national surname chiming

Chapter 528 The Finale
However, the problem of population explosion can be solved by improving the quality of the people and emigrating to Oceania and the west coast of America.

But this does not mean that Ming's domestic economic operation system will not be impacted by this population problem. After all, agricultural production does not need so many people.

The concentration of social wealth, the intensification of the gap between the rich and the poor, the surplus wealth's desire for land annexation, and various subsidiary problems brought about by long-term reproduction will not be naturally suppressed.These new problems that have never been seen in other ancient dynasties require Zhu Hetan to explore in the dark and seek unprecedented solutions.

After 30 years of Xiehe, the problems of unemployment and overstaffing in Ming Dynasty have gradually become serious.

Therefore, when faced with the pressure of population and employment, Zhu Hetan finally thought of the first of the two last words that his grandfather Zhu Shuren gave him when he was dying more than ten years ago.

"If the country's wealth can still support so many people in the future, but because of the annexation of unemployed means of production, many people have nothing to do and become a hidden danger, then we should find a way to build moderately and guide the profit-seeking funds of the people to find an outlet."

After thinking about it, Zhu and Tan realized that the Holy Ancestor was referring to the locomotive and steam engine ship that he had only invented a few years before his death.

So Zhu Hetan finally started the construction of the Daming Railway under the coordination of the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the 30th year of Xiehe, but allowed private investment.Earlier, the steam shipbuilding movement and the canal reconstruction movement were launched.

Anyway, the rich in society have too much spare money. Instead of letting them have nowhere to invest and go back to annex land and open textile factories, it is better to find an outlet for them to vent in heavy industry.

In the 30th year of Xiehe, the technology and publicity were in place, and the minds of people with insight and money were open enough. The imperial court proposed the policy of building the railway and allowing investors to pay dividends after the repair, which also greatly attracted people who have nowhere to go. social wealth.

Daming finally diverted the labor and resources that could not be digested by agriculture and light industry to infrastructure and heavy industry.

But everything is difficult at the beginning. From the 15th to the 30th year of Xiehe, the railway was only piloted and improved in a small scale in mining areas such as Maanshan Iron Mine and Changxing Coal Mine.This time in the 30 years of Xiehe, it is the first time that a long-distance transportation railway has been built across cities or even provinces.

Numerous engineering techniques such as surveying, bridge building, land leveling, foundation pouring, etc. have to be accumulated from scratch.

For this reason, a bunch of research institutes of Nanjing University, Susong University, Zhejiang University and Daming Academy of Sciences have also set up a new railway major, and they are researching and summarizing while building.Even talents have to be cultivated.

In the end, it took a full seven years, and tens of thousands of workers were killed or injured. During the construction process, the roadbed in the soft geological area collapsed hundreds of times before and after, and the bridges erected across the river collapsed dozens of times. The experimental train collapsed after driving onto the bridge.

After paying a huge price, it was considered that the first railway line in Daming was completed, connecting Nanjing to Suzhou and Songjiang, and then detoured south to Hangzhou.

This railway can be regarded as connecting the capital of the Ming Dynasty with the most affluent area at that time, and the total mileage is not long, a total of [-] miles. Just build bridges over creeks and canals.

Seven hundred miles have been built in seven years, basically only one hundred miles per year, which shows the hardship of pioneering.

There are also many opponents in the DPRK and China. Many people say that the emperor's construction of the Nanjing-Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway caused tens of thousands of casualties, which is no less than that of Sui Yang's construction of the Grand Canal.But because there are too many unemployed people, it really needs to be solved, and these oppositions were eventually suppressed by force.

After the first seven years of arduous exploration, the strength of Daming's engineering research institutes and colleges has also greatly increased, and it has cultivated the earliest group of railway infrastructure talents in all mankind, and has coordinated the technical integration of other industrial sectors. As a result, the overall industrial strength of Ming Dynasty has greatly increased.

After that, it will be easier. Anyway, there is too much spare money accumulated in the society in the first 30 years, so they are guided to continue to repair.

From the 38th to 42nd years of Xiaokang, the railways from Yangzhou to Huai'an, and from Huai'an to Linqing in Shandong were built in the plains of Jiangsu and Henan without crossing rivers or mountains.From 40 to 43 years of Xiaokang, the railway from Tianjin to Linqing, Shandong, which was started in parallel, was also completed.

In this way, Zhu Hetan can be regarded as the initial reconnection of the Grand Canal left by Emperor Sui Yang with the railway, which greatly strengthened the integration of the north and the south. Even if the capital is not moved back to Beijing, there is no need to worry about the instability of the north in the future.

Because with the railway, even a million troops can march and dispatch across the north and south within ten days.

The only regret is that at that time, the railway was still unable to build a bridge across the Huanghuai River, let alone the Yangtze River. Therefore, this railway imitating the route of the Grand Canal was actually divided into four sections. When the train drove to the Yangtze River and the Yellow River However, passengers and goods still have to be unloaded and cross the river by boat, and then get on the train again.

After the main line connecting the north and the south of Beijing was opened, the Daming Railway Planning 45 years after Concorde will respect the market and the needs of the social economy itself, and the imperial court will not interfere too much.

In the end, from the 45th year of Xiehe to the 60th year of Xiehe, Daming gathered civil forces and repaired the Beijing to Weihui (Weihui is located on the opposite bank of Kaifeng, on the north bank of the Yellow River, because the railway cannot bridge the Yellow River), Kaifeng to Fancheng, Xiangyang to Hankou, The second main line from Hankou to Changsha.

This road is roughly equivalent to Pinghan Road and Yuehan Road in later generations, but the part from the south of Changsha to Guangzhou is missing.

Because the infrastructure of Daming at that time was really unable to go from Changsha to the south, cross Hengshan, Wuling and other mountains to Lingnan.

In addition, because it was impossible to build a bridge across the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, and the Hanshui River, the railway was divided into two more sections than the Pinghan, Yuehan, and a total of four sections.When Wei Hui went to Kaifeng, Xiangyang to Fancheng, and Hankou to Wuchang, he had to get off the bus and take a boat to cross the river.

The reason why Weihui was chosen as the ferry point instead of Huaiqing Mansion on the other side of Kaifeng was because the ministers of the court considered Zhu Hetan's lineage, and initially entered the Datong from the lineage of Zhu Changhaolu's mansion.The fiefdom of Prince Lu's Mansion was in Weihui, and the ministers wanted to flatter the emperor's nominal ancestors, so they made some minor adjustments when planning the route.

In addition, the local branch line from Xi'an via Luoyang via Kaifeng eastward to Xuzhou, as well as its own local area network ring line around Chengdu, Sichuan, were also repaired during the same period with the support of local gentry and folk wealth.

Later, Xi'an's railway was extended further west to Lanzhou, ensuring rapid military dispatch to the northwest.

And the Beijing railway also goes further along the Liaoxi Corridor to Shenyang, and halfway forks at the flat place of Xunyan Mountain in Jinzhou, connecting Jilin and Heilongjiang to the northeast.

After the northeast and northwest have the ability to quickly transport troops to the front line, the border troubles of Ming Dynasty can be considered to be completely alleviated, and peace can be maintained for at least a hundred years.

By Zhu Hetan's later years, the country had a total of five large-scale railway lines and ring lines/branch lines, and a short-distance railway connecting Anhui and Jiangxi was built around Nanjing.

At the same time that land transportation was booming, steamships for water transportation were also booming. Daming began trial production of steamships in the 20th year of Concorde, from the initial ten-year trial period to the mass production period 30 years later.

The earliest steam engine ships can only be operated in the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the tonnage is only 30 tons.In the next [-] years, it gradually developed to thousands of tons, and the material also evolved from wooden-hulled boats to iron-clad boats. Together with the railway, it further promoted the vigorous development of Daming's steel smelting industry. Steel production has more than tenfold in decades.

The canal also learned how to build modern ship locks, and steam power plus hydraulic pressure was used to drive and open the gates, which basically reached the level of parallel time and space in the West around 1850.

In this way, the old Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal no longer needs to be loaded and unloaded by dock workers in sections to solve the problem of water level drop in each section of the canal. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has officially realized one-time loading and unloading. It can be unloaded directly at the destination.

The population of Linqing, Huai'an and other dock loading and unloading cities in the middle has also shrunk further, squeezing out hundreds of thousands of dock workers again.But fortunately, the railway construction was in full swing at that time, so the "Million Water Workers" directly turned into railway workers.

Although Linqing and Huai'an are no longer important canal towns, they have been transformed into railway towns. Railway goods still need to be loaded and unloaded across the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and the Huaihe River.

However, the overly advanced railway construction, the government-led push, the waste and abuse of private capital, and the unfair cost allocation during the technology verification process have also accumulated a lot of social problems in the rapid development of Daming for decades. .

In the process of building railways across the country, at least hundreds of thousands of railway workers died, and sometimes [-] to [-] died a year.

Obviously, the profitability of the railway estimated by the imperial court at the beginning also had a lot of discrepancies.After the construction of many railways, the supporting industrial environment has not improved. In the beginning, the significance of national defense was greater than that of private economy.

A lot of private capital invested a lot of money, seeing that the railway has been built, but it is still far away to collect tolls and rent, and they can't help complaining.

At the beginning, the imperial court also proposed that "those who build the railway can obtain a certain width of land along the railway for industrial and commercial development", but the value of these lands at the beginning is obviously doubtful.

In the end, during the construction of the railway, too much uneven distribution was accumulated, people who dealt with money were greedy, and planning bubbles made it difficult to pay back. In particular, the economic value of the Northwest and Northeast Railways was not large at that time. The value was mainly for national defense. The national defense has filled the hole... The grievances accumulated for more than 30 years have made the voices of the people to break out capital improvement become louder and louder.

Although Zhu Hetan made the country rich and the people strong, the problem of unfair distribution still impacted Ming Dynasty.

Later, when he himself felt that the situation was a little critical, he finally remembered another last word that his grandfather gave him when he was dying.

"If the railway is overhauled in the future, it will definitely arouse opposition from all parties. There are conservatives, those who hate oil and water, and those who hate investment bubbles. Everything in the court is planned by the ruler. If there is a big problem, the hatred will eventually fall on the emperor. .

If you really get to that point, you can think about the experience of the British kingdom to quell public anger by pretending to be true. I have been in the Ming Dynasty for three to four hundred years. As long as the emperor retreats modestly, people will not be opposed to that step. "

Zhu and Tan thought again and again, and decided to slowly lay out according to their grandfather's will.

He himself is not afraid. After all, he has also been the emperor for 60 years. He has a lot of prestige and no one dares to question him.

But also because he lived for too long, his eldest sons did not live as long as him, so he had to find the youngest son to succeed him. It is estimated that he would be at least forty when he succeeded.He was afraid that his youngest son would not be able to control him in the future.

Ever since, at the age of 80, before Zhu Hetan formally abdicated as the Supreme Emperor, he ordered a thorough investigation of various railway cases over the past few decades.

In the end, it was discovered that several ministers of the household department and heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were involved in the case of tens of millions or even more, all of which were paid for the construction of railways and canals and operating funds.

These guys who were captured were of course liquidated, and they also sucked a lot of hatred.

But Zhu Hetan learned from the painful experience, and finally decided that the new emperor of Ming Dynasty would only hold military power and diplomatic power, and be responsible for defending the country and representing the country to the outside world.

The cabinet is responsible for other civil and internal affairs, industrial and commercial construction, finance and taxation, and the constitution is clear, and the emperor will not care about these in the future.

However, the cabinet must pay the emperor all the military expenses, rations, and supplies of the whole country. The military pay and expenses of the armed forces of the whole country are still distributed in the name of the emperor, and they are only loyal to the emperor.

This can be regarded as being forced by a series of railway cases, and embarked on a road of partial constitutional monarchy similar to Prussia and the Hohenzollern Empire in Germany, or a "dual monarchy". lighter than the monarch of England.

But this is in line with the original trend of history, because after all, China has a long-term inertia of authoritarian power. If the emperor even handed over military power, he would not be able to live for a long time, and the world would only be in chaos.

It is already the limit of Ming Dynasty to be able to completely ignore civil affairs and industrial and commercial construction, and let the cabinet select talents to govern.If there is conclusive evidence that the cabinet is very greedy and does not do good things, then the emperor can also use the cabinet to calm public anger.

Daming's power structure was finally stabilized for a long time by relying on this trick.

And after the Ming Dynasty dominated the industrial life in advance, with the overflow of technology, Western imitators will learn something more or less, and accelerate the global historical process.

By Zhu Hetan's later years, around the 1750s and 1760s, the West should have been fighting the Seven Years War at this time in history, but in fact the West had already completed a new round of reshuffle.

At this time, even the country of the United States had been established, and it owned the thirteen states of the United Kingdom in North America.

On the contrary, France did not wait for Louis XVI to take over at all. His grandfather Louis XV did not survive the wave of industrial revolution and was directly forced to submit to reforms, but it was not as bloody as the French revolution and Napoleonic Wars in history.

The whole world, driven by Daming, the locomotive of industrial destiny, ran wildly, fighting for each other.

At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were no unclaimed lands on the earth, and all the colonies were basically divided up by the great powers. The "one super".

Generations of countless European and American students, in order to enrich the country and strengthen the army, in order to prevent backwardness from being beaten, have traveled across the oceans to study in Daming.

It is best if you can get into Nantah University, but it is okay if you can’t get into Zhejiang University and Peking University.Many of these people went back to build the motherland after completing their studies, but at least half of them directly betrayed the motherland and stayed in Daming to find promising jobs to live a good life.

(season finale)

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The new book "Zhuge Liang", my brother, is welcome to collect. Please ask for tickets to follow up and increase the number of live fans. Thank you.

There is an Easter Egg chapter at the back to give the final map of Ming Dynasty. If you can’t get it out, you can also read the chapter comments of this paragraph. I will post it again in the comments.

　The new book "Brother Zhuge Liang" has been published for a week, and it currently has [-] words.Welcome to collect, ask for tickets and follow up.Now that I've finished this book, I'm going to write a new book with all my strength.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)