The Great Bandit in Kangxi Year

Chapter 223 Emperor Huaxing
Jiang Tao didn't know that because of his intervention, the Netherlands and the Ming Empire practiced monopoly trade, making the already strong navy of the Netherlands even stronger.

It's all because the Netherlands made a fortune from monopoly trade. In order to cope with the threat of the increasingly powerful navies of Britain, France and other countries, they had to increase the size of their battleships.

Britain, France and other countries were even more jealous. They wanted to snatch this huge benefit, and they also vigorously built ships one after another, which triggered a series of military competitions in Europe.

However, the Strait of Malacca was blocked by the Dutch Far East Fleet for a long time, and they could not get through by water. For this, they had to jointly form a 300-member envoy to enter Laos from Siam, and then enter Guangxi, traveling thousands of miles. It took several months to reach Jiangning.

At this time, it was October 1676, and now the world is at peace. Except for Tibet, Northeast China and Mongolia, Jiang Tao took back all the land, and his prestige and influence among the people are even greater.

Moreover, it was reported that the Ming Emperor died of illness and had no heirs left. The soldiers from various places began to be frequently mobilized, and the police forces in various places also began to increase the number of inspections. This made the people all over the country panic. After all, this peaceful and prosperous land Life is hard-won, if there is a turmoil, maybe his fields will be taken away again, and his life may be lost.

Now the entire empire has built many factories, more than half of which are light industries such as textile mills, flour mills, shoe factories, furniture factories, and agricultural tool factories, and all the small workshops in the past have been expanded in scale, most of which were invested by the old landlords. However, if the empire is in chaos, their investment may be in vain. When the war breaks out, no one can guarantee that their property will not be looted, so they don't want the empire to be in chaos, and they also begin to hope that King Huaxing will ascend the throne.

After all, the strength and power of King Huaxing are now equal to that of the emperor. Although most of the land of the landlords has been divided by the common people, they have some complaints in their hearts, but now there are no exorbitant taxes in the empire, and there are no messy checkpoints to collect transit fees and commercial taxes. It's not high, and people of insight have made a lot of money by building new factories, and Jiang Tao didn't do everything right, so they kept some of the land.

The main reason is that the people have surplus money in their hands, which stimulates the domestic consumption capacity and makes the goods produced by the factories sell out quickly.

Officials from all over the country took the opportunity to publicize Jiang Tao's achievements, and the people all over the place suddenly realized that they put up umbrellas, and some people even went directly to Jiangning to petition.

Officials and generals from all over the country also asked Jiang Tao to wear a yellow robe.

When the matter got to Jiang Tao, he could only laugh secretly, because all of this was under his control. Although he didn't say it clearly, the various places cooperated very tacitly.

The reason why he didn't proclaim himself emperor directly was because Jiang Tao wanted to see the reaction of the people. If he proclaimed emperor suddenly and the people all over the country objected, it would be a joke.

On this day, when Jiang Tao was discussing the enthronement with the cabinet ministers, he didn't want to hear overwhelming shouts from outside the palace: "The country has no master, and the officials and generals also have no master. For the sake of the world, I respectfully invite King Huaxing to be crowned as a great treasure."

And one wave is higher than the other, and the sound is earth-shattering.

After a while, the guards of the Huaxing Palace came to report: "Your Majesty, there are so many people outside the palace that they cannot get through. Do you want to send troops to disperse them?"

"You're an idiot, you can't do it!" Jiang Tao groaned secretly, and gave Cheng Zhang a sideways look. This was too much nonsense.

Cheng Zhang chuckled, and said in a moment of seriousness: "My lord, I have ordered the Qin Tianjian to deduce that tomorrow, the tenth day of October, will be an auspicious day, and you can wear a yellow robe."

"Forget it, if you don't let the people retreat, the king will not go."

At this time, the maids of the palace had already prepared the royal robes. Since Jiang Tao started his army, except for sleeping time, most of them wore heavy armor and gold silk armor. At this time, he changed into a yellow robe and took off the heavy armor. I'm really not used to it.

"Long live, long live, long live..."

All the ministers and guards knelt down and shouted together, even Huang Zongxi and others were no exception.

Jiang Tao was really helpless, he had abolished kneeling and worshiping a long time ago, but until now, he still couldn't completely put an end to it, and said in a busy manner: "Emperor can be, but you must follow my law, no matter who it is in the future, kneel again and again. , all will be punished with one month's salary, and they will all die."

Everyone was amazed. They thought that Jiang Tao became the emperor, and some of the rules that were inappropriate in the past had to be changed. They didn't expect it to remain the same, and everyone admired them in their hearts. In fact, they were willing to kneel.

It took a long time for the entire Jiangning City to restore order, and the British and French envoys just saw this passage, and they were all inexplicably shocked. It is unimaginable that the Ming Empire has such a strong cohesion, and such an empire cannot be provoked.

The British envoys were the most shocked. The king and the parliament of their country had never been able to reach an agreement, but the people of the Ming Empire took the initiative to let King Huaxing be enthroned. What a great prestige was needed. They absolutely did not believe there was any falsehood in it, because All the people took to the streets consciously, including soldiers, workers, and businessmen, so that they could only hide in a corner of the road.

Thinking of this, they became even more curious about King Huaxing, who was definitely a legendary king.

When the crowd dispersed, they encountered trouble when they found the officials of the Ministry of Rites. The Ministry of Rites was busy with the emperor's enthronement, so they had to arrange the envoys to the post. The British and French envoys had no choice but to take this opportunity to learn more about this mysterious Eastern Empire. .

The refreshing and clean bluestone streets, delicious dishes, good law and order, sturdy and gorgeous four-wheeled carriages, and special driveways and sidewalks all fascinated the diplomatic missions.

Although the gold coins they carry cannot be consumed, the nearby banks can exchange them for silver dollars. As long as they have silver dollars, they can buy almost everything in the world. All this is incredible.

It seems they underestimated the empire.

Moreover, the sound of shelling outside the city from time to time made them feel scared. It was the sound of hundreds of large-caliber artillery salvos. They thought there was going to be a war, but after inquiring, they realized that it was just the officers and soldiers outside the city who were training.

And they walked along the way, and found that the rural areas of the Eastern Empire were not backward, as evidenced by the neat brick houses and cheerful smiles, even their countries were not so developed, and at this time in Africa or America, most of them were thatched cottages, This made them look forward to, but also a little afraid, will the great Huaxing King cooperate with Britain and France?
No, it must be successful, these damn Dutch pirates are too rampant.

…………

Hastily ascended the throne, but Jiang Tao was worried about the issue of the year name. At this time, the country name had been decided, and it was designated as Dahua, which meant a vast country, a surging China, and endless descendants of Yan and Huang.

The year name is considered to be a symbol of the emperor's orthodoxy, and it is called "Fengzheng Shuo".One regime uses the year name of another regime, which is considered one of the signs of vassal and submission.This phenomenon mainly occurred during the period when China was divided.During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Min and Chu used the reign names of Houliang and Later Tang, and Wuyue used the reign names of Tang, Houliang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, Later Zhou and Northern Song.In addition, when Korea and Ryukyu were Chinese vassals, they also used the Chinese emperor's year name.Taking North Korea as an example, after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, apart from exchanges with documents from the Qing Dynasty, internal official documents refused to use the reign title of the Qing Dynasty, and instead used Ganzhi or the era of the king's reign. For the rest of the year, it is very similar to the Yongli year name used by Zheng Zheng in the Ming Dynasty.Therefore, many local separatist forces, minority regimes, and people's uprisings often establish their own year names.

The use of Chinese era names is very complicated.The regimes that coexist in the same period often have their own year names.There are also regimes that change the Yuan several times a year, and several reign names are used overlappingly.There are also regimes that do not establish their own era names, but use the era names of the previous dynasty or other regimes.For example, the name of Tianfu in the later Jin Dynasty was used until the ninth year, and it was changed to the first year of Kaiyun. Three years later, when Liu Zhiyuan proclaimed himself emperor in the later Han Dynasty, he did not create his own year name, nor did he continue to use the Kaiyun year name, but instead inherited Tianfu for 3 years.There are also many era names that were reused at different times.For example, Jianyuan has been used in 12 periods.Also, due to taboo or other reasons, a year name has different writing methods. For example, Tang Long's year name of Emperor Tang Shang is also written as Tang Yuan, Tang An, and Tang Xing.

For the sake of the year name, Jiang Tao originally wanted to change it to something novel, but either the name he chose had already been used in the previous dynasty, and the civil and military ministers disagreed.Either the name given is not novel enough or distinctive.

Since the chronology of the year name is a form of the chronology of the emperor's year, and it is also a symbol of power, there is no room for carelessness.

年号兴起于汉武帝时,一直沿袭到民国,经历了2000多年的历史在漫长的历史演变过程中,年号的使用也在不断发生变化。明朝以前,一个皇帝执政时常出现几个甚至十几个年号,如汉武帝在位54年,共用了11个年号.公元前134年,有慧星出现,这一年就改为“元光”公元前122年,汉武帝从郊外猎获一头角兽,又改年号为“元狩”。唐朝的女皇帝武则天,在位20年,年号改动达17次之多。

There was a doggerel circulated in the Qing Dynasty, "there are no more phoenixes than Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, no more ganoderma than Song Shenzong, no more reforms to the Yuan Dynasty than Empress Wu, and no more prime ministers than Chongzhen."

There are also several dynasties or several emperors in a dynasty who reuse the same year name. For example, Sun Quan of the Three Kingdoms, Zhang Jun of Qianliang, and Sima Xia of the Eastern Jin Dynasty all used the year name "Taiyuan". Suzong used the year name "Dagger Yuan".After the Ming Dynasty, an emperor only used one year name.

The method of taking the year name is generally used to beautify the rule, and at the same time, it has the meaning of blessing. Therefore, some year names will be discarded immediately after they are used and found to be derogatory. The irony of "Tonggan" is "heavenly poverty", which is no longer used.

The reign titles were not only deliberately crafted by the feudal ruling class, but also frequently used by peasant rebels. For example, the Huangchao rebels named themselves "Jin Tong", and the Fangla rebels called themselves "Yongle". "Yongchang" and so on.

"Forget it, let's use Huaxing." Jiang Tao came to a firm conclusion. Originally, the ministers refused to agree, but he couldn't think of a suitable one, so Jiang Tao had to make his own decision.

"That's good, anyway, Huaxing people are familiar with it." Cheng Zhang and others had no choice but to agree.

At nine o'clock in the morning of the next day, Jiang Tao held a coronation ceremony in the Jiangning City Imperial Palace, officially abolished Ming Xun's proclaiming himself emperor, established the country as Dahua, named Dahua Empire, temporarily set the capital in Jiangning, established the year as "Huaxing", and changed it to January [-] next year. It was the first year of Huaxing, and the people of the country called Jiang Tao the Emperor of Huaxing, and the West called him Dahua Emperor I.

At the grand ceremony, Huaxing Emperor Jiang Tao announced that Tang Yanyu could be conferred the title of Empress of the Chinese Empire, but he did not establish a crown prince and gave amnesty to the world.Several other wives were also canonized as imperial concubines, Huang's as Shufei, Fang's as Duanfei, and Wang's as Concubine Chen.

After Jiang Tao became emperor, everything went on as usual, and there was no change in personnel, but he announced that he would be exempted from agricultural taxes for another three years, and he wanted to confer titles.

Among them, Cheng Zhang, Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, Wei Donglai, Wang Fuzhi, Dai Cang and his son, and Fang Yizhi were all made dukes.

In the military, Jiang Wuji, Jiang Shi, Jiang Xin, Chen Dajiang, Wang Dashan, Han Yong, Wang Junyi, etc. were also dukes. Others such as Jiang Feng, Yao Jun, Luo Feng, Dai Jiao, Jiang Hu, Jiang Bao, Gan Zhi, Dozens of people including Liu Guoxuan and Shi Lang were made marquises, and hundreds more were made earls.

There are also some soldiers with outstanding military exploits who were knighted.

What attracted the people most was that some merchants and technicians were also knighted, all because they had made outstanding contributions to the country.

Fortunately, being knighted is just an honor, and there is no benefit for the time being, and the treasury did not cost too much.

In order to increase everyone's sense of honor, Jiang Tao has long customized medals of various levels. All the medals are made of gold, and even the medals of dukes and princes are inlaid with gems. These medals are gorgeous and generous, with fine workmanship. What's more, all the honorees will be summoned by Jiang Tao, and the emperor will personally match them with medals.

This is a great honor and face. It is stipulated in the law that no matter who makes outstanding contributions to the empire, they can all be awarded titles and rewards. These contributions include military exploits, inventions, political achievements, and contributions to enrich the country. , Cultivate excellent rice seeds, arrest top wanted criminals and so on.

At this time, the hearts of the people all over the country were moved. After all, it is not hopeless to obtain the title.

(End of this chapter)