North Korea, Seoul.

"My lord, I'm back!"

"How? Is it done? ”

"It's done!"

"Well, that's great!"

Zhang Zhen excitedly grabbed Huang Fu's robe sleeve, walked to the riverside, and looked at the big boat slowly approaching: "Your Majesty, it's really a blessing for North Korea!" ”

"This humble post brought a total of 10,000 catties of potatoes, 5,000 catties of sweet potatoes, 3,000 catties of corn, 15 doctors of agronomy from the College of Agriculture, and 50 agronomic technicians.

"Well," Zhang Zhen stroked the beard on his chin, and suddenly said with some worry: "Can these things really produce twenty stones per mu?" ”

"It should be possible," Huang Fu said with some uncertainty: "Your Majesty has already announced to the world, it should be true." ”

"Moreover, when I arrived in Beijing, I learned that His Majesty built a large number of greenhouses in order to produce seeds quickly, which were specially used to cultivate these crops, so this time I could give so much to North Korea, but there are also a lot of them in the Northeast, Suiyuan, SX and other places, and they started planting last year."

"Oh, I hope so!"

......

After arriving in North Korea, Zhang Zhen still maintained the habit of reading Di Bao every day, and later added to read the newspapers of the Beijing Division, such as "Kyoto Daily", "Daming Daily", etc., from the second half of the seventh year of Jianwen, the newspapers began to publicize the yield and cultivation methods of potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn and other crops, which said that these crops not only have high yields, but also are drought tolerant, and the requirements for soil fertility are still very low, and they can even be planted in sandy soil. At the beginning, Zhang Zhen scoffed, he had lived most of his life, and he had never heard of such a thing, just as a joke.

But it didn't take long for Zhang Zhen to see His Majesty come to the College of Agriculture in person in the Di Bao to reward and commend a number of doctors of agriculture, and the grain output in the Di Bao was about the same as what the newspaper said, which made Zhang Zhen very surprised and yearned.

After serving as a political envoy to North Korea, Zhang Zhen was most worried about food, North Korea has many mountains and little land, the land is barren, plus the war, a lot of land is barren, and the strong men have also lost a lot, and North Korea was pacified in May last year, most of the land in Chungqing and Qingshang states has not had time to cultivate, so in the second half of the year, Zhang Zhen had to apply to the imperial court for relief, His Majesty granted permission, and successively transported nearly 500,000 stone of grain, but Zhang Zhen's move also caused dissatisfaction with the military, because the war against the Japanese was postponed indefinitely.

Therefore, after seeing the Di newspaper, Zhang Zhen's heart was moved, and he immediately wrote to his colleagues in Jingshi to inquire about the specific situation. As soon as he received specific information, he went to the imperial court and demanded that the crops be promoted in Korea.

However, Zhang Zhen was not the only one who saw these reports, and the political envoys in the north also sent people to Beijing to inquire about the news, and then also applied to the imperial court to promote new crops.

Seeing the enthusiasm of the officials, Zhu Yunwen was overjoyed, thinking that everyone had a good vision, but after Liu Jing's reminder, he understood that the reason was still on him, as the emperor, he sent the navy to sail thousands of miles, brought back these crops, and hyped them up in the newspaper, as long as there are officials who are interested in serving the imperial court, they will vote for their own favorites, which is the only way to be an official.

However, today's Zhu Yunwen has long passed the age of seeking perfection and blame, what he values now is the result, and as for the motive, he really doesn't have so much time to figure it out.

In response to the demands of the various political envoys, Zhu Yunwen, after careful consideration, allocated most of the seeds to the Northeast, North Korea, Suiyuan, SX, and other places, all of which are important border defense areas, and North Korea is a newly attached place, and it is also an outpost for attacking the Japanese, and stabilizing it as soon as possible is related to the overall situation of the attack.

Therefore, in the eighth year of Jianwen, Zhu Yunwen's most concerned thing was actually the promotion of new crops, the stabilization of North Korea, and the development of the Northeast.

At the same time, in order to prevent the Ming army from crossing the Xing'an Mountains and attacking its flanks, the Modong steppe tribes even moved westward, close to the border of Warat, so that the northeast also won a good development environment.

In order to develop the Northeast rapidly, Zhu Yunwen continued the previous tax reduction and subsidy policies to attract wealthy businessmen to invest in the Northeast, and at the same time established state-owned enterprises such as Anshan Iron and Steel Plant and Fushun Coal Mine, and began to build the railway from Dalian to Shenyang, which will continue to extend to the north after the completion of the railway, so that the grain and products in the Northeast can be transported to Dalian by railway, and after being loaded in Dalian, they will be transported to the provinces of Guannai, so that the Northeast and Guannai will complement each other, and will greatly strengthen the centripetal force of the Northeast, and the Guannai will not call the Northeast "wild land". Speeding up the integration of the Northeast into the Ming Dynasty is conducive to the long-term peace and stability of the Northeast.

In addition, in the eighth year of Jianwen, the policies gradually implemented by Emperor Zhu Yunwen gradually showed their power.

Bank of Communications, both in terms of scale and coverage, is a well-deserved giant bank. After nearly ten years of development, its branch has covered 14 political envoys of the Ming Dynasty, not only in the capital of each department to establish outlets, but also include some important cities such as Ningbo, Hangzhou, ZQ and other places.

With the help of the Bank of Communications, businessmen do not need to carry silver taels, silver bills and silver coins, but only need to carry a checkbook, and they can go thousands of miles away to carry out transactions. After solving the carrying and safety problems, the merchants of the Ming Dynasty could go further, and their tentacles penetrated deep into the frontiers, such as YN, GZ, Suiyuan, Northeast China, and even North Korea, and the commerce of the Ming Dynasty became unprecedentedly prosperous.

Of course, in addition to the Bank of Communications, there are also some smaller banks, they also have deposits, loans, and check businesses, but their business actually relies on the Bank of Communications, and the transfer of customers in their banks is actually realized in the Bank of Communications, but their services are more detailed and more convenient.

Moreover, after the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued silver coins, they also followed the Bank of Communications and converted their reserves from silver ingots to silver yuan. Compared with silver ingots, the advantages of silver yuan are very obvious, its denomination is smaller, there is no need to cut, and the fineness is guaranteed, so once the silver coin is issued, it quickly replaced the silver ingot and became the daily transaction currency.

Of course, although there are only one or two silver coins, it is still a little inconvenient for the poor people, so after Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne, he minted some copper coins, but these copper coins are only a supplement to silver coins, mainly circulated among the countryside, porters, and hawkers.

Through the establishment of the Ministry of Taxation, Zhu Yunwen standardized the taxation of various localities, abolished most of the checkpoints, greatly reduced the number of tax payments, and invigorated the circulation of goods.

At the same time, the Ministry of Taxation also cooperated with the political envoys in the south of the Yangtze River to implement the apportionment of land to the mu, so that as long as the people pay taxes according to the amount, they can be exempted from forced labor. But this is not good news for the local government, from the bright side, they need to build water conservancy, dams, build city walls, fight bandits and pirates, etc., from the dark point of view, they need to fill their own pockets and work the people without compensation.

In order to solve this problem, Zhu Yunwen adopted two methods, one is through the supervision of the Ministry of Taxation, in his opinion, since the people have paid taxes to the Ministry of Taxation, then the Ministry of Taxation has the responsibility to report the illegal affairs of some officials, which will form a deterrent to local officials; Another method is to invite tenders, Zhu Yunwen explicitly ordered that all localities must contract large-scale projects to wealthy businessmen through bidding, so that they can hire people to complete them in the form of money, and local governments only need to be responsible for auditing and acceptance, and the allocation of funds will be through the Bank of Communications, so as to reduce the opportunities for officials to work on it.

In the early years of Jianwen, Daming established a patent protection system, but the initial effect was not good, and there were very few people who applied for patents, and they were all trivial patents. In the thousands of years of history in China, the people have simple values, and it is very immoral to steal other people's secret recipes, so for those ancestral and old secret recipes, no one has applied for patents, and no one dares to go to the patent office to apply.

But with the development of new technologies, such as the emergence of various new machines, especially the steam engine, changed all this, and it suddenly became clear that if a universal machine could be invented, the royalties alone would be enough for the next life.

At this moment, those excellent technicians immediately became sweets, and some discerning merchants signed agreements with the technicians in advance to provide financial assistance to them, but the patent income was shared by the two.

Not only that, but some wealthy businessmen went further, setting up or funding technical schools, hoping to find excellent technicians and reap huge profits.

......

In addition, in the eighth year of Jianwen, the Japanese have basically disappeared, not only the scattered Japanese on the island have been slaughtered, but the Ming fleet has also pursued and killed the Japanese country, and surrounded the Japanese country from the north and south.

The sailors of the Wa State are vulnerable to the Daming Naval Division, so the Daming Marines are like no one on the coast of the Wa Kingdom, if the Wa State is prepared, the Marines will make a false shot, and do not fight hard with the Wa people, but even if the Wa people win, they can only watch the Daming Marines go away, because the naval guns of the Daming Navy are not vegetarian.

The Marine Corps was formed at the end of the seventh year of Kenbun and was inspired by Tong Kailong's invasion of Kagoshima. The Marine Corps is currently organized into two brigades with four regiments, and its soldiers are mainly from coastal guard posts, navy, and special operations divisions.

Although the special operations division is not well-known, it is a direct subordinate unit of the Ming Emperor Zhu Yunwen, and no one is allowed to transfer it privately except him. The special warfare division was formed in the first year of Jianwen, and the first chief officer was Kuang Yi, who was the guard of Song Zhong, the capital of Beiping at that time, after Song Zhong was killed, he escaped from Beiping and came to the Beijing Division, where he was received by Emperor Zhu Yunwen and ordered to form a special warfare battalion.

The special operations battalion showed its skills in the battle of Pingyan, Xu Huizu conquered Juyong Pass, and the special operations battalion made great contributions. The specially trained special operations battalions are proficient in reconnaissance, combat, and lurking, and are extremely well-equipped, and the latest crossbow arrows, handguns, and other weapons are given priority to the special operations battalions, and then equipped with all units.

After Pingyan, the special operations battalion was gradually expanded, and now it has been expanded into a special operations division, the division commander is still Kuangyi, under the jurisdiction of 22 special operations battalions, in the sixth year of Jianwen, the seventh year of Jianwen to open up the northeast and pacify Korea, the special operations battalion also appeared, among which Chu Zheng marched forty miles at night, attacked the Buddha Temple, captured Li Chenggui, and was a legend in the legend.

In the retaliatory action against the Japanese state, Xian Zhongjun, the head of the special operations regiment, was the first to land on Kagoshima and carried out a retaliatory massacre against Kagoshima.

After the war, Xian Zhongjun was awarded the rank of brigadier general and was ordered to form the 1st Marine Brigade to be responsible for the attack on the southern part of the Wa Kingdom.

Almost at the same time, Chu Zheng was appointed commander of the 2nd Marine Brigade with the same rank, responsible for the raid on the northern part of the Wa Kingdom.

Although there are quite a few complaints about the attack of the marines in China, these two people have done it with taste, and the farthest point of the attack of the Xian Zhong army has reached the vicinity of Kyoto; Chu Zheng avoided the well-defended Kyushu, attacked the northern part of the island, and once entered the Iwami country, but unfortunately because the Japanese people were well defended, they did not arrive at Iwami Silver Mountain, which made Chu Zheng a little regretful.

In the entire eighth year of Jianwen, the Wa State was completely in a passive position to be beaten, and the number of Ming Marine Corps was not large, only about 6,000 in total, but the damage to the Wa State was fatal.

Under the attack of the Marine Brigade, the local daimyo had to send his children's wealth in the hope of peaceful coexistence with the Marine Brigade, and although Ashikaga Yoshimitsu had returned to Kyoto, he knew some of the situation, but he was powerless to stop it.

The Wa Kingdom was still the most primitive feudal system in essence, and the so-called emperor and shogunate were just co-masters, so the shogunate's control over the local area was not strong, especially when the shogunate was unable to protect the daimyo of various countries, and it was inevitable that the daimyo would centrifuge the shogunate.

Therefore, in the second half of the year, the Daming Pacific Fleet no longer needed domestic supplies, and could even hand over a large amount of silver to the imperial court; The North Korean fleet, on the other hand, is in a worse situation, but the supplies it needs are also decreasing.

Thanks to the courage of the navy, maritime merchants no longer had to worry about going to sea, and they began to cross Luzon and advance further afield to Annam, Siam, Java, the Malay Peninsula and other places, and some even tried to cross Malacca, Temasek (Singapore) and other places to find new trade routes to the west.

......

By the end of the eighth year of Jianwen, the construction of Daming has achieved remarkable results.

The railways from Pukou to Kaifeng and Dalian to Shenyang have been completed and officially opened to traffic.

New crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn in Northeast China, North Korea, Suiyuan, and SX have achieved bumper harvests, which have greatly alleviated the grain shortage in these places, thus greatly reducing the amount of grain shipped out of border towns, and greatly relieved the officials of the Household Department and the General Quartermaster Department.

At the same time, Daming's annual fiscal revenue increased to 45 million silver yuan, an increase of nearly 20 percent over last year, which is not only due to economic growth, but also to the contribution of tax collection.

Thanks to this, Zhu Yunwen announced a salary increase for officials, with a rise of 20%.