Knowledge is the beginning of action, and action is the completion of knowledge.

Zhu Yijun led the officials into his seedling nursery. At this moment, standing in the light, he was making the Great Ming great again, starting right from the seedling nursery.

Zhu Yijun led the ministers to a vessel filled with water, containing a somewhat strangely shaped apparatus.

It was only about half a foot tall, with a glass bulb the size of a chicken egg at the bottom submerged in the water. Rising from the glass bulb was a glass tube about the thickness of a finger, topped with a wooden stopper, through which a slender glass tube—roughly the thickness of three or four needles—was inserted.

The entire apparatus was filled with water, and scale markings were etched onto the slender glass tube above the wooden stopper.

"This is a thermometer, specially designed to measure temperature. I had people record the height of the water level inside the slender glass tube when the glass bulb was immersed in a mixture of ice and water, and designated it as 0. Then, the glass bulb was immersed in boiling water, and the height of the water level in the slender glass tube was measured and recorded as 100. Afterwards, it was divided into one hundred equal parts." Zhu Yijun introduced his first small invention for measuring temperature.

This apparatus was extremely crude, but it was already the best thermometer Zhu Yijun could produce in the first year of the Wanli era. It could not record sub-zero temperatures because water would freeze and crack the test tube; however, this device was sufficient for now. If high-concentration alcohol became available in the future, the water in the glass bulb could be replaced with alcohol to attempt measuring sub-zero temperatures.

Zhu Yijun had not failed to consider mercury, which the imperial household did not lack. However, he had no good way to solve the problem of mercury evaporation. Mercury vapor was not only toxic to humans but could also pose a hazard to the seedlings.

Regarding the research and development of the thermometer, Zhu Yijun would not stop his pace, but he would also advance steadily, taking it one step at a time.

This imprecise thermometer faithfully recorded the temperatures at which potatoes and sweet potatoes turned green and sprouted. This provided a reference for cultivating potatoes and sweet potatoes in the north, ensuring that future promotion of their cultivation would have a rational basis to follow.

The heating room served as the seedling nursery, and outside the heating room, there was also a thermometer. As Qingming Festival was approaching, potatoes were beginning to sprout. The one outside the heating room served as the control group. Through the comparison between the two, the Great Ming determined that the sprouting temperature for potatoes and sweet potatoes was five to eight degrees. Sprouting was one thing, but they would only grow vigorously when the ambient temperature rose further to around fifteen degrees.

Zhu Yijun talked eloquently to the officials, introducing the harvest achieved in the glass-covered heating room and seedling nursery.

Ge Shouli’s jaw dropped in utter astonishment. He stared blankly for a long time before saying in a daze, "Your Majesty’s ingenious ideas are truly wondrous beyond human skill."

Thermal expansion and contraction were not actually rare. As early as the pre-Qin period, Li Bing and his son had utilized thermal expansion and contraction to split mountains and cleave rocks in their water-control projects. However, applying thermal expansion and contraction to this ultimate degree was sheer brilliance, and the craftsmen of the Great Ming had brought the young Emperor’s ingenious ideas to life.

In truth, this was the interconnectivity of measurements, or more precisely, mathematical and physical thinking.

The thermometer was merely one of his minor designs. Within the half-mu heating room, there were also thousands of small boxes with glass covers. Inside each of these small glass boxes was a single seedling, and these seedlings were lush and verdant, full of vitality.

"Academician Xu," Zhu Yijun called out, signaling Xu Zhenming to explain the exact purpose of these small boxes.

Xu Zhenming had completely not anticipated that the Emperor would bring the court ministers of the Great Ming to visit; he was entirely unprepared. When the Emperor called him, he was still observing the condition of the seedlings. He turned around blankly and hurried over to the presence of everyone, only then remembering to pay his respects to the Emperor.

"This is raising seedlings, pinching the tips, the tips..." After a flurry of fluster and confusion, Xu Zhenming drew a blank. Since he was completely unprepared, he had no idea how to give an overview.

Watching Xu Zhenming’s honest and naive expression, Zhu Yijun felt his anger rising. Usually so eloquent, yet when given an opportunity to showcase himself, he proved utterly useless.

Zhu Yijun interrupted Xu Zhenming and motioned for him to step aside, deciding to provide the explanation himself. He smiled and said, "These are seedling boxes. Crops like water chestnuts, potatoes, and sweet potatoes that are cultivated using tubers accumulate toxins generation after generation, leading to lower yields with each successive generation. How do we detoxify them?"

"The veteran farmers who grow water chestnuts told me that we can pinch the tips. If we pinch off the tips to raise seedlings and plant them, the yields will be much higher. Every single seedling in the nursery boxes on the left has had its tips pinched, and they were then sent into the heating room over there to grow for fifteen days before being taken out."

The soil inside these seedling boxes has been steamed to prevent the pinched tips from being poisoned.

Zhu Yijun did not enter the heating room, as the temperature inside was around thirty-eight to forty degrees Celsius. This was high-temperature passivation—an idea conceived by Xu Zhenming. It was essentially akin to the fixing process in green tea production, where various methods such as steaming, scalding, parching, and drying are used to halt fermentation.

Xu Zhenming figured that since they were all toxins, could the toxicity be reduced through this kind of fixing process?

However, if the temperature was too high, the seedlings would die; if it was too low, it would have no effect. Finally, after repeated experiments and determinations, the precise range was established.

Xu Zhenming succeeded. The new seedlings grown in the seedling boxes had fuller leaves than the old seedlings outside that had not undergone the fixing process, and they showed no symptoms such as yellowing or rotting, which greatly excited Xu Zhenming.

Zhu Yijun picked up a box of seedlings from the nursery, and then picked up another box—this one containing seedlings that had not undergone fixing, meaning they had not been subjected to high-temperature passivation. He held them up and placed them on the table. The young Emperor smiled and said, "The difference is tremendous."

The court ministers gathered around the two seedling boxes, pointing and whispering animatedly. The young Emperor personally engaged in agriculture and actually produced such results! Judging by this posture, he genuinely intended to cultivate them rather than just putting up a superficial show.

The ministers had previously assumed that the Emperor’s Baoqi Palace was merely a symbolic gesture to show importance to agriculture. Even when harvest time came and not much was yielded, wouldn't the eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonies simply purchase some? Couldn't they plant store-bought potatoes and sweet potatoes in the fields and then shout "auspicious omen" when harvest arrived?

Emperor Renzong of Song’s Baoqi Palace featured the "Qi" as two, meaning two ears of grain growing from a single stalk, which was regarded as an auspicious omen.

During the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, those eunuchs, eager to please the emperor, collected double-eared stalks of grain from the common folk and secretly planted them at night in the fields before the gates of Emperor Renzong’s Baoqi Palace. At harvest time, every single field produced stalks with double ears, and everyone submitted memorial tablets of congratulations praising Heaven for blessing the Great Song.

The court ministers of the Great Ming had all climbed their way to the positions of state ministers through fierce competition; everyone was a seasoned schemer of a thousand years, and of course, they could see through such petty tricks.

Therefore, in the eyes of most court officials, this endeavor of personally engaging in agriculture was nothing more than a reenactment of Emperor Renzong’s "auspicious Qi-grain omen."

It was just fooling the Emperor. If the ministers fooled the Emperor, would the eunuchs fail to do the same?

To the utter astonishment of the court ministers, the Great Ming Emperor was not playing such games; he was practicing what he preached through hands-on labor! And the two boxes of seedlings placed in the sunlight right before them, where the difference could be seen at a single glance, were the fruits of that personal labor.

Zhang Juzheng and Xu Zhenming were talking nearby, with Xu Zhenming doing most of the talking while Zhang Juzheng listened.

Xu Zhenming mainly spoke about what the young Emperor had done. Ninety-nine percent of the heavy and exhausting labor had already been arranged and completed by Xu Zhenming before the young Emperor arrived at the Baoqi Palace. Only a tiny fraction of the work was deliberately left for the young Emperor after he finished his martial arts training.

It was neither dangerous nor dirty nor tiring, yet it provided a strong sense of participation.

"Does Your Majesty come here every day?" Zhang Juzheng asked a rather peculiar question.

Not knowing why the Chief Auxiliary asked this, Xu Zhenming answered with absolute certainty, "The day before yesterday it rained, yet His Majesty still came. His Majesty comes every day."

Zhang Juzheng cupped his hands, his fists clenched tight as he gazed at the young Emperor’s back. The young Emperor was neither messing around nor planning to give up halfway. Perseverance, holding the world in his heart and persisting unceasingly—that was what made a wise sovereign, a virtuous ruler, and a brave man.

For the first time, Zhang Juzheng felt that the resurgence of the Great Ming was not just a mirage in a dream. This feeling was exceptionally definitive and real.

"You have done very well. This is the waist pendant of the All-Chu Guild Hall. Keep it safe, do not lose it, and do not lend it to others. In the future, if you have matters, come to the All-Chu Guild Hall to seek me out." Without a trace, Zhang Juzheng unhooked a waist pendant from his belt and handed it to Xu Zhenming.

"Thank Your Senior Auxiliary for your appreciation!" Xu Zhenming was immensely shocked. Entering Zhang Juzheng’s faction did not rely merely on silver; one needed genuine ability. And even having ability wasn't enough—one needed connections.

To this day, Xu Zhenming still did not know why he had been recommended by Zhang Juzheng to serve as a Reader-in-Waiting by the Emperor's side, and now he was even accepted as a disciple into Zhang Juzheng’s sect.

Zhang Juzheng said with utmost gentleness, "As for gifts for ice and charcoal seasons, you needn't rack your brains; you don't have those avenues anyway. Just serve well by His Majesty's side and farm the land properly. You must absolutely not let anyone undermine His Majesty’s agricultural pursuits—whether they are eunuchs, embroidered uniform guards, imperial guards, knife-bearing attendants, or veteran farmers, absolutely not."

Zhang Juzheng understood that there were plenty of people who did not want to see the Emperor achieve great success in farming. If it were merely playing the game of "auspicious Qi-grain omens," no one would stop him; but if the Emperor practiced it hands-on and genuinely produced results, certain people would become displeased and throw wrenches into the works.

Because achieving real results would consolidate the foundations of imperial power.

Xu Zhenming was actually not good at ingratiating himself, nor was he skilled in corruption and breaking the law. Offering bribes twice a year required two thousand taels of silver. Where could Xu Zhenming, a metropolitan graduate who used to carry a bamboo book-box, find two thousand taels of silver every year for bribes?

Zhang Juzheng exempted him from these bribes, demanding only that he do what he did best: farm the land and guard these ten mu of fields.

If potatoes and sweet potatoes could be cultivated well and truly yield over a thousand catties per mu, it would inject a few measures of vitality into the declining state affairs of the Great Ming.

Zhu Yijun glanced at Zhang Juzheng and Xu Zhenming without uttering a word of obstruction or interruption. If Xu Zhenming wanted to accomplish things, he had to pledge allegiance to someone, and Zhang Juzheng’s willingness to accept him was Xu Zhenming’s opportunity.

In this world, one must account for strength, but even more so for influence. For at least the next decade or so, Zhang Juzheng would remain the largest backing in the Great Ming court.

Zhu Yijun pointed to the root systems inside the seedling boxes and said, "There is a great deal of finesse to these seedlings. After the tubers sprout, a potato or sweet potato must be cut into two to three parts, then dipped in plant ash and left to dry in the sun for a quarter of an hour before being placed into the seedling box. This step cannot be omitted; if the plant ash is skipped, these seedlings easily fall ill."

"When we cut the tubers for the first time, we had no experience. As a result, we cut over a hundred pieces, producing more than two hundred seedlings, of which over a hundred died."

"Fortunately, we found the correct method."

"Senior Auxiliary Master once taught me that doing things without conviction, doing everything only halfway, and retreating when encountering difficulties will strip away one's courage to face hardships and render one cowardly—that is lacking perseverance. Once a person becomes cowardly, nothing can ever be accomplished."

Yang博 remained silent. When the Emperor concluded his somewhat proud display of partial achievements, Yang Bo said with utmost sincerity, "Knowledge is the beginning of action; action is the completion of knowledge! Where knowledge is genuine and earnest, that is action; where action is clear, discerning, and meticulous, that is knowledge. Your Majesty combines knowledge and action into one. Your subject congratulates the Great Ming, and your subject congratulates Your Majesty!"

Zhu Yijun paused for a moment and asked earnestly, "What does that mean?"

Everyone looked toward Zhang Juzheng nearby. Lectures were Zhang Juzheng’s exclusive domain. At this moment, the Emperor was asking a question directed at Yang Bo, the leader of the Shanxi faction, yet judging by Zhang Juzheng's posture, he seemed to have no intention of intervening.

Zhang Juzheng’s expression remained extremely calm.