On November 25, a clipper ship returning from Kechi brought the news that the Southern Route Army had begun a full-scale offensive.

At the same time, the 4,000 head of cattle brought back from India could only graze in Borneo for the time being, because the cargo ship could not move fast during the headwind, which slowed down the voyage.

At present, the renovated treasure ship of the Ming Dynasty can transport 200 to 220 cattle at a time with a deck of cattle and a lower deck for cargo.

Cattle are not goods, they have to eat and drink along the way, and they have to eradicate manure to prevent epidemics. An extra day on the road means an extra day of forage.

More than 200 cows, and ten more days on the road, the forage eaten is a huge number, let alone 4,000 cows.

Now that it is winter, in order to reduce transportation costs and reduce breeding costs, the Ming Dynasty began to raise cattle on Borneo as a transit place.

It was not surprising to learn that the Southern Route Army had begun to fight, because according to the previous plan, it was time to start attacking.

However, there is another news that is not good, because Liu Jiang, the naval governor he has been worried about, really did not survive and died in September.

His death did not affect the offensive of the entire Southern Route Army, because the navy was originally an auxiliary force.

However, since Liu Jiang died, he should also arrange for another admiral to go to Kurumus.

After thinking about it for a while, Zhu Zhanji decided to send Meng Ying there, which could be regarded as giving him a chance to get ahead.

Meng Ying's ability is there, but because she is a descendant of Mencius, she is delayed.

Zhu Di may have some taboos, just like the Kong family, it is absolutely impossible to give them high-ranking officials, just give them a false name, and now they are even deprived of their false name.

In April, Meng Ying was ordered to go to Nanzhou for a turn, and she just came back a month ago.

Although she has gone on a trip and has darkened a lot, Meng Ying's spirit is very good. Obviously, as a general, he can still lead the army to the army, rather than being more energetic in the capital.

In fact, the most suitable person should be Wang Jinghong, but he has already made Zheng He, a eunuch, the director of the navy, the supreme admiral of the navy in addition to him, and it is not suitable to reuse Wang Jinghong.

Two eunuchs served as important admirals of the navy, and a group of admirals of the navy rebelled.

Liu Jiang was cremated in Kezhi and his ashes were brought back. He is also a horse leather shroud, seeking benevolence.

The Liu family had long been psychologically prepared, led by Liu An, and his children were sad but not sad, and calmly held a funeral for him.

Zhu Zhanji also personally went to the coffin to put on a stick of incense, after all, this is an old minister who has been with him for many years, and he has single-handedly run the navy, and there is no merit and hard work.

At the regular meeting of the navy, the remaining generals did not object to Zhu Zhanji's appointment of Meng Ying to Kurumus, and their attention was not here, but the position vacated by Liu Jiang.

Zhu Zhanji was the grandson of the superintendent of the country, and at the beginning he was also named the governor of the navy, but later no one called him so, and Liu Jiang, the governor, was the nominal supreme admiral of the navy.

Zheng He, the director of the navy, is now in charge of naval affairs, but his name is not right. His position as a director has never been done before.

And Zheng He wants to sit in Liu Jiang's position, his qualifications are sufficient, but after all, he is a eunuch, and he himself has no intention of competing.

Zhu Zhanji is interested in Zheng He, his ability is beyond doubt, Zhu Zhanji has not bothered about naval affairs at all in the past half a year, and everything has been arranged by him in an orderly manner.

In addition to him, Meng Ying's qualifications are not shallow, but like Zheng He, his identity is not suitable.

The other coaches, Yi Xin was not there, and Zhu Zhen was still very good in marching and fighting, but he did not show excellent political ability and power balance ability.

As for Gu Xingzu of the Fourth Fleet, his position as the chief officer of the Fourth Fleet is all based on the light of his father and ancestors, and his qualifications are too shallow to compete for this position.

After thinking about it, Zhu Zhanji still didn't want to make a decision so early, and on the grounds that the war was important now, he still let Zheng He handle military affairs for the time being.

Meng Ying was also very happy to be able to go to Kurumus, and happily accepted the task despite the fact that it had been less than a month since she returned.

More than half a year has passed, and Daming has now refitted dozens of steam sailing ships of first-class warships, and even treasure ships have been refitted with a few.

This time, Meng Ying went to sea, and all of them used steam sailboats, not pure sailboats.

Although the modification effect of the treasure ship is not good, not only the work efficiency of the rollers is low, but the blades are easy to be damaged, after all, the load on the back is too large.

But even so, it's definitely much stronger than a simple sailboat.

Although he was not satisfied, he knew that he could not ask for too much.

He is already enough to pull out the seedlings to help him, and no matter how big the step is, he will pull the egg.

In fact, Zhu Zhanji knew better than anyone else about the design and construction of sea ships in this era.

In his first life, he drove ships for 18 years, from bulk ships to container ships, from 20,000 tons to 150,000 tons.

All the way from second mate to captain, he knew everything on the ship.

But it didn't work.

Because the ship he understands is a high-tech ship of later generations, and the technology is too high, but it is useless.

If nothing else, the steel plate of the ship cannot be made, the hull of the ship cannot be welded, the steam turbine cannot be made, and the propeller cannot be made. It is to understand the principle, understand the maintenance and use it.

Not to mention those technologies, even many materials can't be made now. Otherwise, knowing the principle, the internal combustion engine can now be manufactured.

Today, Daming's steam sailing ship is the most advanced ship in the world, as long as it can always be ahead, it is enough.

After determining Meng Ying's departure date, Zhu Zhanji came to Xiamaqiao Farm again, ready to give Zhu Di a pistol.

To build the first gun, Zhu Zhanji prepared several more sets of accessories, one is to prevent the accessories from being damaged, worn out and replaced, and the other reason is to prepare one for Zhu Di.

As a grandson, he should give it, and as an heir, he should give it even more.

From the bottom of his heart, Zhu Zhanji hopes that Zhu Di will live for a few more years. When the emperor is alone, the feeling of standing on a high place is good most of the time, but it is inevitable that there will be some loneliness.

With Zhu Di's grandfather in the way, his power is not much smaller, and there is a person who can talk well, which is rare.

If Zhu Di died, he would have something in his heart, and he wouldn't know who to talk to.

The gun is a murder weapon, which is not a good thing, but he can't have it himself, but he forgot about his grandfather.

Moreover, this grandfather is still the emperor.

The accessories are ready-made, assembled together, and only the deviation of the fitting burrs need to be polished.

It only took half a day for Zhu Zhanji to assemble the new gun and help Zhu Di adjust the crosshairs.

Subsequently, he loaded 200 bullets handmade by craftsmen and gave them to the inner servant Yu Changsheng. "You have to put away these bullets, don't let anyone know, and when the emperor's grandfather summons you, you will give him the bullets."

Changsheng's hometown is the chief official of Duyun, Guizhou, Hongwu entered the palace in the last years, although he is young, he is smart and clever, and he is very liked by Zhu Di.

At the beginning, Zhu Di sent him and Jin Kuo to serve Zhu Zhanji, Jin Kuo was stable and reused by Zhu Zhanji, and later he was asked by Zhu Di to go back to serve him personally.

When he came back with the ship this time, he arranged for Zhu Di to arrange for two concubines to serve in Timur's country, and Zhu Zhanji asked him to bring bullets, which would not attract attention.

As for the gun, Zhu Zhanji locked it in a wooden box, gave the key to another chamberlain, but gave the wooden box to Meng Ying to bring.

It's also to be safe to give the bullets to different people. Zhu Zhanji himself has no confidence that he can block bullets, so naturally he can't pose a threat to Zhu Di because of the non-people he trusts.

When it comes to his safety, he can't be too careful.

On the day when Mencius's descendants left Yingtianfu on a sea boat, Confucius's descendants came to Yingtianfu from the canal.

And this day, Zhu Zhanji has been waiting for half a year.

During this period, Confucius had already handed over the first draft twice, but Zhu Zhanji sent it back for revision.

The words "country and nation" are actually easy to explain clearly, but it is not easy to explain them clearly and form a complete set of concepts.

Because today's Ming Dynasty still follows the Confucian set, and every reader's understanding of the world is the Confucian set.

In Confucianism, it is very difficult to form the ideas of the state and the nation into a set of academic things that have something to say.

It can be said that this is not much different from the Qingzi who reorganized their speech from the I Ching and the Tao Jing and established a sect.

This is also thanks to the Confucian family, they have many Confucians, and they have been studying Confucian culture all their lives, so they can form a complete set of theories in most of the year.

Like a clear son, they have gathered hundreds of Taoist priests, and they have been busy for most of the year, and the doctrines of the Shinrikyo have not yet been compiled.

Because this whole set of theories cannot conflict with existing knowledge and make people acceptable, but it cannot contradict itself and form a paradox.

But in reality, the relationship between the state and the nation is inherently contradictory.

Ethnicity is a word in ancient Chinese that is used to express the debate between clan and Yixia. But in fact, until the fall of the Qing Dynasty, China was not able to form a real national concept.

Prior to this, only a few people in China had used the word nation, so much so that many people still thought that this was a foreign language translated from English.

Many people know this word after the Guangxu Wuxu Reform, which was borrowed from Japanese Chinese characters.

Because in the hearts of most Chinese, the clan is really important and can represent the nation.

Zhu Zhanji in the second life is not an ordinary person, as a successful person who has stood at the top of the world, he also has a very clear understanding of the nature of society.

Seeing the world clearly, putting oneself in the right position, and dealing with one's relationship with the world are the basis for no one to succeed, without exception.

In his understanding, the development of the nation has gone through from blood family, to ethnic group, to the original nation, and then to the nation in the modern sense.

Needless to say, kinship is the foundation of society. Ethnic groups, on the other hand, are a group of people who share common customs, they are large tribes that share a common history, culture, religion, language, and customs.

Today, with the exception of some countries in Asia and Europe, most of the region is still in this stage.

The native nation is a natural community. It is based on the beliefs, perceptions and emotions of the general public, and is a general concept that distinguishes "my race" from "other people".

At this stage, it is the stage of the germination of collective consciousness, which has learned to integrate and expand, and has learned to unify ideas with various knowledge, cultures, and languages.

For example, the current Ming Dynasty is at this stage.

But this archetypal nationalism was not enough to create modern nation-states, such as Han Chinese, Jews, Germanic peoples, Romans, and so on......

Although at this time, all ethnic groups have been divided into you and me, and have learned to use various means to make each other recognize their existence, but there is still a lack of corresponding reasonable means to make them integrate.

Zhu Zhanji threw out the concept of the country and the nation at this time, the purpose was to speed up the process, so that the Ming Dynasty could become a modern nation as soon as possible.

From primitive nationalism to modern nationalism, it is a process of self-shaping and transformation of a nation from a self-contained nation to a self-made nation.

In the end, there was a nation, but there was nationalism? It's a chicken-and-egg question that can be hard to tell.

Taking the Ming Dynasty as an example, there must be a nation first, and then nationalism.

But in many countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, for example, they were originally just disparate tribes, and European colonizers united them in a single colonial state.

After the Second World War, these colonial peoples, in the process of fighting for national independence and national liberation, had to imagine themselves as a common people, rather than as a scattered, atomized tribe or ethnic group, so these countries built from nothing created the modern nation-state through nationalist self-consciousness.

The establishment of a modern nation requires self-awareness, a constructed self-identity and self-imagination.

Without the recognition of national identity, it is impossible to establish a modern nation-state and form the concept of a nation.

The reunification of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang was able to rely on the rebellion to drive away the Meng Yuan, relying on the affirmation of the Han people for their own nation, so they could unite as one to establish a new country.

However, today's concept of the state is still very diluted, and people's recognition of the country is more than the recognition of the nation.

Moreover, there is another very important problem here, that is, the current ruling structure still exists in the mode of family and world.

The country is the emperor's home, you can have everyone, then of course I must also have a small family. Comparatively speaking, although my home is small, it is definitely more important than the emperor's family.

It's not about power, status, it's just people's true consciousness.

Therefore, Zhu Zhanji wants to make nationalism, so he wants people to understand the meaning of the country, and he must not let there be a paradox between the two, and you can imagine how difficult it is.

Today's country is more of a historical and cultural community. Although it has also taken on the connotation of a state and has become a political and legal community linked to an artificial political system, this awareness is still very weak.

That's why there are so many traitors and so many surrenderers.

Once the nation and the state are united, then everything is not only nationalist, but also nationalist, that is, closely related to the consciousness of sovereignty of the nation-state, and at the same time to a specific national cultural consciousness.

In later generations, when people see that a woman from their own country is married to a foreigner, they will be insulted, when they see someone betraying the interests of the country, they will scold a traitor, and when they see the country suffering a loss in a diplomatic situation, they will feel ashamed.

This is the true meaning of the nation-building.

Don't explain the dynasty, if it weren't for the ideological guidance of the Wuxu Reform Law in the Guangxu period, how many people cared about the Manchu Qing Dynasty signing unequal treaties with foreign countries?

The rebellion at that time was actually for personal gain.

It was only after the fall of the Qing Dynasty that the national consciousness and national consciousness of the whole of China really awakened.

Of course, Zhu Zhanji can't wait that long, and he won't let this kind of thinking lag behind for that long.

The Renaissance in Europe is about to begin, and officially because of the guidance of the Renaissance, European countries have greatly accelerated their leap from native nations to modern countries, occupying the forefront of the world.

If the Ming Dynasty wants to maintain its own advantages, in addition to maintaining the lead in force, it should also maintain the leadership of ideology.

When the people of the Ming Dynasty put the interests of the country more seriously than their personal interests...... Even if it's the same weight. No country or nation in this world can be the opponent of the Ming Dynasty.

The basic requirement of nationalism is that the political structure and the national structure must coincide, and everyone in the country must be in the same cultural background.

On the other hand, people of the same cultural background should live within the same political sphere, in short, one culture, one country.

If he can reach this step, Zhu Zhanji will not have any worries at all.

Of course, it is not easy to reach this step, because today's Daming does not have such a foundation at all.

Originally as the same cultural carrier, Confucian scholarship could not meet the needs of the Ming Dynasty at all, and the more Confucianism was supported, the more it would make the Ming Dynasty embark on the old road.

Because Confucian scholarship is a one-legged walk, focusing only on the mind and not the body.

This is a disability with a huge head and thin limbs.

So he wants to establish Shinrikyo, which is no longer a sect, but a scientific system.

It's just that in order to implement this scientific system, he needs to use the name of the royal family, the name of academia, and the name of religion to promote it to more people.

In the first draft of the Confucian family, the whole system was very chaotic and could not be justified at all.

The first draft of the second time also failed to resolve the contradictions between the state and the nation.

The Ming Dynasty is not a small country, not a simple nation, with a variety of different nationalities, and even ways of rule.

One culture, one country.

But when different ethnic groups are unwilling to abide by your customs and live with you in the same way of life, the Confucian family has no choice.

Is Confucianism indoctrinal? People don't want to learn at all!

Zhu Zhanji and the Confucian family proposed a number of solutions, which borrowed some later British methods.

England, as the first nation of modern times, refers to a people who are made up of all the inhabitants of England. As a synonym for nation, the national is "the holder of sovereignty, the basis of political unity, and the highest object of allegiance", and the citizens of a country, regardless of their ethnic group or class, are imagined to be homogeneous and integral within the same nation-state community.

In the United Kingdom, there are three native ethnic groups: England, Scotland, and Ireland. It was in this way that they formed a multi-ethnic, homogeneous nation.

But they didn't do well enough, Scotland, Ireland, and they were still fighting for independence.

In this regard, we must borrow the US method, that is, to dilute the nationality and beliefs, and to strengthen the ties of interests.

But in fact, the models of these two countries are failures, they are mainly useful in the early stage, and they still cannot solve the contradictions in the later stage.

In this regard, it is our own ancestors who do the best.

Needless to say, the original Yellow Emperor occupied less than a city in later generations. After thousands of years of conquest and assimilation, a multi-ethnic Han culture nation with the same customs has been formed.

The Zhou Dynasty can be said to be the foundation of the integration of the Chinese nation, and their 800-year rule completely combined a country of hundreds of tribes and hundreds of languages into a real alliance.

It was only during the reign of Qin Shi Huang that the foundation for the unification of writing and language was laid.

However, the dominance of Confucianism strengthened the influence of this culture, but in order to facilitate rule, it castrated people's minds and reduced people's ability to execute.

After the revival of Confucianism in the Song Dynasty and the alien rule of the Mongol and Yuan dynasties for a hundred years, the Ming Dynasty is now extremely strict and hostile to ethnic distinctions.

In Zhu Zhanji's reply to the Confucian family, he made it clear that the Ming Dynasty was built on the basis of the Han nationality, but the Han nationality was actually a fusion of different ethnic groups during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

During the Zhou Dynasty, the foundation of a single culture was formed, but neither Chinese nor Han culture was clearly elaborated.

Nowadays, since the Han culture can no longer adapt to the expansion and needs of the Ming Dynasty, it is better to go back and pick up the title of the Chinese nation again to form a single cultural circle.

Daming doesn't care what nationality you originally are, as long as you can heart to China and are willing to integrate into China, Daming can accept it in the name of the people.

Of course, this is just cultural acceptance.

In addition to the influence of culture, the Ming also had guns and swords.

In reality, the Ming Dynasty must still take the Han nationality as the main body and completely integrate other ethnic groups.

This fusion can also be bloody and brutal.

Because once the self-consciousness of a nation is generated, it will constitute a substantial nation, and it will be difficult to assimilate.

If a nation that has already formed a national consciousness is reduced to an ethnic group, it will be regarded as the dwarfing of the self by the subject nation, because the fear of losing the authenticity of the nation may provoke a stronger national consciousness backlash.

For example, those island countries in the South Seas, they want the Ming Dynasty to accept them, they want to take advantage, but if they break up their structure and disperse them because of this, they will definitely not be willing, and they will even rebel because of this.

There are also Koreans and Dongying, who certainly do not want to be called Han Chinese and want to retain their national identity.

Even if the Ming Dynasty takes out the big umbrella of the Chinese nation, they will not be willing to completely lose their national identity.

Therefore, Zhu Zhanji actively integrates ethnic groups, such as those primitive tribal groups in Nanzhou (Australia) and Dongzhou (America).

They have not yet formed the concept of a nation, nor have they formed an indestructible cultural precipitation, and they are very easy to integrate.

As for North Korea, Dongying, and some countries on the Indochina Peninsula, they already have the consciousness of their native peoples, so they need to adopt different strategies and means to assimilate, rather than directly integrate.

At this time, it is necessary to further subdivide and classify the internal structure of the Chinese nation, but it is not possible to form a closed class.

Cultural integration must be positive and positive. However, specific measures should be treated differently.

That's pretty much what it means.

For this task, dozens of Confucian scholars spent more than half a year, changed their drafts three times, and finally came up with a more comprehensive scholarship.

However, Zhu Zhanji was still satisfied and dissatisfied.

What is satisfying is that they have made a very reasonable exposition of the nation and the state in accordance with Zhu Zhanji's meaning, and have also made a detailed classification of some irreconcilable contradictions.

For example, in terms of the priority of the country, the nation, and the relatives, they determined that the country is greater than the nation and the relatives according to the classification of the heavens and the earth.

In this way, I will no longer be afraid of those Confucian wall grasses, and lean on both sides. If you still want to be a traitor, you have to think about the name behind you.

Looking at the Kong clan in front of him, Zhu Zhanji thought of the famous sixty-fourth generation grandson of the Yan Shenggong in later generations.

In the first year of Shunzhi, Kong Yinzhi wrote the "First Entry Table", expressing his willingness to return to the Qing Dynasty. This recital is extremely flattering, and anyone who wants to face will blush when they see it.

In the second year, the imperial court issued a shaving order, and Kong Yinzhi led the prestige of the clan to take the lead in shaving their hair, and played the "Shaving of the Head" to the Qing court.

This is the normal practice of the general family when the concept of state and nation has not been formed. In their opinion, isn't it just a change of emperor to sit on the country, even if the emperor is of a different race.

But now with the book "The State and the Nation" written by the Confucian family, the Confucian family is afraid that they will not dare to do this in the future.

Dissatisfied, the Confucian family still did not clearly explain the relationship between the nation and the nation, but this is a small section.

Modern nationalism does not point to those primitive nations in the general anthropological and ethnological sense, but to nations that have the impulse to build a nation and are closely related to modern countries.

However, in the process of introducing the word "nation" from Japan in the late Qing Dynasty, there was no distinction between nations and nations, and Japan was a single-nation country, so there was a high degree of identity between nations.

However, as a multi-ethnic empire in history, China has many ethnic groups and ethnic groups, and the confusion between a nation that only has the right of national self-determination and a nation that has national independence and sovereignty has buried the conceptual confusion and practical dilemma of later generations.

For example, the preferential treatment policy for ethnic minorities in later generations is a joke, because a unified sovereign state and a member state are completely different concepts.

Artificially dividing ethnic groups has resulted in differential treatment and created a dilemma of ethnic integration.

In this regard, France has done a better job, although they are also a multi-ethnic and multi-racial country, but they never distinguish between them, and they are uniformly called nationals.

However, their own cultural background is too shallow, and the main country and culture cannot integrate with other ethnic groups.

The Ming Dynasty has no concerns about this, the Han nationality is a natural nation, and the Chinese nation is a unified title. The Han also has a large enough population and a deep enough heritage to blend with other ethnic groups.

Therefore, the book only needs to be revised simply, it can be published, and then it can be studied by the world.

Zhu Zhanji was ready to put forward this plan at the New Year's court.

But before that, we still need to do a good job of foreshadowing, and after preparing for so long, it's time to take out the newspaper.

(This chapter is the most difficult to write, 7,000 words for ten hours, but I don't know if everyone will like it...... ）