Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 498 All nations come to court
"Is this where the children of the gods live?"

"Compared to where we live, it seems that the place where they live is closer to the gods..."

"Yes, they have big black snakes that move."

"And the silver monster that pumps out water."

"They actually used precious iron to build roads, my God..."

The glorious Ming Dynasty looks down upon all nations.

In the first half of the eighth year of Hongxi, envoys and kings from various countries came from the East and West to see railways, trains, and the prosperous lives of the people of Ming Dynasty.

In this era when most people in the world cannot afford to eat or wear new clothes, few people in the Ming Dynasty wear coarse linen clothes.

In the impression of children born during the Yongle period, this kind of clothes seems to be "work clothes" that are only worn when working in the fields. In daily life, they basically use silk clothes as their daily clothes.

With the continuous construction of railways, people in the northwest can also taste the japonica rice from the south of the Yangtze River in a few days.

In the past, farmers in the south of the Yangtze River could only produce rice worth three hundred and fifty cents per stone, but now the price is generally around four hundred cents per stone. Rice in the northwest, which used to be around five hundred cents per stone, has now dropped to four hundred and fifty cents. Ten articles.

As long as the officials are honest and efficient and maintain a high level of efficiency, it will be difficult for the so-called famine problem to exist in any place where the railway passes.

At least in the current climate context, famine is a rare problem.

There is no need to worry about the safety of the people. Ming Dynasty's annual military expenditure of 15 million yuan allowed it to maintain nearly 600,000 army and 100,000 navy all year round.

This may not seem like much, but if supplies are not a problem, then the Ming army may be able to reach the other side of the ocean.

Of course, more land is not always better. After all, managing wild lands requires investment at the beginning no matter what era it is.

Such as Liaodong, Bohai, Daning, Hetao...

During the seventeenth year of Yongle, Ming Dynasty invested no less than 50 million yuan in at least these four places, allowing this land to develop and prosper.

Nowadays, if the annual income brought by these four places to Ming Dynasty is reduced, it is actually only three million yuan. Normally, it will take at least seventeen years to recover the money.

Seventeen years, for many emperors, has reached or exceeded their reign. After all, in the era before Zhu Gaoxu, the average emperor's reign was only six or seven years.

In this era where the emperor's will is the driving force, this time is enough time for many emperors to give up, but Zhu Gaoxu did not.

Although he is forty-five years old now, his body is still strong, and what he has to do is to capture and control the Sanxuan Shiwei, Northwest Land, and Mobei Land.

All the spending has been done in his generation, and he must also accumulate enough wealth for his children and grandchildren.

His legacy must be enjoyed by his children and grandchildren for at least a hundred years, and this is his current goal...

"Bang bang bang!!"

The dull sound of salutes was heard, and at the Daming Gate Parade Square, 60,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantrymen transferred from Shanxi, Shaanxi, Beizhili and other places were rehearsing the military parade ceremony.

The Daming Gate Parade Square is two miles wide from north to south and six miles long from east to west.

A six-mile-long concrete parade platform was built in its north and south directions, with a height of three feet, enough for more than 100,000 people to watch the military parade here.

Such a grand project made the envoys from various countries who passed by this place dumbfounded.

Of course, apart from this project, their main surprise was the hundreds of thousands of troops rehearsing at any time.

Even for the Timurid State, whose current national strength is second only to the Ming Dynasty, it is very difficult to mobilize 100,000 soldiers and horses from various places, because this will easily cause the central government's local strength to be empty.

On the other hand, the Ming Dynasty did not mobilize 100,000 people for fighting, but used them for rehearsals. Moreover, these 100,000 people were all elite soldiers with bright armor. When the kings and envoys of all countries saw them, their eyes were full of fear and fear. envious.

"Compared to the last time, our trip went more smoothly this time. The Ming Dynasty's railway has been built from their capital to the emerging Gansu."

"Their train was faster than our last mission. In just five days, we completed the long journey from Liangzhou to Beijing."

"This distance is equivalent to from Samarkand to Isfahan, or even further."

"I can't imagine what kind of powerful enemy we will face if they build the railway from Hami to Nyatara."

"Such an idea not only exists in my mind, but even Chagatai and Yueji's other envoys are also worried about this issue."

"Of course, what worries us more is the civilians here."

"Officials from the Ministry of Rites told me that the population of the Ming Dynasty has exceeded 100 million, and this is undoubtedly nightmare news for us."

"They told us that the Ming Dynasty's army had been reduced, and now only 700,000 people were left, and they complained that this army was not enough to protect their civilians."

"Seven hundred thousand, I have only seen such a number in books that like to exaggerate one's own strength, but in Ming Dynasty, this is not an exaggeration, but a kind of humility."

"They can mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops to perform a show. These troops are wearing heavy armor, and most of them are cavalry. There will be no less than 50,000."

"This Emperor Hongxi of the Ming Dynasty, in our eyes, Bogda Chechen Khan is demonstrating his strength to the various countries who come here."

"Obviously, they did this. At least where I saw it, kings and envoys from dozens of countries gave up some unrealistic ideas after seeing the power of the Ming Dynasty, including us... "

On the carriage, Gayesuddin, who was responsible for recording the diary of Timur's trip, recorded everything he saw and heard along the way in his diary.

Sitting next to him, Ulugh Beg, the eldest son of Sultan Shaharu of the Timur Kingdom, looked out the car window at the 100,000-strong military exercise army with a solemn expression.

At the age of thirty-one, he has served as the governor of the Transoxiana and Turkestan for sixteen years. His main targets are the Yueji people in the north and the Chagatai people in the east.

Since his last mission to the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty had left him with a strong and invincible impression, and he was worried all the time in the face of the continuous construction of railways to the northwest.

Although in his opinion, the land owned by the Ming Dynasty was far more fertile than the Western Regions and Hezhong areas, the Ming Dynasty's railways told him that the sacred and invincible Ming Emperor was setting his sights on the northwest.

"Tell everyone in the mission to be respectful to Ming officials."

Ulugh Beg issued his first order after arriving in Beijing, and this order seemed extremely wise and correct in the eyes of everyone.

As long as any country that has received the permission of the Ming Dynasty and came to the Ming Dynasty has seen the power of the Ming Dynasty, it will be difficult for them to have any thoughts of being enemies with it.

Even though the Timurid Empire was flourishing under the governance of Shaharul at this time, they were still afraid of this great eastern country that had almost taken away the entire Persia from them by just sending a fleet more than ten years ago.

It may be embarrassing to be a vassal to other countries, but it is undoubtedly a happy thing to be a vassal to the Ming Dynasty.

At least for the past ten years, the Ming Dynasty has not shown its desire for force and conquest to those countries that surrendered to them.

At the speed at which Ming Dynasty built the Northwest Railway, he still had at least twenty years to develop the country.

Thinking like this, Ulugh Beg felt that time was running out, and after their team was inspected, they entered the colorful world behind the Daming Gate.

There is no shortage of flowers and green plants in Beijing in May. Pots of flowers shipped from the south of the Yangtze River are placed at the door of many shops.

These flowers are undoubtedly a waste in the eyes of people in many countries.

After all, playing with flowers is a very expensive hobby. For areas where growing flowers is a waste of time and energy, usually only nobles can afford to play with flowers.

However, in Ming Dynasty, this hobby, which is elegant in other countries, is just a part of the daily life of urban residents.

Even on the streets of Beijing, there are many people playing with flowers.

Whether men or women, they will choose seasonal flowers to insert into their hair, sideburns or crowns as a decoration or ceremonial procedure.

There are many types of flowers in hairpins, such as dogwood, hibiscus, rose, plum blossom, apricot blossom, tango pear, jasmine, peony, chrysanthemum, etc. are common representatives.

Some rich families also choose to make fake flowers from gold, silver, silk, etc. to decorate their own hairpins.

Here, no one will say anything about men wearing hairpins. After all, for the people of the Ming Dynasty, this custom has been popular since a thousand years ago and reached its peak in the Song Dynasty.

Although many customs and habits were interrupted during the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties, as the Ming Dynasty was established, many customs and habits that had been left behind were gradually recovered.

Twenty years ago, there were still people wearing Hu Feng costumes on the streets of Peking without knowing it.

But now in Beijing, people can easily identify who is the Han family and what is Hu Feng.

Even if someone wears Hu Feng's clothes and walks on the street, no one will criticize or praise them. Instead, they will compare the advantages of Han and Hu people's clothes with admiration.

There is no doubt that the people of Ming Dynasty under Hong Xi's rule were confident, generous and tolerant people.

On his way to the Ming Dynasty, Ulugh Bo seldom saw the dirty streets of the Ming Dynasty city.

In their impression, the streets of Ming Dynasty are always clean and tidy. Although people have different jobs, they are always well-dressed and the clothes are not cheap.

Some children will chase their team, not because they are curious about them, but simply because they think the action is fun.

It can be said that compared with the "Yongle Military Parade" more than ten years ago, this "Hongxi Military Parade" allowed all countries to truly feel the changes in the Ming Dynasty.

The military parade has not yet begun, but kings and envoys from various countries have already begun to look forward to this grand ceremony.

In the face of their expectations, the palaces and six ministries and mansions of Ming Dynasty also seemed very busy.

The current palaces need to process more than 500 memorials every day. These memorials are processed by them and finally submitted to the side hall separated by a wall, where Zhu Gaoxu, the emperor, decides the outcome.

Although there is no actual person in charge of the palace, everyone knows that Xu Shuo is the representative promoted by the emperor, so most of the memorials are reviewed by Xu Shuo and then sent to the side hall according to the severity.

The appearance of Xu Shuo saved Zhu Gaoxu a lot of effort. In his free time, he could also go rowing and riding horses to kill time.

Chi Huan, who was accompanying him, was already thirty-four years old. Using human lifespan as a comparison, it was already at least seventy years old. Now it is well taken care of. Zhu Gaoxu often goes to see it, and every time it signals to put a saddle on it, its eyes are full of doubts, as if asking why Zhu Gaoxu has rested for so many years.

Zhu Gaoxu doesn't know whether horses, like people, experience memory degradation as they age.

In short, he could feel Chi Huan's doubts, but every time he could only reach out and touch it gently.

As for the battlefield, it might be a place where it would be difficult for Zhu Gaoxu to go back.

"Your Highness, envoys from various countries have arrived. Should the military parade begin as originally scheduled on the first day of July, or should it be held in advance?"

Standing behind Zhu Gaoxu, Yi Shihazuo bowed and came to ask. Zhu Gaoxu shook his head when he heard this:

"Zhanhe, the eldest and the third child haven't arrived yet. Let's wait until they arrive before starting."

Because Zhu Zhanhe was busy in Longchuan and was delayed for several months, he, Zhu Gaochi, Zhu Gaosui and others had not yet arrived in Beijing and had just entered Texas.

If nothing else happens, they should be able to arrive in Beijing before dusk tomorrow, so Yi Shiha continued:
"Then it would be better to advance the ceremony to June 20th. After all, the Emperor has been urging us in the past few days."

"Okay, as long as there are no problems with the six departments and six houses, let's go ahead." After hearing Yi Shiha's words, Zhu Gaoxu, who was caressing Chi Huan, was also very helpless.

Although the old man was reluctant to leave his children and grandchildren and wanted to have another family dinner, the family dinner without Queen Xu was far less important to Zhu Di than his upcoming Northern Expedition.

If he followed the past, he would normally choose to go north in April and start the expedition against the Mobei tribes in mid-May.

The reason why we are so slow this time is mainly because we are waiting for the completion of the 600-mile railway in Mobei.

However, the news of the completion of the Mobei Railway came three days ago, so Zhu Di couldn't wait any longer.

If Zhu Gaoxu hadn't used the excuse of transporting supplies to hold him back, maybe he would have taken the train north to Hailaer.

However, based on the transportation capacity of the Songhua River and trains, the rations for 300,000 people and more than 700,000 horses can be transported to the front line in at most half a month. After all, the materials have been placed in the warehouse a long time ago. , all we have to do now is transport them to the front line.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu also removed his hand from Chi Huan: "I'm going to work first, and I'll see you in a few days."

"Sorry..."

Chi Huan kicked the fence next to him in dissatisfaction, but Zhu Gaoxu could only show a doting smile to hide his loneliness.

He turned around and got on Bu Yu, and Yi Shiha also walked beside him and reported:

"According to the news from the West Factory, many countries this time are interested in spying on the imperial court's firearms. As for the train, they have no idea. After all, even if they wanted to, they can't produce so much iron in the country to build the railway."

What Yishiha said is true. As the largest steel producer in the world, Ming Dynasty still suspends the production of some iron products every year due to insufficient iron materials for its rails, not to mention others.

One kilometer of railway requires 90 tons of rails, equivalent to 90,000 kilograms.

Nowadays, except for the Ming Dynasty, even the Timurid State, which has developed iron smelting in Central Asia, does not produce more than 5 million kilograms of pig iron every year, let alone other countries.

"By the way, how much is the imperial court's steel output now? Also, is there any statistics on the number of miners and ironworks workers?"

Zhu Gaoxu asked about the steel production, to which Yi Shiha also responded like a treasure: "After Taixue's progress in iron smelting technology research, coupled with the reform of blast furnaces, the imperial court now produces more than 3,500 tons of forged steel every year. , more than 246,000 tons of iron."

"If you count the iron miners and ironworks workers alone, the number is about 189,000."

"What about all the mines and industrial chains?" Zhu Gaoxu said a new word again, but Yi Shiha had heard this word before, so he answered without thinking:

"That's about 820,000 workers, maybe more. After all, the number of overseas miners cannot be counted."

"Eight hundred and twenty thousand..." Zhu Gaoxu nodded.

These 4 people represent families. Based on the million households in the Ming Dynasty, the proportion of miners now exceeds %.

This does not seem to be a lot, but if other industries are added, this proportion may further increase to 7%, and this is only the tenth year when Ming Dynasty entered the first industrial revolution.

The only thing that can limit Ming Dynasty is productivity.

Ming Dynasty's industrial productivity is constantly improving, and the existing global population market is still enough for Ming Dynasty to survive for many years.

As long as there are no mistakes, Zhu Gaoxu can be sure that the industrial progress of the Ming Dynasty will be a hundred years ahead of the world. Even if countries obtain primary and middle school textbooks from the Ming Dynasty, they do not have enough resources to cultivate these talents.

But the Ming Dynasty was different. It relied on the increase in grain production through research on new crops and chemical fertilizers, as well as resource markets such as Beizhou and Dongzhou, as well as Kunlun Continent and the undeveloped Nanzhou.

Coupled with the Tianzhu population market close to the door, Ming Dynasty can fully utilize the handmade goods that can be produced to harvest these places.

Not only industrial productivity, but also agricultural productivity is increasing with the increasing population.

With the current territory of the Ming Dynasty, it is easy to cultivate two billion acres of cultivated land, but this process requires supporting farmers so that they can cultivate wasteland without distractions.

In fact, they don't need any support. With the current Ming tax rate, as long as the farmers are not affected by exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, they will spontaneously reclaim wasteland. After all, Zhu Gaoxu has promulgated the law for reclaiming wasteland long ago.

All newly reclaimed wasteland will be tax-free for three years... This is Zhu Gaoxu's policy.

Simple, yet straightforward and effective.

The only thing he still needs to maintain is controlled infrastructure construction in poor areas, so as to make the local labor market prosperous.

Apart from anything else, the construction of the Northwest Railway alone has benefited a large number of people in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places.

If they honestly work according to local prices, it will take them several years to earn what they now earn in a year.

Zhu Gaoxu's railway construction could have further reduced costs, but for the people, the benefits would obviously be reduced.

What he wants to do is to provide benefits to the people so that after they have savings, they can focus on reclaiming wasteland or engaging in business.

If it doesn't work, even if they make money and spend it, it can stimulate local consumption, and Zhu Gaoxu can always find a way to get back the money he spends.

What he wants to do now is to transfer the folk wealth in Jiangnan to the northwest, and this wealth will be brought back to Jiangnan through trade and various unfair means.

After this wealth was brought back to the south of the Yangtze River, he would use various means to collect it into the treasury and finally use it in the northwest.

To put it simply, this is the "triangular trade" within the Ming Dynasty, and it is a means for the court to adjust local economic imbalances.

This method is crude, but very practical.

Take the last Guimao case as an example. Although most of the Guimao cases are from northerners, their wealth is also concentrated in Jiangnan, because both land and houses in Jiangnan have certain investment properties.

After this wealth was recovered by Zhu Gaoxu, it was once again used in the northwest. This time the investment was more than 20 million yuan, and the total number of people in the northwest was only over 6 million.

It can be said that as long as they are diligent and willing to endure hardship, every northwest citizen can gain three to four fortunes from the construction of the northwest.

This wealth can be used to provide education for children, or to solve the problem of food rations for a family for a year. In short, no matter how they are used, they have received the attention of the court.

It seemed that he was thinking too much. In short, Zhu Gaoxu also returned to Wuying Palace in a Buyu without knowing it.

After he arrived here, he unexpectedly saw Zhu Di waiting anxiously in Wuying Hall.

"Father, why are you here?"

This is the first time Zhu Di has returned to Wuying Hall since his abdication. It is not surprising that Zhu Gaoxu was surprised, because even Yi Shiha was surprised and saluted quickly.

As for the academicians in the palace who had been with Zhu Di for a long time, they were very embarrassed, and they didn't know whether communicating with the Supreme Emperor would cause the emperor's dissatisfaction.

"Second brother, this is the Northern Expedition..."

Sure enough, the only thing that could make Zhu Di anxious to appear here was the upcoming Northern Expedition.

"Don't tell me yet, let me tell you!"

Zhu Gaoxu interrupted Zhu Di and told Zhu Di dumbfoundedly what he had just explained to Yi Shiha.

"In short, the military parade will begin on June 20 for three days. After the military parade is over, you can take the cavalry from Beizhili, Shanxi, and Shaanxi to Mobei."

"Okay, okay..." When Zhu Di heard that it was seven days early, a smile filled his face and he couldn't help but patted him and said:
"The second brother and the others will arrive tomorrow. Let them have a good rest first, and then go to Daming Palace for dinner the day after tomorrow."

"You don't need to go. There have been a lot of envoys from various countries recently. You will probably be very busy, so I won't send you."

"Your Majesty..." Zhu Gaoxu bowed respectfully after hearing this, taking this opportunity to show his relationship with Zhu Di to the group of people in the palace.

Since Zhu Di abdicated and he ascended the throne, folk rumors have always continued.

Although he didn't care, he was happy to take this opportunity to show off the relationship between father and son.

"Okay, I'll go to the Sixth Army Governor's Mansion to see how the Northern Expedition route is arranged. You can handle the affairs."

Maybe he was afraid of political affairs in the past seventeen years, or maybe he missed people after seeing things. In short, Zhu Di didn't want to be in the Forbidden City in Beijing, which was too similar to the Forbidden City in Nanjing.

After a few hasty explanations, he left the Forbidden City in a carriage.

Zhu Gaoxu watched him go away, and the smile on his face gradually faded. When he turned and walked into the side hall, he deliberately stopped and glanced around the palace bachelors.

Xu Shuo and Wang Hui saluted respectfully, but Yang Rong, Yang Pu, and Xue Xuan were a little flustered, obviously worried that Zhu Gaoxu would reflect the public opinion on them.

But they were overly worried. Zhu Gaoxu had personally killed so many Jiangnan literati, and there were countless people who hated him. It didn't matter if there were a few more or a few less.

It is enough for the descendants of Qianqiu to know what kind of person he is...

(End of this chapter)