Chapter 306: The Dawn of Our Dynasty's Modern Scientific and Technological History (Begging for Monthly Tickets!!)

Since there were already the Capital Merchant Wealth Rankings and the Capital Merchant Tax Rankings,

under the guidance of the new governance methods, it naturally and logically followed that more specialized rankings would emerge.

Divided by native-place region, there were Shanxi merchants, Huizhou merchants, Fujian merchants, Guangdong merchants…

Divided by scale and size, there were giant, large, medium, and small…

Divided by industry sector, there were cloth, salt, furs, jewelry, and… usury!

And the capital-debt merchants were the very cream of the usury merchants!

This group had three distinctive characteristics:

First, they engaged in usurious financial activities.

Second, their clientele was exclusively oriented toward officials.

Third, while providing financial loans, they also brokered connections, personal favors, message-passing, and every other peripheral service.

To sum them up in a single line:

They were a group of political-commercial hybrid power brokers who combined financial strength with bureaucratic operating capability.

Yet in Zhu Youjian's eyes, this same group presented an entirely different picture.

First, they were innately situated on low moral ground.

They were already a target explicitly proscribed by Great Ming law.

The Chenghua, Jiajing, Wanli, and Tianqi reigns had all issued corresponding laws to crack down on them.

Never mind how effective the crackdowns were — there was no shortage of ancestral statutes and court consensus on the matter.

Going after these people was just like the matter of fighting corruption: very difficult in practical execution, but utterly unassailable from the moral high ground, with no one able to find fault. Second, the political resources they commanded happened to be in a period of weakness at present.

In the past, their greatest backers had been the eunuchs and ministers of the eunuch faction.

These people were now either purged and exiled, or suppressed into silence, or desperately scrambling to sever ties with the past.

Their other, secondary objects of reliance were the local powers of the capital — the ennobled and imperial in-law families.

As long as Zhu Youjian kept the palace gates secure, these people could not stir up the slightest ripple.

By now, even their influence over the Capital Camps was extremely feeble.

Every officer of the Capital Camps, whether mediocrity or able commander, was, under the Great Ming system, selected by examination from the various provinces without exception.

Fujian, Guangdong, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi…

Officers from every outlying region made up the bulk of the capital's officer corps.

And the examination and selection of officers had long been monopolized by the Ministry of War; the Five Chief Military Commissions were mere rubber stamps.

Such a group, marginal figures in Great Ming's power arena, appeared stately and magnificent but would collapse at a single touch.

And their final object of reliance was the network of local petty functionaries that the capital-debt merchants had bound together through shared interests.

But this very group was a key target of the new governance's rectification campaign this year.

Therefore, all things weighed, compared with the deeply entrenched groups like the maritime merchants, Shanxi merchants, Huizhou merchants, and salt merchants, the capital-debt merchants were right now at an unprecedentedly vulnerable juncture.

Furthermore, they were close at hand!

In this era before piaohao exchange houses had become prevalent, when silver drafts were utterly unheard of,

anyone wishing to provide financial services in the capital had no choice but to transfer physical silver into the capital.

These people — their bodies were very close to the Yongchang Emperor, and their wealth was very close to the Yongchang Emperor.

They were practically experience packs delivered right to his doorstep.

Finally, and most importantly, this group had money — enormous amounts of money.

The average loan size for capital debt was roughly a thousand taels per transaction.

The chief officials of Great Ming's two thousand prefectures, subprefectures, and counties, plus their assistant officials, the petty functionaries in key posts, and then factoring in the military-official posts, which were slightly smaller in scale but very considerable in number —

in a single year, the physical silver circulating in the capital around the single word "office" absolutely exceeded ten million in number.

And the capital-debt merchants, providing services in a market of this scale, had to possess capital stock on the order of at least five million.

String these four characteristics together,

and the Yongchang Emperor naturally had no reason to let them off.

Of course, the Yongchang Emperor had no intention of making a move just yet.

He was merely drawing up a list to look over, planning first to pick out some target items and add them to his shopping cart.

The real move would have to wait until certain other pieces were in place.

For instance, why had Zhang Zhiji and Luo Yangxing, two of the illustrious Five Masters of Statecraft, only been given posts in the Five Wards Troops and Horses Office and the Patrol and Arrest Battalion?

No matter how many achievements they piled up in these two posts, could they truly be worthy of these two new-governance darlings destined for a place in history?

Was it not precisely so they could use these two tentacles to plow deep into the capital?

After all, only when the earth is turned deeply enough can the pests hiding in the soil be dragged into the sunlight.

This is a truth even a farmer understands.

Yet the Yongchang Emperor believed his placement of pieces was clandestine.

He never imagined that these brokers of the bureaucratic world, though still unable to glimpse the whole chessboard, had already grown agitated merely at this inconspicuous list-making. Cockroaches in the shadows cannot bear even a sliver of light.

And the Wu family, the wealthiest in the capital, belonged, most unfortunately, to precisely this type of merchant.

When the Tianqi court was short of funds to rebuild the Three Great Halls, why was it him alone they approached to borrow seven hundred eighty thousand taels?

Why not borrow from some other merchant?

Was lending money to the Son of Heaven of Great Ming the sort of thing just any merchant was qualified to do?!

The Wu family were precisely veteran white-glove operatives who had attached themselves to the eunuch faction over the past few years.

They were tightly bound to Wei Zhongxian, providing vast sums of money and intermediary support in service of office-buying and office-selling for numerous members of the eunuch faction.

Thus, in a certain sense, their family's money could also be called Wei Zhongxian's money, and could also be called Tianqi's money.

Borrowing seven hundred eighty thousand taels — Wei Zhongxian got his business done, Tianqi had his worries relieved, and the Wu family set their minds at ease. One could call it a triple gain in a single stroke.

Yet with the new policies sweeping in, the situation changed utterly. The new Emperor took no money, and the new powers and newly-prominent, unable to read the wind, likewise took no money for the time being.

The Wu family was left hanging, with nothing but some vague "imperial favor" — they could hardly be blamed for their anxiety.

But Wu Yanzuo's state of mind was something the crowd could not fathom.

Among the hundreds and thousands milling noisily about Guangqu Gate, only Qian Changle up on the city wall could perhaps feel the anxiety now gripping Wu Yanzuo. Yet as the demonstration began, Qian Changle too gradually set aside that worry, drawn instead by the scene unfolding before him.

In the center of the open ground outside Guangqu Gate stood a towering wooden frame, draped so tightly in cloth that nothing beneath could be discerned.

An official in a blue robe strode forward, an iron megaphone in hand.

He cleared his throat, and his voice carried through the chill wind:

"This official is Song Yingxing, unworthily serving as Bachelor of the Administrative Office of the Academy of Sciences."

— Bachelor, Master, Doctor: the Academy of Sciences ranks personally named by the Yongchang Emperor.

"Before today's demonstration begins, however, I must first speak of how what we do today surpasses the ancients! How it accomplishes what none before could accomplish!" Song Yingxing's expression was stern as his gaze swept the crowd:

"Long ago, Mozi toiled three years to carve a kite from wood — it soared into the sky and fell within a single day!"

"Gongshu Zi whittled bamboo into a magpie; when finished, it flew and stayed aloft three days — yet in the end it was a dead thing, unable to carry a man!"

"Wang Mang summoned the realm's strangest talents, fashioned two wings from the feathers of great birds, covered head and body in down — tested, it plunged to earth after a few hundred paces!"

"For a thousand years, the road to the heavens has been paved inch by inch with the bones of our predecessors!"

"Liezi riding the wind — that is but a fable of Zhuang Zhou; Chang'e flying to the moon — mere delusion of the literati!"

"For man, featherless and wingless, to aspire to vault the firmament — how is that different from defying Heaven itself?! How is it different from a fool babbling dreams!"

Song Yingxing grew more impassioned as he spoke, bearing an air of ancient, world-weary grandeur.

But the reactions of the onlooking crowd were far from uniform.

The Confucian scholars stroked their beards with feeling, quite able to sense the force of it.

"The arts of Mo Di and Gongshu have long been lost. Can they truly reappear in this world today?"

"The road to the heavens... This Bachelor Song has no small boast. Can he really achieve it?"

The common folk, by contrast, were rather more plainspoken.

"What's that blue-robed official muttering about? What wooden bird? What dead men?"

"He's talking about going up to the sky! Going up to the sky, you get it?"

"If you can go up to the sky and beg the immortal lords for rain and wind, wouldn't that be a sure thing? This is great learning!"

"You believe he can fly?"

"What do you care? Just watch. When has the Ming Times ever bragged?"

Song Yingxing took in the crowd's eagerness, and delayed no further.

He drew a deep breath and swept his hand down:

"Begin!"

Several craftsmen stepped forward at once and nimbly produced a few Kongming lanterns.

A spark from a fire striker — the wicks were lit.

The warm yellow glow looked somewhat thin in the daylight.

After a moment, the lanterns wobbled and rose slowly into the air.

The crowd's first reaction was a blank stare, followed by a baffled stir.

"That's it?"

"In this freezing cold, they penned us in here just to watch him release lanterns?"

"Even my six-year-old little brat at home can play with these!"

"You've got to be joking. Thought it'd be something rare."

Doubts rose one after another.

Had the Academy of Sciences' first three experiments not caused such a sensation, the crowd would have dispersed by now.

Standing on the city wall, Qian Changle could not help frowning. What was the Academy playing at?

Hearing the clamor around him, Song Yingxing felt not a trace of shame or anger — on the contrary, his heart surged.

He raised the iron megaphone again, his voice a full octave higher than before:

"Gentlemen!"

"That these lanterns ride heat upward and can rise straight to the clouds — this is common principle."

"But what if this lantern were enlarged tenfold? A hundredfold?"

"Could it carry a man?"

"Could one steal a glimpse of Chang'e in her Cassia Palace?"

At these words, the crowd erupted, whispering among themselves.

"Ah... what this Bachelor says — does it not seem... somewhat reasonable?"

"Exactly! Sky lanterns fly because hot air lifts them. If one were made enormous, the hot air immense, it might well carry a man."

"What grand talk! A vessel that carries a man — how colossal a lantern would that require? Would it not be as tall as a gate tower?"

"Who would bear such expense? The cloth alone, just the stitching, would cost tens or even a hundred taels of silver, would it not?"

"How shallow your view. His Majesty possesses all within the four seas — a few hundred taels is nothing. You probably don't know that in the palace they eat with gold spoons and gold chopsticks..."

Listening from the gate tower, Qian Changle did not doubt whether the demonstration could succeed.

He only wondered: how exactly was it done?

If it truly was a gigantic cloth envelope, how was it stitched? How was the air contained? The moment the air escaped, a man would plummet from the heights — how could he possibly survive?

He shook his head, put aside further speculation, and leaned out to watch closely, unwilling to miss a single detail.

Song Yingxing stopped teasing and gave the order directly.

"Unveil the cloth!"

The craftsmen moved in unison, yanking away the fabric draped over a wooden frame set up beside them. Riiip— went the sound.

What appeared was a limp, collapsed, enormous sphere of cloth, bound to the frame by several ropes.

Though not yet inflated, the sheer volume of it piled on the ground was enough to make anyone gasp.

Song Yingxing declared loudly:

"Gentlemen, this is the Academy of Sciences' latest invention — the hot-air balloon."

"Its dimensions: three zhang in diameter, four zhang five chi in height, capable of carrying one person beneath it."

"A furnace is placed below, burning pine resin, cypress oil, and dry firewood. The hot air rises, and it will float into the sky of its own accord!"

After this brief introduction, he gave another order:

"Ignite!"

The craftsmen pulled several side ropes taut, propping up the balloon's framework.

Only then did they light the specially made furnace inside the rattan basket.

Flames roared to life, and the distinctive smell of burning pine resin and cypress oil spread through the air.

As billowing waves of heat poured ceaselessly in, that enormous cloth sack, which had lain limp on the ground, seemed to be infused with life.

It began to stir, to swell.

Bit by bit, inch by inch.

At last, it became a colossal elliptical sphere, standing proud and erect in the cold wind.

The visual impact was beyond compare.

Those who had been mocking moments before now stood with mouths agape, unable to make a single sound.

Song Yingxing stepped forward once more, his face now glowing with color.

"Today is the first day of the first month, the inaugural year of Yongchang."

"This official — Song Yingxing!"

He shouted his own name with tremendous volume, with perfect clarity.

"By His Majesty's command, I shall demonstrate this hot-air balloon's capacity to carry a man aloft."

"This official, Song Yingxing!"

"Shall also be the first man in all the history of Huaxia to fly into the heavens!!"

With that, he flipped back the hem of his official robe and, without the slightest hesitation, climbed straight into the woven rattan basket.

— This slot had come to him by sheer fluke!

Within the Academy of Sciences, the competition for this first-flight slot had been absolutely cutthroat.

Not only were the people from the physics division red-eyed over it — even the medicine, agronomy, and military science crowds, who had nothing whatsoever to do with it, shoved their way in to fight for it. The sixty-six-year-old Wang Xiangjin pounded the table and roared: "This old man has few years left to live! A high-risk venture like this — who but me should undertake it? Let me go up!" Mao Yuanyi went so far as to block the doorway with his body, refusing to let Xiong Mingyu leave, insisting that he himself must ascend.

But Xiong Mingyu himself… also wanted to ascend!

After delivering its first report, the Academy of Sciences should have immediately thrown itself into work.

Yet because of this slot for the hot-air balloon demonstration, it had actually ground to a halt for several days.

In the end, word reached Zhu Youjian, and he stepped in to handle the matter.

However, the edict sent down by the Yongchang Emperor bypassed every single disciplinary lead.

It singled out instead the Academy of Sciences' resident wallflower — Academician Song Yingxing.

"A matter of such risk — let a junior undertake it."

"You gentlemen are Our Shennong and Suiren. Why worry that you shall not leave your names in the annals of history in days to come?"

What a baffling arrangement, what a forced justification.

But since the Emperor had spoken, none could oppose it. They could only seethe with envy and resentment and let the matter drop.

Honor was honor, however.

When Song Yingxing actually sat inside the rattan basket and felt the sensation of empty space beneath his feet, he could not help, in the end, but find both his legs trembling.

The Academy's previous test flights had reached a height of just over two zhang at most.

Moreover, it was said that when development first began several months ago, there had been two or three accidents in which the lamp was destroyed and the sheep perished.

The smell of charred mutton was said to have drifted across half the compound.

Thus, though this flight had been trialed many times, it was truly not one hundred percent safe.

But so what!

This was flight into the heavens!

For thousands of years, apart from myths and legends, who had ever truly ascended to the sky?

Song Yingxing felt goosebumps rising all over his body — half from fear, half from excitement.

With this one flight, even if he died, a place in the annals of history was assuredly reserved for him, Song Yingxing!

— He had even written his farewell letter for this! And entrusted it to his elder brother for safekeeping!

Song Yingxing opened his mouth, only to find his throat dry and his mouth too parched to speak.

With effort, he swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and only then did he manage to shout:

"Release the rope! One zhang!"

At his command, the craftsmen unfastened the locks binding the balloon to the wooden frame.

The hot-air balloon shuddered slightly, then rose, swaying and wobbling, into the air.

The crowd of onlookers erupted in a roar, pointing and gesturing, the wave of noise surging like the tide.

"It moved! It moved!"

"It really flew!"

"This actually works!"

"I told you — when has anything the Great Ming Times reported ever failed to come true!"

Before long, the hot-air balloon had risen to a height of one zhang, clearing the wooden frame beside it. But several ropes still tethered it below, secured to iron stakes driven firmly into the ground, limiting its altitude.

Song Yingxing steeled himself and glanced down.

That one glance sent a shudder of terror through him.

In truth, this vantage point was no higher than climbing a small hill, but the empty void beneath his feet was a supreme test of a man's courage.

His legs trembling, he struggled to maintain the dignity of a scholar.

Yet without realizing it, he slowly sank from a standing position into a half-crouch.

"Higher... let it out more!"

"Take it to three zhang!"

The craftsmen obeyed, untying another section of rope and letting it fly further.

Swaying unsteadily, the hot-air balloon rose again on the thermal draft.

The crowd's cries of astonishment grew louder.

At this point, the balloon had nearly reached the height of the city wall.

The guards on the wall and Qian Changle's group could now look straight across at the enormous sphere and at Song Yingxing inside the basket.

Song Yingxing glanced down just once more, and immediately felt dizzy, dazzled, struggling to breathe.

His heart pounded violently, as if about to leap out of his throat.

"Is this what His Majesty meant by the thinness of the atmosphere at high altitudes?"

"It is true! It is true! Once one glimpses the principles of heaven, the cart-tracks converge without ever leaving home!"

"This is the difference between theory and application!"

"Once the existence of qi and gravity is verified, then indeed the higher one goes, the thinner the air must be!"

Having flown a mere three zhang, still below the height of the city wall, Song Yingxing was already light-headed.

In his nervousness, his mind filled with nothing but disjointed, absurd thoughts.

But the more pressing question was...

This was still far from enough.

For a first demonstration, how could three zhang possibly suffice?

What difference was there from standing on the city wall?

Gasping for breath, Song Yingxing glanced at the flame at the burner's mouth and could not help swallowing hard.

Whether to ascend further or not — the decision was his alone, for only he, up in the sky, could gauge the balloon's condition.

What was there left to hesitate over?

In a daze, he could almost smell the bamboo-slip fragrance of the official histories!

To the death with it! If he died, so be it!

Song Yingxing dropped back to his knees at the basket's edge, shut his eyes, and with every ounce of strength in his body, roared:

"Higher... let it out!!!"

"Take it straight to ten zhang!"

The craftsmen exchanged glances, then slowly untied the final restraining ropes, leaving only a single ultimate safety line.

Freed from its bonds, the hot-air balloon rose slowly and steadily into the sky.

Song Yingxing felt the clamor of the ground receding further and further away, as if muffled by a layer of water.

His own breathing grew more and more rapid.

The balloon first drew level with the city wall.

Song Yingxing saw the crowds packed onto the wall and the horse-path, saw their gaping mouths, their terrified yet thrilled eyes.

Then, he left these people behind, reaching the height of the gate tower.

There, within the towering gate tower, he saw an official in a red court robe pointing in this direction, apparently saying something, but he could not hear it. He could not make out who it was — perhaps some Grand Secretary, perhaps someone from the Academy of Sciences.

Moments later, even the majestic Guangqu Gate tower was surpassed.

A sudden, sweeping vista!

The entire world seemed to open up in that instant.

The whole capital, its chessboard streets laid out in perfect squares, unfolded slowly before him from far to near, at an angle so dreamlike, so magnificent. The crisscrossing alleys, the resplendent gold-and-jade palaces, the solemn temples, the clamorous markets.

At this moment, all were gradually transforming into a scroll of surpassing beauty.

The people below were like ants, teeming and dense, threading through every part of the streets, appearing so tiny, so busy.

The wind from the surrounding wilderness howled past.

Though still bone-piercing, it seemed to carry a strange, bracing freshness.

Gazing into the far distance, the fields beyond the city stretched boundless, like an immense chessboard, awaiting heaven's move.

Specks of emerald-green wheat shoots spread across the vast yellow earth, extending all the way to the edge of the sky, merging with the chaotic clouds. Song Yingxing rose to his feet, inch by inch.

Even though his legs still trembled faintly, even though his palms were slick with cold sweat.

This middle-aged scholar, just past forty, who had failed the imperial examinations five times — here, above the world of men, he strove to straighten his back! He suddenly flung his arms wide, facing the roaring wind, embracing the boundless expanse of heaven and earth.

The pent-up frustration of half a lifetime, lodged in his chest, now all transformed into a long cry, soaring straight into the clouds!

"Perilously high — as high as the heavens themselves!"

"Perilously high — man stands as high as the heavens!"

"I am Song Yingxing of the Great Ming—"

"Today we ascend to the heavens from this place!"

Short-answer question:

On the first day of the first month of the first year of the Yongchang era, the manned hot-air balloon developed by the Great Ming Academy of Sciences successfully lifted off.

Yet before this, scientific and technological achievements such as the capital hemisphere, the gas well, and the pulley had clearly already made their debut.

Why, then, does our dynasty still define this hot-air balloon ascent as the starting point of modern scientific and technological history?

Drawing on the knowledge you have learned, discuss the reasons from the four aspects of politics, economy, culture, and science and technology, presenting your arguments in separate points. (15 marks)