Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 268 Shock!Got a big belly?

"Your Majesty, I am not deliberately contradicting you. Sweet potatoes and letters are two different things. Sweet potatoes are a satiating crop, no different from ordinary wheat and soybeans, but letters are the characters used by the countries in Europe and the West. If I, the Ming Dynasty, learn from The method of cutting the sounds of letters. After ten years when the letters are popular all over the world, will the people who learn the letters be Chinese or Westerners?"

Wu Na, the minister of Dali Temple, asked reluctantly.

If it were someone else who had such a blunt rebuttal, Zhu Gaoxu would have been angry.

But he was particularly tolerant of Wu Na, who was able to correct himself and be strict with himself.

In the late Yongle period, Wu Na served as the supervisory censor of Guizhou Province. On his way back to Beijing, in order to please him, local officials sent people to Kui Mansion with a hundred taels of gold to give him a gift.

At that time, Wu Na took the bribe and did not open the seal. He only wrote a poem on it and asked the visitor to bring the poem and the gold back.

His poem said: "Xiao Xiao returns his luggage to the east, to cross the most dangerous shoal ahead. If there are any stolen goods or earthly objects, let them sink in the blue waves."

Since then, Wu Na's act of writing poems and refusing gold spread throughout the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty and was praised by others.

When Zhu Di learned about this, he was filled with emotion and praised Wu Na as a direct minister of Yongle.

At this time, just when Zhu Gaoxu was about to speak to Wu Ne again, Yu Yanzhao, the Minister of Rites, couldn't help but stand up.

He first bowed to Zhu Gaoxu, then turned sideways and raised his hand to Wu Na, saying: "In the past, King Wuling of Zhao learned how to ride and shoot in Huns' Hu uniforms, and the country was as strong as Zhao; and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Zhang Qian out to the Western Regions to learn from the Yuezhi people. He restored the method of making fine steel swords, and made the Han cavalry one against five!"

"The strong Han Dynasty and the prosperous Tang Dynasty were never afraid to learn from foreign things. If there were good things, they would imitate them. Therefore, the Han Dynasty was strong and the Tang Dynasty was prosperous. Wu Siqing, although our Ming Dynasty claims to be a superior country, we cannot rest on our laurels, right?"

In later generations, looking at the history of world metallurgy, West Asia, India, North Africa and Europe entered the Iron Age around the tenth century BC, and the technology for making high-quality steel weapons preceded that of China.

During the Western Han Dynasty, China entered the Iron Age on a large scale and made major breakthroughs in steel production technology. This should be related to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty opening up transportation to the Western Regions and introducing steel technology from the Western Regions (including Iran and India).

According to records, at this time, a new type of steel was introduced to China from the Western Regions, called "Bin Iron", also known as "King Kong" or "Fine Steel".

This type of steel was also introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages and was called "Indian steel" by Westerners.

Yu Yanzhao's statement that Zhang Qian learned the method of making fine steel from the Western Regions is based on historical data.

"What Yu Qing said makes sense, and it is the kingly way to use it for me, instead of worrying about what kind of writing it is. Please see, gentlemen, there are very few such letters, only about twenty, they are written on one side, simple and clear."

Zhu Gaoxu pointed to the paper in Wu Ne's hand with the alphabet syncopation method written on it, and said: "If we, the Chinese, had invented the Thai-Spanish alphabet, I probably wouldn't have said anything. But the problem is that it was a foreigner who invented it, and I, the Ming Dynasty, People learn. However, foreigners have discovered that Chinese people learn. Except for the two examples mentioned by Yu Qing, Buddhism was introduced from Tianzhu. Hasn’t it been spread for a long time?”

"If our Ming Dynasty uses the Thai and Western letters, will it damage the majesty of the Ming Dynasty? I can't see it!"

"I believe that all good things from foreign countries and things that are useful to our Ming Dynasty should be learned by our Ming Dynasty, that is, we should take them all and transform them into our own things!"

When he said this, he emphasized his tone and said: "I have given this process a name, 'localization' or 'Chineseization'! Just like Buddhism, it has long become my Chinese Buddhism. Please have nothing to do. At this time, you can think about what I mean by 'localization' and 'Chineseization'."

"The minister leads the order."

Yu Yanzhao immediately bowed and accepted the order.

"This matter has been settled. The Ministry of Rites has drafted an official document for me to inform the educational bureaus of all provinces and governments around the world, ordering the students of Changke Academy to go to the mountains and countryside starting from next month to complete the few things I just told them."

Zhu Gaoxu looked at Yu Yanzhao and ordered: "Remember, perfecting the method of cutting the sounds of letters in practice is the first, and eradicating all obscene worship of wild gods is the second!" "I will accept the order."

The officials of the Ministry of Rites, headed by Yu Yanzhao, bowed and saluted one after another to receive orders.

Afterwards, Zhu Gaoxu boarded the throne, sat back on the throne, looked down at the ministers and remained silent for a while.

Kang Ping, who was standing by the side, saw this and sang loudly at the top of his voice: "If you have something to do, leave the class!"

"Your Majesty, Huang Huai, the right minister of the Ministry of Rites, has something to report."

Huang Huai bowed and came out of the queue, bowing in salute.

Zhu Gaoxu said: "It's accurate."

"Your Majesty, the construction of the two imperial viewing halls in the western suburbs of Beijing has been completed. The Ministry of Rites has worked with the Qin Tian Supervisor to select an auspicious day. I would like to ask your Majesty to inform you whether to hold an imperial viewing ceremony."

Huang Huai said respectfully.

In the Tang Dynasty and the Central Plains dynasties after the Tang Dynasty, a fanfang system was basically implemented for foreigners.

The so-called Fanfang refers to the neighborhood where Fan people live. It means that all people who come to China from foreign countries to live permanently have a fixed area.

These foreigners do not have the right to freely choose their place of residence, and the possibility of them wanting to live with ordinary people in the Central Plains Dynasty is basically zero.

Fanfang in the Tang Dynasty was generally built in cities. For example, Chang'an and Luoyang, which were relatively large cities at that time, had Fanfang districts divided by the imperial court, where foreign students and businessmen lived.

The Tang Dynasty did not have too many requirements for foreign students to go out. As long as the international students did not break the law, no one would care where they went and what they did. They were basically no different from ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty.

Compared with the Fanfang built in the city in the Tang Dynasty, in the Song, Yuan and even the Ming Dynasty, unless they were visiting envoys from abroad, foreigners were not even qualified to live in the city and could only live in Fanfang in the countryside or suburbs of the city.

Since the 20th year of Yongle, a large number of overseas students have come to Beijing to study. The kings of Korea, Japan, Ryukyu, Sulu and other countries also began to send their descendants to the Ming Dynasty capital to study the sages.

According to the standards for studying in China established by Zhu Gaoxu at that time, all foreign students officially resident in Beijing were selected from among the children of knowledgeable aristocrats.

Moreover, he has strict restrictions on the qualifications of international students from neighboring countries such as North Korea and Japan. Each country can only send international students to study in China once every two years, and there are only two to ten places at a time.

If the number of people dispatched exceeds the number stipulated by Ming Dynasty, they will be sent back to their country.

Why do these outstanding foreign students flock to study in Ming Dynasty in large numbers?

Of course it was because the Ming Dynasty sent fleets to cruise overseas, and their unparalleled national power shocked them!
The rulers of these countries all want to send people to the Ming Dynasty to learn skills and mental methods to make their countries as prosperous as the Ming Dynasty.

"As Huang Qing suggested, I agreed."

Zhu Gaoxu remembered another thing and asked casually: "I heard that not long ago, a Japanese student made a female student from Ming Dynasty pregnant?"

(End of this chapter)