The New Year of the twelfth year of Yongle is a little more deserted than in previous years. Since December decided on the northern expedition at the beginning of the year, the entire Ming Dynasty has been preparing for this northern expedition.

Since the beginning of the year, 300,000 troops from various places have set out for Beiping, and now they have basically been settled.

Zhu Di is the general who attaches the most importance to logistics, and the grain and grass collected from various places, even for the Chinese New Year, have not been continuously transferred to Beiping.

In this expedition, 400,000 infantry troops, 100,000 cavalry, and nearly 300,000 military horses were dispatched from all over the country.

There are still 200,000 troops in the Beijing division and the Zhongdu battalion, which will march to Beiping in February next spring.

With the nearly four million taels of silver that Zhu Zhanji took out, not to mention fighting this war, another one is enough.

When he came to this era, Zhu Zhanji knew that compared with modern people, the happiness of the people of the Ming Dynasty would probably be higher.

First of all, prices in the Ming Dynasty were low. At this time, it was still the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, silver was expensive and cheap, and one or two pieces of silver could be exchanged for a full thousand dollars. And a steamed bun, including steamed buns, only costs two cents, this kind of steamed buns and steamed buns are super large, but they are not the kind of small buns in later generations.

A pound of meat generally does not exceed 20 yuan, and in the past ten years, only one year of swine fever has been transmitted, and the price of pork has risen to 25 yuan a pound.

The house price in Jingshi is relatively expensive, generally 50 taels of silver, to buy a three-room room with a courtyard and a kitchen. It is about 150 square meters.

However, even for an ordinary person, the minimum income per day is more than a penny.

In other words, the minimum resident income of Jingshi is three taels of silver a month, and it will take less than two years to buy a house with a yard.

And what about girls at this time, they are generally at the same price as a middle-aged male servant, as long as ten taels of silver, which is equivalent to an ordinary person working for more than three months, and they can buy a maid or servant.

Pan Jinlian, a famous beauty in history, only sold for thirty taels of silver because of her literacy.

This is still ordinary people, like the silk workers in Suzhou and Huzhou, whose annual income is higher than that of the county order, and they can earn about 70 taels of silver a year, and their income can build a mansion, marry a wife, and buy a maid in a year.

Prices are low and incomes are high, so although the enjoyment of all aspects in this era is not very good, people's happiness is sufficient.

Of course, there were still many poor people in the countryside, because the peasants in this era had an astonishingly high tax burden. There are also tenants, or people who have fled the famine, which can also be called a poor land.

However, in this era, the government had almshouses, which were for the poor, almshouses, for orphans, and nursing homes, for the elderly.

Seeing these measures for the people, Zhu Zhanji couldn't believe at first that in the era of 600 years ago, in a dynasty that was criticized for being useless, there was such a perfect social welfare.

In fact, there are many relief policies in this regard, Zhu Yuanzhang is from a poor family, and he takes care of the poor in every detail.

In short, in the Ming Dynasty of this era, basically the country can take care of every poor person and not let you live.

Nearly four million taels of silver, plus the one million he began to take out, was equivalent to a quarter of the annual tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, not a quarter of all taxes, because in this era, most of the taxes collected are in kind.

For example, peasants pay grain, city dwellers pay per capita, craftsmen can even hand over tools, and silk merchants can pay taxes on silk.

In this era, when I was a soldier, most of the money I received was also some grain and cloth, and the silver money only accounted for a small part.

Zhu Di now has money in his hands, and he is not panicked. The preparations for the war were already almost there, and even if Zhu Zhanji's money was over in the future, he would not use half of it.

The smell of the New Year in the palace is lighter, for fear of fire, except for Zhu Zhanji, the princes and grandchildren of the palace can set off firecrackers in an open place, and the eunuchs and palace ladies will be beheaded if they set off firecrackers.

Even for sacrifices, they can only worship in designated places, and they are absolutely not allowed to worship their ancestors in their own rooms, in short, all open fires in all places except the kitchen must be strictly monitored.

Zhu Zhanji is not a child anymore, and he doesn't have much enthusiasm for the New Year, and after a long talk with Zhu Di and Zhu Gaochi that night, he began to write a plan.

If you want to go outside, you must first settle inside, and now you don't need to worry too much about the inside, but since Zhu Di handed over this matter to him, of course he aimed at the Japanese first.

In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, it was a period of chaos between the feudal princes of the Northern and Southern Dynasties of Japan.

Some frustrated feudal lords in the coastal areas of Japan gathered martial artists, ronin, pirates, and smugglers, armed with weapons, and went to various places along the Ming Dynasty to rob in hundreds.

From Liaohai and Shandong in the north, to Fujian, Zhejiang and Dongyue in the south, all of them often suffer from it.

In October of the twentieth year of Hongwu, the Japanese invaded Liaodong and invaded Jinzhou; In the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, the Japanese invaded Jinzhou for the second time; the third time in the twenty-seventh year; Fourth in twenty-eight years.

In the thirtieth year of Hongwu, the fifth large-scale invasion of the Japanese invaders actually led to the isolation of shipping along the coast of Liaodong.

Later, Zhu Yuanzhang died, Emperor Jianwen was busy withdrawing the domain, and the civil war broke out again.

It was not until Zheng He went to the West, the Ming Dynasty navy was strong, and the country in Dongying was now relatively stable, that the Japanese gradually disappeared.

But Zhu Zhanji knew that they were only dormant for the time being, and in the Ming generation, almost none of the Japanese were completely cut off.

If the army of the Ming Dynasty wants to cross the seas, of course, it must first clean up the door of the house.

Like dealing with the Yuan people, Zhu Zhanji has never been a passive beater, and if he wants to deal with the Japanese pirates, of course, he directly excavated their foundation.

What's more, there is a world-class silver mine waiting for him to dig now.

In his previous life, when he went to Japan for a meeting, he also went to the Iwami Ginzan Museum to visit, so he knew about this location.

As for the other Shengye Silver Mine, although he knew the name, he didn't know the specific location, so Zhu Zhanji didn't think about it for the time being.

Iwami Ginzan is a little more than ten kilometers from the sea, and it is just a very easy thing to occupy there. However, if you don't want all the people in the whole Dongying to unite against Daming, you still have to pay attention to a little strategy.

In addition to Dongying, Zhu Zhanji most wanted to develop the Hongji Coal Mine and Shiroku Iron Mine in Vietnam.

Compared with gold and silver, steel is what Daming needs to develop the most.

From Ha Long Bay in Vietnam to Shiroku, although the distance between the two places is nearly 300 kilometers, it is a sea route.

The volume of sea ships is much greater than that of land transportation, and the cost of hauling coal from Halong Bay to Shilu in Hainan is lower than the cost of traveling from Ma'anshan to Nanjing.

Although there is coal in Huaibei, the coal in Huaibei is not as good as the coal in Hongji Coal Mine, and the iron ore content in Ma'anshan is also lower than that of Shilu Iron Mine.

Therefore, even if it is steel-making in Hainan and then shipped back to Daming, the cost is lower than that of steel-making in Ma'anshan.

Zhu Zhanji is now not only thinking about the strategy, but also recalling the history of the development of steel.

Although he has set up a number of steel mills in Africa and South America, he really doesn't understand the technology. Even his wife, Gracia, knows a lot more than he does.

Now he can't rely on others, so he can only recall the development of steelmaking technology in the history of steel.

He only knew crucible steelmaking, bottom blowing converter steelmaking, and Thomas's alkaline bottom blowing converter steelmaking, which used lime to increase the alkaline molecules in molten steel, and later developed to the top blowing converter steelmaking method.

Crucibles, open hearths, blast furnaces, converters, he knows all these principles, but he doesn't know anything about technology.

Therefore, he has no practical help for the development of science and technology, and he can lead the right direction of development at most.

From the thirtieth year of the Chinese New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the first year, Zhu Di was very busy, offering sacrifices, great court meetings, and banquets for officials from all walks of life.

Zhu Zhanji will participate in some activities, such as the Taimiao sacrifice, which he must also participate in as a grandson. Now he is not familiar with the procedure, and when he becomes the emperor, he will be at a loss.

But he turned off most of the banquets, and even if he attended, he didn't drink.

It wasn't until the sixth day of the Lunar New Year that Zhu Di was a little more relaxed, and then came to Xingqing Palace to read the strategy plan written by Zhu Zhanji.

This plan is the first time that Zhou Nan has officially participated in national politics, and not only he attaches great importance to it, but even Zhu Di attaches great importance to it.

But as soon as he saw the plan, Zhu Di paused for a moment, and then continued to read it casually.

Because of the use of vernacular and punctuation, and Zhu Zhanji's completely changed the ambiguous habit of official documents in the past, he accurately put all the data in place, and even made some charts with charcoal.

As a result, in the eyes of ordinary people, things that can be written clearly in two or three thousand words, Zhu Zhanji wrote more than 10,000.

However, this is only an outline, this is not enough time, if there is enough time, he can write a proposal of two or three hundred thousand words.

The implementation of a national plan and policy in the future will cost millions of words, and even the words written cannot fit in a house, but in this era, Zhu Zhanji has been shocked to write so many words for a plan.

In particular, he used vernacular Chinese, wrote horizontally, and then added punctuation, which made Zhu Di feel fresh.

Zhu Zhanji has been sitting quietly on the side, not in a hurry or impatient, waiting for him to finish reading.

Finally finished reading the last page, Zhu Di looked up and asked, "Why do you write in the vernacular?" ”

"Grandson's plan is not only for the emperor's grandfather, but also for all the people involved in the plan, even if the other party is illiterate, he can understand what he wants to do as soon as he listens to it."

"You've arranged everything, so that the people below don't have a flexible scope of work?"

"The grandson just wants everyone to know what they need to do and what they can't do, reward them for doing a good job, and punish them if they don't do well."

"Why do you need so many craftsmen and blacksmiths?"

"Development of the Shiroku Mine."

"Why do you need so many imperial doctors?"

"The climate is different in different places, the miasma is rampant, and only doctors can ensure the safety of soldiers."

“……”

“……”

The grandfather and grandson asked and answered, which lasted for half an hour, and Zhu Di completely satisfied his curiosity.

Before leaving, he finally showed a relieved smile: "Ki'er's move is very good, and I am relieved." ”