italians, and was captured by the British during a campaign to support the Irish.
However, when talking about this issue, he firmly stated that he only went to war to make a living, not to admire His Majesty the King. He had a clear feeling: how much the local Jesuit leader valued the interests of the Portuguese
Far superior to their Spanish king.
But it is still very difficult for a modern person to live in Macau in the 17th century. He has almost nothing. The most terrifying thing is that everyone doubts his origins.
Fortunately, Lando was slightly involved in historical issues. He had some experience with religious fanaticism when he was paid to fight in Bosnia. He knew that it would be best for him to show some religious fanaticism appropriately, otherwise this group of priests would soon
He will be barbecued because he is out of place.
So Lando had to go to church every week to attend mass - he had been baptized by Catholicism as a child, but had never been to church as an adult - and went to confession from time to time, and fasting on Fridays was strictly enforced.
When the Great Fast came to him, Lando experienced the feeling of extreme hunger for the first time. He only ate one meal from morning to night and could not eat meat. The days were not something modern people could bear. For almost a month, he
They all felt so weak that they had no choice but to live on the unpleasant smell of salted fish and eggs every day.
Apart from this fatal fast, life in the 17th century was simply like a nightmare. There were nasty parasites everywhere, and it was difficult to have a chance to take a bath - it was not even as good as the remote villages in North Africa he had been to, and many small cities there.
There were good steam baths available. There was no fresh food, and salted meat and fish made up the bulk of the meal. The red wine that had been shipped all the way was scarce and expensive, and tasted like vinegar. He sometimes also served the Chinese
Eating in a restaurant - although the taste was completely different from what he had eaten in Chinatown, most of it was still fresh vegetables and meat.
The sanitary situation was terrifying, but fortunately he was well-informed and could endure it. The most terrifying thing was the toilet. After going there once, Lando decided that he would rather go to the suburbs to find a bush to solve the problem than go to the toilet in the official residence. Moreover, he
He found that most people, whether Chinese or European, had no concept of toilet paper. He had to spend his own money to buy paper to solve the problem - paper here is very expensive.