Finale [286] Ming Empire

The years have passed, and in a blink of an eye, it has been forty-five years of Daming Hongde, and Song Youliang, the high-spirited and scolding Fang Xuan, is already a dying old man. However, in the past forty-five years, the Ming Empire has developed rapidly, and the Jin (Jinling) Beijing (Beijing) Railway, which connects the main arteries of the north and south, has silently served the empire for 30 years. At the beginning of the opening of this railway, it exerted a huge power all of a sudden, the distance from Beijing to Nanjing was shortened to two days, and countless goods, materials and people flowed through this main artery connecting the north and south, fully verifying the saying of later generations: When the train rings, there are ten thousand taels of gold.

Of course, at this moment, whether it is Urumqi in Xinjiang or Songjiang on the East China Sea, the railway is spreading like a spider's web. Driven by the railway, the development of any city with a station can be described as changing with each passing day. The court struck while the iron was hot and gave the right to build a railway to private individuals, and the privately built railways had the right to operate for 30 years, and after 30 years, they were unified and owned by the court.

The great development of the railway, but also led to the great development of industry, many peasants out of the land, joined the industry, and the increasing land, labor shortage, and the countryside began to use more and more machinery and equipment, the development of the Ming Empire's industry has entered a virtuous circle. In the city, there are towering chimneys everywhere. There was the roar of machines everywhere. There are busy construction sites everywhere. The train station was crowded. Everywhere there was the sound of fruit and newspapers being sold. There are also shoeshine children shuttling through the crowd

In terms of oceans, from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, ships flying the Ming flag can be seen everywhere. Following the Nanyang Chinese Entrepreneurs Association, Daming has successively established the Indian Chinese Entrepreneurs Association, the African Chinese Entrepreneurs Association, the Europa Chinese Entrepreneurs Association, the American Chinese Entrepreneurs Association, and the Australian Chinese Entrepreneurs Association. The maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty monopolized more than 80 percent of the world's maritime trade. Countless riches also poured into the Ming treasury like seawater.

In terms of navy, the Ming Empire already has three major offshore escort fleets: the North Sea Fleet (stationed in Lushun), the East China Sea Fleet (stationed in Taipei), and the South China Sea Fleet (stationed in Haikou), as well as the three ocean-going fleets of the Pacific Fleet (stationed in Hawaii), the Indian Ocean (stationed in Ceylon), and the Atlantic Fleet (stationed at the Cape of Good Hope). The six fleets have a total of 140 ironclad ships with a total tonnage of 120,000 tons, as well as more than 600 auxiliary ships with a total strength of more than 60,000 people.

In terms of population policy, in addition to encouraging women in their own countries to have more children, the Ming Dynasty also adopted some means to greatly reduce the male population of colonies or vassal states, and then encouraged Ming men to intermarry with women in these colonies and vassal states. In order to promote the growth of the Han Chinese population, and then in turn to export the Han population to the colonies! Among them, women in Japan have made the greatest contributions. Encouraged by this national policy, the non-Han population of the empire itself and its colonies or vassal states has decreased dramatically in recent decades, such as the Japanese, who could no longer even find this term in textbooks by the time of the 30th year of Hongde. Another example is the indigenous people of Southeast Asia, who have disappeared as early as 20 years of Hongde.

This was accompanied by a cultural policy, and the Ming Dynasty began to implement a comprehensive Chinese language education in its colonies and dependent countries. The soft hand is to widely open Han schools in subject countries and colonies, absorb local people to study in these schools, and imperceptibly sinicize the people of those subject countries and colonies. The hard hand is to stipulate that Chinese, Chinese characters, and Hanfu are the official language, official script, and official clothing of the local government through administrative orders, and that local people must wear Hanfu, learn Chinese customs, speak Chinese, write Chinese characters, and take Chinese names. It is also stipulated that those who work in factories and shops run by Han Chinese must be able to speak Chinese and write Chinese characters.

As a result of these measures, in the eyes of the people of the subject countries and colonies, those who worked and dressed decently spoke Chinese. Those who have held political, military, and economic power in the region are also fluent in Chinese. As a result, the vassal states and colonial people naturally developed a kind of Chinese language as a status symbol, and began to take the initiative to accept sinicization in their hearts.

In the past 30 years, the Ming Empire has basically maintained peaceful development, only occasionally clashes with the Russian Cossack cavalry in the north, however, without exception, they were repelled by well-equipped pioneer regiments, and several pioneer regiments found gold mines in the cold places of Siberia, for the sake of land and gold, the pioneer regiment went farther and farther, the farthest pioneer regiment has reached the eastern foot of the Ural Mountains, and submitted an application to the imperial court to continue to explore westward. To the west, the cavalry of the Ming Empire had already crossed the Yumen Pass, Dunhuang, Yining, and as far as the Caspian Sea.

Especially after the population increased substantially, Daming's overseas development groups also flew to the world like snowflakes. In Siberia, the brave Ming pioneers defeated the Russian Cossack cavalry; In Australia, the pioneer group discovered high-grade iron ore and sold it all over the world; In South Africa, Boer laborers enslaved by the pioneer regiment worked hard to dig gold and diamond mines for the Ming Empire; In North America, a pioneer settlement called New Beijing was officially approved by the Ming court to be upgraded to a "government" because of its population of 100,000. In the Arctic Ocean, the Ming Dynasty's maritime development group did not show weakness, they went north along the coast, and have established a base on the Kamchatka Peninsula, because it is ice and snow all year round, and the flames of volcanic activity on the island can be seen far away on the sea, and the Ming pioneers named this place the Ice and Fire Island. There is an abundance of fishing in the vicinity of Fire and Ice Island, and fishermen have organized large fleets to catch crucian carp, flounder, and crab, which can be sold for a good price as long as they are shipped to Japan.

In terms of communication. The Ming Empire also made development, as early as the eighteenth year of Hongde, the cable telegraph had been successfully developed. First of all, a wire telegraph network was erected along the Jinjing Railway, and it took only one month for the entire line to be erected. The transmission of information between Beijing and Nanjing suddenly became close at hand. Immediately, telegraph lines were spread out at an astonishing speed throughout the country, and now all military regions and provincial capitals have set up cable telegraphs, and the court's ability to respond to emergencies in remote areas has suddenly increased from several months to several days. And the original post stations of the Ming Empire all over the road still play his role, and in places where there are no railways and telegraphs, the post stations are undoubtedly a very useful supplement. It's just that the post office is no longer called a post office, but a post office. The postman was no longer called the postman, but the postman.

On May 15, the 45th year of Daming Hongde, 10 o'clock in the morning, auspicious time, it is advisable to travel.

As the gate of the Forbidden City slowly opened, a team of honor guards in red clothes and bright armor walked out of the palace first, wearing traditional robes and cotton armor, steel knives at their waists, and spears with red ribbons on their shoulders, walking out with their heads held high. Behind the guard of honor was a group of guards, dressed in the military uniforms unique to the Ming Guards, with high bearskin hats on their heads, and muskets on their shoulders, the bayonets on which shone in the sunlight. Then there was a big public opinion carried by twenty-two people, Song Youliang was wearing a golden python robe, embroidered with a golden dragon with gold thread, and a golden purple and gold crown on his head, sitting on it, with an indescribable majesty like an emperor.

Out of the palace, Dayu stopped, Song Youliang stepped on a carriage of eight royal horses parked outside the palace gate, the carriage reflected the golden yellow, inlaid with various jade jewelry, and the carriage was inserted with yellow umbrella covers, axe pins, papayas and other things, shining brightly.

In front of the carriage, there were eight white horses without any variegation, and Zhu Huanting's Fengyu followed Song Youliang out of the palace gate, and Zhao Wanling sat side by side with her.

After Feng Yu, it was the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs who was going to follow him on this trip, and each of them boarded a four-horse carriage, a total of dozens of carts followed Song Youliang's team

"Chitose, Chitose, Chitose~"

Thousands of guards and honor guards saw Song Youliang get into the car and began to cheer.

"It's auspicious, let's go!"

The four horsemen in front of each dragged the reins of the royal horse they were in charge of, and the carriage moved slowly, and this carriage comparable to the dragon chariot of the Ming Emperor would not feel a trace of fluctuation in the cement road at all.

Hundreds of meters out of the palace gate, they have already entered the crowd of farewells, many people saw the yellow umbrella cover from a distance, and they had already knelt down, and Chitose's voice was endless. From time to time, there are also people who call Niangniang Chitose, Chitose.

Zhu Huanting is also an old woman who is nearly half a hundred years old, but because of proper maintenance, she looks only in her thirties, and she is dressed up at this time, and she is indescribably graceful and luxurious.

The further you go, the louder the cheers of the people become, the whole city of Beijing is shrouded in a thousand years of cheers, Song Youliang looked at the enthusiastic people on both sides, showed a smile, waved his hand to the ordinary people, and saw An Guogong's response, many people trembled excitedly

Gradually, Song Youliang felt that the voices of the people in his ears seemed to be suddenly far away, and his thinking seemed to be a little blurred, he recalled the scene when he first arrived here, lying seriously injured in the mud house of a poor military family in Shandong, with only a pair of sad old parents by his side.

From the moment he came here, he climbed up step by step, and began to prepare for the future, because he knew that the Ming Dynasty was not hopeless, and it was not that there were no loyal ministers and good generals. As long as there is a wise monarch and a reasonable system, a new and strong Chinese nation will be created. During this period, he was afraid that he would go down the old road and overthrow the old dynasty, but instead of establishing a new dynasty, he pushed the Chinese nation into the rule of the barbaric and backward Jurchens, then he was a sinner through the ages.

For this, he worked diligently, and luckily he succeeded, for which he also climbed to the top position. Song Youliang knew that the future dictatorship would slowly withdraw from the stage of history, but he still did not hesitate to ascend to the Ninth Five-Year Plan, people are selfish, this empire now needs the emperor instead of democracy, democracy is hundreds of years later. He believed that the strength of the unsuppressed Chinese nation was so strong that he could find a path that he was suitable to follow, and he did not need to worry about what would happen in the next few hundred years.

"Is this all a dream, if it's a dream, then let me never wake up." Song Youliang muttered in a daze, Song Youliang felt very heavy eyelids at the moment, he closed his eyes and wanted to take a nap, and fell asleep, Song Youliang only felt as if he was flying lightly

Fly farther and farther until you reach the clouds