It is now the ninth year of Zhengde, and since the summer of the eighteenth year of Hongzhi, Zhengde Emperor Zhu Houzhao has now been in the world for ten years.

Ten years later, the empire doesn't seem to have changed much.

But when you look closely, a lot has changed.

Hetao is still in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, and since Yulin City, Dongsheng, Wuhai, Yunchuan, Guihua, Yumu and other counties have been established in the border towns one after another.

After recovering from his strength, the Tuxie Ministry joined forces with the Ordos Department to attack the Chahar Department in order to report the hatred of Chahar for colluding with the little prince.

Zhu Houzhao ignored the opposition of his ministers, and on the grounds that the Ming Dynasty, as the suzerain, should avoid fratricidal killing among the various departments of the grassland and slaughtering the people, he allocated 300,000 taels of internal silver, ordered the first division of the Guards Army to raise troops to the north, leave Xuanfu, and defeat the combined forces of the Tuxie Department and the Ordos Department with a new flintlock pistol, and forced the three departments to sign the "Non-Aggression Pact".

Shaanxi General System Caikuan was named the Marquis of Liyang by Zhu Houzhao for his efforts to recover the Hetao and pacify the king of Anhua, and was given the title of Taibao, and now he was also appointed by Zhu Houzhao as the minister in Mongolia, on behalf of the Ming Dynasty to coordinate the management of the affairs of the Tuxie Department, the Ordos Department, and the Chahar Department, and was also responsible for training the young and strong people of the new border town in Monan as the Ming Iron Cavalry.

Today's Tatar internal division, the Tuxie Ministry and the Ordos Ministry are now dependent on the import of weapons and tea and salt from the Ming Dynasty, and they are unable to resist the Ming Dynasty's interference in their internal affairs.

Now, Zhu Houzhao sent an official to their three tribes, and they also dared to be angry and dare not speak, as the three tribal lords who were scared by Caikuan before, after knowing that Caikuan was the minister of Zhengyipin in Mongolia, they could only be more honest, and no one dared to have the ambition to annex the other two and dominate the world.

Now that he has just arrived in the ninth year of Zhengde, Cai Kuan Shangjuan has trained 20,000 Ming iron cavalry in the grassland, and can directly form a cavalry division of the Guards, Zhu Houzhao realized that this can make the three Mongolian tribes dare not rebel against the Ming Dynasty, so he immediately issued an edict to the school department, and allowed the children of the lords of the three departments to enter the Guozi prison to study, and they were all given the status of prisoners.

"That's a good thing! The children of the leaders of the Mongolian tribes do not learn Chinese, only through riding and shooting, and it is inevitable that they will follow in the footsteps of the little prince in the future. ”

For the first time, the minister Guozi Priest Jiu Mao Ji, who was the minister of Fengli as the guide, thought that Emperor Zhu Houzhao's move was good governance, and did not oppose it.

Of course, although Zhu Houliang said that he had allowed the children of the leaders of the three Mongolian tribes to come to Guozi to study, he actually asked the leaders of the three tribes to send their children as hostages to Jingshi.

The leaders of the three tribes had no way to refuse, and they were afraid that the Ming Dynasty would be suspicious, so they had to send all their children to Beijing Guozijian, in order to let these Mongolian nobles' children further pamper and treat them with more books, Zhu Houzhao simply issued an edict to let these people go to Nanjing Guozijian to study.

Less than a year after the son of Shunzhong Yibu Bayanqing entered the Nanjing Guozijian, he changed his name to Su Xishi to express his reverence for Su Shi and his love for poetry, completely forgetting his habits as a Mengyuan person, and two years later, he forgot the skill of riding a horse and archery.

After immigrating to Shibian, there were more and more Han people gathered in Hetao and Monan, and there were more and more Hu people who were sinicized, Zhu Houzhao issued a special edict to set up a political envoy in Hetao, and at the same time ordered that the areas under the jurisdiction of the political secretary of the world were collectively called provinces, and the Hetao was a separate province, and at the same time allowed all Mongolian people in the Mongolian area to participate in the imperial examination of the Hetao.

Zhu Houzhao This is to give the Sinicization of the Hu people a chance to more Sinicize themselves, and it is also to deny once again from the system that the Mongolian tribes at this time are independent countries, and the minister in Mongolia Caikuan is therefore also ordered to build a social school in Monan, and recruit the son of Mengyuan to teach it.

In general, ten years later, the Ming Dynasty had gradually used Confucianism as a weapon in the north to eliminate the anger of the Mengyuan people, and boasted that he was a great Confucian Cheng Jian who scolded the 100,000 rebels, and was appointed by Zhu Houzhao as the assistant minister in Mongolia, specializing in the affairs of studying in southern Mongolia.

Cheng Jian was extremely reluctant, but the emperor's order was difficult to disobey.

After Zhu Houzhao saw his first disciple and the son of Su Xishi, who was stupid and could only drop the bookbag, he was extremely satisfied with Cheng Jian's educational results, and praised Cheng Jian for his good morality, and specially ordered Su Xishi to be edicted in the Hanlin Academy, and at the same time added the title of the right attendant of the Cheng Inspection Department.

Cheng Jian didn't expect that he would be so valued by Emperor Zhu Houzhao just by teaching a few Hu people to learn the way of Confucianism, but he also felt very happy, thinking that he could be added to the rank of official and knighted, and finally ranked among the cabinets of the court, so Cheng Jian continued to spread Confucianism in Monan, and persuaded the nobles of Mengyuan to be both ministers and loyal to the Ming monarch.

As a result, there are more and more Hu people who speak Han and wear Hanfu in Xi Hanwen, and now it is difficult to distinguish the difference between Hu and Han in the entire Hetao Monan.

In the south, the Ming Dynasty has successfully rebuilt Zheng He's treasure ship, and at the same time, the Zhijiang Shipyard has built five soft-sail battleships, Zhu Houzhao called them in the name of the region, respectively called "Northern Capital", "Southern Capital", "Zhongdu", "Yangzhou", "Baoding", and all of them were handed over to the Guangdong Navy Division for trial.

The governor and governor of Liangjiang, Lin Tingxuan, also trained sailors effectively, and basically wiped out the pirates in the South China Sea.

However, in the ninth year of Zhengde, Zhu Houzhao received a letter from Lin Tingxuan, saying that he had found Hongmaofan in Tuen Mun (now Tuen Mun, Hong Kong), and set up a stone tablet to make a living as a pirate, but a person named Pires claimed to be the envoy of King Franco, and asked to meet Zhu Houzhao and ask for trade.

Zhu Houzhao didn't expect the Westerners to come in the end!

This is the first time that the Ming Empire began to contact with Western forces, Zhu Houzhao did not dare to take it lightly, he knew that the Franc machine was the Western maritime overlord in this era, and he could guess that since the Franc machine man could appear in the South China Sea of the Ming Dynasty, it means that the Franc machine man has occupied the Strait of Malacca and controlled the Nanyang shipping route.

On the one hand, Zhu Houzhao ordered the envoy of King Franc Ji to enter Beijing to meet him, and on the other hand, he ordered Lin Tingxuan, the governor of Liangjiang, to send troops to recover Tuen Mun, and on the other hand, he ordered Jinyi Wei to visit Manchuria, which was a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty and a strategic place in Nanyang, so Zhu Houzhao naturally would not tolerate the Franc Men occupying this place.

Pires embarked on the road to Beijing with a vision of the Eastern Empire.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty has entered the era of shuttle weaving and vertical spindle hand-spinning (Jenny spinning machine), which has caused the price of cloth to plummet, the output of cloth has increased significantly, and there are more people wearing cotton cloth and brocade, and coupled with the collapse of etiquette and music, the accumulation of wealth, Rao is the bottom of the people can also have one or two brocade clothes.

So much so that the Ming that Pires saw was still a wealthy Ming, and he had to be convinced that Mark Twain's notes were correct, and he had to write in his diary:

"I feel like a beggar, a beggar who has walked into the world of rich and noble, where the people are beautiful, the city is beautiful, even the cups used are beautiful."

Zhu Houzhao met Pires in person, many ministers of this era did not understand why His Majesty the Emperor took the time to meet a barbarian envoy, but only Zhu Houzhao knew that this was his meeting with a civilization that was about to surpass the East, so he had to be cautious, but although he was cautious, he was not cowardly.

"Since you have asked me to allow you to trade with the Ming Dynasty, why do you still want to be the enemy of the Ming Dynasty?"

Zhu Houzhao first asked.

At this time, the Han interpreter Yasan hired by Pires translated Zhu Houzhao's words to Pires.

Pires hurriedly waved his hand: "No, no, His Majesty the Ming Emperor, we don't intend to make your country an enemy, we are just here to ask for peaceful trade." ”

"Since it is peaceful trade, why do you want to destroy my Ming vassals and occupy my Ming Tuen Mun Island!"

Zhu Houzhao passed through the fire Yasan and understood what Pires meant, and asked coldly, his tone was very stern, now he is also twenty-four, the beard under his nose is slightly thick, and his physique is gradually growing, burly and straight, and naturally more majestic and majestic, Pires was asked like this, and he was immediately speechless, and only explained after a while:

"Your Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, that is not the behavior of our king, but the behavior of merchants, and it is only a trade conflict, we merchants do not know that Manraka is a vassal of your country, and Tuen Mun has no residents of your country, and the Ming stele does not seem to have the right to say that it is your territory!"

After the translation of the fire man Yasan, Zhu Houzhao had to admit that this Pires was very good at diplomacy, and first threw the pot of his own Franco machine occupation of Manraka to the merchants and did not recognize it as his king's meaning, and at the same time directly characterized it as a trade conflict, and did not admit that it was the destruction of Manchuria, and even Tuen Mun directly refuted himself on the grounds that there were no Ming residents living and no Ming inscriptions.

For a while, the ministers in the court were extremely annoyed when they heard this, and the British Duke Zhang Mao shouted angrily in the court: "You are just a small country, my great tomorrow is noble and sees you, and you dare to offend my great tomorrow!" ”

Zhu Houzhao waved his hand to stop the anger of Zhang Mao and the others, and smiled directly: "Pires, you are very good at diplomacy, why don't you stay, how about being my diplomatic envoy, I will give you a chance to join the Ming Dynasty, otherwise, I will execute you in the way of dealing with the invaders, put Pires in prison, if he refuses to be used by the Ming Dynasty, he will be castrated and sent to Datong to repair the road." ”

Pires was a little surprised after the translation of the fire Yasan, he didn't expect that the Ming Emperor neither angrily reprimanded himself, nor let his ministers debate with him, but directly wanted to hire himself, and he didn't have to ask himself whether he agreed or disagreed, and directly sent himself to the edict first.

"Your Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, your country is really too domineering! I am now an envoy of King Franco, and you can't do this to me! ”

Pires protested, but Zhu Houzhao ignored him, and Jinyiwei still forcibly dragged him down.

Pires didn't stay overnight in Jinyi Prison, and he was so frightened that he was willing to become a subject of the Ming Dynasty, changed to a Ming nationality, and at the same time was willing to become a diplomatic envoy of the Ming Dynasty and a subject of His Majesty the Ming Emperor.

"This is a domineering and discerning emperor, I am very fortunate to be his courtier, otherwise I may not have become an outstanding diplomat of the Ming Dynasty, although I was originally forced!"

Many years later, Pires, a professor at the Foreign Affairs College of the Ming Empire, wrote in his autobiography.