Early Ming Dynasty: Turning Clouds and Rains into New Learning Saints

Chapter 219 Faith
After Zhang Yifan dismissed the court, he returned to his house and told Zhu Jingjing the situation.

After hearing this, Zhu Jingjing smiled and said to Zhang Yifan: "Good men are everywhere. Since Fourth Brother values ​​you so much and insists on your help, then just go ahead."

"I naturally followed your arrangements for raising children. My sister-in-law also told me a lot about raising children. You don't have to worry about me or the child."

When Zhu Jingjing said this, she changed the topic and reminded: "It's okay to give Fourth Brother advice after arriving in the north, but don't be impulsive. You are a scholar, and I taught you how to ride a horse. Don't charge into battle, okay? ?”

After hearing this, Zhang Yifan looked at his son who was sleeping soundly on the small bed, and then replied in a low voice: "If I were to charge into the battle, there would be no soldiers left. As long as there are people, I will definitely not charge into the battle. My advantage is It’s the brain, I know it very well!”

When Zhu Jingjing heard this, she laughed silently.Zhang Yifan could tell that his wife was full of confidence in him.

Regarding this, Zhang Yifan took a deep breath. Since there are no problems both internally and externally, he should concentrate on assisting Zhu Di, kill those Tartars, and pacify the north as soon as possible. Only in this way can Zhu Yuanzhang continue to expand his territory and look overseas.

With a decision in mind, he began to pay attention to the war in the north while accompanying his wife and son.At least he went to the Ministry of War and the Governor's Office to get information about what had happened.

The Crown Princess also came to accompany Zhu Jingjing from time to time, and the relationship between the two families became even closer.

Zhang Yifan checked the information and found that from the fifth year of Hongwu to the twelfth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Naha, the Taiwei of the Meng Yuan Dynasty, went out to Liaodong to collect remnants, assembled a large number of troops, and took the initiative to attack the Ming army, killing and plundering more than 12 defenders. people.Daming's loss is definitely not small.

On the Ming side, according to Zhu Yuanzhang's will, they concentrated their efforts to eliminate the small group of Mongolian and Yuan forces, cut off Naha Chu's wings, and isolate Naha Chu.While continuously consolidating the Ming army's power in the north, it also continued to enrich its troops and wait for opportunities.At the same time, they also adopted the method of recruiting and surrendering to win Naha's surrender.

However, it is obvious that Nahachu ignored Zhu Yuanzhang's surrender and responded militarily.

At this time, the Ming army only occupied part of Shanxi and Beiping, and King Yan took control of Beiping, which was really on the front line.Fortunately, Xu Da was guarding the area, so the counterattack by the Mongolian and Yuan troops did not yield much results.

When Naha came out of here, he stationed in Jinshan as his base, with the east and west Liao River as a barrier, and Xintaizhou (the ancient city of Sijiazi) as his base camp. He was widely active throughout Liaodong to the Liaodong Peninsula in the south, and his momentum was still great.

Looking at this information, Zhang Yifan was a little surprised. The history books ended the Liaodong War in just a few sentences, which seemed like a very simple matter.But looking at the situation, it seems that the Mongolian and Yuan forces in Liaodong are actually relatively strong, not as weak as imagined.

He didn't know that in the original history, the war in which the Ming Dynasty regained Liaodong and Naha surrendered actually lasted for half a year, up to six months, and there were still 20 Ming troops, with Feng Sheng as the captive. The general led the three armies, with Fu Youde and Lan Yu as the left and right deputy generals. He ordered Nanxiong Hou Zhao Yong, Jiangyin Hou Guanliang, Guanyang Gong Chang Mao, Cao Guogong Li Jinglong, Shen Guogong Deng Zhen and others to accompany the army in the battle. Naha, who surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, took action to persuade him to surrender. After a two-pronged approach, he got a sentence in the history books: The Ming army left Liaodong, and Naha surrendered.

Just like that, when they came back, the three thousand Ming cavalry troops who were behind were ambushed by the Meng Yuan cavalry troops who came later, and the whole army was wiped out.

While Zhang Yifan was accompanying his wife and children in his own house and learning about the situation on the northern front, Zhu Di and Li Shanchang had already gone north.

Zhu Yuanzhang, for his part, issued an order to promote universal education throughout the country, stipulating that children of Ming school age must attend social studies. If they failed to attend, their parents would be punished.Study social studies in Xiangshan County and provide scholarships and grants.

Scholarships are awarded to students with excellent academic performance. The county will take unified examinations for all social studies in the jurisdiction and will be awarded according to rankings.

Bursaries are given to families who are really in need and are awarded after review by the county.

These fees are paid by the county government. If the local government is in financial difficulty, you can apply step by step, all the way to the Ministry of Household Affairs.

In addition, "Hongwu Dictionary" was printed and distributed in large quantities, and pinyin annotation and simplified Chinese characters were also promoted to the whole people.The books on sociology are mainly "Hundred Family Surnames", "Thousand-Character Essay", and "Disciples' Regulations".Mainly literacy, supplemented by a certain amount of Confucianism.

Zhu Yuanzhang has already tended to focus on Confucian classics as textbooks for county schools and above, but this has not yet been finalized.

There is still no imperial examination, and the recommendation system is still the main one.

Zhu Yuanzhang is still doing a very important thing, which is the household registration system and the distribution of grain fields to the public.These two are complementary to each other and must be done together.

What he decided was carried out vigorously and resolutely.

For example, in Yingtian Mansion, as far as Nanjing City is concerned, Zhu Yuanzhang is arbitrary, and all people living in the city have non-agricultural household registration.

After registering the grain fields and population around Nanjing, Zhu Yuanzhang calculated that each person was allocated more land, so he immediately forcibly moved some households out of Nanjing, on the condition that there were no shops and they just lived in the city. The remaining part was classified as farmers and assigned fields for farming.

Then, other old cities and big cities are based on Nanjing's approach, which is to ensure that farmers must cultivate enough grain fields based on the existing grain fields and population.

In order to implement this basic national policy as soon as possible, Zhu Yuanzhang also sent censors from the Yushitai to various places in the south of the Yangtze River to inspect local areas and supervise the implementation.

Subsequently, Nanjing Bank was finally established, and the principal reached an astonishing 200 million yuan.The Ministry of Accounts and the royal family account for 50.00%. For ordinary nobles, the principal is slightly less, and the share ratio is only a few decimal places.

These things have nothing to do with Zhang Yifan, Zhu Yuanzhang is the main pusher, and the officials of the entire court revolve around these things.

In September of the 13th year of Hongwu, about two months after the imperial meeting, Zhu Yuanzhang's decree finally came to Zhang Yifan, ordering him to go north.

At this time, the children can’t even speak yet. They can only say “ah ah oh oh” and know how to eat and sleep.

Zhang Yifan was a little regretful. He estimated that his son would call him "Mom" first and then "Dad".If you go away, you will definitely not be able to come back within a year and a half.When I come back, my son will know how to make soy sauce!

Zhang Yifan also became ruthless, why not use technology to crush the barbarians?
Before leaving, Zhu Yuanzhang went to find Zhang Yifan, and also brought Zhu Jingjing and his son. He also called the prince Zhu Biao, the princess and Zhu Xiongying, and it was considered a family banquet.

In addition to expressing concern, Zhu Yuanzhang also told Zhang Yifan with a serious expression: "After you arrive in the north, whenever there is a war, you must know yourself and the enemy. Before going to war, I want to send an elite cavalry force of several hundred people to understand the enemy's situation and capture prisoners. Act after the interrogation is clear. If you don’t know the situation, don’t act easily. Especially when looking at some potentially tempting results, you must be cautious. It may be a trap. You must understand it before making a decision... "These explanations he made were also emphasized in the original history when Feng Sheng led an army of 20 to the expedition.

Zhang Yifan naturally agreed to these reasonable suggestions immediately.

Zhu Yuanzhang seemed to talk a little more, a bit like a nagging old man, and still said: "You are quite steady in doing things. After arriving in the north, you must restrain the fourth child and don't be impulsive. He will listen to you. You two , we must strive for success and give credit to the old Zhu family, understand? It doesn’t matter even if you don’t win a big victory, at least you must ensure that you are undefeated, especially not a big defeat. You have to know..."

Zhang Yifan listened carefully. He knew that Zhu Yuanzhang's explanation before leaving was his life experience. It was very precious and he had to listen.

On Zhu Yuanzhang's side, after nagging about the northern front, he said to Zhang Yifan: "The law of public distribution of grain fields will definitely be promoted nationwide this year, especially in the Huguang area. I will pay close attention to it. I believe that the people in the chieftain's territory will I can also hear the rumors. I plan to wait until next year to take action against Yunnan."

In the original history, it seemed that they would attack Yunnan next year.With this in mind, Zhang Yifan said to Zhu Yuanzhang: "Father, if the chieftains are willing to surrender, they can be allowed to come to the capital to enjoy the glory and wealth, but they must not be allowed to continue to be emperors!"

"Haha, I know." After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile, "You don't have to worry about these things. I'm telling you this just to let you know that the focus of the court next year will still be on Yunnan, with the emphasis on recovering it. . Over there in the north, you prepare for war first and focus on stability, you know?"

Hearing this, Zhang Yifan smiled and replied: "Father, don't worry. After I go to the north, I will go to the military camp first. If I have good ideas, I will also put them forward. If I am not ready, I will definitely I will advise Fourth Brother not to be impulsive."

"Okay, okay!" Zhu Yuanzhang was very satisfied after hearing this.The reason why he asked Zhang Yifan to run to the north was not to expect Zhang Yifan to lead the troops in the war, but to use Zhang Yifan's clever mind to see if he could come up with any good ideas to enhance the imperial court's strength in the north.

Taking advantage of Zhu Yuanzhang's happiness, Zhang Yifan immediately suggested: "Father, if the north is preparing for war, and if the southwest is going to launch a war, there must be a lot of food, grass and supplies. I don't think you're welcome. Instead of suffering us Daming people, it's better to let Nanyang Pay more tribute to the grain, even if we buy it. This matter can be done by Xiangshan County without any effort."

Zhu Yuanzhang listened, his expression became serious, he nodded after thinking about it and said, "This is fine."

Having said this, he turned to look at Zhu Biao and said, "Go and handle this matter!"

"Yes, Father!" After hearing this, Zhu Biao quickly agreed.

When he was "visiting relatives" in Xiangshan County before, he actually agreed with his brother-in-law's views.At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang had agreed, and of course he would not refuse.

After chatting for a while, at the end of the family banquet, Zhang Yifan remembered something, looked at Empress Ma sincerely and said, "Queen Mother, if you have nothing to do on weekdays, you can also exercise in the palace, and you can sweat a little under regular time activities. it's the best……"

He didn't dare to suggest that Empress Ma should dance square dance in the palace, but he meant one thing, that is, to exercise and take care of her body.

According to historical records, if he stayed in the north for a long time, he might not see Queen Ma when he came back.

To be honest, Queen Ma is really good and very important to the Zhu Ming Dynasty.She is not too old. If she can live longer, it will be beneficial to Ming Dynasty and its people.

Of course, it is also beneficial to Zhang Yifan's family.

The princess was not there at first, but now she is still sitting across from her, smiling and talking to her daughter-in-law in a low voice.Zhang Yifan hopes that the fate of Empress Ma can also be changed by his own butterfly wings.

When Queen Ma heard that Zhang Yifan cared about her very much, she smiled and agreed, feeling very comfortable.

This son-in-law is really good!

Zhu Yuanzhang naturally saw this and felt pleased in his heart.

After the family dinner, Zhang Yifan finally embarked on his journey north.

Among his accompanying guards, in addition to the twelve that Zhu Wu and others stipulated that the prince consort and marquis could take with him, Zhu Yuanzhang also assigned him a small-flag imperial guard.

This time, I didn’t bring anyone else with me. Da Niu and Er Niu were both married and stayed in Liujia Village. Zheng Jingxue was in charge of the glass factory and Zhu Biao was standing behind him, so there was nothing to worry about.

A group of twenty or thirty grown men first took a boat north along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and then rode horses to Peking.

Along the way, Zhang Yifan discovered that the further north he went, the sparser the population became.Unlike here in the south of the Yangtze River, where there is only one village ten or twenty miles away, sometimes you don't even see a village in a day.

Sometimes, you can still see some ruins, which should have looked like villages many years ago, but were destroyed by the war.

Zhang Yifan didn't know that according to the original historical records, in 1381, which is the 14th year of Hongwu next year, statistics showed that the indigenous population of Henan reached 189.1 million, the indigenous population of Hebei reached 189.3 million, and the indigenous population of Shanxi reached 403.045 million.

The aborigines here refer to the local people, not the people who immigrated from other places.

It can be seen that the Central Plains region suffered huge population losses during the wars at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.

It is also for this reason that a few years ago, Xu Da, who guarded the north, moved the population of Shanxi to the vicinity of Beiping. Otherwise, the population of Hebei would have been even smaller.

Looking at the uninhabited plains and the ruined villages, Zhang Yifan couldn't help but make up his mind that the enemies in the north must be wiped out as soon as possible, so that peace in the north can come as soon as possible, so that the north can recuperate and restore its former prosperity !

With this belief, Zhang Yifan and his party finally arrived in Peiping more than half a month later.

(End of this chapter)