On Chinese New Year's Eve, Zhu Ci took several brocade guards out of the palace.

Walking on the streets of Nanjing, because the Chinese New Year is about to come, all businesses are closing early, and even the hawkers have gone back.

On both sides of the wide cement road, every house is hung with red lanterns, although it is not yet night, but it seems to reflect the whole city of Nanjing, indicating the prosperity of the next year.

Because of the emergence of cement, tall cement buildings have also begun to appear in the public eye.

In fact, more than six years have passed, and although no 15-meter buildings are allowed to be built within a kilometer of the palace, many wealthy merchants cannot stop many wealthy merchants from building many magnificent cement buildings for commercial purposes.

In fact, the first cement masonry building is still a restaurant, and the restaurant made of cement masonry has been painted and renovated, which is really extraordinarily magnificent, and the people are also very rare, and the business is booming.

Naturally, more and more restaurants have demolished their original buildings and pursued more fashionable and magnificent cement masonry buildings.

Gradually, not only restaurants, but also some houses began to be built with cement masonry.

Not to mention wealthy businessmen, in recent years, some ordinary people, and even court officials have begun to popular cement masonry buildings, after all, cement masonry buildings are not only magnificent, but also fireproof, and live more at ease.

After all, in the eyes of ordinary people, brick and stone are the representative of hard and permanent, and cement buildings give people the perception that they can be lived in permanently, not decayed like wooden houses.

It is not without courtiers who proposed to replace the palace building with cement and stone, and build the palace into the most magnificent building in the world, after all, this is where the emperor lives, which not only represents the face of the emperor himself, but also represents the face of the entire dynasty, and even Li Yan and Huang Daozhou and other cabinet ministers do not oppose such a proposal.

However, Zhu Ciji refused without hesitation, because he felt that the palace building represented the highest level of Chinese wooden architecture and was one of the treasures of Chinese civilization, which must not be easily damaged, let alone easily abandoned.

Moreover, he also knew very well that when cement and stone buildings were really large-scale and fully popularized, wooden buildings were gradually forgotten, and many technologies slowly disappeared, the huge wooden buildings would become precious and truly a symbol of luxury.

In order to prevent future generations from destroying the wooden buildings of the palace at will, Zhu Ciji also issued a holy decree that future generations would never be allowed to tamper with the buildings of every palace in the palace, and every palace must be preserved.

Although the courtiers couldn't understand the meaning of Zhu Cijiao's will, after all, it was the emperor's own residence, and since the emperor didn't want to change, the courtiers couldn't force it.

"Nanjing City is really the same every year, and now it's time to prepare for expansion." Zhu Ci said suddenly.

Three days before the Chinese New Year, a courtier proposed to expand the city of Nanjing again, on the grounds that the population of the city was increasing, and the size of the existing city could no longer meet the needs of the Manchus.

The current registered population of Nanjing City has exceeded 2 million, and with the original size of Nanjing City of more than 1 million people, it does seem a little crowded.

"These are the emperor's credits!" The commander of the Jinyi Guard made Peng Cheng compliment on the side.

Zhu Ci smiled and said, "Okay, I don't need you to put a high hat on me, go back to the palace, the queen and others must be waiting for me!" ”

Immediately, Zhu Ci staggered back to the palace.

In the early morning, as the palace bell rang, the Ming Dynasty officially entered the twelfth year of Zhongxing, and Zhu Ciji also served as the emperor for twelve years.

Looking back on the eleven years of ZTE, Daming's economy is high.

Although the construction of railways and cement roads by the whole people in recent years has cost a large amount of the treasury and made the treasury empty again for the first time in 12 years, the revenue of ZTE in the 11th year has once again replenished the treasury.

Because of the huge increase in sales of cement and glass, a large number of them were exported to Europe and other parts of the world, earning huge amounts of gold and silver for the national treasury.

Agricultural tax, customs duty, commercial tax, etc., all aspects of taxation are calculated, and the annual income of the entire 11th year of Zhongxing in the Ming Dynasty exceeded 26 billion silver dollars, which was about 260 million taels of silver that year, which was more than ten times the income of Chongzhen in the middle of the year.

In terms of the population of the Ming Dynasty, counting the population of Korea, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, etc., which have gradually transformed and assimilated over the years, the population of the Ming Dynasty has exceeded 230 million, although it is impossible to determine what the total population of the world is at present, but the Ming Dynasty accounts for at least half.

On the third day of the first lunar month, hundreds of officials returned to the court, and today is also the day of tribute to the vassal states of the Ming Dynasty.

"Minister, envoy of the Qing Kingdom, see the emperor, long live my emperor, long live long live!" At present, the only subject of the Ming Dynasty, the envoy of the Qing Kingdom, Jihar, bowed to the ground, and at the same time presented the tribute of the Qing Kingdom to the Ming Dynasty this year, with a total value of three million taels of silver, that is, three hundred million silver dollars.

Although 300 million silver dollars is already dispensable for the Ming Dynasty, it is a real cut of meat for the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

It's not just that Dolgon, the person in power, is distressed, but when Jihar, the messenger, sacrifices it, his heart is also dripping blood, these are thirty percent of the annual income of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty still has various expenses, and the rest after the Qing Dynasty's expenditures is not even enough to spend compared with the tribute of the Ming Dynasty.

However, the strength of the Qing Dynasty was not as good as that of the Ming Dynasty, so it could only suffer this humiliation.

A eunuch took the list of tributes from Jihar and presented it to Zhu Ci for inspection.

After Zhu Ci took it, he opened it and glanced at it, and then showed a satisfied smile. In fact, this is the third time that Jihar has paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty on behalf of the Manchu Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty has also received nearly 10 million taels of silver worth of tribute from the Manchu Qing in recent years, including both gold and silver presents, as well as a large number of rare treasures, and specialties from the Middle East.

"The messenger is flat!" Zhu Ci said.

"Emperor Xie!"

At the same time as Jihar got up, he looked at the huge world map hanging on the side of the Jinluan Hall by the Ming Dynasty, which was what Jihar had to do every time he brought tribute to the Ming Dynasty, and took a look at the changes in the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

At just a glance, Jihar not only found the map of the Ming Dynasty represented by the golden color on the map, but also found the territory of their Qing Kingdom represented by the cyan color.

What shocked Zihar was that the territory of the Ming Dynasty was much larger than last year, with a large area such as Australia and Siberia and the Cossack Khanate, no, it was not much bigger, but it was more than twice as large, and the territory of the Ming Dynasty today was at least nine times more than nine times that of the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty.

It's too frightening, the current territory of the Qing Dynasty is like a newborn baby and a huge giant in front of the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

At this moment, Jihar's heart suddenly twitched, and his face turned a lot pale.