Reborn Ming Dynasty as Emperor

Chapter 392 Let Galileo Come to Ming Dynasty

The middle of the Tianqi Dynasty was another peaceful and warm spring for the people of Ming Dynasty after the Long Wannian, but for the officials and relatives, it was another severe winter after Hongwu Yongle Chenghua Jiajing.

It's not that Zhu Youxiao wants to feel sorry for these bureaucrats. After all, everyone belongs to the ruling class and belongs to the evil vested interests, but what he wants is the long-term legalization of the rule, and these greedy and selfish guys not only The image of ruining his legal rule over the people is now hindering himself from earning money overseas.

Zhu Youxiao will never agree to this anyway. If you want to make money, everyone can make it together, but if you just want to make money for yourself and not let yourself, the emperor, then you, the emperor, can only forcibly deprive you of the legal right to make money .

Uncle Yongning Li Yongqing couldn't stand the interrogation, and soon confessed several relatives of the duke, marquis, and earl, and pulled out radishes and brought out mud, and even a few cabinet scholars and ministers in the court were implicated. .

Only then did Zhu Youxiao understand that many of the civil and military affairs of the Manchu Dynasty were still doing the same things in the dark, but fortunately, when their power was in full swing, these people were only using extraordinary methods against officials who listened to them. There is no such thing as daring to make a fuss about himself as the emperor a few years ago.

But no one is sure, with the development of the situation, will there really be a bold official making a fuss about him? Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but feel a burst of panic. Suddenly, there is no one worthy of his trust in the entire Ming Dynasty.

So what about Li Mingrui, before Jiajing died, Xu Jie was extremely obedient, and his obedience to Jiajing's words was not even inferior to that of Yan Song.

But when Jiajing died, didn't he still play Jiajing?

"Except for Li Jiantai, the Six Ministries, the Nine Ministers, and a few elders who have little to do with the cabinet will be suppressed for the time being, but send a copy of these confessions and materials to each of them, and ask them to write their own defense. If you have a position of power, just cooperate with me honestly and set an example, if you don’t want to spit out what you eat, then let me continue to investigate!"

Zhu Youxiao didn't expect to involve so many officials, but he didn't want to completely collapse his entire bureaucratic system, especially the administrative yamen such as the Six Ministries and the Cabinet. I hate them, but I and even the people of the entire Ming Dynasty can't do without them. Without these hypocritical officials to support the operation of the empire, the connection between the top and bottom of the Ming Dynasty will be completely broken.

Therefore, it is necessary to turn a blind eye and close one eye, and change the strategy.

But what should be deterred still needs to be deterred. Qingliu officials like Li Jiantai have no real value. Naturally, they will be treated as a chicken to make an example of others. .

The death of these people did scare the bureaucrats of the entire Ming Dynasty for a while, and the cabinet and the important ministers of the six ministries involved had to honestly write their own defenses. Zhu Youxiao reviewed how he was behind in his ideological awareness, so that he deviated from the entrustment and teachings of His Majesty the Emperor, and he was sorry for the king and the people.

Now the imperial guards have pacified Wu Xiang and Wu Sangui and his sons, causing the Guanning Army, which has a big tail, to decline, and completely wiped out the Horqin and Khalkha tribes, and now it has even wiped out the Zheng's pirate group. It can be said that in today's In the Ming Dynasty, the Imperial Guard controlled by Zhu Youxiao has become the most powerful deterrent force in the Ming Empire, and it is precisely because of this that Zhu Youxiao can unscrupulously launch the East Factory to severely attack all officials.

But Zhu Youxiao deeply understands that his imperial power is based on the fact that he now controls most of the wealth of Ming Dynasty, instead of the scholar-official class controlling most of the social wealth, so the military power of the entire empire can be controlled by himself Instead of being controlled by the civilian group.

What I do now means that I want to occupy most of the wealth of Daming for a long time. It is foreseeable that most of the income of the Ming treasury in the future will come from sea trade. In fact, the current sea trade has created many wealthy countries. What Zhu Youxiao wants to do is to make this sea trade not just create a few families that are incomparably rich, but to make the country rich, and let these social wealth further promote the development of productive forces, so that The entire Ming Dynasty has entered a virtuous circle of development.

Instead, let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in Ming Dynasty, which made social conflicts sharper, and the court struggled to maintain stability and consumed a lot of wealth, and eventually went bankrupt and was replaced by another regime.

No one dared to raise objections to the imperial court's opening of the sea, nor did they dare to make small moves in secret. Some big merchants along the coast had to accept the imperial court's reform according to the imperial court's arrangement, and paid import and export taxes to the imperial court in a regular manner.

Their backers dare not speak for them anymore, and in order to make money, they can only follow the rules honestly.

The coastline of Daming is very long, and there are still many ports that can be opened in the future, but it is not the real ocean era, and the overseas market has not been fully opened. Basically, the biggest demand for Daming goods is in the Mediterranean area and Western Europe, and the coastal areas are also the most It's North Korea and Japan.

Therefore, it is not realistic to directly open all of them now, but it is necessary to open up military ports in some critical places.

Although the external military pressure of Ming Dynasty still mainly comes from the north, in the long run, if Ming wants to expand its own interests, the main field of competition is the vast ocean. Although there are many Han people in Nanyang, they have not really shown the strength of Ming Dynasty. control and military deterrence.

In addition, there are several restless overseas countries such as Japan and Java, as well as Myanmar.

In addition, the Western powers that have frequently appeared in the Eastern Hemisphere have begun to gradually encroach on the entire world. If Ming Dynasty does not hurry up, it is estimated that in a few years, the entire world will completely become the sphere of influence of the West. For example, America and Australia have not yet fully opened up. area.

Therefore, according to Zhu Youxiao's plan, the navy's military expenditure will continue to increase, and the size of the entire navy will continue to increase. The Daming Ocean School will continue to expand its school scale to meet the talent needs of all parties in the marine industry of the entire Ming Dynasty.

Most of the officers and soldiers of the Ming Navy who took part in the eradication of Zheng’s Pirate Group, especially the experienced officers and soldiers who have participated in many actual combats, were transferred back to the Daming Ocean School for rebuilding, and at the same time recruited many new recruits. cadets, and set up multiple recruitment points along the coast, specializing in the recruitment of naval combat personnel.

Maritime trade in Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong and Guangxi has also begun to enter the stage of national control. Little-known counties such as Xin'an and Shanghai have begun to rise. More and more Chinese and foreign merchant ships have gathered in this area. Kunlun slaves and others began to appear frequently in coastal ports.

The glass, silver mirror, aluminum products, soap and toilet soap of the Royal Industries Company have become best-selling products overseas, and orders have been placed for three years.The Apocalypse-style flintlock guns that the Ordnance Division planned to eliminate were also snapped up, especially in second-rate countries such as Ryukyu, North Korea, and Japan. In addition, some pirates would also come to buy weapons from the Ordnance Division.

Zhu Youxiao is not opposed to selling some weapons of the backward generation to neighboring countries or even his future enemies in the Ming Dynasty. After all, doing so not only makes money but also firmly controls the country's weapon updates in his own hands.

The silk and various styles of garments from the Royal Weaving Bureau also began to be exported in large quantities. Not only these royal capitals, but also various Ming local products such as porcelain from Jingdezhen, cotton cloth from Songjiang, ham from Jinhua, and vinegar from Shanxi. go out.

Zhu Youxiao even encouraged these local officials to develop more local specialties, and encouraged these businessmen to make these local specialties with good reputation into internationally famous commodities.

For this reason, Zhu Youxiao also specially ordered the Ministry of Households to set up a special agency to protect these special products, and also gave certain preferential treatment in tariffs.

Of course, it was not only exported, a large number of Western goods were also brought into Daming on a larger scale than before, not only Western clocks and oil paintings that stunned the people of Ming, but also a large number of academic works with avant-garde ideas.

Zhu Youxiao did not explicitly prohibit the missionaries of the Western Fans from preaching in Daming. As long as these missionaries do not have political purposes, do not interfere in the Ming Dynasty’s government affairs, do not discriminate against other religions, do not engage in religious struggles, and do not force people to join the religion, he can allow them. These missionaries were active in Ming Dynasty and allowed themselves to raise funds to build churches.

But Zhu Youxiao himself was very stingy, and he did not advocate and encourage the central court and local governments to fund the construction of churches for these missionaries, and these missionaries had to use the money they earned to purchase land in the Ming Dynasty and build a series of unique churches. For a time, Gothic buildings sprung up all over Daming.

This also caused changes in the Ming Dynasty's construction industry, and some people began to try to interpret art in a way that combines Chinese and Western styles.

Not only art, but also medicine and other natural sciences have closer exchanges than before. Zhu Youxiao even lured the Italian businessman Montjersey to send Galileo, who was over sixty at this time, with the benefit of reducing the tariff by [-]%. Brought to Daming.

The Italian businessman Monte Jersey didn't know why the emperor of this distant eastern empire would be interested in an old man in his own country who was not liked by the church and had very heretical ideas.

But for the benefit of the tariff concession that can save him a lot of costs, he obediently sent Galileo to Daming. As for the means he used, Zhu Youxiao didn't ask, no matter whether he was kidnapped or invited, as long as this Zhu Youxiao didn't intend to let this scientific master who was recorded in the annals of science and promoted the milestone development of the entire human race set foot on the land of Ming Dynasty.

At this time, Galileo, who had already moved to Florence and was the chief philosopher and scientist of the Grand Duke of Tuscon, was also yearning for the ancient eastern empire recorded in Marco Polo's writings like other Europeans, so when he received Tuscon After being invited by the Grand Duke's friend, the businessman Monte Jersey, he became interested, and after getting a paper on the wave-particle duality of light, he became more determined to go to that distant eastern country.

Although he was curious about whether the Ming Empire was really as rich and equal as the Europa people said in the legend, he never thought about traveling across the ocean to take risks in a country he had never been to when he was over [-] years old. After all, not everyone is willing to stay away from home. of.

And it was precisely this paper on the wave-particle duality of light that aroused his great interest. A master of science all in one, he was also extremely interested in this new perspective on optics.

When Italian businessman Monte Jersey told him that this article was translated from the periodical of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Ming Empire, he couldn't wait to set foot on the legendary sacred land as soon as possible to find the person who could put forward such a novel point of view. people.

Galileo, who had been wandering at sea for several months, took advantage of this time to learn to recognize Chinese characters and master Fengyang Mandarin with the help of Monte Jersey.

As a genius scientist, Galileo's intelligence is still different from ordinary people even though he is over sixty years old. In just a few months, he can easily recognize Chinese characters and read articles with simple meaning. The article, he still has some difficulties.

But after learning about Chinese characters, he still became very interested in the oriental civilization of the Ming Empire. He never thought that this language and writing could still be used to communicate in this world.

Galileo was very excited, he felt that his trip was not in vain, especially when he saw the gates and bucket arches of the entire city of Guangzhou, he was even more surprised that there are such exquisite wooden palaces in this world.

But what he didn't expect was that when he was excitedly listening to Monte Jersey telling himself about the customs and taboos of the Ming Empire, especially the Lingnan area, suddenly a group of flying fish suits appeared at the gate of the city, holding embroidered Chundao's Jinyiwei was headed by Jinyiwei Qianhu, and this Jinyiwei Qianhu walked directly in front of Monte Jersey: "You are Monte Jersey from Italy, right? Your reply to the Taiwanese businessman said you The person His Majesty wants has been invited to Daming, where is this person now!"

At this time, Galileo also guessed that these people might be the knights of the empire. Their clothes were indeed very different, but they were indeed very gorgeous, and their majesty seemed to be a bit more serious than the priests around the Pope.

Galileo always hated this kind of people with authority, so he didn't say anything. He looked at this strange world calmly. His clothes seemed to be more conservative than Italy's, but he was indeed richer than Italy's. It is these buildings and those who seem to have status, the roads are indeed much cleaner.

Monte Jersey stayed in Daming for a long time, but he knew how powerful these Jinyiwei were, so he hurriedly replied in poor Ming official language: "Several poor men, this is Galileo."

Seeing him pointing at a man with a white beard and a slightly flat face next to him, the guard Qianhu waved his hand and said, "Take it!"

So, two Jinyiwei school captains directly grabbed Galileo's shoulders and dragged him directly to Guangzhou City.

(End of this chapter)