Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2174 Little Marquis ([-])
Just when Gao Jue was sending Cen Yunhan away, the eldest young master of Jinghua, the young master of Southern Xinjiang, and the Marquis of Nanning Gao Yuan were watching the exercises of his newly formed Western Expeditionary Army at the Dingnan palace martial arts field.

The location of the "King of Siam Dinnan Palace" is the core of Jinghua's rule in southern Xinjiang. It is a complex of buildings actually owned by Jinghua in the name of the King of Siam.In fact, this is a palace complex covering an extremely large area.

As the core of southern Xinjiang that Beijing spent more than ten years and tens of millions of taels of silver to build, the planning of Dingnan City is not only large in area, but also copies the model of a Chinese-style capital city, dividing the city into outer city, There are three parts: the royal city and the palace city, with a total of "three rings" from the outside to the inside.

The construction of the outer city of Dingnan City can be called the "Great Wall Model". In the north, starting from the Chao Phraya River bank north of the palace city, a horse-faced wall was built horizontally across the north and south. It is the north wall of the outer city and is twenty miles long.From the two ends of the north wall, the east wall and the west wall were built to the south. These two walls were each thirty miles long. The south wall on the south side was naturally the same as the north wall, which was twenty miles long.

As a result, the size of the outer city of Dingnan has become rare in the world - the perimeter of the city wall is as high as a hundred miles, and the area is as high as 150 square kilometers!

Of course, although the outer city is huge, the construction in the outer city and outside the royal city has not yet been completed, and there are still many undeveloped areas. This is inevitable.After all, in Siam in this era, even if Dingnan City gathered a large number of Han immigrants and naturalized Han people, it would be unrealistic to fill such a huge urban population in more than ten years.

Judging from the current situation, the inner city that has been relatively fully developed is the inner city, that is, the "second ring" of the Royal City and the Palace City.

Let's talk about the "Imperial City" - that is, the location of the inner city, which was probably located on the "Bang Nam Peng" river peninsula southeast of Bangkok in later generations, covering an area of ​​about 40 square kilometers.

The term "river peninsula" is quite interesting. It actually comes from the Chao Phraya River taking a sharp turn there, thus forming a peninsula, which the locals call "Bang Nam Peng".The characteristic of this peninsula is that it is quite large in area, but the part connecting it to the land is very "thin".In other words, there is only one small land road connecting the "mainland" itself. [Note: Interested friends can use satellite maps to look at the topography of "Samut Prakan Bang Nam Peng Floating Market". ]
Such a peninsula is obviously extremely suitable for land defense. In terms of defense alone, it may even be more exaggerated than the famous "City of Desire for the World" Constantinople.Moreover, the Chao Phraya River near the mouth of the sea is wide enough. At least there are no [-]-ton sea-going ships in the world today, which means that any warship of Jinghua can sail in as a surface defense aid.

Now it can be said that after the construction of the Royal City (inner city), even if the outer city of Dingnan City rebels, the rebels will not be able to enter the inner city - unless the Han soldiers in the inner city also rebel.

Forty square kilometers is not small.Let’s compare it this way: the Forbidden City in Beijing (basically the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty minus the Three Seas) covers an area of ​​72 square meters, equivalent to 0.72 square kilometers.That is to say, the nominal Siam King City and the actual Dingnan Inner City have an area as large as 55 Beijing Forbidden City.

For comparison, the original area of ​​Beijing City in the Ming Dynasty was 670 meters wide from east to west and 310 meters deep from north to south. The actual area was 540 million square meters, or 35.2 square kilometers - larger than the inner city of Dingnan. Be slightly smaller.

However, in the 26th year of Jiajing, the Ming court decided to build more buildings outside Beijing.The original plan was to build outer cities on all sides, with a total length of more than 32 miles. However, in the [-]nd year of Jiajing, after the construction of the southern part of about [-] miles, the construction was stopped due to human and financial difficulties. Beijing developed from the rectangular shape when it was first built to the The convex shape of the outer city is built on the south side.

At this time, the south outer city of the capital was about 900 meters wide from east to west, and about 200 meters deep from north to south, with three gates in the south, one gate in the east and one in the west, and two gates in the north.Three north-south streets and one east-west street perpendicularly intersect to form a network of arterial roads.

After the construction of the Outer City, Beijing's urban central axis extended southward to Yongdingmen, with a length of 600 meters and an urban area of ​​250 million square meters, or 62.5 square kilometers.

However, it must be noted here that at this time, the northern city of the capital was called the inner city, and the southern city was called the outer city. It was already a "complete entity".As for the 40-square-kilometer "Siam Royal City" currently built by Jinghua, it is only the inner city of Dingnan City, and the outer city has another 110 square kilometers. Now you can see how huge the planning of Dingnan City is, right?
What Gao pragmatically wants is huge, because he needs Dingnancheng to gather enough Han people and naturalized Han people, so that if there is a problem in southern Xinjiang, he can supplement the strength nearby in Dingnancheng.This is obviously driven by pragmatic bottom-line thinking. After all, southern Xinjiang is not a "fine land" that the Han people have managed for thousands of years.

It is precisely because of the huge area that the cost is also huge.

We must know that in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, especially during the Yongle period, the court was really poor, and it was "free of labor" (guard soldiers), but even then, only 35.2 square kilometers of Beijing City were built.

Now Jinghua is building a new city that is bigger than Beijing at that time almost by itself. Isn't this cost a lot?
Of course, Emperor Yongle's labor was free, and Jinghua's labor cost was not much.Jinghua's main labor expenditure is on technical personnel, some from Ming Dynasty, and some from Italy, France, and German states.As for the real coolies, most of them are Siamese locals, and these people do not need to be paid by Jinghua.

What does not need?This means that the local nobles in Siam provided these labors to Jinghua for free, and at the same time they were grateful to Jinghua for this.This may sound weird, but it’s not, it’s true.

In southern Xinjiang, except for Annan who has been copying the Central Plains system, Siam and other countries have implemented the "Mandala system". By analogy with China, it is probably still at the level of the Zhou Dynasty or the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, that is, layers of feudalism.Therefore, these people were essentially serfs to the nobles.However, serfs did not have work all year round, and the nobles had to support them when there was no work to do in their free time.

It’s different now. The nobles can send their serfs to Dingnan to work in Jinghua during the off-season. Although Jinghua doesn’t pay them, they take care of the food and basically provide enough food. They will also be given two sets of clothes (coarse shorts) for three months of work. )...This is simply a living Bodhisattva!

As a result, many Siamese nobles even hated that their territories were too far away from Dinnan City, so much so that they had to waste some food when sending serfs there, which was more cost-effective than those noble territories around Dinnan City. .In short, there was basically no labor shortage during the construction process of Dingnancheng.

The core of the "Siam Royal City" is the nominal "Siam Palace".It turns out that the royal palaces in various countries in southern Xinjiang are a bit fussy in Gao Pragmatic's opinion. Even though they particularly like to put gold foil on the palace buildings to show the palace's magnificence, the area is too cramped. Gao Pragmatic has always looked at it. If you can't go there - you have the nerve to call it a palace?My other courtyards are more luxurious than this one.

Gao Pragmatic had no interest in applying gold foil to the exterior walls of buildings. On the one hand, he thought it was very tacky, and on the other hand, he believed that this approach would cause a lot of trouble in the management of the palace.In comparison, he still prefers the "stone style" of European architecture, but in aspects such as the symmetrical design of the central axis, the hall should be wide enough and have elevated stone steps, etc., his aesthetic concept is more inclined to the idea of ​​​​Chinese-style northern gardens.In addition, he also prefers the style of Chinese gardens in places with lakes.

Huang Zhiting determined the design of the "Siam Palace" completely in accordance with high pragmatic aesthetics.She referred to the old map of Constantinople, the capital of Eastern Rome, proposed by Gao Pangshi and drawn by the Italian designer from memory, and arranged the "Siam Palace" at the top of the peninsula on the Bang Nam Phong River Peninsula.

The wonderful thing is that this area happens to be in the northern part of the peninsula. In Chinese cultural tradition, the residences of rulers always face north and south, so Huang Zhiting is particularly satisfied with this.

And there is another place that surprises Gao Pragmatic, that is, there happens to be a lake in this area - in later generations, that place was a national park in Thailand (the lake and surrounding woodland).Now, this area is directly designated as the royal garden in the palace.Gao pragmatically also gave the lake a new name, "Siming Lake".I don’t know whether his “Si Ming” was for the Ming Dynasty to see, or whether it was to commemorate Huang Zhiting’s old place in Guangxi, “Si Ming Mansion”.

After all, Siming Lake does sound a bit like Siming Mansion - anyway, many Fujianese in the Nanyang Fleet think so.

However, the division of "Siming Lake" into the "Siam Palace" also made it difficult to control the area of ​​the palace. The land finally allocated was much larger than the Forbidden City - almost eight times the size of the Forbidden City.

According to this area, the Siam Palace naturally cannot build houses as densely as the Forbidden City, otherwise Jinghua will not be able to afford it no matter how rich it is.So Gao Pragmatic packed some administrative agencies and military facilities into the palace based on reports from southern Xinjiang, resulting in another division in the palace.

From the north to the south, there are civil servants on the left and military on the right. On the left is the administrative building complex, and on the right was originally the garrison of the garrison. Later, the garrison was transferred north to station in Ayutthaya (Bangkok), so the palace guard was stationed in instead.

The palace guards had previously mentioned that they were the five thousand personal guard wolf soldiers that Huang Zhiting transferred from her territory, and the three thousand Liu family troops that Liu Xin left for her.These 8000 people are also the core garrison force in Dingnan City at this moment.

As for why the garrison army should be transferred thirty miles north to the big city, it is because although the garrison army bears the word "guard", this naming method is the same as the Jinghua Craftsman School. It is a deception in itself. They have always been named after the field army. It was built with special ideas and would not be assigned to be responsible for the defense of the inner city.

As mentioned just now, in addition to the "Royal Palace", the Royal Palace of Siam was also divided into the East Court and the West Court as the civil and military administrative center in the previous dynasty.Among them, "East Court" belongs to the civil official system, and "West Court" belongs to the military minister system.The martial arts venue is naturally located in the West Courtyard. The area of ​​this area is exactly the same as the "East Courtyard", but in terms of the number of high-rise buildings, it is about half less than the "East Courtyard".

This is not to treat the military ministers lightly, but the daily affairs in the "West Court" are not as complicated as in the "East Court" and do not require as many administrative manpower.In addition, the "West Court" also functions as a garrison, so there are only rows of military barracks and main rooms, and there are currently only two real administrative buildings.

There are two administrative buildings, one named "Southern Xinjiang Garrison Military Command Headquarters" and the other named "Dingnan Garrison Headquarters".As for the Siamese Ministry of War after the reform of the "six-ministerial system" in the Kingdom of Siam, it is not in the "West Court", but in the "East Court". However, the current affairs of the Siamese Ministry of War can be said to be very few - after all, the military power is in " West Court".

The previous real owner of Xiting, or the "acting owner", was Huang Zhiting.However, Huang Zhiting is not here at the moment, and Gao Yuan's representative, his father, Nanning Hou Gao pragmatism, has come to Dingnan, so the current owner of the West Courtyard is temporarily Gao Yuan.Below Gao Yuan is Gao Jue, the deputy minister of the Military Command who just met with Cen Yunhan in the Military Command building.

Because the area is large enough, the martial arts training ground is several miles away from the military headquarters building, so it will take some time for Cen Yunhan to arrive.

Gao Yuan was currently wearing a dark green uniform of the Southern Xinjiang Guard Army.This is a drag-and-thread military uniform, but the embroidery is much simpler than that in the Ming Dynasty. There are no large areas of beasts and birds. There are only chest patterns used to distinguish military ranks, and officers of different levels are distinguished by color and style.

Despite the powerful military force in southern Xinjiang, there are actually only three lieutenant generals: the deputy director of the Military Command Department, the commander of the Nanyang Fleet, and the commander of the Dingnan Garrison Force.Among these three people, the highest they can reach is the rank of major general.

But Gao Yuan was even worse. He had no military rank at all, and his left chest was completely blank.Of course, no one will disrespect him because he does not have a military rank. After all, his current status is as if Gao Pragmatic is personally present - Gao Pragmatic has not arranged a military rank in southern Xinjiang for himself.

But having said that, Gao Yuan was a little dissatisfied with this.He had asked his father and mother when he was in the capital, and his father especially asked him how many ranks there were above lieutenant general.Although he didn't say it explicitly, he actually wanted to have the highest military rank.

What a pragmatic person Gao is, he knows what his son is thinking as soon as he opens his mouth.He told Gao Yuan that military ranks were just for his subordinates, and as a leader, he didn't need to care about it.

But it's useless. Gao Yuan is still a boy after all, and he naturally cares about things like military ranks - this is the same as when Wu Zong gave himself the title of "Governor-General of Military Affairs, Mighty General, Chief Military Officer": nothing else, just It sounds awesome, and young people like this.

In particular, Gao Yuan heard the news from his mother and knew that his father planned to appoint him as the Minister of Military Command after his victory in the Western Expedition.Since then, he began to think about what military rank he should have in the future.Since his father didn't tell him, he went to ask his mother. Unexpectedly, her mother also said, "I don't know what your father has planned."

But Gao Yuan still refused to give up and ran to find his aunt Liu Xin again.Naturally, he was embarrassed to ask directly, so he just asked Liu Xin, "I wonder what military rank my father will add above lieutenant general in the future?"

This question had a miraculous effect. Liu Xin was always very busy in the capital. At that time, he didn't think about Gao Yuan's motives at all. He subconsciously said: "It's hard to say. It depends on how many levels your father wants to add. If it is the first level, it should be General; if it is two levels, it may be general, marshal, or general, general; if it is three levels, it should be general, general, or marshal."

Gao Yuan suddenly looked like he was yearning for him. Liu Xin saw some signs now and couldn't help but smiled: "What, you also want to get a military rank?"

Gao Yuan puffed up his chest and said, "Who is a good man who doesn't want to be a general?" After a pause, he hesitated and said, "But from what my aunt said, it seems that this general is not as good as a general, and a general is not as good as a marshal..."

Liu Xin was happy and said with a smile: "It's okay if you want to be a marshal. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, there were marshals all over the world."

However, these words startled Gao Yuan, and he hurriedly said: "Auntie, be careful, how dare I have the ambition to specialize in military power."

Liu Xin curled her lips, shook her head and said, "Your father won't care at all... As long as he is around, no one else, no matter what position they hold, will be able to specialize in military power."
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(End of this chapter)