A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 1041: Scene of the Metropolis of Bianjing, the End of the Twenty Years' War

Autumn of the 21st year of Xuantong in the Great Xia Empire
The cold wind blew from north to south across the streets of the metropolis of Bianjing. Pedestrians on the road, wearing thick fu hats wrapped around their heads, tightened their clothes, buried their necks deep in their stand-up collars, and hurried back and forth.

I don’t know what’s going on, but the winters in the north are getting colder and colder, and even the crop yields are getting less and less.

Even the doctors at Daxia Agricultural College have developed high-quality varieties that are ten times more productive than a hundred years ago and introduced high-yield crops from Beiyinzhou.

Considering the population base of Daxia which is growing year by year, it is still not enough.

The population of the Daxia Empire is already large, and many vassal principalities and foreigners migrate in every year. The population grows by millions every year, and doubles every year.

If it weren't for the food inflows from Southeast Continent, Northern Yin Continent, South Continent and other places, Daxia would have starved to death without waiting for the invasion of the people from Western Continent.

"Against war, for peace!"

"Reduce your working hours and take a break!"

"Expel the refugees, and eat!"

A group of young people in round-necked and tight-sleeved robes suddenly appeared on the originally deserted street. They held banners written in capital ink, wore colorful academic uniforms, and walked in the street in groups, shouting.

If you listen carefully, you can hear a lot of difficult Xia language, which means they are students from the various princely kingdoms.

At this time, they, like the students of Daxia, deeply hated the unrest in the country.

Especially as a principality, they suffered even more severe oppression, with taxes rising every year and food prices not falling.

Hearing their voices, the neighbors who had originally closed their windows and doors opened them and looked in.

"Oh, we have to go out again. You can spend this time reading instead."

"A woman's perspective."

"Oh, you are so awesome, why don't you go to the palace and file a complaint?"

"Ignorance, I am a scholar, not a commoner. How can I easily file a lawsuit? It is simply a disgrace to society."

"Oh, you're just living in downtown with an ignorant woman like me. What's so great about that?"

"What do you know? This is the unity of knowledge and action."

A couple living on the second and third floors of a three-story wooden building started arguing across the floors amid the protests of students marching on the street.

At this moment, a quick copper whistle sounded, and at the corner of the neighborhood, a large group of black-clothed imperial guardsmen, holding wooden sticks and responsible for maintaining order, appeared.

They rushed into the crowd and beat anyone they saw without saying a word.

In an instant, screams, crying, and cursing were heard one after another.

Upon seeing this, the neighbors hurriedly closed the windows and doors again, just praying that the children outside would not be seriously hurt.

Because they know that the group outside is campaigning for them.

There is now food shortage everywhere, and a large number of refugees are gathering around Bian Jing.

The government had no choice but to order the opening of granaries to provide disaster relief, which made the already expensive grain prices in Bianliang even more unaffordable.

This led to demonstrations organized by businessmen, workers, and students from urban backgrounds, hoping that the government would adopt their opinions.

And it wasn't just this place, almost half of the metropolis of Bianliang were holding marches and demonstrations.

The whole capital was in chaos. All the 100,000 cavalrymen of the Imperial Guard had been dispatched, and all that was left was to ask the Palace Front Department to come forward to suppress the rebellion.

Nowadays, not only businessmen, workers and citizens, but also soldiers, nobles and scholars are extremely dissatisfied with the current war.

Years of war between the East and the West led to the closure of trade routes, and the merchants had no choice but to accept the high exploitation of the Ottoman Empire in the middle, which they hated.

Twenty years passed without any results, and they only seized more than one million square kilometers of territory in Northern Yinzhou.

The war on the Western Front continued to go back and forth, with no less than one million soldiers killed or wounded.

Not only are there few military achievements, but there are also heavy casualties. How could the military be willing to do this?

Let alone the workers, who were almost overloaded in order to produce materials, and often worked for twelve hours straight. As the citizens just said, the arrival of refugees made it impossible for the government to transport food from all over the country, so most of it was sent to the front line.

Ultimately, it's all due to war.

What about the nobles? Because of the rapid increase in population in Daxia, the government had to implement the "Noble Children's Border Expansion Plan".

If one wants to inherit the title in its entirety, one must go to the principalities of various places. Fortunately, going to a principality means real fiefdom, which means one will become a landlord directly, instead of staying in the country and living with an empty pot.

If you want to inherit a title in your native land, you can only do so by lowering your rank, and the lowest rank is three grades.

Although the conditions here are very good, there are always quite a number of noble children who are unwilling to give up their comfortable life in Daxia, and therefore they are dissatisfied with the government.

The situation of scholars was complicated. The imperial court kept making up various excuses and increasing taxes in order to fight wars, making the Single Whip Law of thirty years ago meaningless.

Moreover, most of these scholars came from other backgrounds, calling themselves scholars. They wanted to find a way out for the country and seek to express their own political suggestions.

Although each state has a state legislature and each province has a provincial legislature, local celebrities are selected as members.

But it is obvious that most of these parliamentarians are monopolized by royal family members, nobles and officials.

As the number of higher education institutions increased in recent years, the number of people becoming scholars increased dramatically, most of whom came from lower-middle classes or business families.

They are extremely dissatisfied because they have status and knowledge but cannot express their political opinions.

At the same time, in the imperial palace of Bian Jing, Emperor Bai Ya of Da Xia and Crown Prince Bai Sheng were sitting in the luxurious and bright palace, discussing the chaos in the city.

Bai Ya is seventy years old this year. He wears a pair of round gold-wire glasses that drag on the bridge of his nose. Two glasses chains made of tiny jewels hang from his temples. He squintes his eyes and tries hard to look at the memorials in his hand.

Not far from the imperial desk, Bai Sheng, a man with white hair but a somewhat energetic look, was also flipping through the books, and kept writing the word "阅" or "准" on them with a red pen.

Obviously, the prince was helping the emperor handle state affairs.

Ever since fifty years ago, when eunuchs isolated the inside and outside of the country, a turmoil swept across half of Daxia.

Daxia abolished the rule of eunuchs participating in politics, and changed it to the Prime Minister's Council to be in charge of military and political affairs, form opinions, and then submit them to the emperor for decision.

Most of the time, the emperor only needed to review one word.

After all, the several prime ministers in the Prime Minister's Council are each in charge of a department, covering the vast majority of the Xia Kingdom's government offices.

After many reform movements, the Daxia government has become very streamlined. Government affairs are government affairs, finance is finance, military affairs are military affairs, and supervision is supervision.

This formed a Prime Minister, four assistant ministers, and a Prime Minister's Council that checked and cooperated with each other.

Although it seemed that the Prime Minister's Council had taken over many of the emperor's powers, the final decision-making power, the power to appoint the prime minister and assistant prime ministers, the power of criminal immunity, and the power to mobilize troops were all in the hands of the emperor.

"It seems that in recent years, we have only focused on Xiaoxiyang and Beiyinzhou, and ignored the situation at home. Otherwise, how could such a big trend be formed?"

"Can the Tiqi Division still hold it in check? Do we need to mobilize the Dianqian Division?"

Hearing his father's question, Bai Sheng shook his head: "The prefect of Kaifeng just sent someone to say that the situation is still under control, but the food supply in the capital is getting less and less."

"If things continue like this, I'm afraid we can only hold out for three months at most."

Bai Ya had a slight headache and pressed his temple with the end of the red brush: "It seems that it is time to end this war."

"Prince, please prepare and have the Ministry of Rites and the Dali Temple send people to Northern Russia together with the Royal Chamber of Commerce."

"The northern Russians have long been unwilling to continue fighting with us, and have sent messages through the Kazakhs many times, hoping to sign a secret ceasefire agreement with Daxia."

Bai Sheng added: "Father, do you think it would be better to send a prince as an envoy to show sincerity?"

"You are right. Let King Tang go there and tell him that buying food is the most important thing. By opening a gap in the east of Xizhou through Northern Russia, we can connect a blood transfusion channel to Daxia."

"I will do it right away."

Just as Bai Sheng was about to get up and go down to do his work, a series of hurried but uniform footsteps suddenly came from the entrance of the hall.

(End of this chapter)