After Yun Zhi went to find Yun Xi, Yun Xi also left Kunning Palace and walked towards Qianqing Palace.

He originally wanted to go to the front hall where he usually dealt with political affairs, but after thinking about it, he turned around halfway to his own study in the apse, took out the recitals he had archived from Yongfan, and then took out some things he had written a few years ago and read them.

Three quarters of an hour had passed in a blink of an eye, Huang Fu walked in and said softly to Yun Xi: "Your Majesty, His Royal Highness King Yong and His Royal Highness King Xiang have entered the palace and are waiting in the side hall, do you want to summon the two Highnesses now?" ”

"Announce them to my study." Yun Xi said. He paused, and then said to Huang Fu: "Why did you come in to report this, Wang Xi?" ”

"Your Majesty, it seems that there is something to prepare for this year's clan gathering, and the prince and the scholar Shanggong are busy with that matter." Huang Fudao.

"Is it so troublesome?" Yun Xi muttered a sentence and said to Huang Fu: "I know, you go and pass Yun Xi and Uncle Huang over." ”

Huang Fu stepped back.

Yun Xi put what he had written back into the bookcase, sorted out the folds, and took out a pencil and a few blank sheets of paper made by the royal superintendent. When he took it out, he found that the tip of the pencil was broken, and asked the little eunuch standing beside him to sharpen the pencil.

The little eunuch was cutting, and Yun Xi heard the sound of communication, and then Yun Xi and Zhu Bai walked in and saluted Yun Xi.

After the three of them finished answering the salute, Yun Xi was just about to speak, when he saw Yun Xi's eyes looking at the pencil being sharpened from time to time, and said with a smile: "What, the fourth brother is very curious about this pen?" ”

"Brother Huang, is this a pen? As soon as the younger brother came in, he swept his eyes to the object, and he was guessing what it was, but he never expected it to be a pen. Yun Xi said with some surprise.

"Yes, Your Majesty, this is also a pen?" Zhu Bai also said.

Yun Xi took the pencil from the hands of the little eunuch and said to Yun Xi and Zhu Bai: "This is a pencil invented by the imperial supervisor, the inner core is a mineral, called graphite, there may be a little lead in it, the specific way to do it The imperial brother does not know, it can be used for writing, it is much more convenient than a brush, and the imperial brother sometimes uses it to write." ”

Yun Xi took the pencil from Yun Xi's hand, looked at it carefully, scratched it twice on his hand, and said with a smile: "This is very convenient, the brush needs to be inked, this one can be used immediately when you pick it up, it is much easier to use than the brush." ”

"It's not very easy to do, you need to have graphite ore to do it, and the graphite can't be broken before making it so fine that it can't be broken before the wood on the outer bread, and it's still a little difficult, and the royal brother now has these few in his hand are made by the royal supervisor I don't know how much graphite he thrown." Yun Xi said.

"In this case, my brother still wants the imperial brother to give my brother a few pencils." Yun Xi said with some regret.

"This one is for you. You can make your own in Yongfan, Yongfan may have graphite mines, and you have a lot of trees there, maybe your craftsmen can find a better way to make pencils. Yun Xi said as he took out another pencil from under the drawer and put it on the table.

"It's hard to say," Yun Xi continued to look at the pencil in his hand and fiddled with it twice, and said, "I don't have many craftsmen in my hands now, they are all exiled from Hebei, Shandong, and their craftsmanship is not very good. ”

"Brother Huang rewarded you with a few craftsmen." Yun Xi said.

"Speaking of timber, there are so many timbers in the Yongming realm, all the people should have lived in houses made of wood." Yoon-hee turned the conversation back on track and took the time to check that there was nothing wrong with the pencil.

"They have all been inhabited, but the boundary of Yongming is cold, and it is not possible to live in a house made of wood, the wood leaks everywhere, and a fire kang must be built, and now many people there have not been able to build a fire kang, so I have distributed a lot of beaten fur to the people, so that they can cover it at night to keep warm." Yun Xi also put the pencil in his pocket and said.

"Enough fur?" Yoon-hee asked.

"Enough." Yun Xi said: "The barracks of the guard have been built with a fire kang. Those soldiers who came from Beiping had a lot of experience, and they built all the kang before the Chinese New Year last year, and they only needed to distribute the furs to the ordinary people. ”

"And our Yongfan Emperor Brother also knows that there are few ordinary people, most of the exiled prisoners have been called into the guard, and the barbarian people also have their own ways to keep out the cold, so I don't need to worry about it, and the few Han people who are not guards can easily get enough fur."

Now the Ming Dynasty has two ways to emigrate to these vassal states, the first is to exile the prisoners, and the second is to let them go to the vassal country of their own free will.

The number of people who have voluntarily passed through the country in the southern vassal states every year is not smaller, and it has already exceeded the number of prisoners who have been exiled every year. After all, there are many people who go to Nanyang in the Liangguang area, and they know that Nanyang is not a barren place, and there are many people and little land, and several feudal states in Nanyang have also implemented the strategy of preferential treatment for Han people, so the peasants who have few acres of land at home have fled to several feudal states in Nanyang. Officials in the construction of the city have written several times to request restrictions on the outflow of people because the population is not increasing but decreasing.

But the north is different, and many people who know about the northeast and northwest have the impression that these places are barren, barbaric and fierce; In addition, the population of the northern provinces in this era was not much, and Shandong was the most populous province in the north, and the statistics of Hongwu in the 26th year were only more than 5 million, and now it will not exceed 6 million.

"Brother Huang wants to find a way to make the people of the southern provinces willing to go to Yongfan." Yun Xi said.

"Brother Huang, my brother himself doesn't report hope for this, and now the main method is to use Taoism to educate the barbarians. The younger brother expanded the Taoist temple in Vladivostok, sealed many local Taoist barbarians, and used them as the main missionaries to go inland to preach. Yun Xi said.

"Speaking of which, how are you expanding inland? How many years can you border the feudal country of Uncle Twenty? Yunxi asked.

"It's not good, there are many more Jurchens in the inland than on the seaside, it's not easy to submit, and Taoism will be difficult to work for a while. I am now mainly following a river, known locally as the Suifen River, and pushing inland. Fortunately, our shipbuilding level is much stronger than that of the Jurchens, and they have no sharp weapons to sink our ships at all; Moreover, the Suifen River is a plain along the river, which is also easy to occupy. Now I have built a fortress more than a hundred miles north of Vladivostok, and the locals say that the name of that place is Shuangchengzi, and I don't know how the name came from, so I borrowed it. ”

"Originally, I wanted to clear the local Jurchens along the Tumen River, but the army went into dozens of miles to find that it was not easy to clear the mountains, and the Koreans who had already made an appointment found all kinds of excuses and were unwilling to attack together, so I could only build a fortress at the mouth of the Tumen River, set up a Han village, and a Jurchen village that took refuge in me." Yun Xi said.

"But the twentieth uncle's expansion in northern Liaobei is not smooth, he met a strong Jurchen tribe more than a hundred miles north of Kaiyuan City, although there are no high mountains, but the forest is dense and the terrain is rugged, the twentieth uncle has fought twice but failed to destroy that tribe, and now he has changed his strategy, clearing the nearby woods little by little, to cut a road that can allow the army to enter and exit. It is estimated that it will not be possible in a year and a half. He added.

Yun Xi also knows about this thing. Zhang Shu, the left minister of the British Domain, was his close confidant, and he came to the capital last year to pay tribute on behalf of the British Dynasty, so he knew the setbacks encountered by the British King Zhu Song very well. Zhu Song originally planned to pay tribute to Beijing this year, but because of his second defeat to this tribe in the second half of the year, many Jurchen tribes who had already surrendered to him were ready to move, and he had to stay in Kaiyuan to extinguish fires everywhere.

However, "Don't just look at the north direction, the northeast side of the twenty uncles has already controlled Liaoyuan, Meihekou and Qishi and other places, to bypass the due north direction to expand northward, the expansion may not be slower than you." ”

"Anyway, this place in the northeast belongs to you and Uncle Twenty, and Uncle Twenty occupies more, and you occupy less." Yun Xi said.

"Got it, Brother Huang. But I still have to be in charge of the affairs on the other side of the sea, and there are few people, so it's almost impossible to fight for Uncle Twenty. ”

"At present, the Northern Naval Division, which was established by the Imperial Brother and a number of guards in Shandong, Hebei and other places, often stops at the port outside my Vladivostok City to patrol the Yongming Sea (Fusang Sea) and mediate disputes between the Ainu and Fuso. Several daimyo from the northern side of Fuso's Honshu island have sent people to me and asked me how I can be willing to give up my support for the Ainu. ”

"That's it, I can ignore their words, but these sailors are stationed, and I have to supply and drink, and it costs a lot." Yun Xi said.

"When did the sailor go to Vladivostok and not send the people who were going to give you? When they return from the northern and southern Ainu lands, they will also bring the Ainu who are willing to come to the mainland to your Vladivostok, and the soldiers on the ship will often bring some things from the mountains that you urgently need to sell, although the price is a little higher and it is good for your vassal country, what else do you have to complain about. Yun Xi scolded with a smile.

Yun Xi touched his head and pretended to be stupid.

"If you really don't want the sailors to go to Vladivostok, the royal brother will let the Ainu expand the ports of the southern Ainu land so that all the ships can be stationed at the same time." Yoon-hee decides to scare and scare him.

Yun Xi was really frightened, and he hurriedly said loudly: "No need, Imperial Brother, there is no better port than Vladivostok in Southern Ainudi, let's pass by Vladivostok." ”

Yun Xi looked at Yun Xi's expression, saw that he didn't think he was joking, and he didn't poke it himself, so he waited for him to plead for a while before relenting and saying that the sailor was still anchored in Vladivostok, which made Yun Xi breathe a sigh of relief. He didn't see it, Zhu Bai, who was standing on the side, lowered his head, and he was about to hold back. Yunxi himself had a hard time holding back his laughter.