I'm sure of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong!

Chapter 465 Flag
"Your Majesty, Jiang Chengzhang, pay homage to your Majesty!" Jiang Chengzhang came very quickly.

As the newly established Minister of the Ministry of Commerce, there are not many opportunities to be summoned by the emperor to discuss matters alone, so naturally he must be treated positively.

Zhu Yijiong asked: "In Xiamen and Ningbo ports, are there many private ships flying official sun and moon flags without permission from the court?"

The reason why I ask this is that it all comes from the memorial submitted by the Ministry of Commerce. It should be said that it was not submitted by the Ministry of Commerce, but by the Shipping Department of Ningbo and Xiamen.

These two places were the first ports opened in the Ming Dynasty. Although they have been gradually diverted by Guangzhou, Shanghai and other ports, the annual sea-going ship trade volume is still quite large, mainly to Southeast Asia, followed by Japan.

General Tokugawa Yoshimune of the Japanese shogunate only lasted less than three years, and now he secretly began to seclusion because the monopoly power of China's maritime merchants was too strong, which was almost a devastating blow to Japanese business. .

It has been almost seven years since the ports of Xiamen and Ningbo opened. Officials from the shipping departments of the two cities discovered that many private merchants' ships were flying the official sun and moon flag without reporting it.

Hang it up when you go to sea and take it off when you return to port.

It was okay in the past few years, but it has become more and more popular in recent years, because the sea trade pie has grown bigger, and many former big landowners have lost their land and have begun to invest in sea trade.

Jiang Chengzhang already had an idea in his mind and quickly replied: "That's true, and most of them are merchant ships. These merchants may have started to prevent piracy, so the officials of the local shipping department also turned a blind eye, as long as If you enter the port and take it off, there will be no further investigation. Until later, some merchants discovered that the Nanyang barbarians often preferred to do business with ships flying the sun and moon flag. As a result, many merchants began to privately make the sun and moon flag, and left and right It doesn’t cost a lot of money, and even though the sun and moon flags on many sea ships are crudely made, the barbarians in Nanyang can’t tell.”

The Nanyang barbarians mentioned here are not only European colonists such as the Dutch and Spanish, but also those small countries in Southeast Asia.

Zhu Yijiong understood instantly: "Is this creating a brand effect?"

The word brand effect has been mentioned before when discussing the promotion of cigars with Jiang Chengzhang.

Therefore, Jiang Chengzhang was just slightly startled, and then nodded: "Exactly. Not only Ningbo and Xiamen, but also shipping companies in other places, but most of them are not as serious as these two ports."

This is natural. The other ports are all new and naturally not as free as the oldest two ports.

However, this also made Zhu Yijiong realize that it was time to establish a formal national flag.

Strictly speaking, the Ming Dynasty did not have an official national flag. The sun and moon flag used before was not a national flag, but an official flag used by official ships to distinguish them from civilian ships, and civilian ships could also be used after they were registered.

Now, it has been more than seven years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, and the number of sun and moon flags on civilian ships has been almost overrun, and there is no standard at all.

Even for those privately made civilian ships flying the sun and moon flag that violate regulations, they are found by the local shipping department. The great thing is to dissuade them. At most, they will be fined and re-registered if they persist in admonishment.

Zhu Yijiong thought for a while and asked: "If I decree that the sun and moon flag be designated as the national flag, does Jiang Qing think it is feasible?"

Jiang Chengzhang quickly held up his hands and said: "This is a great benefit! It can not only rectify the prestige of our country, the Ming Dynasty, but also establish a national flag. It can also be justified, regulate the shipping of each port, and reorganize the annual sea trade volume of each port."

Zhu Yijiong nodded and immediately issued an order: "Order the Cabinet and the Ministry of Commerce to quickly draw up a national flag plan based on the style of the Sun and Moon Flag, and then submit it to me for review."

Although the twelve-pointed sun and moon flag was only used during the Lao Zhu Uprising, it was also widely circulated among the people, and was once used by merchants to distinguish it from the flags of European merchant ships.

It can be said that the Sun and Moon Flag is still very popular in China. The Blue Sky and White Sun Flag of the Republic of China in later generations was also based on the blueprint of the Sun and Moon Flag.

It only took three days from the issuance of the imperial edict to the release of the draft of the Sun and Moon Flag, but the pattern design remained basically unchanged.

The color of the flag is still blue as the background color, with a red sun and yellow moon overlapping in the center, without a crescent moon pattern.

The blue background represents the blue sky, the sun and the moon represent the name of the Ming Dynasty, and the sun and moon in the middle represent China living in the four directions, which means the heavenly kingdom.The twelve-pointed red sun not only represents the twelve hours of the day and the twelve months of the year, but also implies that the new Ming Dynasty will shine on all nations.

Among them, the four big corners represent the sky and the ends of the earth, and you will never surrender to your concubines.After Zhu Yijiong read the memorial and the sample drawings submitted by the Cabinet and the Ministry of Commerce, he immediately said: "Yes. It should be issued as soon as possible and be widely advertised by the Propaganda Department."

Zhu Yijiong doesn't care about the various meanings imposed on this flag by the Cabinet and the Ministry of Commerce.

What's more, there are many connotations in it that deliberately cater to his emperor's ambition for external expansion.

There was no resistance at all to the establishment of the national flag. Officials from Fujian and Zhejiang were all in favor of the matter, while officials from other places of origin did not care much.Or they just don’t know the meaning at all, but just a flag doesn’t count as a waste of money and people, so there’s no need to advise.

Time flies so fast, August is here in a blink of an eye, and the exam is coming.

The Calendar Astronomical Hall suddenly reported to the emperor that he had discovered the purple star shining brightly, which confirmed the great prosperity of the country.

Zhu Yijiong was quite speechless and directly replied: "The Calendar Astronomy Association should focus on the study of astronomy and calendar calculation. If the stars are bright, we should also explore what the stars are."

To put it bluntly, if the Ziwei star is really bright as the planetarium said, then we should study why it is like this and present the results of the study instead of coming up now to announce the good news to the emperor.

Of course, the most critical thing is this time.

Zhu Yijiong was quite helpless. He had only not killed anyone for a few years, but these civil servants dared to jump out and test him again and again.

Previously, officials from Taichang Temple petitioned to formally establish the moral destiny of the new dynasty so that sacrifices could be made.

Regarding such suggestions, Zhu Yijiong naturally followed the good advice and directly transferred this person to the Propaganda Department, and he was promoted to the same level.

Wude has always said that it was no longer effective as early as the Song Dynasty. Ouyang Xiu even believed that this was an unfounded theory and an ignorant theory.

Compared with the Five Virtues theory which always emphasizes the legitimacy of the regime, Ouyang Xiu pays more attention to the legitimacy of the regime.

Until the later Yuan Dynasty, although there was the great Qian Yuan, the Qian hexagram belonged to gold, so Yuan was the gold virtue, and it was also adapted to the native gold of the Song Dynasty, but the Mongolians did not believe this at all, and they did not understand it.

Although Lao Zhu established virtue, he directly messed up and assigned Ming a fire virtue.

If we really talk about the Five Virtues, no matter whether they are inherited from the Song, Jin or Yuan Dynasties, there is no way it can be the Fire Virtue.

This can be regarded as a fatal flaw that Wude has always said, that is, it cannot prevent the ruler from messing up.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the market for this thing had completely disappeared. Only King Li Chuang thought of it, and he also did it randomly. In all dynasties, the five elements were mutually reinforcing, but he was the one who restrained them. He claimed to be the water virtue to overcome the fire virtue of the Ming Dynasty.

"Jiashen Chronicle": "The thief said that the king of virtue is water, and his clothes are blue, so all the troops wear blue, and their official hats are also blue."

The Manchu Qing Dynasty ignored it completely, and Qianlong even said: "It is nonsense to talk about the fate of the Five Virtues. I will avenge the Ming Dynasty and punish the thieves, set the Central Plains in the tripod, and unite the sea and the universe. I have achieved the most righteousness in the world since ancient times."

Zhu Yijiong thought for a moment, and then added: "Those who discover the bright purple star will be transferred to the Propaganda Department. Mei Qing is the director of the Calendar Astronomy Association, and he should also perform the responsibilities of the chief official, so he should not neglect it."

This is about Dian Mei Yingcheng. Don't just study mathematics and teach at the Imperial College. You should also pay attention to the management of personnel in the guild hall.

　Should I take leave?

　　
　
(End of this chapter)