Chapter 282 Industrial development and national expansion of Ming Dynasty (two in one)
With the new batch of grain transferred by the Grain Industry Bureau to Beijing, the food shortage problem in the capital has been completely solved.
Yan Song, Minister of Agriculture, began to promote sweet potatoes to Baoding and Zhending Prefecture.
In addition, the central court and local governments at all levels also began to open fertilizer factories to sell the manufactured fertilizers to farmers at the most reasonable prices to promote increased grain production.
Zhu Houzhao believed that with the promotion of sweet potatoes, the people of the empire would no longer have problems due to famine, and the population would also explode.
What's more, now, Zhu Houzhao has been exempted from corvee service, which undoubtedly increases the ability of farmers to raise more children.
For example, Zhang Yousan is like most Ming Dynasty people of this era. His income now is different from that of ten years ago. Now he can earn four or five silver dollars a month even if he works in a newly opened coal factory in the city.
In addition, the three acres of land that could only be used to grow vegetables can now be used to grow sweet potatoes once a year, and the sweet potatoes can also be used to raise one or two fat pigs at the end of the year.
Now that every family's income is increasing, the demand for meat is getting higher and higher, and the price of pork is also getting higher and higher. Zhang Yousan has also made a lot of money from selling pigs. It is precisely because of this money that he, who has been single for 30 years, has made a lot of money. Finally got a wife.
Although she married a widow, she was beautiful and Zhang Yousan didn't feel bad about it.
Of course, now he has also learned some words in the classes held in the county, and knows that some gentlemen in the city have begun to advocate widows remarry, saying that making young women widowed is equivalent to destroying the reproduction of the population.
And he himself doesn't care about whether he is a widow or not. He only thinks that he can have a son in the future and that he can also go to school. Like his cousin, he can pass the Jinshi exam and enter the Capital University. Put him in a local place and become the county magistrate.
Zhang Yousan's cousin Gao Jian didn't expect that he was just an apprentice following a Feng Shui master to learn how to behave. He had to go home and join social studies because he had no money to continue studying. He didn't know anything about Confucian classics, but... Because I was good at mathematics and physics, I went all the way to university, and now I have become a county magistrate and an official.
Of course, Gao Jian's success as an official is also related to Zhu Houzhao's reform of the imperial examination system.
As more and more scholars receive new education, especially those who graduate from colleges and universities, there are more and more scholars from poor families who are studying because they did not do well in the imperial examinations and because the court subsidizes the new education. .
The imperial court had to make changes in its social promotion system.
These poor scholars now have a large scale, and because the imperial court still uses the imperial examination to select scholars, they have to continue to take the imperial examination, or stay in school to become teachers in new schools, or pass the civil service The official selection examination entered the Ming Dynasty's low-level official sequence.
But if these poor students who receive the new education want to become high-ranking officials, they still have to pass the scientific examination and become Jinshi.
In order to reduce the number of scholars who received the new education from re-learning the eight-part essay in order to become Jinshi, the chief minister of the cabinet, under the instruction of Zhu Houzhao, announced that starting from the 16th year of Zhengde, the imperial examination system of the Ming Dynasty would be divided into two ways to select scholars. The mode of selecting scholars is to go through the Imperial Examination and the eight-part essay test, so that students who have received old-style Confucian education can take the exam.
Candidates in this category are mainly bureaucrats.
The other type has changed the content of the examination. It no longer uses eight-legged essays to select candidates, but divides the examination into two subjects: liberal arts and science. The liberal arts examines the five subjects of Chinese studies, arithmetic, money, law and policy theory, history, and geography, while the science subjects examines Chinese studies, Five subjects: arithmetic, physics, chemistry, and biology.
Candidates in this category are mainly from poor families.
Zhu Houzhao was gratified for these scholars because Ming Dynasty was still the center of world civilization in this era and still represented the most advanced productivity and ideas. Therefore, they did not need to learn foreign languages, unlike later generations, even if they were studying their own country's history and literature. , you also have to learn foreign languages, both for undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Because the two methods of selecting scholars through imperial examinations ran in parallel, this reform did not arouse major opposition from the conservatives. After all, it did not block their way.
And for students from poor families who are eager to realize their ideals, being able to obtain a more convenient entry level is undoubtedly like a sudden rain after a long drought.
Zhu Houzhao prefers to call the latter imperial examination method the Ming Dynasty version of the college entrance examination, because the latter imperial examination is entirely based on the scores of each province to determine whether you can become a Jinshi, and it is also divided into top three, but there are no longer only three first-level Jinshi , but based on a certain proportion of the number of people in each province, the top-ranked students will be admitted as first-class students. Of course, there are still some top picks and second-best picks, but they are only the top picks and second-best picks in the province.
However, regardless of whether they are Jinshi students admitted to the old education or those admitted to the new education, starting from the 16th year of Zhengde, they must all enter universities to study. Jinshi admitted to the old education are uniformly assigned to study liberal arts in various universities.
The Jinshi admitted by the New Education Institute can choose to apply to various universities from the central to the local and provincial levels. They are admitted according to their scores and the quota of each school. They must graduate four years before they can officially obtain the robes and official documents of the Jinshi. It is only after graduating from college that you can become a true Jinshi.
These are all the responsibility of the academic department.
Zhang Cong, the Minister of Civil Affairs, is responsible for allocating work to these graduates from old-style education and new-style education.
The Ming Dynasty is still in the early stages of educational reform, and there are still a small number of people receiving higher education, so it is still distributed uniformly by the imperial court.
Most Jinshi will still be appointed as officials.
Today, officials in the Ming Dynasty not only cover the military and administration, but also include official positions as managers of government-run enterprises.
Therefore, Ming Dynasty still showed a relatively large shortage of officials in the utilization of human resources
Basically, the Jinshi admitted by the old-style education were mainly Neo-Confucian scholars, so they were mostly sent to the colonies and places outside the customs or in the southwest where there were more chieftains.
Most of the Jinshi admitted by the new-style education stayed in the pass and became officials. Especially the Jinshi from the two mature schools, Beijing Normal University and Nanjing Central University, basically stayed in Beijing to serve as officials.
Of course, this educational reform was presided over by Kang Hai, and the emperor Zhu Houzhao has basically retreated behind the scenes.
Because of this.
Many Confucian ministers were extremely dissatisfied with Kang Hai's reforms. After all, although the imperial court did not completely abandon Confucianism to eliminate their path to advancement, it also greatly reduced the chance that they, Confucian ministers, would advance to high-ranking officials.
As a result, many people were calling Kang Hai a national thief, and Kang Hai was even attacked by angry Confucian scholars.
But as long as Emperor Zhu Houzhao did not want to touch Kang Hai, no matter how hard the Confucian scholars scolded Kang Hai, it would not help.
The reason why Kang Hai was willing to change like this.
The main reason is that after Zhu Houzhao popularized education for all and developed capitalism, the desire of the common people and business class to participate in politics became stronger and stronger, making educational reform imperative.
besides.
Although Kang Hai was a Neo-Confucian official with a scholar background, he was not a conservative conservative. He studied at the Capital University for a period of time, and like Xia Yan and other officials, he advocated Neo-Confucianism as the body and Shengxue as the function.
In other words, it is necessary not only to make Confucianism the mainstream thought of the country, but also to improve production based on the theory of sacred learning.
Coincidentally, Zhang Cong, Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, was also such an official, so he supported Kang Hai's behavior and basically awarded real-power official positions that required practical administrative capabilities to Jinshi who were good at using sacred learning and received new education, while Confucian scholars sent To engage in positions with relatively little real power, such as education and cultural management, and diplomacy.
Zhu Houzhao also did not expect that after he established the first natural science development base in the Ming Dynasty, the Royal Industrial Experimental Base and later the Capital University, the elites of the Ming Dynasty would sum up a set of "Neo-Confucianism as the body and Shengxue as the application". Concept of governance.
"Switch to another type of steel and think about whether you can use a boring machine to directly boring out a cylinder. This may ensure the air tightness of the cylinder. If possible, you may be able to use the power of the steam to push the linking rod. Movement, and can be used in water pumps and spinning machines! ”
Zhu Houzhao was at the Ming Dynasty Engineering Academy, giving his suggestions for the steam engine development project to several high-tech talents from the Ming Dynasty who were wearing bullfighting uniforms.
Now, Zhu Houzhao has basically handed over internal affairs to the cabinet and is only responsible for the judiciary and the military. Therefore, a lot of his energy is focused on the scientific and technological revolution.
Therefore, Zhu Houzhao also specially established the Ministry of Science and Technology, with Wang Wensu as the Minister of Science and Technology, specifically responsible for the management of the scientific undertakings of the Ming Dynasty.
The industrialization of the Ming Dynasty has basically begun to get on the right track, and a basic industrial system has been established.
There are corresponding factories from steel smelting to the preparation of chemical raw materials, acids and bases, and ancillary mechanical chemical products.
And they are basically large government-run factories.
The reason why they were mainly government-run factories was mainly because Zhu Houzhao was the emperor and he could directly use the power of the country to directly establish government-run factories before the businessmen and inventors of this era realized new things.
Then, the government-run factories used their political advantages to directly control the entire industrial economy.
Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Ming Dynasty itself was a centralized country. In this period when agricultural civilization was still very developed, the merchants of the empire could not afford to build such a huge industrial system.
This also determines that the Ming Dynasty has now unintentionally become an empire with public ownership as the main body. Invisibly, the main wealth and industrial manufacturing of the Ming Dynasty have actually been controlled by the state!
This is very different from the economic structure of the capitalist empires that emerged in the West in the later stages of history. Perhaps this is also the characteristic of the Ming Dynasty.
certainly.
This also resulted in Zhu Houzhao still being an emperor with unrestricted royal power, and the imperial power could still be guaranteed.
Because no Ming Dynasty capitalist dared to compete with him, the emperor, in terms of financial resources and manufacturing power. Even the army now has to rely on the Royal Industrial Company he controls to provide the most advanced rifled firearms and cylindrical bullets that only Royal Industrial Company can produce.
If any vassal king or warlord wanted to rebel, Zhu Houzhao could paralyze his army as long as he cut off their supply of firearms and bullets.
Rubber began to become an important raw material in Ming Dynasty industry. Under the guidance of Zhu Houzhao, imperial scientists discovered that if this material was made into tires, it could indeed reduce the vibration caused by carriages when driving, and it could also be used as an industrial conveyor belt. .
This also led to the Ming Dynasty's increasing demand for rubber, which also led to the pace of Ming Dynasty's colonization to accelerate.
Now Ming merchants can only engage in foreign trade.
Because the production technology and political advantages they mastered were unable to compete with government-run factories at home, and the large demand for raw materials from government-run factories provided them with a lot of room for survival, domestic businessmen in the Ming Dynasty rushed to join the foreign trade. In an activity that can be called external plunder.
They transported a large amount of ore, rubber, coal, and oil from abroad (historically, oil had indeed begun to be used during the Zhengde period, and Leshan, Sichuan also dug an oil shaft in the 16th year of Zhengde) back to China, and they also shipped domestic high-tech products abroad. , making huge profits through import and export trade.
It can be said that these merchants of the Ming Dynasty have become the coachmen of the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade. Their merchant ships began to spread all over the world, and some even established their own colonies abroad.
If it were not for the purpose of becoming people of the Ming Dynasty and continuing to reap the benefits of the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade surplus, they would have established their own country long ago. However, there are quite a few people who have requested that they be appointed governors of certain overseas places, euphemistically calling them themselves. Discovered the New World for the imperial court.
Naturally, the Ming court was too lazy to investigate. After all, this was also a good thing for the court. Appointing a governor would provide a place with long-term tax revenue.
Zhu Houzhao knew that Ming Dynasty had now entered an era of national expansion.
Neither the emperor nor the officials of the entire imperial court could stop this trend. As the emperor, the only thing he could do was to maintain the continuous development momentum within the empire.
The Ming Empire was like a huge black hole at this time, frantically sucking the world's wealth into the empire.
In this process, more and more businessmen are making money. Almost every day in the Ming Dynasty, a millionaire with an annual income of one million silver dollars is created.
At the same time, this also led to many court officials voluntarily resigning and going to work.
After all, the main industrial economy of the Ming Dynasty is now in the hands of the imperial court. As an official, even if he manages the Royal Industrial Company with advanced production technology, he is just a worker, and most of the value created is still only national income. If he wants to have more If you want to gain wealth rather than through corruption and bribery, you can only resign and go into business.
What's more, Ming Dynasty's laws have become very strict, especially the punishment of corruption, so these officials who want to pursue wealth can only resign and go into business.
Moreover, if these officials go to sea to do business, they can use their connections in the officialdom to become super rich overnight.
"Do you really want to resign?"
Zhu Houzhao asked Yu Wenzhong, who was demoted to Fujian Shipping Secretary for his inability to guard the grain.
Yu Wenzhong nodded: "Your Majesty, please forgive me. Although I have the intention to serve the country, I know that my ability is limited. The Shipping Department is an important local tax office. I am afraid that I will still miss the court. It is better to resign and run it." Industry.”
"In this case, I will not force him to stay, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs approved Yu Wenzhong's resignation!"
Zhu Houzhao has now received no less than ten letters of resignation, and many of them are even from third- and fourth-rank officials such as the governor's minister. There are naturally more officials of fifth-rank and below, but Zhu Houzhao knows that this is the general trend of the world, and he does not Good to stop.
After all, the Ming Dynasty has long since lost its emphasis on commerce and agriculture. Seeing their friends from the same hometown become extremely rich, these officials with a background in science and technology can't help but feel envious, and they also start to compete for employment.
Zhu Houzhao now has to admit that historical development is indeed inevitable, and the phenomena of the times he experienced in later generations do not seem to be historical accidents.
Today's Ming Dynasty makes Zhu Houzhao feel strange and familiar at the same time. What is strange is that he finds that after opening up the country, the Ming Dynasty has begun to become less and less like the feudal society he knew. Society, and what is familiar is that he does not seem to have traveled through time, but has just changed his identity. In his previous life, he was not the helmsman, he was just an ordinary citizen of this country, but in this life, he became the helmsman.
Zhu Houzhao also didn't know whether the Ming Dynasty would encounter some of the problems encountered by later generations, such as the corruption of the quality of the people by the concept of money first, and the blindness and selfishness brought about by the pursuit of interests, and even harming each other and entrapping each other, regardless of conscience.
Sometimes, Zhu Houzhao felt that even though he was the emperor, he still seemed a little powerless to control the country. Various forces were developing, various ideas were developing, and all kinds of people were appearing.
In March of the seventeenth year of Zhengde, Zhu Houzhao convened a gathering in the Royal West Garden with relatives of the emperor, cabinet ministers, officials of the Guards, officials of the Three Laws Department, and ministers of various ministries.
Although it was just an ordinary gathering, only Zhu Houzhao himself knew that the appearance of Zhengde in the 17th year meant that the history of the Ming Dynasty had really changed.
The historical Emperor Zhengde died in March of the 16th year of Zhengde, and the Ming Dynasty entered the Jiajing period.
And now, the seventeenth year of Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty has arrived, and the historical Jiajing Emperor Zhu Houcong is still a young prince who stayed in the capital to study.
It seemed that many people ignored him, not even the officials who persuaded Emperor Zhu Houzhao to let Zhu Houcong return to his hometown and become a vassal.
Only Zhu Houzhao glanced at Zhu Houcong, called him to him, picked up the recently picked up glass of wine and took a sip: "I heard that you like Taoism?"
Zhu Houcong did not expect that His Majesty the Emperor would suddenly ask him this, so he replied truthfully: "Reporting to Your Majesty, Taoism is flourishing in my hometown, and my father believes in it, so I also believe in it!"
"There is nothing wrong with faith! Just don't miss your true business!"
Zhu Houzhao felt that the current arrangement might be the best arrangement for Zhu Houcong. This man, who was almost as clever as a monster in history, might be able to make greater contributions to the Ming Dynasty by not focusing on power and infighting in this life.
"I will remember your Majesty's teachings!"
Zhu Houcong didn't know why the emperor suddenly said this to him, and he was thinking alone in his heart.
The other officials present also gave Zhu Houcong a meaningful look, and they didn't understand why the emperor suddenly talked like this with a vassal king.
Zhu Houzhao himself couldn't help but smile. He knew that starting from the 17th year of Zhengde, he would not be able to control history through his familiarity with the history of the Ming Dynasty to cover up his disadvantage in strategy.
But he knew that according to the original historical trajectory, in the future, various wise and almost demonic figures would appear in the Ming Dynasty, and more and more, such as Xu Jie, Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng, and even the current court officials Such figures have begun to appear, including Wang Qiong, Wang Shouren, Yan Song, as well as Xia Yan in Nanyang and Yang Yiqing in Hetao.
Zhu Houzhao didn't know how he should rule these so-called heroes, and he didn't know if he could control these people. Now, he had to admit that he was not controlling these people, but these people were controlling the world. As an emperor, he seems to be increasingly becoming an inspirer of history rather than a leader.
For example, the idea of "Neo-Confucianism and the Holy Application" that has now become the mainstream of thought from the center to the status quo was not what Zhu Houzhao had thought of in advance, nor did he want it to happen like this.
Even the Zhongjun Society he built has changed its philosophy of governing the country, and has even become the stronghold of this mainstream thought.
The only thing that makes Zhu Houzhao happy is that the current mainstream social thinking is still conducive to him as the emperor. Otherwise, Zhu Houzhao believes that he may have been pushed to the guillotine!
Zhu Houzhao admitted that this was because this era still needed him as an emperor.
But what about the future? Will I still need my existence as an emperor? Will I be pushed to the guillotine?
After more and more plutocrats form an alliance and begin to monopolize all the resources in this country, will the emperor himself have limited power and sit back and watch them force the people at the bottom to rebel? But then it will be him Being pushed out to take the blame, sent to the guillotine, or forced to make some changes.
"It's all gone!"
Zhu Houzhao glanced at the crowd of ministers and nobles, and he seemed to see many evil wolves who might force him to amend the constitution in the future.
For a moment, Zhu Houzhao felt a very strong sense of crisis.
"Prince, why did your Majesty look at us with vigilance just now!" Ye Heng, Minister of the Ministry of Industry, couldn't help but asked Wang Shouren, Minister of the Ministry of War.
Wang Shouren smiled faintly: "Because when you look at things with your heart, you see things that you can't see if you don't look at them with your heart!"
Ye Heng didn't understand what Wang Shouren said.
But Yan Song understood, and just sighed in his heart: "Your Majesty does not look like a king, but he is more suitable to be the king today. It is not your Majesty who cannot cope with the current situation, but I don't know if the new king can properly handle the current situation a hundred years from now." The ever-changing situation! ”
Zhu Houzhao is now in his thirties, which allows him to have strong energy to do more things, but he has also brought chaos and complexity to this era, as if he has planted vitality, and he seems to have brought another layer of sin. .
Zhu Houzhao looked at the new concubine Zhang Xuanshi, as if he was looking at a flower blooming in spring. He couldn't help but smile for a moment, then turned around again, lay down on the couch, and watched Raphael painting for himself. Like, he doesn't know what new things will happen tomorrow, but Zhu Houzhao believes that tomorrow will be wonderful.
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(End of chapter)