Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 681 Postscript ([-]) New Era
"Clang... clang... clang..."

On March 13th, the 73th year of Qiansheng, Qi Wangjian passed away in the middle of the night at the age of [-]. The temples and Taoist temples in Xijing City were full of sound.

The news spread to the capital, and the history records that "the emperor mourned and cried loudly".

Li Dingguo, who was informed of the news, also wrote down his feelings in his "Diary of Qiansheng".

"My heart was twisted like a knife, and I burst into tears"

The simple eight words are enough to explain the thoughts of most officials at that time.

Since the news came during the noon break, all the officials felt their brains buzzing and dizzy.

For most of the officials in the Qiansheng Dynasty, King Qi was not only an overseas vassal, but also the pillar in the hearts of many officials.

Although they all knew about King Qi's condition, they still felt very uncomfortable when they heard the bad news.

Perhaps more of them are corrupt officials, but no one's dream is to be a corrupt official.

When they were on campus, why didn't they want to be a famous minister and virtuous king who helped the society like King Qi.

It was only after they stepped into the officialdom that they realized that their ideals were nothing compared to the temptation before them.

On this road, some people fell, and some people resisted, but this does not mean that the fallen people are completely hopeless.

Every night, they still think back to their childhood dreams.

Only on this day, the pillars of their dreams also fell.

They are lucky, fortunately, such a capable person did not choose to completely cover up the Ming Dynasty, but left a path of advancement for the poor students.

They are also unfortunate, because no matter what they do, it is difficult for them to leave a mark in the history books, let alone talk about catching up with King Qi.

Perhaps when people in later generations recall this era, they can only think of King Qi, not their group of people who are trying to catch up.

On this day, the spirits of the officials were in a trance, but the one who could barely bring them back to reality was the grief-stricken Emperor Zhu Ciran.

Faced with the departure of Uncle Qi, whom he admired since childhood, Zhu Ciran organized a court meeting in the afternoon and issued several policies.

Among them, the news about the death of King Qi cannot be released all at once, but should be published by the "Da Ming Pao" in a unified manner.

The current "Da Ming Pao" has spread to any country within the Da Ming Patriarchal System. As long as the "Da Ming Pao" is published, it will basically announce to most of the world.

The announcement was scheduled for the first day of May, and the content of this issue will be written by Emperor Zhu Ciran himself.

In addition, Emperor Zhu Ciran decided to transport King Qi's body back to Beijing and bury it in front of the Shizu Emperor Wu's mausoleum.

Regarding this point, in fact, Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youjian had already discussed it in the correspondence between him and Zhu Youjian.

Both of their brothers knew that they would never see each other again in this life, so Zhu Youxiao didn't want to be too far away from his brother after death, and Zhu Youjian agreed 15 years ago.

If there is no accident at this moment, his body is already on the way to be transported, so Zhu Ciran asked the Ministry of Rites to prepare various utensils for King Qi's burial in advance.

In addition, the Ministry of Rites also needs to notify the vassals on the same day, so that the vassals send people to mourn the king of Qi, and at the same time discuss the changes in the suzerain-vassal system after the death of the king of Qi.

So far, the things that need to be prepared after the death of King Qi have been announced, just waiting for implementation.

According to Zhu Ciran, the value of the necromancer needed for the burial exceeded 500 million taels, which is not much different from the time when the ancestor Wu Emperor Zhu Youxiao was buried.

However, Zhu Youjian seemed to have realized that his death would cost Daming and the feudal vassals a lot of trouble, so on April 25, the first time the Qi State escorted the ship to Hong Kong, the Wang Taisun who escorted the body this time Zhu Hexuan sent someone to send the news to the capital.

Qi Wang Zhu Youjian’s last wish was a simple burial. He hoped that the only items buried with him were his armor, weapons, horse remains, and the first batch of furniture that Zhu Youxiao knocked for him in his early years.

Those furniture have not been repaired by Zhu Youjian since Zhu Youxiao died, and they are no longer usable at this time.

However, it was these unusable existences that Zhu Youjian took care of and wiped them down in every possible way.

Before Zhu Youjian passed away, he had already ordered people to move these furniture to Prince Qi's Mansion in Beijing, where they are currently being placed in the warehouse of Prince Qi's Mansion waiting to be buried.

Upon hearing the news, Zhu Ciran was silent for a long time, and he nodded his agreement only after Zhu Youjian's body had been transported to Beijing.

On the first day of May, when the "Daming Daily" published the news of the death of King Zhu Youjian of Qi, the emperor Zhu Ciran, the prince Zhu Heyin, the grandson Zhu Yixuan, the king's grandson Zhu Hexuan, and Li Dingguo and other cabinet ministers had already sent Zhu Youjian's death to him. The body was sent to a mausoleum outside Shiling.

This mausoleum was started to be built before Zhu Youxiao's death, and it was not completely completed until the tenth year of Qiansheng. Its scale is comparable to that of Shiling.

Perhaps Zhu Youxiao guessed early on that his stingy brother would be buried briefly, so he paid money to repair the house behind his brother, and "forced" him to live in it without waste.

After Zhu Ciran, who thought it was just an empty tomb, transported the coffin to the gate of the tomb, they discovered that in the left room of the main tomb, a complete set of furniture made by Zhu Youxiao had been placed long ago.

From tables, chairs and benches to beds and desks, everything in the tomb was arranged as it was in Xuqin Palace.

Here, it seems that Zhu Ciran and the others can feel how the young Prince Qi reprimanded Fang Qiu and pointed out the situation decades ago.

Standing here, Zhu Ciran's face was gloomy, and then he turned and left.

A moment later, along with the burial of the simple burial items, the tomb door of the tomb was also closed.

The next thing Zhu Ciran has to do is to wait for the representatives of the feudal lords to come to mourn his uncle, and then order the troops to "restore the soil like a mausoleum".

While waiting for the arrival of the representatives of the feudal lords, Zhu Ciran was in great torment, but there were still many government affairs that he needed to handle.

The death of King Qi brought some unstable factors to the suzerain-vassal system of the Ming Dynasty, and he had to resolve these instabilities one by one.

While he was preparing to solve these matters, the sons of the feudal lords and even some princes and county kings arrived in Beijing one after another.

After many earthquakes, most of the residential buildings in Beijing have been refurbished. Although they look very beautiful, there are countless national debts piled up behind the beauty.

The death of King Qi made some vassals feel insecure. Many people were wondering whether to sell their national debts. After all, the emperor's attitude towards the vassals was not good.

If the emperor reneged on his debts, the national debt in their hands would be a pile of waste paper.

This kind of thing is not delusional, but something that is very likely to happen.

How the banknotes collapsed back then was not new to many princes, county kings and princes who had studied economics in Daming.

Tens of millions of taels of national debt is not a small amount. If you can take the opportunity to sell the national debt, that would be the best, but the question is who will be the one who will take the lead, which is a bit...

With apprehension in mind, many clans went to Tianshou Mountain to worship the portrait of King Qi in the Ming Building of King Qi's Mausoleum.

The portrait of King Qi was made by Yu Zhiding, a master of color painting in the state of Qi. Zhu Youjian in the portrait looks 27, and his appearance is lifelike. Many clans and officials who have not experienced that era have seen this young His Royal Highness King Qi. The appearance of time.

They worshiped the portrait with respect and admiration. At the same time, many clans also thought that King Qi's funeral arrangement was too simple.

Fortunately, the emperor had already arranged for someone to explain emphatically that keeping the funeral simple was King Qi's opinion during his lifetime, otherwise Zhu Ciran might be labeled as "mean and benevolent".

After the verses, many clans left Tianshou Mountain and returned to Baiwangfang to rest.

For the officials of Tianshou Mountain, this process lasted for a long time, until the tenth day of September, when the sons of Tang, Ji, and Huai, who were farthest away, arrived in Beijing and came to Tianshou Mountain to worship.

On September [-]th, with the efforts of [-] Shangzhi officers and soldiers, the mausoleum of King Qi began to be restored like a mausoleum. At the same time, the emperor also summoned many clans to discuss the posthumous title of King Qi.

From a personal point of view, Zhu Ciran really wanted to give him the posthumous title of emperor, but he knew in his heart that he couldn't do that.

Therefore, after deliberation, he finally took "Wen" representing "Jingtianweidi" as his uncle's posthumous title, which was "King Wen of Qi".

As for his mausoleum, it is also called the Mausoleum of King Qi or King Wen by officials and clans.

After deciding on the posthumous title, Zhu Ciran did not embarrass the feudal lords, but proposed the idea of ​​buying back part of the national debt.

Right now, it is the 13th year of Qiansheng. At this time, although Daming's fiscal revenue is still maintained at around 2000 million taels, there are too many places to spend money.

Therefore, even if Zhu Ciran wants to buy it, there is actually not much money in the treasury for him to use.

Therefore, after discussing with the feudal vassals, Zhu Ciran made a proposal for the imperial court to repurchase 500 million bonds between the two countries every year.

For the vassals, if they bought back the national debt at this price and speed, it would actually only take six or seven years. Therefore, not only did the vassals object, but they also hypocritically signaled the emperor not to worry.

It's just that Zhu Ciran is very clear that their words are just polite words.

Once Zhu Youjian left, the only vassal kingdoms he could trust were Yongguo, Dingguo and Qiguo.

Therefore, Zhu Ciran made the decision to buy back the national debt policy, and at the same time dismissed the feudal vassals who were discussing in front of the Taimiao.

In this way, the suzerain-vassal system is relatively stable at least until Daming buys back all the national debts, and Zhu Ciran can rest assured to transfer power to Prince Zhu Heyin.

During Zhu Ciran's busy period, there was an atmosphere of mourning among the people under the entire Daming vassal system.

When many people saw the news about King Qi's death in Da Ming Pao on the first day of May, they felt dizzy and seemed to have all their energy taken away from them.

Some people have not reacted, tears will flow out unconsciously.

There are also people who resisted tears from flowing on the street, and cried loudly after returning home.

There are still some who can't cry, but every night, they feel as if their chest is being suppressed, oppressed and sad.

Among so many people, Li Dingguo is one of them.

Ever since he learned the news of Zhu Youjian's death, he didn't look sad on the surface. He just lay down on the bed after dinner every day, thinking of the countless scenes when he was with King Qi in the first half of his life, and he didn't feel sleepy all night.

It wasn't until he saw Minglou's portrait of King Qi that he couldn't restrain the grief in his heart. After a while, tears streamed down his face, and he couldn't cry.

The news of King Qi's death quickly spread all over the world with the report of "Da Ming Pao".

From the first day of May, almost every day, people looked at the Qi Wang Mausoleum at the foot of Tianshou Mountain, silently placed a bouquet of flowers at the entrance of the imperial mausoleum, turned around and left silently.

This situation lasted for a long time. According to Zhang Jincai, the general of the Tianshou camp guarding Tianshou Mountain, he recorded in his "Miscellaneous Notes on Tianshou Mountain":

"From the news of King Qi's burial to the 26 years since I retired from the army, there was almost no shortage of flowers at the gate of the imperial mausoleum. Every day there were at least a hundred flower baskets, and as many as several hundred. The soldiers placed flower baskets around the mausoleum of Qi King. .”

"The flowers in these flower baskets lived tenaciously, and they didn't completely wither until the seeds were scattered. After many years, the area around King Qi's Mausoleum has become a sea of ​​flowers..."

The people could not accept the news of King Qi's death for a long time. It was not until a strong earthquake of magnitude [-] in Shanxi's Gu County in the winter of the same year that the people's attention was distracted.

Zhao Ergeng, the governor of Shanxi at the time, wrote a report: "The [-] prefectures and counties under Taiyuan Prefecture, Daizhou, Nao County, and Fanzhi were the most severely affected. More than [-] houses in Nao County were destroyed, and more than [-] people were affected. ..."

Upon hearing the news of the earthquake in Shanxi, the prince Zhu Heyin, who had been appointed to supervise the country, issued an order to distribute 200 million taels of silver for disaster relief.

This amount of money is not much, but it is already the largest amount that Daming can provide.

The repurchase of 500 million taels of treasury bonds every year made the household department breathless. As a last resort, Zhu Heyin could only order the suspension of construction of several sections of railways, so that Daming's finances would not owe too much silver taels.

On the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, Qi Wulong, a famous general known as "Southern Qi and Northern Li", died in Guangzhou Fuzhong at the age of 67.

On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, Emperor Zhu Ciran issued a decree to stop the court for three days. At the same time, Qi Wulong was named King of Annan, with the posthumous title of "Wu Jing", and his son Qi Pingbo succeeded Feng Guogong.

On the seventh day of the lunar new year, Emperor Zhu Ciran decreed that Mu Zhen, the Duke of Qian, was appointed as the governor of the Southern Army.

On the third day of the first month of the 14th year of Qiansheng, Zheng Chenggong, the captain of the navy, died of illness at the age of 61 on the sea road to Nanzhou to patrol the border.

The emperor posthumously granted him the title of Marquis of Quanzhou, posthumously named "Wu Mu". His son Zheng Jing attacked Quanzhou Bo and was promoted to deputy governor of the navy. The former deputy governor Shi Lang succeeded him.

In April, Yu Chenglong, a minister of the cabinet, died in office, with the posthumous title of "Wenzhuang".

In May, Leibniz of the Holy Roman Empire published his discovery of differentials. In the same month, he received an invitation from Zhao Buchan, the head of the King's Inn in Vienna.

In June, Leibniz was invited to Tokyo City University in Qi State and became a student of the University of Tokyo.

In the winter month, the new British King James II completely disregarded the widespread opposition at home and abroad, violated the "Oath Regulations" formulated by the previous King Charles II to prohibit Catholics from holding public office, and openly appointed Catholics to serve in important positions in the army.

In February of the 15th year of Qiansheng, Qi State built the world's first iron bridge in Tokyo.

On the second day of May, after 30 years of unremitting research, Qian Ning's team, a scientist at the Daming Military Academy, finally produced a machine that uses the deflection of the galvanometer pointer to receive information.

In May, Prince Ding's son Zhu Helei joined forces with Mongolia to form a [-]-strong western expedition army, attacked Tsarist Russia, recovered the Smolensk area, and killed more than [-] enemy troops.

In July, it took three months for Channing's team to successfully use the "on-off" and "length" of the current to replace human characters for transmission, and named it "Channing code" (Morse code), The world's first telegraph machine comes out.

In August, King Louis XIV of France hired 32 middle school graduates from the Kunlun Mansion of the Kunlun Supervisory Department and asked them to teach at the University of Paris.

In September, Jian Guo Zhu Heyin ordered the Ministry of Industry to build telegraph lines between the Forbidden City and the four cities in the east, west, north, south, and south.

In October, Tang Wang Zhu Yujian passed away at the age of 84. His posthumous title was "Xiang", and his eldest son Zhu Linyuan succeeded Tang Wang.

In Dongyue, the four telegraph lines in the capital were officially put into operation, leading to the Sixth Ministry, the Fifth Military Commander's Mansion, the Wucheng Bingma Division and the Shuntian Barracks respectively.

In front of Emperor Zhu Ciran, Qian Ning showed how to use the telegraph and how to encode letters and numbers for sending.

When Emperor Zhu Ciran saw rows of numbers slowly typed out on the Channing telegraph, he was very shocked and called the method of using the telegraph the Channing code (Morse code).

Because the Channing telegraph completely depends on human operation, its transmission rate is very low. Even the most skilled typist can only send and receive about [-] sets of characters per minute. However, the Channing telegraph has simple equipment and is easy to maintain. , the working performance is very stable.

Therefore, after seeing the communication means of the telegraph, Emperor Zhu Ciran set out to build telegraph lines leading to the two capitals across the country.

On the first day of the first month of the 16th year of Qiansheng, Leibniz published his calculus paper "Abstruse Geometry and the Analysis of Indivisible and Infinite" for the first time in Qi Guo's "Qi Bao", as well as the symbols representing integrals.

On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, the Daming Qin Tianjian released the world's first weather map containing the distribution of prevailing winds over the ocean.

On the first day of February, Huang Ping, the governor of the Qi State Navy, found a sunken ship in Zhongdu Bay (Caribbean Sea), and salvaged 3000 taels of gold from it.

Knowing this, Qi Wang Zhu Cilang collected the gold into the treasury and rewarded Huang Ping with 1000 taels of gold. The 15 soldiers of the navy also received a total of nearly [-] taels of silver.

On the fifth day of March, Wang Dang, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs of the Ming Dynasty, submitted a memorial to Prince Zhu Heyin on "Population of Countries in the World" based on information from Jin Yiwei.

In the Memorial, the top five countries with population are: "The Ming Dynasty has more than 2000 million people, the Mughals have more than [-] million people, the Qi State has more than [-] million people, the Ottoman Empire has about [-] million people, and France has [-] million people. More than six million..."

Among them, Wang Dang roughly divided the population into the Ming vassal system, European countries, and the Southwest Asian Union.

The population of the Great Ming suzerain-vassal system is about 2000 million, the European countries are about 2000 million, the Southwest Asian Union is less than [-] million, and the world's population is about [-] million.

　The postscript looks like four or five chapters, but it is also possible to write too much without knowing it, such as the extra chapter...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)