Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 354
"What idiots did this again?!"

In Xiaoyongfang, when Shi Fenglai, who was in the mansion, questioned the head of the mansion in front of him regardless of his posture, the head of the mansion could only bite the bullet and answer:
"It's Cui Chengxiu and Zhao Xingbang, Zhang Yandeng, Xu Shaoji, Shang Zhouzuo, Yu Shi Luo Yuzeng, Guo Tingxun, Fang Zhuangli, Mou Zhikui and others..."

"A bunch of idiots!" Hearing these names, Shi Fenglai yelled, but at this time, another steward from outside the study came in, bowed and said:
"Sir, Yao Duge and Feng Duge sent people to ask about the news from the inner court that Yanshan officials had learned."

"Tell them the names of those idiots, tell them to break up with each other early, and don't get burned." Shi Fenglai suppressed his anger, but after the two managers left, he felt uneasy.

He walked around in the study, and after thinking that he was not involved in this matter, and he had not accepted bribes from those people on weekdays, he slowly relaxed.

"Tell other people not to stir up trouble at such a juncture!"

Shi Fenglai spoke to the third-in-charge at the door, who also responded with courtesy, and then sent someone to notify the officials at all levels.

But even so, Shi Fenglai was still worried, for fear that someone would implicate him, so after weighing it, he decided to ask the officials for ten days of sick leave and close the house.

After Yao Zongwen saw what Shi Fenglai did, he immediately started to follow suit...

"Two idiots..."

In the study room in the courtyard of Nanxunfang, Feng Quan, who learned about what Shi Fenglai and Yao Zongwen did, couldn't help cursing.

"Sir, what should we do now?" The person in charge standing in front of Feng Quanshu's desk asked, but Feng Quan thought for a while before saying:

"Don't do anything for now, this matter has nothing to do with us, and those idiots can't implicate me."

"Let the people in my hometown be more careful in doing things recently, and then deal with the officials in Zhuozhou, so as not to give Jin Yiwei a chance to frame me."

After finishing the arrangement, Feng Quan felt something was wrong again, and then he couldn't bear to say:

"You send my favorite collection to Cui Yingyuan, the Fusi of Nanzhen, and then explain clearly what happened."

"Is...that collection going to be given away?" The manager couldn't believe it, but Feng Quan waved his hand and said:

"Send it out before I regret it."

"This...is..." The manager had no choice but to agree, and then turned around to arrange the things Feng Quan arranged.

After staying up all night, when the morning bell rang, the director took a long brocade box to Cui Yingyuan's mansion, left his belongings and a handwritten letter and left in a hurry.

After finally waiting until noon, Cui Yingyuan was busy returning to the mansion, but after opening the handwritten book and his things, he hurried to Qi Wang's mansion with his things in his arms.

An hour later, when Cui Yingyuan reappeared, he was already sitting in Zhu Youjian's study in Prince Qi's Mansion.

On Zhu Youjian's desk were the brocade box and handwriting given to him by Feng Quan.

He sat upright, even though there was no one in the study, he didn't dare to neglect at all.

Until footsteps sounded outside the study after a cup of tea, Cui Yingyuan stood up immediately, and Zhu Youjian also walked into the house with Li Dingguo who was following him.

"Tell me, what did Feng Quan send you to scare you like this."

Zhu Youjian walked to the main seat in the hall and sat down instead of sitting in the study.

"This..." Cui Yingyuan glanced at the brocade box and calligraphy on the study desk, and Zhu Youjian also patted the back of Li Dingguo who was standing next to him after seeing it:
"Go, help Gu get the things."

"Hey!" Hearing this, Li Dingguo trotted over with his calves, and came back holding the brocade box and calligraphy.

Zhu Youjian took it, and then slowly opened the brocade box.

Hidden in the box was a long post, and when Zhu Youjian opened the long post with curiosity, the content revealed only confused Zhu Youjian for a few seconds, and then he smiled:

"Wang Xizhi's "Quick Snow and Sunny Posts", he is really willing to pay for it!"

With that said, Zhu Youjian carefully placed the long post on the table, while Cui Yingyuan lowered his head and said:
"I didn't expect that he would give such a big gift to this martial artist."

"Giving gifts is not what he likes. It seems that he can't come up with a better gift." Zhu Youjian opened the handwritten letter that Feng Quan asked to give to Cui Yingyuan.

In the handwriting, Feng Quan cryptically mentioned what happened, and there were many contents of blaming himself.

Zhu Youjian looked at the handwriting and smiled, raised his head and said to Cui Yingyuan:

"Since it is given to you, you should accept it first."

"Don't you clean up Feng Quan and the others?" Cui Yingyuan was puzzled, while Zhu Youjian took the tea cup handed over by Li Dingguo, took a sip and said:
"Of course we have to arrest him. If we don't arrest him, wouldn't it be saying that my Ming Dynasty has no justice?"

"It's just that the arrest is not the arrest now, the person who is the mastermind of this matter must be arrested now."

"Feng Quan, Yao Zongwen and others will be kept temporarily. If we don't arrest them now, we will let them take money from the people below."

"When they have a big belly after eating, let them spit out every cent of the money they ate into their stomachs."

"By the way, let someone monitor them. Who are the officials who gave them money?"

"I know the humble post, but this post is expensive, and the humble post is vulgar and I don't understand it. It's better to stay here with Your Highness." Cui Yingyuan knows how to borrow flowers to offer Buddha.

Facing his borrowing flowers to offer Buddha, Zhu Youjian said without any burden:

"I've left the post. The Turpan Khanate sent two hard-earned horses before. The Yumajian bred more than [-] horses. I'll send you one as an exchange."

"Thank you, Your Highness!" Cui Yingyuan was quite happy when he heard that this post could be exchanged for a bloody BMW.

For people like him, "Quick Snow and Sunshine Post" is no different from ordinary calligraphy and painting, on the contrary, sweaty horses are more attractive.

"Get back..." Zhu Youjian said.

"Retire from humble office."

Cui Yingyuan responded, and then slowly exited the meeting hall of the study.

"Bring the things to Cheng En and let him put them away properly."

After he left, Zhu Youjian gave Li Dingguo an order, and Li Dingguo also put away the "Quick Snow and Sunshine Post" and ran towards the outer court of the palace with him in his arms.

Zhu Youjian took a sip of tea, then got up, walked to the desk and sat down.

After Zhu Youxiao ordered the memorials of the four departments and other yamen to be distributed, the memorials that had been piled up nearly two feet high every day were only less than one and a half feet left.

Although the height was only reduced by half a foot, it saved an hour of processing time.

Next, Zhu Youjian only needs to wait for Cao Huachun to go north, and the daily time for processing memorials can be reduced to six hours.

The time of working sixteen hours a day is finally gone forever. Although it is still zero and seven, at least it is much more relaxed.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian also started to deal with it book by book.

His speed is very fast, it can even be said to be faster than most emperors.

Li Dingguo had only gone for a quarter of an hour, and when he came back, Zhu Youjian had already processed more than a dozen memorials.

"Do your homework, don't play around..."

When Li Dingguo's footsteps sounded, Zhu Youjian reminded him just as he stepped into the study.

Facing the reminder, his original smile immediately became sad.

The distance of seven or eight steps from the desk made him walk out of the feeling of parting from life and death.

After finally sitting on the chair, I picked up the copybooks and started to practice calligraphy.

Two copybooks per day, the contents of the copybooks are "Military Training Chapter" and "Weijiang Chapter" in "Ji Xiao Xinshu", which can practice calligraphy and learn the art of war.

Needless to say, only Zhu Youjian can think of such a "homework".

He was in the main seat of the study to deal with the memorandum, and Li Dingguo was writing posts beside him. It was the fourth quarter of the Shenshi hour from the beginning of time. After an hour and a half passed, Li Dingguo put down his pen:
"Your Highness, I have finished writing."

"Then go and play..." Zhu Youjian didn't raise his head, but after Li Dingguo responded, he propped his chin with his hands, looked at Zhu Youjian, and fell into a daze.

He was stunned for a cup of tea before Zhu Youjian realized something was wrong, raised his head and asked with some doubts: "What are you doing here?"

"It's too cold, and it's no fun to go out. Why don't you rub against the fire wall at His Highness's place." As soon as Li Dingguo opened his mouth, Zhu Youjian couldn't hold back:
"The mansion has not treated you badly. Go back to your room and clean up the fire wall yourself."

"I have to hold the firewood myself..." Li Dingguo muttered in a low voice, then immediately got up and ran out of the house, for fear of being caught by Zhu Youjian and preaching for a while after running late.

"..." Looking at the back of Li Dingguo running out, Zhu Youjian shook his head, then lowered his head and continued to deal with the memorial.

Among the memorabilia, most of them are the five military commanders' mansions, which battalion soldiers need to add cotton clothes, or replace knives and guns, and some operating conditions of the imperial store and shipyard under the Yumajian.

For Zhu Youjian, handling memorials is like managing a big family.

There are parents-in-law to be filial, there are wives in the middle who have to take care of them, there are so many children to work on, and there are a group of snakes, insects, rats and ants who are always watching.

It's just that even though his fate is like this, there are still people who want to make him unstable and find him something to do.

Footsteps sounded, and it seemed that every time footsteps appeared, it would bring some bad news.

Zhu Youjian had just sorted out half of the memorial, so he put the memorial aside, leaned on the chair and closed his eyes to rest.

After a while, footsteps came into the study, but the visitor didn't speak, as if he was worried that Zhu Youjian would disturb him if he fell asleep.

"Tell me, what happened..."

Zhu Youjian closed his eyes and opened his mouth, and Lu Wenzhao who appeared in the study also bowed and said:

"The news about the vassal king's affairs about the vassal spread to Xiaoxiyang and Tianzhu. The governors and merchants of European countries who were engaged in the spice trade there were very dissatisfied. Huang Fei who was stationed in Xiaoxiyang sent a message to the governor of Huanglong, and the governor of Huanglong asked His Highness for instructions."

"What are you asking for..." Zhu Youjian knew what Huang Long wanted to ask, but he still asked.

Lu Wenzhao didn't understand the meaning, but just responded: "The governor of Huanglong asked if he wanted to give this group of people some trouble."

"Give them a hard time, are you sure it's not for the court?" Zhu Youjian's rhetorical question made Lu Wenzhao puzzled, and Zhu Youjian immediately said:

"Shen Tingyang has gone to school too..."

"Returning to Your Highness, it's time to go to the Shangshu, but the content of the Shangshu is to ask Long Live to suspend the surrender of the feudal vassals, or to prepare for a sudden drop in foreign trade taxes."

As Lu Wenzhao said, he also took out two memorials, carefully placed them on the table, and added:

"Minister Shen said that if the two go to war, the Shibo Department will drop at least 100 million taels of tariffs, and Huangdian will suffer losses of about 300 million taels of orders."

"The war has begun. Counting the orders from the Shanghai merchants, the imperial court will suffer at least 460 million taels of silver."

"Minister Shen said that even if you want to fight, you have to wait five months to let the imperial stores and sea merchants sell the goods first..."

"..." After Lu Wenzhao finished speaking, Zhu Youjian remained silent, and after a while he said:
"Shen Tingyang's words must be reasonable. The imperial court is now overcoming difficulties. The imperial court cannot bear the loss of 460 million taels of silver."

"Tell Shen Tingyang and Huang Long, is it possible for the king to lead the land, all the officials of the Ming Dynasty are members of the court, so I just said this alone..."

"In addition, ask Huanglong to transfer all the troops to the Xiaoxiyang Supervision Commissioner, and the Huangdian will help deliver the gunpowder."

"Tell Shen Tingyang to let the imperial stores and sea merchants sell their goods early, suspend trade with European countries, and tell them after the goods are emptied that the imperial court will recover the official factories established in Tianzhu during the Yongle period."

Guanchang was a temporary trading post set up by Zheng He when he visited the West during the Yongle period of Ming Dynasty.

As shown in "Zheng He's Nautical Chart", Zheng He was in Manchuka (Malacca), Sumatra (Sumatra Island), Guri (Calicut in the south of Tianzhu), and Hulumos (Persian Hormuz) Establish an official factory.

The official factory has a fence outside and a warehouse inside to store money and food, and collect goods for sorting and transshipment.

This official factory, Zhu Youjian can say that it is only as big as a city, or it can be said that it covers the entire Tianzhu.

Specifically, the right to interpret belongs to Daming. After all, the Tubang and Mughals in Tianzhu do not understand this period of history.

"Your Highness, if you say so, I am afraid that the news will be leaked to the southern states and the Mughals in the north."

Lu Wenzhao was a little worried, but Zhu Youjian shook his head and said:

"So what about leaks?"

"How many ships are there in Tianzhu from the European countries? How many ships are there in the Mughals and the southern states?"

"This..." Lu Wenzhao paused, thought for a while before remembering, bowed and said:
"There are about three hundred ships, and the total number of materials is about [-]."

"Twelve Navy Guards, how much material do you have now?" Zhu Youjian asked again.

"120 warships, and another 800 supply ships, totaling about [-]..." Lu Wenzhao couldn't hold back when he opened his mouth.

Zhu Youjian leaned on the chair and asked Lu Wenzhao:

"How dare warships from various countries with less than one-tenth of the number of cannons that I expected in the Ming Dynasty dare to act presumptuously in our Daming Sea?"

"Tell the countries that if they want to do business, we can continue to open the Shibo Department. Even after the Tianzhu Coast is taken, the spices will be sold at the previous price."

"But if they are still stubborn, then the country will only have twelve guards, and the eight fleets will wipe out Xiaoxiyang!"

Saying that, Zhu Youjian didn't care and said:
"How many troops can the southern states and Mughals have? 30? Or 40?"

"If the current 32 Arch Guard Battalion can't win Tianzhu, then transfer the 120 Arch Guard Battalion and the [-] Arch Guard Battalion."

Zhu Youjian was not in the mood to argue with the Europeans, and what he said about the division of land among the vassals during the court meeting a few days ago was not a joke.

The vassals will not be foolish to hand over more than 4000 million mu of land. The premise of their handing over the land is that Zhu Youjian has done a lot of preparatory work and promised that the war between the vassals will start next year.

If there is a delay, let alone the decline of the imperial court's prestige in the various vassals, the delay of the 32 battalion soldiers and horses alone will be fatal.

Xiao Xiyang can be self-sufficient, and what he has to do now is to send troops to feed back Daming's finances by fighting to support war.

Only when there is enough gold and silver fed back to the imperial court by the wars of the feudal clans, can the Ming Dynasty appease the victims and at the same time pacify the Jianlu.

He will see the heads of Huang Taiji and Nurhachi within two years...

The Ming Dynasty sent troops from the old port, but the distance from the sea was only ten thousand miles away, but if Europa wanted to send troops to intervene, it would have to cross the entire African coastline.

If they really dared to send troops, Zhu Youjian would not mind selling hundreds of thousands of catties of gunpowder to the Ottoman Empire, and even trained a black army for the Ottoman Empire.

Presumably the young sultan of Ottoman now wants to have an armed force of his own to check and balance the country and fight against Persia, Hungary and Shinra.

"Is there anything else?"

Zhu Youjian looked at Lu Wenzhao and asked, and Lu Wenzhao also said:

"One thing, Yan Siqi is going to launch the Northern Expedition on the seventeenth day of the first lunar month, and recover the prefecture area planned by His Highness by the end of next year."

It was rare to hear good news, Zhu Youjian changed his sitting position, and then said:

"Nearly one-third of the population of Yingzhou is in the prefecture, so tell Yan Siqi to prepare well."

"Yes..." Lu Wenzhao responded, and Zhu Youjian asked after seeing this:
"Has there been any transfers over the past few days at Jianlu?"

"Apart from stationing troops for defense, there is no mobilization, but..." Lu Wenzhao glanced at Zhu Youjian before saying:

"They have not given up letting some Han Chinese slaves go to North Korea, and then try to bypass North Korea and return to our dynasty to steal the technology of Yanshan artillery."

"According to the people captured in Jingcheng, Jianlu can basically be self-sufficient with sweet potatoes, but their food output is declining every year."

"Last year, there were five shi per mu of sweet potatoes, but this year it is only about four shi and six dou."

Zhu Youjian was very interested in Lu Wenzhao's words, and he said with great interest:
"It looks like they got sweet potatoes, and now that they have no more food problems, they are thinking of sticking around in exchange for time..."

Zhu Youjian let out a sneer, because he knew that even if there were sweet potatoes and potatoes, the food production in all places would decrease in the face of the cold wave where the temperature in the Little Glacier suddenly dropped.

The reduction in food production resulted in an internal famine.

Whenever a famine breaks out in a country, the solution is to expand the effective land outwards to obtain new means of production and production resources.

The Little Ice Age was not only aimed at Ming Dynasty, but also at all countries in the world.

The current European countries, if nothing else, should also be staged the scene of the Great Famine.

The reason why most of Europe can survive the Little Ice Age is also because Europe has begun to plunder the colonies of the world.

Although European countries, especially those in the Nordic region, are close to the Arctic Circle, they should have been most severely affected by the Little Ice Age.

However, since Europe at that time mainly concentrated its human and material resources on foreign aggression, the reduction in local food and fishery production did not have much impact on Europe.

The land that can be occupied in East Asia at the moment has been recovered by Ming Dynasty one by one, and the remaining countries are also vassal states of Ming Dynasty.

For these vassal states, Ming can help them survive the famine, and will also use their food to help Daming survive the famine.

Therefore, countries close to Ming Dynasty can survive, but if countries and tribes like Waikalkha, Jianlu, Lindan Khan, and Oala do not maintain their aggression and obtain new means of production, they will have to wait for their population to drop sharply .

Zhu Youjian was not sure if there were any disasters in the Heilongjiang area in the late Ming Dynasty, but even if there were no disasters, Jianlu could not withstand the cold winter.

You must know that even the Beishan Jurchens living in Eastern Siberia chose to go south in large numbers during the Little Ice Age. This is one of the reasons why Tsarist Russia was able to easily occupy Eastern Siberia.

It is so cold, if the temperature in the north drops by three or four degrees, the yield of sweet potatoes and potatoes will decrease by [-]% to [-]%.

This is not the most frightening thing, the most frightening thing is that like Jianlu, planting sweet potatoes and potatoes in patches, once the two crops get sick, what you get will be flakes and flakes.

When it comes to extinction...

Zhu Youjian thought of a good way, which is to artificially collect fungi and let Jianlu meet a great famine.

This method can not only target Jianlu, but also target other countries, but it is somewhat difficult.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian told Lu Wenzhao:
"Go and ask Cheng'en if any potato and sweet potato fields in various places have been infected and died of germs, and then ask someone to clarify the difference between Jianlu's method of growing potatoes and sweet potatoes and ours."

"By the way, remember to continue to ask Beizhen Fusi to explore the information on the Western Regions and Wusi Tibet. It may be useful after the Jianlu is suppressed."

"Yes!" Lu Wenzhao responded, and then slowly exited the study.

After he quit, Zhu Youjian began to recall the spread of crop germs.

However, he didn't have much research on this aspect. Instead of studying this, it's better to see that Jianlu's cultivation methods are different from those of Ming people.

After all, in his impression, the degradation of potatoes has a lot to do with the cultivation methods of potatoes.

Because potatoes are planted using tubers as seeds for reproduction, which is actually asexual reproduction, and the defects or viruses of the mother will be inherited by the offspring, and the cumulative reduction in production over multiple generations is obvious.

In this day and age, it is not surprising that potato yields are reduced if there is no artificial means of detoxification.

Moreover, even if the virus is detoxified artificially, the potato production in this era will never be reduced.

Unless Jianlu has the professionally detoxified potato seeds of later generations, the outcome of reduced production will be unavoidable.

Even the current Daming actually needs to keep changing varieties, selecting and breeding to maintain the 3000 million mu of potatoes.

As for sweet potatoes, if you don’t replace them with new varieties when planting sweet potatoes, the virus will continue to accumulate in the sweet potatoes, which will aggravate the disease from generation to generation, resulting in the degradation of the species and the deterioration of the quality.

Generally speaking, such a result will lead to a reduction of [-]% to [-]% of the yield of sweet potatoes, and in the worst case, sweet potatoes may even lose their ability to form potatoes.

Detoxification and replanting are the best ways to treat all root crops. Jianlu's productivity and technology determine that they cannot have chemical fertilizers and breeding capabilities.

At this time, if the fungus starts to spread in Jianlu's cultivated land, the situation will be very interesting.

But no matter how interesting it is, it is not as interesting as the current raid on the homes of officials from the Zhejiang Party and the Eunuch Party...

(End of this chapter)