Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 687 Postscript ([-]) Taiping Corruption

In the 14th year of Yongchang, on the sixth day of the winter month, Daming announced to the outside world the limit on the number of rifles that the feudal clans could hold.

For all feudal vassals, the Ming Dynasty almost treated them equally. Regardless of the country's population size, strength or weakness, it only issued 31 rifles that were enough for a battalion of soldiers and horses.

In addition, Daming also increased the number of troops in the county to the first battalion.

Although many counties had secretly expanded their troops at this time, no matter what, Daming finally gave them a formal establishment.

One battalion of soldiers and horses corresponds to one battalion of rifles. Everyone can see that Yongchang's move is to make the difference in strength between the princely kingdom and the county kingdom in the vassal state not too large, so as to avoid a big vassal rebellion in the future and quickly annex a series of small kingdoms. vassal state.

But even so, there are still many civil servants and military generals in the temple who are quite critical of the emperor's move.

There is one battalion of guns per country in the inner domain. In actual calculation, there are more than 200 battalions of guns in more than 200 domains. In actual calculation, there are as few as six 10,000+ guns and as many as seven to 80 guns.

You must know that the military system of the Fifth Army Commander's Mansion has been suppressed all these years, and the Five Armies Commander's Mansion tried to expand the army several times but was rejected.

As of now, the number of Ming troops is only 63.

If the feudal vassals jointly attack Daming, even if they run out of ammunition and food later, Daming will suffer huge losses.

Therefore, what many civil servants and generals above the temple think is not unreasonable.

However, the royal family and the cabinet showed no concern at all.

They knew better than anyone else that Daming still had a lot of cards in his hole, so many that the officials couldn't even imagine.

Except that Qi State can bring huge losses to Ming Dynasty, it is impossible for other countries to do it together.

Therefore, this matter is only worried by some officials who cannot get in touch with the core politics.

Officials who really sit in the core circle are now focusing on their country's technological innovation.

For the world, the coming days are destined to be a year of technological explosion.

Since last year's "Ming and Qi" scientific and technological exchange meeting between the two countries, many researches of the two countries have been constantly colliding, and then countless conjectures and inventions have been triggered.

At the beginning of the 14th year of Yongchang, Ye Tianshi, a bachelor of Qiguo Medical College, discovered Vibrio cholerae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Bacillus anthracis, improved the methods of culturing bacteria and bacterial staining, and proposed the "Three Laws of Tianshi".

He and his team laid the foundation of microbiology. After a long period of time, most of the major pathogenic bacteria in the world were discovered by him and his team members.

These theories not only laid the foundation for microbiology and bacteriology, but also promoted some studies in pharmacology, and the active ingredients of some herbal medicines have been extracted successively.

For example, in the 14th year of Yongchang, Xue Shengbai, a medical doctor of the Ming Dynasty, extracted morphine from opium, and in the following year extracted quinine and other medicines from cinchona bark. These are all progress without exception.

In addition, due to the continuous progress of pathology, cytology, and bacteriology, the clinical medical textbooks and practical exercises at that time paid special attention to the research and diagnosis of pathological changes in internal organs, and tried various methods to find "lesions". Improve diagnostic methods.

Such an attitude led to the continuous increase of diagnostic methods and auxiliary diagnostic tools during the Yongchang period. Many clinical diagnostic aids such as blood pressure measurement, body temperature measurement, and body endoscopy began to be applied during the Yongchang period.

In addition to these theoretical achievements, the exploration of physical electricity by Daming and Qi appeared to be more effective.

In the 14th year of Yongchang, the Ming Military Academy published the book "Experiment and Observation of Electricity".

This book not only provides the basis for further electricity experiments, but also introduces many "electricity terms" left over from the period of King Qi, including positive pole, negative pole, charge, battery, and electric shock.

Compared with Ming Dynasty, Qi State pays more attention to practical gains. Therefore, in September, the Academy of Sciences installed [-] batteries on a tricycle, but the vehicle failed to start safely and exploded.

However, such a result not only did not prevent the scholars of the Academy of Sciences from studying electrical energy, but greatly promoted their interest.

However, compared with these scientific matters, people's livelihood is the foundation of a country.

Among them, natural disasters and man-made disasters are topics that can never be escaped.

In April 14, an earthquake occurred near the sea area of ​​Nandaofu in Yingzhou and triggered a tsunami. The maximum wave of the tsunami was as high as 14 feet. The tsunami caused more than [-] deaths and [-] people were affected.

After the news of the disaster broke out back to Beijing, Zhu Hezhen, the supervisor of the state, immediately issued an order to exempt the local government from taxes for three years, and then ordered the Ministry of Industry to prepare for post-disaster reconstruction.

After this episode, Daming and Qi continued to increase their attention and investment in scientific and technological research.

In June of the 14th year of Yongchang, the emperor announced that the scientific investment of the Armament Academy would increase to 300 million taels of silver in the coming year, which was equivalent to 8/1 of the country's annual income.

Compared with Ming Dynasty, Qi State does not have too much national defense pressure, so the amount of funds invested in science is more. Yongchang's investment in 14 years has reached 500 million taels.

The two countries have devoted all their efforts, firstly, there is no external pressure, and secondly, there is pressure from population employment.

Population is the dividend of the two countries, but in addition to the dividend, if we want the country to enjoy long-term stability, we must address the needs of the people.

As early as ten years ago in Yongchang, Liu Nanshan, a sociologist at Suncheon University, had already proposed the "world resource theory".

This argument tells that, in terms of current productivity, if "maintaining the lives of the people of Qi State" is used as the standard, then the territory of Qi State can only support [-] million people, and that of Ming Dynasty can only support [-] million people. Together, they can support at most [-] million people.

That is to say, with the existing productivity, only 12 billion people can live the lives of the people of Qi.

According to the standard of Ming people, it can feed 20 billion people.

According to estimates by Qi and Ming scholars and officials, the current world population is probably close to one billion people, and the combined population of Daming and Qi has reached [-] million, accounting for more than [-]% of the world's population. The feudal lords can reach about [-] million.

Judging from past population growth, the suzerainty system of the Ming Dynasty will reach about 20 million in about 5000 years, and it is expected to exceed 35 billion in 12 years.

That is to say, if technology does not advance, the time left for the Daming vassal system is actually about the same.

It has actually been nearly 80 years since Ming Dynasty and Qi Kingdom maintained their prosperity. No matter how many Ming emperors are born in a normal dynasty, it will reach the peak of land annexation in 80 years, and then conflicts will begin to appear.

The fact that the Daming suzerain-vassal system has come to the present is the best result of Daming and Qi's continued survival with the new technologies they have continuously created.

If this process is interrupted, even for only a few years, it is fatal enough.

Therefore, the two countries have continued to invest funds in the research of various topics left by Zhu Youjian.

Fortunately, the research on internal combustion engines is just a step away, and no matter how slow it is, it will not be delayed until more than [-] years later.

As long as the internal combustion engine is developed and agricultural machinery is innovated, the productivity of the two countries can be further improved, and the prosperity can be extended further.

Therefore, compared with the current external chaos, the two countries pay more attention to the internal problems of the country.

The European countries are not because Ming is incapable of fighting, but they have to wait until Ming's internal problems cannot be covered up.

Now that Daming still has the ability to solve internal problems, it can be kept temporarily.

As for when they will perish, it depends on the thoughts of Daming and Qi.

It is precisely because of this kind of thinking that the technology of Daming and Qi is also constantly improving.

In May of the 15th year of Yongchang, Qi State built the first hydropower station, but it could only produce [-] baht of electricity per day, which was only enough to light [-] carbon filament lamps for the nearby Academy of Sciences to conduct night research.

But even so, there are only more than 80 laboratories that can be lit inside the institute.

Compared to Qi who chose hydropower, the Daming Military Academy chose thermal power because the Fangshan Coal Mine was nearby.

They built a coal-fired power station between Beijing and the Mentougou Armament Academy, which uses coal as raw material and generates steam through a boiler to drive a steam turbine to generate electricity.

This power station can produce more than 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day, and it is more secure than Qi's hydroelectric power generation. It will not have the disadvantage of generators not being able to produce electricity at full power during dry seasons.

Therefore, the bachelors of the Academy of Armaments focused on thermal power generation, completely ignoring Zhu Youjian's suggestion that future generations should choose clean energy.

But this is also normal. After all, in the early stage of immature technology, thermal power generation is undoubtedly the most secure choice.

In July, Geng Qing, the father of Qi State Electric Power, invented a series of power supply systems to ensure the stable and safe transmission of electricity from the power station to the power supply place.

In August, the fifth version of the internal combustion engine of the Ming Dynasty was applied to the four-wheeled vehicle. In this experiment, the four-wheeled vehicle moved at a speed of [-] miles per hour, successfully breaking the world record.

In October, during the War of the Succession, the British navy captured the Spanish Strait of Gibraltar.

On the frontal battlefield, the Franco-Spanish coalition forces and the anti-French coalition forces began to compete for the Italian peninsula.

On the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, miners revolted again in the Nandao Prefecture of Yingzhou, but it was quickly suppressed.

In the first month of the 16th year of Yongchang (1705), Shi Xia Wanchun, the head of the Qi State, died at the age of 75 when he took office.

In April, the British army defeated the French army again at La Muiyi and captured the Flanders region.

In June, Luo Ting, a medical scientist in Ming Dynasty, successfully developed smallpox vaccine. After learning about it, the emperor named him Dan County Bo, and added smallpox vaccine to the free drug list of Daming Huimin Pharmacy.

In July, the Taiyuan Smallpox Vaccine Factory was put into construction and put into operation in October of the same year, with an annual mass production of 50 vaccines.

On August [-]th, Nanjing Medical College released the "Health Guidelines" manual, which was adopted by the Department of Justice and Science, and distributed to students and their parents after being purchased by the Department of Justice and Science.

On August 27, the Department of Government and Education reported to the emperor, saying, "This year, the number of students at the three levels of university, middle and primary schools in the country has exceeded 6000 million, and the Department of Government and Education needs to increase by about 1000 million taels in order to cope with the increasing number of students. "

On August 28, Emperor Zhu agreed.

In September, Wang Dang, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, said that "the current taxation of the country is estimated to be around 2000 million taels."

In October, the Ministry of Industry Minister Yu Zhenshangshu asked the cabinet to allocate 500 million taels to repair various railways, and at the same time distribute another 300 million taels to strengthen the dams on both sides of the Yellow River. Emperor Zhu agreed.

In the winter month, the cargo ships of Qi State arrived in St. Malo this month with 720 cargoes of three ships, which were enough to support 30 French troops to fight for another three years.

In the twelfth lunar month, the French army repelled the anti-French coalition forces in Italy, and the anti-French coalition forces were completely defeated.

In the 17th year of Yongchang, Daming and Qi Guo successively invented various livelihood technologies such as harmonica, elevated book fetcher, electrostatic generator, carriage odometer, street lamp, etc.

This year, the Franco-Spanish allied forces also fought successively on the frontal battlefield, occupying Turin, Milan, Venice and other places.

In June of the same year, a local rebellion broke out in Luchuan, and the emperor ordered Qin Jiming, the governor of the Western Army, to suppress it.

In September, the local people's rebellion was suppressed, and the emperor ordered that Luchuan be exempted from taxes for one year.

In the first month of the 18th year of Yongchang, Li Dingguo, the Duke of Qin, who was known as the "Southern Qi and Northern Li", died in his mansion at the age of 87.

Afterwards, the emperor issued a decree to stop the court for three days, and posthumously named him King of Yanshan, posthumously titled "Zhongwu", and his son Li Si attacked Qin Guogong.

In March, in the War of the Spanish Succession, the French army defeated the anti-French coalition forces in Almansa, Spain.

In April, the Ottoman Empire sent 20 troops to attack the Holy Roman Empire.

In May, the Middle East Canal (Suez Canal) was completed. At the same time, Emperor Yongchang decreed that the Little Western Ocean, the Daming Sea, and the South Atlantic Ocean should be designated as inland seas, and European ships should not be allowed to pass through.

If European ships want to do business, they can only go to the Middle East Supervisory Commissioner who controls the canal for trade.

The opening of the canal has reduced the status of the Kunlun Supervisory Commissioner and the Kunlun vassals. Except for Ruiguo (Ethiopia), Yongguo (Arabian Peninsula), and Chenguo (Egypt), the fiscal revenues of the other seven countries have declined in different ways.

However, Emperor Yongchang also made corresponding compensations for this. First of all, he reduced the migration silver of the Seven Kingdoms to one or two people, and no longer set immigration restrictions.

Such news can't completely relieve Zhu Fan, but they can't do anything about it.

For the sake of the national economy, the three countries of Tang, Ji and Huai have intensified the trade exchanges between Qi and Qi.

In June, drought broke out in southern Zhili, Zhejiang and other places. The emperor decreed that local taxation should be exempted for one year, and at the same time, 4000 million shi of grain stored in Changping warehouses in the two provinces would be released for disaster relief.

In July, Aonold convened the Hungarian Parliament, announcing the abolition of the Habsburg dynasty's rule in Hungary, and Rakozy was elected as the head of state of an independent Hungary.

In October, Hongkor, king of Shunning of Mongolia, led an army of [-] to invade Hungary, forcing the Holy Roman Empire to give up the idea of ​​recovering Hungary.

In the winter month, the Ottoman Empire signed the "Vienna Peace Treaty" with the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire transferred its troops to attack Hungary.

On the 27th of the twelfth lunar month, Hungary was divided between Mongolia and the Ottoman Empire.

Time has entered the 19th year of Yongchang. In March, Tian Wenjing, the censor of Zuodu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, impeached Liu Shun, the governor of Zhejiang, and Wang Qingxu, the secretary of the Nanjing household department.

In his memorial, he claimed that last year's drought in South Zhili and Zhejiang, the Mongolian emperor's agricultural tax, distribution of Changping granaries, harvesting of rice, and full taxation should have been a good thing.

However, due to the corruption of local officials, the official law was abolished, and Changping’s grain shortage was serious, resulting in no food to be distributed in some places. Therefore, hungry people in the market made noise at the government, robbed the rich, and hundreds of people gathered together. The government did not dare to report it, and even ordered the government servants and soldiers and horses to suppress it.

If it wasn't for one of Tian Wenjing's disciples who went home to visit relatives and found out about this, I don't know how long Jiangnan officials would have kept it a secret!

In Tian Wenjing's memorial, he also suggested immediately transferring food from other provinces for disaster relief, and at the same time punishing the officials of various prefectures and counties to reassure the people.

Only by doing so can we eliminate possible future turmoil.

After the memorial was played, it soon gained the attention of Emperor Yongchang.

On March [-], Zhu Heyin issued an order to Governor Tian Wenjing for disaster relief in the south of the Yangtze River, and all officials who committed crimes in Nanzhili and Zhejiang should be investigated and dealt with.

On March [-], Tian Wenjing led more than [-] officials from the Wanping Battalion and the Metropolitan Procuratorate to Nanjing.

In April, Tian Wenjing arrested most officials in Nanzhili and Jiangnan, and more than [-] officials were directly taken down.

In May, after Tian Wenjing's investigation was compiled into a book, Shangshu informed Emperor Yongchang of the results.

According to Tian Wenjing's investigation, over the years, Jiangnan officials have embezzled more than 420 shi from Changping's warehouse, and converted more than [-] taels of silver.

In addition, corruption exists in the construction of local roads, houses, and rivers. Some dams on the Yangtze River and Yellow River in Nanzhili have not been inspected for more than three years and have not been repaired for five years.

You know, as early as the Tianqi year when King Wen of Qi was in power, it was stipulated that all river courses should be inspected every year and repaired every three years.

King Wen of Qi paid so much attention to it because the Yellow River continued to break its embankments during the Tianqi period. As a result, in the hands of these Jiangnan officials, the Yangtze River and the Yellow River were governed in a mess.

Over the years, Jiangnan officials have embezzled no less than one million taels on the river alone, and tens of millions in other places.

In Tian Wenjing's Shangshu, these officials alone have as many as [-] million mu of land, accounting for one-tenth of the land in Zhejiang and Nanzhili.

In addition, the value of the mansion, various antique calligraphy and paintings, gold, silver and jade objects is as high as more than [-] million taels.

On the fifth day of June, Emperor Yongchang ordered Tian Wenjing to behead all offending officials on the banks of the Yangtze River for public display, and at the same time transfer all three clans of officials to the Middle East Supervisory Commissioner.

On the sixth day of the lunar new year, Zhu Heyin, the always good-tempered emperor of Yongchang, was terrified and ordered Tian Wenjing to inspect the provinces again, and at the same time transferred Baoding camp to follow the guards.

On the tenth day of August, after more than three months of investigation and arrest, Tian Wenjing beheaded more than 82 officials by the banks of the Yangtze River, and at the same time sent [-] implicated family members to ships in batches, and assigned them to the Middle East Supervisory Commissioner.

Since the Middle East Ombudsman owns a quarter of the Nile Delta plain, there is no need to worry about how to feed them.

On August [-]th, the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Tian Wenjing led [-] officials from the Metropolitan Procuratorate to inspect the provinces under the protection of the Wanping Camp and Baoding Camp.

In September, Yan Yinshao, the Duke of Lu, Zhou Peigong, the second assistant to the cabinet, and Zhang Ying, the cabinet minister, died in the mansion one after another.

The emperor granted the posthumous posthumous title of "Wenzheng" to the 94-year-old Duke of Lu, Yan Yinshao, and his son, Yan Aoming, was the Duke of Lu.

Zhou Peigong was posthumously named "Wenxuan", and his cabinet minister Zhang Ying was posthumously named "Wending".

After that, the emperor wrote Tian Wenjing and Yu Zhen into the cabinet.

On October 24th, the memorabilia of Zhu Hexuan, the eldest son of the State of Qi, arrived in the capital, saying:

"My father's condition worsened after hearing the news of Qin Guogong's death. He passed away on the fifth day of September at the Cunxin Palace of the Qi Palace at the age of 75..."

　It's about the same as I estimated. It's obviously rough, but it's still not very fast. It's expected to be four or five chapters, but it's up to now...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)