Chapter 96: New Furnaces and the Challenges of Innovation

Kunning Palace

Ma Enhui was playing with Zhu Wenkui, accompanied by palace maids and eunuchs, enjoying themselves.

Just at that moment, a eunuch approached and reported, “Your Majesty, the Seal holding eunuch of the Palace Armament Bureau has arrived.”

“Oh? I don’t recall summoning the Palace Armament Bureau. Why have they come to Kunning Palace?” Ma Enhui was somewhat puzzled.

“I instructed them to come,” Zhu Yunwen said as he walked into Kunning Palace. The people present all knelt down, Ma Enhui gave a slight bow, and she saw the eunuch from the Palace Armament Bureau kneeling outside, paying his respects. On the ground, there were also something covered in red cloth.

“Bring the items inside,” Zhu Yunwen said softly.

Seal-holding eunuch Liang Xiu from the palace armament bureau quickly ordered his subordinates to carry the items, carefully bringing them into the main hall of Kunning Palace.

Zhu Wenkui walked up to Zhu Yunwen and called out in a childish voice, “Father Emperor, what is that?”

Zhu Yunwen lifted Zhu Wenkui and laughed, “That is something very special. Let’s go take a look together.”

Ma Enhui entered the hall, and at Zhu Yunwen’s gesture, Liang Xiu removed the red cloth, revealing three furnaces.

The furnaces were square-shaped, painted red on the outside, with a rectangular drawer at the bottom to collect coal ash. In the middle was a grate supported by iron bars, meant for holding the coal. On top, there was a heavy lead-iron cover with a small opening, and above that, another layer of iron plate cover.

The upper side of the furnace extended outwards, providing a space to place objects. Near the top rear wall of the furnace, there were smoke vents, a hot water tank compartment, and water inlets and outlets.

On the side, there were also small chimneys made of iron sheets, arranged in a row of pipes resembling a fence-like structure.

Ma Enhui looked carefully but couldn’t understand what she was looking at. She turned to Zhu Yunwen and asked, “What is this iron contraption?”

Zhu Yunwen smiled gently and said, “This is a good way for us to get rich. Let’s call it the ‘Warm Room Stove.'”

“Warm Room Stove?”

Ma Enhui lowered her head and looked at it, asking in confusion, “Although it’s different from ordinary stoves, how does it warm the room?”

Zhu Yunwen smiled and said, “It’s springtime now, and the weather isn’t very cold, so its effects might not be obvious. But since the Empress wants to give it a try, then you guys assemble it and add water.”

Liang Xiu and the others quickly assembled the chimney, then chose a spot on the wall, carved a small hole, and extended the chimney outside, bending it upward to prevent smoke from coming back in.

After connecting the heating panels, they filled it with water, and they took out the new type of Yeontan^[1]Yeontan (Korean: 연탄) are coal briquettes used in East Asia for cooking and home heating. Made from a mixture of lignite coal dust and a gluing agent that … Continue reading coal, ignited it with charcoal on the outside, and clamped it into the furnace. On top, they placed an iron kettle.

After everything was set up, the people from palace armament bureau left, leaving only three pieces of Yeontan behind.

Zhu Yunwen ordered the room to be closed, then sat behind the table and said to Ma Enhui, who had only a partial understanding of the matter, “Ever since the incident at Chengqian Palace, I ordered the palace armament bureau to make this Warm Room Stove. However, they don’t even know how to mass-produce iron sheets, which has disappointed me greatly.”

“Mass-produce iron sheets? How do you mass-produce iron sheets? Isn’t it made by hammering it out one by one?” Ma Enhui asked with a puzzled expression.

Zhu Yunwen picked up a tea bowl and lightly tapped it against the tea saucer, saying, “Empress, many ideas come from daily life, and this method of mass-producing iron sheets is no exception.”

“How is it done?” Ma Enhui leaned in and inquired.

Zhu Yunwen took a sip of tea and said to Ma Enhui, “Empress, haven’t you seen rolling out dough before? You can compare the dough to a lump of iron. If you roll it out before it hardens completely, won’t you get iron sheets? It’s that simple.”

“Ah? This?” Ma Enhui was somewhat stunned.

Yes, what the emperor said was right.

If dough can be rolled out into dough sheets, why can’t iron be rolled out into iron sheets?

Why didn’t anyone think of such a simple idea before?

Although Ma Enhui didn’t understand metallurgy, she understood that forging iron typically involved melting iron, creating molds, and then crafting objects. However, if you poured molten iron into a hopper and combined it with a rolling iron mill, it would easily produce iron sheets.

Just a bit of edge refinement and assembly, and you’d have iron sheet chimneys.

“As for coal, I just can’t understand why they insist on using finely crushed coal. Why not completely pulverize it, mix it with clay, and create blocks? In the Imperial Palace, are there not enough bricks made from clay? Everyone knows how to fire clay into bricks, so why don’t they think of turning coal into brick-shaped blocks? Why go through the trouble of using coal chunks in these stoves and furnaces?”

Zhu Yuwen rubbed his forehead in frustration and asked.

Ma Enhui looked at him in astonishment, then glanced at the Yeontan coal placed not far away and sighed, “Compared to Your Majesty, I feel so ignorant.”

Zhu Yunwen gestured for Ma Enhui to sit down and continued, “It’s not that you’re ignorant, but rather that our people in Ming Dynasty lack innovation and the drive to seek new ideas.”

If Zhu Yunwen were just an ordinary citizen of the Ming Dynasty, a blacksmith, he would have spent his days hammering and crafting objects without questioning why coal was in chunks instead of cakes or considering that iron sheets could be rolled instead of beaten.

The limitations of their time and the repetitiveness of their lives made them not think about exploring new possibilities. They even believed that their inherited skills were the best.

It’s a pity that in thousands of years of history, despite countless inventions, very few scientists truly pursued innovation for its own sake.

Apart from the wisdom and collective knowledge of the masses, some inventions only happened by various accidents.

Take gunpowder, for instance; it was discovered by alchemists accidentally.

It wasn’t a lack of intelligence among the Chinese people but rather the lack of an environment conducive to innovation during the feudal era, along with a lack of a market for novel ideas.

For example, alcohol was clearly a distillation product, but people mistakenly thought it might be poisonous, and nobody dared to try it. If it weren’t for soldiers in the barracks frequently getting injured and wanting to test the effects of alcohol, the discovery of its usefulness might have been delayed.

Similarly, the palace armament bureau’ gunpowder division conducted several studies to improve firearms. Although they didn’t achieve significant breakthroughs, their advancements in range and power were still notable compared to the early Hongwu-era firearms.

But what rewards did they receive?

Oh, none.

As for their improvements, wasn’t that what they were supposed to do?

Without incentives, encouragement, or benefits, why would anyone bother with research?

It wasn’t Ma Enhui’s fault.

Being stuck in traditional ways was the norm for a feudal dynasty with a primarily agrarian economy. They were accustomed to staying within their own boundaries, occasionally gazing into the distance from a higher point.

But they never ventured beyond their boundaries.

Zhu Yunwen wanted to change all of this, to encourage people to imagine and innovate, but looking at the current state of education, it seemed incredibly difficult. There were only the Four Books and Five Classics; no mathematics or science.

Zhu Yunwen bitterly shook his head, gazing at the boiling kettle. Steam billowed, pushing the kettle’s lid open, and from the spout, there emitted a whistling sound, much like the urging of a steam whistle.

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