Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1152 Epilogue

The academy is on summer vacation and the weather is very hot, so my second brother Xie Kan plans to stay at home.

The officials also have a day off today, and only a few miserable people are left on duty in the yamen.

Xie Yiqin had planned to have a good rest for the day, but as soon as he got the new issue of "Da Ming Weekly", he sat up straight and read the front-page headlines carefully.

The front-page headline is a major reshuffle of officials in Shanxi!

In Hubei, only the left and right provincial governors and the provincial procuratorate were replaced, and the three officials who left their posts were not arrested. This was considered a relatively gentle official transfer.

It was different in Shanxi. More than 30 people were replaced from top to bottom, and they were all arrested by the three judicial commissioners.

The Luoyang Imperial Guards were dispatched and marched directly to Taiyuan. Accompanied by the Shanxi General, they took the Shanxi Commander-in-Chief away from the military camp.

Xie Kan lay down behind his father, craning his neck to read along: "Shanxi has such a big incident, I'm afraid it's because of coal? The Prime Minister intends to completely control Shanxi."

"Look at the new officials behind," said Xie Yiqin.

Xie Kan moved his eyes to the last two paragraphs and said with joy, "My uncle was transferred to Shanxi as an inspector!"

Xie Yiqin said: "I have to reform even if I don't want to. Your uncle is a reformist, so I can only be a reformist from now on."

Xie Yan heard it clearly and came over quickly: "Uncle is a high-ranking official? What is the rank of a provincial prosecutor in the officialdom of a province?"

This kind of childish question could only be answered by Xie Yan's brain, otherwise his father and brother would not bother to respond.

After Xie Kan explained it, Xie Yan roughly understood it.

After reading the front-page headline, I read the second-page headline, which was also big news.

The Liangzhe Shangbao was closed down, and a large number of newspaper staff were arrested on more than 40 charges. Also arrested were officials from the three offices of Zhejiang and the Maritime Customs.

However, the chief official of the three offices in Zhejiang was only dismissed and returned to his hometown, and he was even able to receive a pension. It is estimated that there was some political deal involved.

Xie Yiqin analyzed to his sons: "The reason why the prime minister could compromise must be related to the military. The three chiefs of Zhejiang were able to retire peacefully because someone had exchanged the loyalty of the military for it. They have probably been negotiating in secret for the past three years. Otherwise, the news in Zhejiang would not be just the front page or the second page, but would have to be the front page."

Continue reading the newspaper.

Xie Yiqin skimmed the title and read it, and soon saw important information -

The newly revised "Great Ming Code" (the seventh edition in total) will be published soon and will officially come into effect on January 1 next year.

Among them, the "Industrial Law" was revised the most. In order to facilitate the understanding and use of officials and civilians, the "Ming Dynasty Law·Industrial Law" only included programmatic clauses, and more laws and judicial interpretations were compiled into a separate "Industrial and Commercial Law".

The newly compiled "Industrial and Commercial Law" has compiled various industrial and commercial regulations from the reigns of Emperor Taizu and Emperor Taizong to the reign of Emperor Dingtai. The conflicting old regulations have been unified in the newly compiled "Industrial and Commercial Law". In the future, only and must abide by the newly compiled "Industrial and Commercial Law" and no earlier conflicting regulations may be used to adjudicate cases or conduct business!
Xie Yiqin said to his two sons: "In the past three years, the Prime Minister has been busy doing these things besides quietly consolidating military power. The newly compiled laws and textbooks are their new policy program."

Xie Kan muttered, "Will the imperial examination next year use new textbooks?"

"We will definitely use the new textbooks," said Xie Yiqun.

Xie Kan sighed, he had things to do now.

I just hope the new textbooks can be printed earlier so that I have more time to study.

Xie Yan was secretly happy, because he was going to take the imperial examination in science anyway, and no matter how the textbooks were changed, the scientific formulas could not be changed.

Xie Yiqin slowly turned to the science and education section of the newspaper, and sure enough, there was information about the revision of textbooks: the new textbooks had been printed, and all public schools across the country would uniformly adopt the new textbooks in the second half of the year.

The imperial court did not force private schools to use new textbooks, but those who failed the imperial examination would bear the consequences at their own risk!

Newspapers and telegraphs were extremely useful to the great unified dynasty, especially when it came to generating public opinion for political reforms.

Of course, the prerequisite is that the reformists have complete control of power, otherwise newspapers and telegrams will be used by the opposition, and in that case the war of public opinion will certainly be extremely fierce.

Now that things are going well, the Prime Minister has directly closed down the most influential private newspaper, obviously wanting to make the remaining private newspapers take it easy.

Cover your mouth, but not completely, because if you cover it completely, it will not be beautiful.

It would be best if newspapers with different positions criticized each other, and official newspapers always had the upper hand, using the war of public opinion to make officials and the people understand why the reform was carried out.

"Sir," the old housekeeper stood outside the study, knocking on the door and saying, "The fourth son of the Zhong family, the eleventh son of the Cai family, and the fifth son of the Yang family have come to invite you two gentlemen to play Cuju. It's really hard to refuse on the spot, so now they are drinking tea in the side hall and waiting."

Xie Yiqin asked: "Have they been to the government office?"

The old housekeeper said, "I don't know."

Xie Yiqin thought for a while and said, "Tell them that the weather is hot and my two doctors have suffered from heat stroke."

"Yes." The old butler stepped back.

Xie Yiqin said to his sons: "Don't go out this summer."

Xie Kan was actually in the mood to joke: "It's going to be hard to collect taxes on industry, agriculture and commerce this year. I'm afraid my father won't even be able to use the clerks, so he can only go around to collect taxes himself."

Xie Yiqin rolled his eyes at his second son and said, "This is Ming territory after all. Do they dare to rebel? You stay in the study and review your lessons. Don't step out of the backyard. I'll go next door and talk to the prefect."

……

The three siblings Xie Kan, Xie Yan and Xie Wan were locked up at home for the entire summer vacation, and even their mother stopped going out.

We can only learn about what is happening outside through newspapers.

"This damn weather, I'm afraid it's almost 40 degrees," Xie Kan said, fanning himself frantically with his chest exposed, his tongue sticking out from the heat. "I heard that there are electric fans in the palace, but I don't know when they will be widely available."

Xie Yan, who was reading a math book, suddenly turned around and was extremely surprised: "Electric fan?" Xie Kan said: "It is only available in the imperial city. It is not popular in Luoyang. It seems that there is some difficulty."

As a civil engineer, Xie Yan had some basic understanding of building hydroelectric dams. Small dams could be built easily, but the power generation capacity was very limited, while slightly larger dams required extremely high construction technology.

Extremely high technology, relative to this era, current building materials are not up to standard!

The cement technology currently used in the Ming Dynasty is still at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.

Portland cement had not yet been invented.

Moreover, when silicate cement was first invented, its quality was extremely unstable and it was a niche product. It took decades of continuous improvement before it could be used in buildings with high strength requirements.

Xie Yan asked: "Has anyone tried to use coal to generate electricity?"

"I don't know." Xie Kan shook his head.

Xie Yan didn't ask any more questions and decided to find out later.

The two brothers were too hot to study. They dozed off on the deck chairs and called the maid to fan them.

With a maid serving him, Xie Yan felt much cooler.

What a day.

He does not have a high moral awareness, nor does he have high aspirations in life.

Just compared to the days when I was delivering food before I traveled through time, when I was caught between the platform and customers every day, now I live a very comfortable life as a rich man.

If you haven't crossed over yet, in such hot weather, you should be running around under the scorching sun.

I drank a lot of Huoxiang Zhengqi water and didn’t dare go to the hospital even when I had heatstroke. After a short rest, I had to rush to deliver meals.

It's actually quite good to lie down and be a young master for the rest of your life.

Save the world and the people? Love whoever you want!

While he was half asleep, Xie Yan heard his little sister sobbing. He opened his eyes and looked over: "What's wrong?"

Xie Wan handed over the newspaper: "These child laborers are younger than me. They have such a hard life."

The war of public opinion is coming.

When Xie Yan took a look at it, he found that it was an order from the emperor, asking more than a dozen officials who had returned to Beijing to report on their work (those local officials who had just been dismissed), as well as some Hanlin officials and folk scholars, to go to the Shanxi coal mines for inspection.

This article was written by a great scholar in a style that is almost vernacular.

There are even comic strips.

The heroine of the article is a 9-year-old child worker in a coal mine.

Why is it an old child laborer?

Because in her job, people usually start working at the age of five or six, and basically retire at the age of eight. If they are still working at the age of nine, they are naturally considered old workers.

She goes down to the mine at 4:12 in the morning every day, and spends the next hours squatting in the dark and narrow underground space, operating the mine's gas condensing valve in the darkness to keep the mine's gas flow unobstructed and prevent the accumulation of toxic gas underground.

The reason why such young girls are used as child laborers.

One reason is that the mine tunnel is narrow and the space for installing the condensate valve is even narrower, so older children are not able to do the job.

The second reason is that girls are more careful than boys and can better endure loneliness and darkness in closed environments.

The little girl started working at the age of five and has been working for four years now.

She went down the mine at midnight every day and returned to the surface in the evening. No one talked to her during that time, and she could not see any light. She even dared not make a sound, fearing that there were ghosts in the mine who would take her life. The moment she returned to the surface was the happiest moment, and she would sing the songs her mother taught her to reward herself.

Then I eat, sleep, and wait for the next early morning to continue working.

This female child laborer is just a microcosm of the large number of child laborers in coal mines.

The lives of male child laborers in coal mines are equally miserable because they do manual labor.

Due to a combination of factors, the underground mine tunnels at that time were very narrow. Adult miners had to crawl in and out, which was very time-consuming.

Therefore, the task of transporting coal in the underground mines was given to the male workers who were only a few years old. They were tied with ropes, belts, and harnesses, just like dogs pulling a cart, crawling on all fours to transport carts of coal.

If they died, they were thrown away like dogs.

Xie Yan, who had been thinking of living a life of luxury all his life, had his worldview greatly impacted after reading this article.

Especially those cartoons, which were obviously created by famous artists and make people feel heartbroken at just one look at them.

The author of the article also questioned the readers: "Do you know that the coal used to boil water and cook rice at home and to drive machines in factories contains the blood and tears of child workers? I can't help but feel sad when I write this. You and I are both born of our parents. We have the same heart and the same reason... If Taizu and Taizong knew, what would they do?"

The second brother Xie Kan woke up at some point, took the newspaper and looked at it, then laughed and said, "It's time for a war of words."

Xie Yan asked: "What kind of newspaper is this Yi Bao that published the article? It doesn't seem to be an official publication, but my father has been subscribing to it."

Xie Kan explained: "The Yi Bao was founded by a group of old scholars. At first, it only published articles on Yi studies and some poems. I don't know when it started to criticize factories and steam engines, but sales increased dramatically because of this, and gradually it became what it is today. They miss the reigns of Taizu and Taizong, believing that everything was perfect at that time, everyone lived and worked in peace and contentment, there was not so much suffering, and even illiterate people had high morals."

Xie Yan scratched his head.

This kind of newspaper has opened the prelude to the war of public opinion. Are those in power in the court conservatives or reformists?
(End of this chapter)