Great Ming Dynasty Wen Chao Gong

Chapter 69 First Lesson
  "Wei Chen will do his best to teach the class well." Zhang Xiao said.

"It's not that important. Chang Luo is not the prince now, so just say something so that he can understand. By the way, I still don't understand something. Why do you call the Timur Kingdom and the Ottoman Kingdom an empire?" ?" the emperor asked.

"Your Majesty, the word "empire" is just a name given to some countries with relatively large influence. However, Timurid and Ottoman are called empires, and these two countries do have some imperial lineage." Zhang Xiao said.

"Oh, then please speak slowly and I will listen." The emperor said.

"The Americas are inhabited by indigenous people, let's not care about it for the moment. In today's world, those who can be called empires are the Roman emperors, Persian emperors, and Tianzhu emperors. Timur rose in Samarkand and occupied the old land of Persia, so he is called An empire is not too much. Babur and his descendants dominated Tianzhu. Although they did not occupy all of Tianzhu's homeland, they were still in the process of expanding the territory. It was barely called an empire. The Ottoman country was originally a branch of the Turks. It was founded a hundred years ago and its national power In the past, the Later Han Dynasty praised the Eastern Roman Empire and called it the Great Qin. However, the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for thousands of years, and called themselves the Roman Empire. Today, they are still expanding. It is not too much to call it the Ottoman Empire." Zhang Xiao explained.

"Yes, if these countries are not strong, there is no reason to be included in your "The Rise of Great Powers". But this Timur destroyed countless countries in the past, and he also pretended to be the leader of small countries and used the name of a prince-consort. It’s quite strange to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty.” The emperor sighed with emotion.

"Although Timur was a prodigious martial artist, he had a shady background. To put it bluntly, he was a rebellious official of the Chagatai Khanate. At that time, he mainly sent troops to the west. He was also afraid that the monarch of the eastern Chagatai Kingdom would unite with the Ming Dynasty and take advantage of his main force to go abroad. We attack him when we are empty, so we have to compromise with our Ming Dynasty first." Zhang Xiao analyzed.

"By the way, I also remembered one thing. You said before that you were going to write "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" about the people and customs of the Japanese country. Will you continue to write it later?" the emperor asked.

"Your Majesty, I am indeed still writing "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword", but I have many other matters and I cannot concentrate on writing this book. I am not very satisfied with the manuscript, so I am still revising it while writing." Zhang Xiao explained .

"It's okay, Zhang Xiao, please write carefully. What kind of character this Japanese people have, you will understand it when they fight. You don't have to worry." The emperor said.

……

The next day, Zhang Xiao came to the palace where classes were held in advance to prepare for class. The first class was held by Dong Qichang, who taught Confucian classics and calligraphy. After a short break, Zhang Xiao will start the second period.

After waiting for a while, Dong Qichang finished his lecture and came out of the lecture hall. When he saw Zhang Xiao, he bowed in a hurry and left.

Zhang Xiao checked his class equipment again, took a deep breath, and walked into the lecture hall.

"Your Highness, I am Zhang Xiao, a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, and I have been ordered by the emperor to teach mathematics and miscellaneous studies to your majesty." Zhang Xiao saluted to the emperor's eldest son.

"Sir, sir, please rise. Mr. Zhang is a teacher and I am a student. There is no need to perform this ceremony in the future." The eldest son of the emperor said politely.

"Thank you, Your Highness. Today I will tell you the story of Timur, and then I will talk about arithmetic later." Zhang Xiao said, taking out the teaching materials he had prepared and handing them to the eldest son of the emperor.

"Sir, if you are interested, I will listen carefully and take notes." said the eldest son of the emperor. "This Timur came from the Balurasi tribe of Mongolia and was under the jurisdiction of the Great Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. The Chagatai Khanate once fell into civil strife, and the Balurasi tribe established a puppet khan in the Hezhong area , separatist rule. Later, the nobles of Eastern Chagatai welcomed Tuheilu, a descendant of Chagatai, from the grassland as their khan. After Tuheilu became the khan, he sent a large army to wipe out the area in the middle of the river. Timur did not see the big trouble. Wonderful, decisively led the troops to surrender to Tuheilu Great Khan. Tuheilu also granted his son Yeli Ya Si Huo Zhe the jurisdiction over the area in the middle of the river."

……

Zhang Xiao told the story of Timur's early rise and surrender, then revolted, rebelled and surrendered again, harmed his fellow tribesmen, and destroyed his allies, and explained it with the help of a picture book.

The eldest son of the emperor listened carefully. He didn't seem to understand everything, but he carefully wrote down everything he heard.

Zhang Xiao’s lecture came to an end. After thinking for a while, the eldest son of the emperor began to ask his own question: "Mr. Zhang, the sage has said that kings, kings and ministers, fathers and sons, how can Timur be able to make a fortune after repeatedly causing trouble and harming his own people?"

"Your Highness, my country in heaven naturally pays attention to etiquette, but the grassland tribes do not. They all pay attention to the strong. Although Timur is capricious, he is also capable of fighting, so he has gathered a group of grassland warriors to serve as He served. Moreover, although the east and west parts of Chagatai are all Mongolian tribes, most of them are nomadic in the east and settled in the west. The living habits of the nobles on both sides are different. Therefore, although the Mongolian nobles in the west of Chagatai are temporarily under Tuheilu He was convinced, but he was also not convinced that the nobles in the eastern part of Chagatai were riding on him, so he was willing to follow Timur in revolt." Zhang Xiao explained.

There is no other way. To teach the prince a lesson, one must pay attention to political correctness. Even in the Ming Dynasty, it was not the emperor who had strong soldiers and horses, or else the emperors for hundreds of years after the Ming Dynasty were all from the line of Yan King Zhu Di.

"I understood it after hearing Mr. Zhang's explanation. Will Mr. Zhang still tell the story of Timur next?" asked the eldest son of the emperor.

"I won't talk about Timur's story today. I'll leave it to the next class. Now I'll talk about arithmetic. However, some of the arithmetic usage I talked about was borrowed from foreign countries. Your Highness may not have heard of it before. I said, for example, this Arabic numeral is written like this from one to ten. It will be more convenient to use this number to calculate." Zhang Xiao started taking math class.

What the emperor's eldest son and Zhang Xiao didn't know was that beside the lecture hall, the emperor and Chen Ju were listening quietly.

After Zhang Xiao's lecture, the emperor and Chen Ju went straight back to the imperial study.

"What do your Majesty think of Zhang Shidu's class?" Chen Ju asked softly, looking at the emperor who had been silent since returning to the imperial study.

"That's not true. Just listening to Zhang Xiao's class, and listening to Chang Luo talking about Mr. Zhang, I always feel a bit familiar." The emperor said.

Chen Ju didn't dare to answer.

"That's all, everything is over. I was also very angry at that time, but all the ministers at that time also added insult to injury, so I just went along with the situation. In the history of the future, I will also be known as a mean and ungrateful person. It's just that my teacher at that time couldn't talk to me well. No matter how capable he was, he couldn't be so domineering. Zhuge Kongming didn't point fingers at his master back then. Am I not even as good as his master? Or do I really regard him as his true master? Marquis Haihun is here." The emperor said in a waning mood.

(End of this chapter)