Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 552
"Sell newspapers and sell newspapers! King Qi hunts for the Son of Heaven, patrolling the three provinces of Shanxi!"

"Sell the newspaper, sell the newspaper!"

"Give me one!"

"I also want!"

The 17 years of Apocalypse passed quickly, but they also passed in a hurry. After a short rest, Zhu Youjian chose to visit the three provinces of Shanxi on behalf of the emperor on the [-]th day of the first lunar month.

Almost in the early morning of the day he chose to leave, the National News Bureau, which had been prepared early, ordered the "Da Ming Pao" to publish the news of Zhu Youjian's tour.

Such publication seems stupid, because it exposed Zhu Youjian's itinerary, but such a thing was ordered by Zhu Youjian.

The reason why he made such a high profile is to tell the officials of the three provinces that he is going on a tour, and you all should be careful.

The second is to tell the people that he is going on a tour, and he is "hunting on behalf of the emperor", and the emperor cares about the people very much.

Third, it is also to attract the attention of officials in the DPRK and China, and to share the attention of the Yanshan faction in the temple in a disguised form.

After all, there are not a few Yanshan officials in the three provinces. If anyone makes a mistake and causes some scandal, then the Yanshan faction will be involved in bad luck.

Therefore, although the Yanshan officials in the court were in the capital, they had to focus on the prefectures and counties where Zhu Youjian was about to tour.

"King Qi hunts on behalf of the Son of Heaven, and I don't know if he will pass by us."

"It should be. Pingyang Mansion is the closest place to Shaanxi."

"It's not certain, what if His Highness takes the Beijing-West Railway to the north?"

"Anyway, just wait, let His Highness take a look, the price of food is so high, how can we survive?"

"That's it!"

The people of Pingyang Prefecture in Shanxi are complaining in various counties. Like them, there are people from all over the three provinces of Shanxi.

They all think they're having a hard time because it's true.

Man is a compromised creature, but he is also an insatiable creature.

Perhaps in the eyes of others, the three provinces of Shanxi have experienced severe drought for many years, and it is considered good to have food to eat right now.

But for the people in the three provinces of Shanxi, due to the liberalization of the household registration system and the railway, many people have gone to the neighboring provinces to work and earn a living. Therefore, they have tasted the sweetness of low prices in other places, so they feel that they are living a hard life.

In the final analysis, these are caused by the people wanting Zhu Youjian to see their lives.

However, to the disappointment of the people of Pingyang Mansion, Pingyang Mansion is not in the first few stops of Zhu Youjian's inspection site.

"Xuanfu, Shuofang, Ningxia, Lintao, Liangzhou, Ganzhou, Suzhou, Fengxiang, Xi'an, Pingyang, Taiyuan, Datong, Shuntian..."

"Father, is this the route we're going?"

On the train, when Zhu Cihong and his three younger brothers asked Zhu Youjian by pointing to the words on the map, Zhu Youjian, who was sitting next to him and read the newspaper, also put down the newspaper and smiled at them: "Well... ..."

Maybe it's because he has been working for too long. When Zhu Youjian no longer needs to work, he doesn't know what to do anymore.

This feeling is somewhat similar to the confusion after the resignation carnival in the previous life. The difference is that Zhu Youjian knows that he is taking a short break, and there is still a long way for him to go in the future.

"Woooo-"

The sudden sound of the whistle brought Zhu Youjian back to reality. He looked at the four boys lying on the table looking at the map, and it was hard to hide the smile on his face.

He was just about to continue reading the newspaper, when Zhou Sujie, who was wearing normal clothes, also walked over from the door of another carriage.

She took two maidservants with her, and the maidservants were holding a wooden plate with several bowls of glutinous rice balls on it.

"Your Highness, the breakfast is simple..."

Zhou Sujie saluted respectfully, but Zhu Youjian smiled when he heard the words, and helped her to sit beside him.

"I want to eat glutinous rice balls!"

"I also want!"

"Save me a bowl!"

The four little ones heard that there were glutinous rice balls, so they quickly got up to take the glutinous rice balls, and ate them with sweetness in their mouths.

Zhou Sujie and Zhu Youjian also enjoyed the glutinous rice balls, but they both looked at the receding scenery outside the car window.

The speed of traveling eighty miles per hour is not fast, but the stability of the train and the glass windows provide people with a chance to enjoy the scenery.

The train was driving slowly on the wilderness heading to Zhangjiakou. Zhu Youjian and Zhou Sujie were sitting by the window, with endless mountains in their eyes.

Since the fourth year of the Apocalypse ordered the prohibition of large-scale felling of trees, and replaced some punishments that required slapping boards and whips to planting trees, some sparse trees and small forests began to appear in the northern border of the Ming Dynasty.

This kind of scene has become more and more since the northern captives were completely driven to Mobei.

Many cities have planted many small saplings outside the bare city, but it is a pity that due to the severe drought that lasted for nearly ten years, many small saplings could not survive after planting.

Of course, those are Shanxi and Shaanxi. Compared with these two places, Xuanfu is still slightly "humid".

The water drawn from Yanshan Mountain is stored in the reservoir, and the water flow is increased from time to time according to the local conditions to ensure the local people's water supply.

Some small trees grew on both sides of the once bare river, and green weeds grew on some hills in the distance because of a spring rain.

From the Han Dynasty to the 50s, the climate in the north was basically in a period of continuous degeneration of green plants, but at the moment, Zhu Youjian has stabilized the green plants in the Xuanfu area.

Saihanba, which was still a sandy land in modern times, is still a grassland with rich grass and water in this era. After the restoration of Xuanfu, it is similar to Saihanba.

However, this is not to say that Daming’s tree planting was successful enough to conquer the sandstorm, but that the afforestation in Xuanfu and Yanshan made the possibility of the capital encountering sandstorms even smaller.

Many places that have become sandy land in later generations are still grasslands in this era.
"Father, is it true that you said that if you plant trees here, there will be no sandstorms in the capital?"

Zhu Cihong asked curiously while eating glutinous rice balls, which attracted other people to look at Zhu Youjian.

In this regard, Zhu Youjian smiled and explained the relationship between the desert and the sand, grassland, and woods, and explained the origin of the Beijing sandstorm by citing classics.

To put it simply, the first time Beijing encountered sandstorms was in April of the third year of Zhenyuan in the Kingdom of Jin, that is, around May 1155 AD.

At that time, the northern part of Hebei Province entered a state of "smoke and fog everywhere, and the sun was dark", which lasted for a total of [-] days.

Before that, northern Hebei had not encountered any sandstorms, and after that, although sandstorms appeared from time to time, they were not frequent.

Only after entering the Yuan Dynasty, due to the crazy consumption of forests in the surrounding areas of Beijing during the construction of Yuan Dadu by the Yuan Dynasty, the forest vegetation in the surrounding areas of Beijing has undergone a significant turning point, and the number has plummeted.

This consumption lasted until the third year of Emperor Yingzong Zhizhi (1323). From this time on, the Beijing area began to suffer from sandstorms every few years.

This phenomenon was not curbed until the Ming Dynasty regained the north during the Hongwu period and established military guards outside the pass.

However, in Zhu Di's period, due to the construction of the Beijing imperial palace, the trees around the capital were hit again, and the sandstorm in Beijing was more serious than that of the Jin and Yuan dynasties.

After Zhu Di, the emperors of the Ming Dynasty continued to build large-scale construction projects, and the two emperors who felled the most crazy were Jiajing and Wanli.

Jiajing alone transported no less than [-] large nanmu from Yunnan, Guizhou and other places.

The big nanmu used as the main material needs [-] roots, not to mention other trees used as conventional wood, so the trees around the capital have been reduced to the point that there is not a single forest more than ten miles out of the city.

The frantic deforestation brought about by the unrestrained use of power even affected the border security of the Ming Dynasty.

During the Longqing period, the minister Pang Shangpeng said in a memorial that the uncontrolled logging in the Jizhou and Changping areas around Beijing resulted in "the roads are becoming more and more open, and the dangerous passes are becoming more and more difficult".

With the disappearance of the forest, the result is that the Mongolian cavalry can drive straight in.

Therefore, the cabinet ministers headed by Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng at that time also approved Pang Shangpeng's memorial, and mobilized the soldiers and civilians in Shanxi and North Zhili to plant trees to consolidate the border defense.

Although several years of afforestation and the Mingmeng Peace after the Longqing Peace Conference brought a forest to the capital, after Zhang Juzheng's death, Wanli also ordered the construction of palaces to start, and the trees around the capital were felled indiscriminately.

Therefore, starting from the 26th year of Wanli, almost every spring, the city of Beijing will encounter severe sandstorms.

If counting from the "Ming Shilu", from the first recorded sandstorm in the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty, Beijing experienced a total of 97 sandstorms.

It can be said that Zhu Youjian not only had to wipe his political and military ass for his imperial grandfather Wanli, but also had to wipe his ass in the environment.

Every time he thought of this, Zhu Youjian gritted his teeth with hatred.

"Thanks to the good progress in tree planting these years, I remember that there were only three dusts in the apocalypse?"

Zhou Sujie's words diverted Zhu Youjian's attention to her, and continued:

"Well, if I remember correctly, it should be the first year of Tianqi, the sixth year of Tianqi and the 14th year of Tianqi."

Saying that, Zhu Youjian looked at Zhu Cilang and said, "When you go to Qi State in the future, you can't deforestation indiscriminately to build a palace, otherwise you will be blown by wind and sand every year, and you will smell the smell of earth."

"Then I'd better live in a stone house..." Zhu Cihong's face was full of resistance when he heard that he would be blown by wind and sand every year.

His appearance made Zhu Youjian laugh from ear to ear.

While he was laughing, the train whistle sounded again, and at this moment, a young Jin Yiwei walked into the carriage and bowed to Zhu Youjian:
"Your Highness, it's less than a cup of tea away from Yanqing County Station, do you want to stop at the industrial area?"

"Huh?" Hearing Jin Yiwei's report, Zhu Youjian glanced at the man.

This man is seventeen or eighteen years old, he looks a bit burly, with a high nose and wide face, thick eyebrows and big eyes, he seems to be a loyal minister from the appearance, but if people are hired only by their appearance, there will not be so much turmoil in the world up.

"No need, go directly to Zhangjiakou, Lu Baihu..."

Zhu Youjian emphasized the word Lu Baihu, which made the young man a little unnatural.

"Resign from a humble position..."

The young man called Lu Baihu hastily bowed and retreated, but Zhu Youjian kept looking at his back.

At this time, Zhou Sujie, who was standing next to him, also noticed his gaze, and couldn't help asking: "Is this the eldest son of Commander Lu, Lu Yuangao? Why does it feel like His Highness doesn't like him very much?"

"Did I reveal it so obviously?" Zhu Youjian smiled, but with his smile, Zhou Sujie realized that he had said something wrong.

"It's just that His Highness seems to like to tease him." Zhou Sujie changed his tone, and Zhu Youjian nodded slightly when he heard the words, but he didn't say anything.

The harem is not allowed to interfere in politics, this is not a rule that only exists in the palace, the same is true in the Qi Palace.

However, what Zhou Sujie said did show that Zhu Youjian's attitude towards Lu Yuangao was too weird, he might as well treat others like a spring breeze.

Of course, there is a reason for Zhu Youjian's attitude.

When he heard the word Lu Yuangao from Zhu Ciran last time, Zhu Youjian sent someone to investigate this kid's details.

After this investigation, Zhu Youjian discovered that when Lu Wenzhao led Shen Lian and others to arrest corrupt officials in various provinces, Lu Yuangao, who was only eight years old, used Lu Wenzhao's relationship to send himself to the government school where Li Dingguo was. and became classmates with Li Dingguo.

In the past five years, he tried to build a good relationship with Li Dingguo, but Li Dingguo was wary of Lu Yuangao's appearance, so the relationship between the two of them was no more than a nodding acquaintance.

Seemingly realizing that Li Dingguo's path was not feasible, Lu Yuangao simply approached Zhu Ciran, and got along very well with Zhu Ciran.

This is not surprising, after all Lu Yuangao is older than Zhu Ciran, what Zhu Ciran has experienced and what he wants to have are all things he has fantasized about, so he knows how to match what he likes.

After two years of this, Zhu Ciran leaked out about the relationship between Lu Yuangao and Zhu Ciran, and Zhu Youjian also followed the clues to find out this kid.

This kid was ready to enter an official career after graduation, and even used his connections on the eve of Lu Wenzhao's return to the capital, planning to send himself to Dading Town in Yanshan County as the mayor, and Dading Town is behind Dading Palace.

Obviously, this kid felt that his father's choice was not good, and was going to directly attach himself to the emperor to double bet.

If King Qi usurps the throne, he will not be implicated as the son of Lu Wenzhao.

If King Qi became a vassal, he would have successfully squeezed into the power center of the Ming Dynasty by virtue of his status as a prince.

For such a thoughtful person, Zhu Youjian naturally couldn't let him get what he wanted, so he simply took the bottom line and assigned Lu Yuangao to Jinyiwei as a hundred-household officer of Jinyiwei.

From the mayor of the ninth rank to the official of the hundred households of the sixth rank, this seems to be a blessing, but in fact it is a rising and falling.

Faced with such a change, Lu Yuangao could only pretend to be stupid to avoid offending the King of Qi, and Zhu Youjian also pretended not to know, as if he had taken a fancy to Lu Yuangao's identity, so he deliberately made Lu Yuangao a member of the hundred households accompanying him. .

He wanted to see what Lu Yuangao would do in such a situation...

"arrive!"

"so many people……"

Just as Zhu Youjian was thinking about how to deal with Lu Yuangao so that Lu Yuangao could get to know himself clearly, Zhu Ciran and the others in the south also rushed into the border of Zhejiang after a half-month trip to Fujian.

When they entered Zhejiang, the first thing they felt was the dense population that was different from other provinces.

Because the road from Fujian to Zhejiang is too convoluted, Zhu Ciran and the others chose to take a boat across the sea from Qinyu Town, Funing Prefecture in northern Fujian to Pumen Town, which is under the command of Wenzhou Prefecture, Zhejiang Province, more than ten miles away.

The boat hadn't landed yet, but Zhu Ciran and the others had already seen the dense crowd on the wharf in Pumen Town.

Although it is only a market town, due to its proximity to the sea, it has become the southernmost coastal port in Zhejiang, so many merchants often live here.

When the boat docked, Zhu Ciran and others pushed the four-wheeled cart off the blessing boat and came to the pier.

Standing on the pier, compared with the population of Qinyu Town in Fujian Province, which has only 2000 people, Pumen Town has a population of almost tens of thousands, which is not inferior to some small towns in later generations.

On the pier, the people coming and going almost occupied the newly repaired pier with cement, Zhu Ciran and the others could only be squeezed by the crowd.

After finally pushing the cart out of the pier, they thought that there would be fewer people outside the pier, but in fact, when they came to the rural road on the edge of the market town, the rural road was almost full of people.

The carriages coming and going occupied the two-foot-wide country road, and the carriages were blocked for several miles, and there was no movement for a long time.

Some laborers who came to work were caught by some people wearing silk and satin without revealing their identities, hired them as their own laborers, and were dragged away to unload the goods.

"The population of Pumen Town is larger than many counties in Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, and Guangxi."

Liu Shun looked at the convoy that was slowly on their way, and while pedaling the bicycle slowly, he couldn't help sighing.

"There are more than 900 people in Pumen Township on the yellow book, but I'm afraid it's no less than [-] people now."

Compared with Liu Shun, Zhu Ciran's exclamation is full of inexplicable and unexplainable things.

Realizing that Zhu Ciran was not very happy, Liu Shun didn't speak, and the two more well-proportioned Jin Yiwei behind him saw that the two in front didn't speak, so naturally they didn't dare to speak.

Just like that, Zhu Ciran and the others followed the convoy to Pumen Town, Daliu Township.

They thought the convoy would drive straight into Pumen Town, but they didn't expect them to turn a corner before entering the town and drove onto the county road one after another.

Since then, the road ahead suddenly became clear, and Zhu Ciran and the others couldn't help speeding up their pedaling, and they rode their bicycles into the city wall of Pumen Town in a short time.

"Sell the newspaper, sell the newspaper!"

"Selling buns... freshly baked meat buns!"

"New book arrived!"

"Leave a way! Make a way!"

"jingle--"

When Zhu Ciran and the others entered Pumen Town, if no one told them, they might have regarded it as a small county with a good economy.

Just as soon as they entered the city wall, they came directly to the commercial street of the market town. There were bookstores, steamed stuffed bun shops, butcher shops, flower shops, tea shops, theaters, storytelling stations, etc. on the street...

Pedestrians walked on the two-foot-wide main road, and everyone walked quickly. This made Zhu Ciran and others who had adapted to a slow life feel like they had returned to Beizhili.

They couldn't help being a little restrained. After entering the city, they found a post house where they could park, put their luggage away, and then went out to shop.

Pumen Town is obviously just a town, but its population is far beyond the size listed in the "Yellow Book".

There are no less than [-] people in this small town with a circumference of six miles. There are even temples, gazebos, arch bridges, small gardens and many other facilities for entertainment and relaxation in the town.

The scale of the Huangdian in the town is also built on the scale of the county level, and the prices are about [-]% more expensive than those in Fujian. There are more people in the store.

On the street, one or two bicycles can be seen from time to time. The people riding them are all dressed in silk and jade belts around their waists, looking either rich or expensive.

It's hard to imagine that in an ordinary market town, you can see so many bicycles. You must know that even this year, the annual output of bicycles in Daming is only 20, and the sales are even less than [-].

20 cars sounds like a lot, but it is not a lot for Daming, which has more than 700 counties and more than 5000 towns.

Zhu Ciran and the others walked for ten months. Most of the bicycles they saw in the nine provinces along the road appeared in county towns, and very few appeared in market towns. See the scene of two dozen bicycles ridden by different people.

However, the fact is that not only did such a scene appear, but the number even rose to a scale of more than [-] later.

In this way, we can fully see how popular bicycles are in Zhejiang, and how rich Zhejiang gentry and merchants are.

Although the price of bicycles is not expensive, each imperial store has limited sales targets for bicycles.

The more commodities sold, the more the Huangdian can obtain the right to choose independently.

"Wharf recruiting laborers! Twenty Wen a day! Twenty Wen a day!"

As we walked, there was a sudden announcement of job recruitment from the crowd.

Zhu Ciran and the others looked back, only to see a accountant man riding a bicycle holding a metal microphone, shouting while riding the bicycle.

"Twenty Wen?!" Zhu Ciran was a little speechless when he heard the wages of recruiters.

As far as he knew, the wages for recruiting workers in Guangzhou were the same. The wages in normal market towns ranged from [-] to [-] yuan, and the county towns were slightly higher, but they would not exceed [-] yuan.

In some prefectures, the price may reach [-] yuan, but a small town like Pumen Town dares to give a wage of [-] yuan, which is enough to show how the economic environment in Zhejiang is.

"It's no wonder that people from all provinces used to go to Jiangnan to work..."

Zhu Ciran couldn't help but sighed a little, and said some things he heard from the common people along the way.

During the Wanli period, many people would ignore the guides and go to the three provinces in the south of the Yangtze River to work.

Before, Zhu Ciran believed that the people left their hometowns to work because they couldn’t eat enough. Now it seems that if you find a few jobs in Zhejiang and work for a year, the harvest can exceed the output of more than ten mu of cultivated land.

"Why is there such a demand for labor in Jiangnan?"

Zhu Ciran opened his mouth curiously, but Liu Shun hurriedly asked passers-by when he heard the words.

Soon, he came back with news: "It's mainly the tenants of the mulberry field and the cultivated land, and then the Lifu of the wharf, as well as the work of various shops."

"Your Highness, the people in Pumen Town say that the town's population is close to ten thousand, but the "Yellow Book" shows only less than four thousand. This..."

"Okay..." Liu Shun wanted to continue, but was interrupted by Zhu Ciran:
"There is no need to worry about the population of the "Yellow Book", as long as we know what's in our hearts."

After finishing speaking, Zhu Ciran glanced at Pumen Town, which is as prosperous as a small county town.

He couldn't imagine that a small town could hide thousands of people, how many people in the whole of Zhejiang and the whole of Jiangnan were working in secret...

　Afternoon update around six o'clock
　　
　
(End of this chapter)