I want to be emperor

Chapter 677 The Prince's Marriage
Although Luo Zhixue didn't intentionally try to have more children in the past twenty years, who made him have more concubines?

And these concubines in the harem, whether it is for themselves or for the natal family behind them, most of them want to give birth to a prince, and a mother is more expensive than a child.

Of course, not everyone has this opportunity. After all, there are hundreds of concubines in the Great Chu Empire, but Luo Luo Zhixue only has one.

These hundreds of concubines refer specifically to the women Luo Zhixue favored, and there are more women who have not been favored...

Among so many women, not everyone can be favored by Luo Zhixue, and most of the women who have been favored by Luo Zhixue have only been favored a few times... Can really be favored for a long time, or be favored for a period of time There are actually very few women.

It is actually not easy for those harem concubines who have not been favored frequently to have a child... After all, it is not possible to have a child if they share the same bed, and there is such a saying as the ovulation period.

The time of favoring is wrong, no matter how hard you try, you can't give birth...

Under such circumstances, the proportion of concubines who can conceive in the harem is actually relatively small among so many women in the harem.

And after pregnancy, there are still some people who have miscarriage due to various reasons... Even if the time of childbirth goes smoothly, there are very few people who will have dystocia... Maybe they will die twice.

Considering the current level of medical care, even the princes and daughters of the Great Chu Empire may not be able to grow up smoothly.

Over the years, Luo Zhixue has actually lost quite a few children. Although Luo Zhixue is also heartbroken, medical technology is like this, and he can't do anything about it.

And this, in fact, is the result of his innovation of medical technology, which brought a brand-new scientific medical concept to the Great Chu Empire, and continued to develop for more than ten years.

If it was before the innovation of medical technology, such as during the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that half of these children of Luo Zhixue may not be able to survive to adulthood...

Why is the average life expectancy low in ancient times?

It is not only because of natural disasters and man-made disasters that adults live shortly, but also because of the high mortality rate of children.

An ordinary family raises ten or eight children, but two or three may not survive to adulthood.

Even in the royal family with the best medical security, there are occasional cases where pregnant women die of dystocia and young children die, let alone the folks.

Want to achieve the average life expectancy of the later generations to reach more than seventy years... For the contemporary Great Chu Empire, it is estimated that it will not be seen until Luo Zhixue dies.

After all, Luo Zhixue didn't have any confidence that he could lead the Great Chu Empire to the level of science and technology equivalent to the 21st century when he was alive. After his death, his successors would probably have to devote themselves to the development step by step for many years.

----

Under today's medical conditions, it is not easy for Luo Zhixue to be able to keep more than [-] children.

As the children grow up, the older children will move out one after another, and even start a family.

Especially the prince, according to a series of prince raising and education measures formulated by Luo Zhixue himself, the prince can live with his mother until he is six years old, and there is no schooling... Of course, the concubines are anxious about their children's education, and then educate themselves It is also possible for children to read and write.

After reaching the age of six, they will enter the Royal Lecture School set up in the palace and begin to receive formal royal education. The teachers in the Royal Lecture School are all carefully selected by Luo Zhixue. They are mainly selected from the government-run schools. Top teachers.

It's not like traditional dynasties that directly let court officials be teachers...

After a year of adaptation, at the age of seven, she will start to live and study in the Royal Lecture Hall, and only one day off is allowed to go back to her mother every five days.

Three years later, when the prince reaches the age of ten, he will be crowned prince. At the same time, he will move out of the harem and live in the prince's courtyard on the side of the palace. There are a lot of single-family courtyards for ordinary princes to live in.

At the age of 15, they move out of the Prince's Courtyard, grant a house to open a mansion, and then those who should get married will get married... those who should have a baby will have a baby.

By the way, it is a felony for the prince to leave Beijing (Yingtian Mansion) for fifty miles without reason.

Of course, the prince is an exception!

When the crown prince was ten years old, he moved directly into the East Palace. Although he continued to study in the Royal Lecture School as the crown prince, when he was a little older, he often followed Luo Zhixue to attend government affairs.

But at present, among Luo Zhixue's dozen or so princes, most of them are still young, and only the eldest son of the emperor, Jin Wang Luo Xun, actually came out of the palace to start the mansion.

The only one who got married was Luo Xun, king of Jin. He married the second daughter of Zuo Yingzhe, Duke of Liaoxi, Field Marshal, former Minister of Counseling, and former Minister of the Army Command Department, a year after he left the government, at the age of 16.

Zuo Yingzhe is also one of the only six dukes in the Great Chu Empire. There are only six dukes in the Great Chu Empire. Four of the dukes were enshrined for their meritorious service during the Unification War. , Huang Xiangbin, Duke of Pingnan, and Xu Zhixian, Duke of Jianghan.

Zuo Yingzhe was granted the title of Duke of Liaoxi during the war against captives and became the fifth Duke of the Great Chu Empire.

The last one is Han Ziping, who was granted the title of Marquis very early on, but waited until a few years ago, and organized two successive wars to destroy Zhungeer, and finally won the title of Duke of Xiliang for his achievements in destroying the country.

The six people above are all the top military generals in the Great Chu Empire, and all of them have made great contributions, but they all have one characteristic, that is, they retired from active service after making great achievements...

These six dukes, except for one duke title, basically do not hold real positions now.

This seems to be a bit of a waste of time, but in fact everyone is very satisfied with this, so even the people have to say that Luo Zhixue treats heroes well!

Because in the past 20 years, Luo Zhixue has not raised the butcher's knife against the heroes of the founding of the country... As long as these top generals, mainly the generals above the general level, are smarter and hand over their military power quickly, then Luo Zhixue will usually let them stay in the center for a few years, and give them the title of Minister of Counselor or Co-organizer, so that they can become officials before they become officials. The military rank fulfilled their dream of being a marshal.

Then... just retire and enjoy your glory and wealth!

As for those who refuse to go to Lianzhan, there is naturally no good end, and people who really have such thoughts often cannot climb to the position of general, let alone enter the imperial study room as an extremely human minister.

The early founding heroes wanted to stay in the army all the time, that's okay...but don't expect to be promoted, and don't count on important positions.

Not to mention whether Luo Zhixue is willing or not, even the brigadier generals, major generals, lieutenant generals and even school officials who are waiting for promotion are not willing...

If a large number of generals from the founding period did not withdraw from the front line, how could they still rise to the top?

Who doesn't want to be an admiral, an extremely human minister!
But the position of the general in the Great Chu Empire is so small, and your founding heroes have been occupying it all the time, how do you let the latecomers be promoted...

The most important thing is that these brigadier generals, major generals, and lieutenant generals were killed all the way at the beginning of the unification war, and they were also the founding generals.

Because of many circumstances, in fact, the senior generals of the Great Chu Empire, especially those top generals who have been dukes and marquises, have basically withdrawn from active service.

And these people, along with dozens of other nobles such as earls, also formed the main noble system in the Great Chu Empire.

Note that the nobles of the Great Chu Empire are not just military generals...only the dukes and marquises are military generals, but there are also many civil servants in the titles below the earl.

There are even scientists... There are such things as academic nobles in the Great Chu Empire.

Former dean of the Royal Institute of Technology, now a tenured professor, previously served as the director of the Textbook Department of the Ministry of Rites and Education, the right servant of the Ministry of Rites and Education, the deputy dean of the Royal Institute of Technology, and the dean of the Royal Institute of Technology. Song Yingxing, he was the dean of the Royal Institute of Technology He was appointed earl.

The reason for being awarded the earl is that it has greatly promoted the development of science education in the Great Chu Empire, and greatly promoted the development of scientific research in the empire.

Therefore, the aristocratic group of the Great Chu Empire is relatively complicated. It is not a uniform military general like the Ming Dynasty, but a military general, supplemented by civilian officials, and then there is a noble system composed of a bunch of scientists.

The total number of these nobles is more than 500, including six dukes, 27 marquises, 130 earls, more than 370 viscounts, and thousands of barons.

Finally, there are still a group of lifelong lords who still belong to the ranks of nobles. There are more than 3000 of them for the time being, and the number of people fluctuates greatly, so the conditions for granting titles should be looser.

In addition to civil and military officials and scientists, even civilians who have made outstanding contributions can be awarded the title of Lord.

The most famous of them should belong to the founder of Luo Hua Shipyard, who supervised Luo Hua. He made a lot of contributions on the ribbed wood-hulled ship, so this person was canonized as a lord in the 17th year of Chengshun.

There is also Li Songyin, the current patriarch of the Li family iron and steel industry. The reason for this person to be named a lord is convincing... People can't find any faults... This person has been obsessed with charity in the past ten years, actively donating money and donating money. He donated 15 Chu yuan in one breath before the severe drought in Jiangxi.

Over the years, the cumulative donations of cash and materials are estimated to exceed one million Chu Yuan.

This is not 21 million yuan in the 100st century, but 100 million Chu yuan in the [-]th century. This is an era when the monthly salary of ordinary workers is only two or three yuan!
But this Li Songyin has donated millions of Chu Yuan... Because of this, Luo Zhixue gave him the title of Lord without hesitation after learning about it.

Although Li Songyin may have given these meals in the first place to gain a good reputation, or more to complete some political tasks...but the money he paid was real.

If other people are not convinced, if you have the ability, you can donate millions of Chu Yuan for disaster relief, bridge repairs and pavement, so Luo Zhixue will definitely give you a lord.

Whether the above-mentioned top-level nobles, ordinary nobles, or life-long nobles, they all formed the noble system in the Great Chu Empire.

The marriage partners of Luo Zhixue's princes and daughters were mainly selected from these nobles.

There are many nobles who came to visit the train test today, and there are also many unmarried noble children who accompanied them. The Queen wanted to choose a few suitable people to come out.

Especially to choose a suitable concubine for her own son, Luo Zhixue's eldest son, Luo Ji, the Eastern Palace Crown Prince of the Great Chu Empire.

Donggong is 16 years old this year, but the candidate for the crown princess has not been finalized. This matter makes the queen a little anxious.

But there is no good way to be anxious. After all, her son is not an ordinary prince, but the national capital of the Great Chu Empire. The one to choose is not an ordinary prince and concubine, but the princess of the Eastern Palace, the future mother of the empire.

But you have to be careful.

Queen Wang also took a fancy to the daughters of several families before, but Luo Zhixue personally vetoed them all. What a joke, one of these women counts as one, and they are all daughters of top civil servants, although Luo Zhixue is not very worried The civil servants are in trouble, the relatives are in turmoil, and so on, and they are willing to let their prince marry a real top-notch scholarly daughter, but the problem is that they must also be willing to marry!

Luo Zhixue didn't even need to ask, he knew that those co-organizing ministers, ministers of counselors, and top-notch scholarly families who were already high-ranking ministers immediately dared to bump into the hall to death when they heard that their daughters were going to be princesses. .

Because their daughter married the prince on the front foot, they had to beg for bones on the back foot.

In order to prevent foreign relatives from interfering in politics, Luo Zhixue generally does not reuse foreign relatives. The natal families of those concubines have never held positions above the third rank, and the fourth rank is their limit.
And Queen Wang actually wants to be in-laws with the top civil servants of the empire, which is tantamount to asking people to beg for bones!

Compared with her daughter becoming a crown princess and the future Empress Dong, her own political ambitions are obviously more important.

This is also some secular concept passed down from the Ming Dynasty, that is, civil servants with a bit of political ambition basically disdain to marry the royal family...or dare not!

Anyway, if you marry a daughter on the front foot, you have to beg for bones on the back foot, or go to the clan's mansion to work, most of them are still not happy!

This dragged on, and the candidate for the crown princess was dragged down, but the queen was also in a hurry...

So on such a big occasion today, there were many unmarried children of the rich and powerful, and while the Queen Wang was taking many women's family members to watch the train test, while talking, she also looked at the many unmarried daughters of the rich and powerful who brought over.

While watching it, I secretly wrote it down to see whose daughter is suitable.

This time, Queen Wang learned to be smart, but she didn't look for the daughters of those top civil servants... No, to be precise, they didn't bring their daughters here either.

Instead, they set their sights on middle-level officials and military generals and dignitaries.

She is counting on finding a few good candidates for daughter-in-law today.

By the way, I also chose one or two for the other older princes and princesses.

Time passed gradually, and when it was noon, the Imperial Luncheon began.

The one behind was still presided over by the Queen, leading a group of female relatives to dine, while in the front was Luo Zhixue, who was highly skilled, accompanied by a group of dignitaries.

At the same time, Wu Pengyou, the person in charge of the high-pressure steam engine project and the train project, was co-organized by Guangzhou Machinery Company.

Unlike other important ministers who were more open-minded, Wu Pengyou ate today's lunch full of joy and restraint at the same time.

After all, he had never participated in such a high-level banquet in his life, even though officials from the Ministry of Etiquette and Education had already added to him the corresponding etiquette for giving a banquet in advance to avoid being impolite.

But he was still very nervous about eating, so that he couldn't eat much after lunch. He hadn't really eaten a few mouthfuls, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Luo Zhixue above him had put down the bowl and chopsticks, took Get up the teacup!
This also hastily put down the bowls and chopsticks, at this moment Luo Zhixue said: "Wu Aiqing, don't worry, eat slowly, eat more!"

Wu Pengyou was a little apprehensive, so he said directly, "Minister obeys the order", and then hurriedly lowered his head to eat...

This obviously followed Luo Zhixue's words as a will. Luo Zhixue was a little speechless about this, but he didn't say much. He could understand the nervousness of Wu Pengyou, a mid-level technical bureaucrat, when he was called over to have dinner with Yuqian.

But being able to say don't rush and eat slowly is already the limit of what Luo Zhixue can do, he can't really offer a few words of comfort, isn't it...

Wu Pengyou ate a few more mouthfuls in a hurry, and after the surrounding courtiers put down their bowls and chopsticks one after another, he also put down the bowls and chopsticks in a hurry.

At this time, he actually ate a third of his full...

In fact, not only him, but even other important ministers who are familiar with Luo Zhixue and often receive banquets, few of them dare to eat seriously in such a formal banquet... Most of them are Eat whatever you want.

So except for Luo Zhixue and the accompanying prince, the eldest son of the emperor and a few others, no one else had eaten too much.

Of course, these people basically have experience, and they often come here after eating some snacks in advance and stuffing their stomachs. After the banquet is over, some people will go back and eat something in private.

If you really want to treat this kind of banquet given by the imperial court as an ordinary banquet, and eat and drink freely, then you are a big fool, because no one else has let go of eating, and you are the only one who really eats. Isn't it different from ordinary people? ...

It is the most taboo thing to be in the officialdom.

Your Majesty will not have any opinions on you, but other courtiers may have opinions... I only ate a few mouthfuls, why do you dare to eat so much?
Luo Zhixue is well aware of this, but he won't say anything specifically, anyway, whether you like to eat or not... Anyway, you can't starve these top dignitaries of the empire.

After the waiters took away the food and each had a cup of Panhou tea, Luo Zhixue chatted with the few courtiers who were closer to him.

Unlike the chat before the luncheon, where only the ministers of affairs participated, it was said to be chat, but in fact it was just to discuss national policy. This time the chat was real chat.

The few ministers around him are also nobles, mainly the dukes, marquises, and Luo Zhixue are now chatting with Zuo Yingzhe about their children and grandchildren.

After his eldest son King Jin married Zuo Yingzhe's second daughter, that princess is now pregnant. If there is no accident, Luo Zhixue's first grandson or granddaughter will come to this world this year.

Although many sons and daughters were born, this was the first time for grandchildren, so Luo Zhixue still paid a lot of attention.

And Zuo Yingzhe is also looking forward to this grandson or granddaughter. Although the eldest son of the emperor, King Jin, is just the eldest son and has no chance of being crowned prince, everyone knows that His Majesty loves this eldest son very much. King Jin was very fond of Luo Zhixue when he was young. love.

In addition, King Jin himself is also a docile person, who treats his wife very well, and treats Zuo Yingzhe, the father-in-law, well.

Therefore, Zuo Yingzhe is also very concerned about the emperor's eldest son and his wife.

After chatting about the grandchildren with Zuo Yingzhe, the in-laws of his son and daughter, Luo Zhixue chatted with other people, and they also talked about commonplace things.

After chatting for a while, Luo Zhixue looked up at Wu Pengyou who was near the outside, and said, "Wu Aiqing, come forward!"

Wu Pengyou immediately stepped forward to salute: "The minister is here!"

Luo Zhixue said: "Don't be too cautious, it's a good thing!"

Luo Zhixue smiled as he spoke, and the important officials of the empire around him also all smiled.

During the chat just now, Luo Zhixue had already told these people that he would confer a title on Wu Pengyou later.

This is also the practice of the empire, and some scientists who have made significant contributions in the field of scientific research are knighted.

Seeing His Majesty and several other important officials of the empire looking at him with smiles on their faces, Wu Pengyou vaguely guessed something even though he was a little nervous.

It must be because he successfully developed the high-pressure steam engine and the train, and then rewarded himself.

So, I couldn't help but look forward to it.

Luo Zhixue didn't keep Wu Pengyou waiting too long, and immediately said: "I have always said that we must attach importance to scientific development and improve the treatment of scientific talents. In the past, many academic nobles were conferred. Today you made a high-pressure steam engine and The train, then it should also be blocked!"

Speaking of this, he paused for a while before he said loudly: "The decree is that Wu Pengyou has made great achievements in the research and development of high-pressure steam engines, trains and state-owned enterprises. He will be specially named the Earl of the Empire, and will be given a house and rewarded with a reward of [-] yuan."

The first secretary of the Secretariat of the Imperial Academy, who was on duty today, immediately came out and said, "I obey the order!"

The formal canonization process is naturally not just a few words, but also a formal canonization decree, and then registered in the book, etc., and these things will naturally be handled by the Imperial Academy and the Ministry of Rites and Education.

But Jinkou Yuyan, Luo Zhixue said directly today, then Wu Pengyou's status as earl is already confirmed, and after hearing that he was made an earl, Wu Pengyou was still a little stunned.

He had expected that he would be knighted, but he didn't expect that an earl would come directly in one breath. He thought it might be a lord, or even a baron or even a viscount.

count?He really didn't dare to think about it before!

But Wu Pengyou didn't dare to think about it, it didn't mean that Luo Zhixue couldn't be sealed.

In Luo Zhixue's view, the high-pressure steam engine, as well as the trains and ships that continued to develop, produced a huge strategic role that surpassed a million troops.

As the direct person in charge of the high-pressure steam engine project, Wu Pengyou can afford this treatment.

Of course, it is more to express an attitude to the outside world, that is, the empire and Luo Zhixue attach great importance to the development of scientific research.

Luo Zhixue just wants to tell those scientific talents to do research well and achieve great results, and reach the pinnacle of life in minutes!
In order to promote the development of science, there is nothing more straightforward than directly raising the treatment of scientists in all aspects.

After the news of Wu Pengyou becoming the earl spread, I am afraid that the students who apply for the Royal Institute of Technology this year will have a lot more to go, and will provide the empire with a large number of potential scientific talent seedlings.

(End of this chapter)