After the popularity of printing in the Song Dynasty, there was no technical problem with the printing of newspapers.

There are two main reasons why newspapers did not circulate in ancient times. One is the control of public opinion by the imperial court, and the other is the issue of cost.

In feudal society, ordinary people have no say in national affairs, and in fact, ordinary people do not care about so-called national affairs at all.

Those who really want to speak out are all scholars and officials. However, the imperial court lacked the ability to manage this aspect, so it simply implemented the strategy of not seeking government in its position.

The emperor did not allow it, and the Confucian policy of ignoring the people would not allow ordinary people to open up the wisdom of the people.

They studied the scriptures so that they could become officials and then become masters. Can what they are doing be known to the people and make irresponsible remarks?

In fact, the Ming Dynasty's Di Bao has developed very popularly, but this kind of Di Bao can only be passed among officials, at most some Xiucai and Juren, can see the imperial court's Di Bao in the county office.

The emperor and officials did not support it, so don't think that ordinary people can casually learn about state affairs.

The Donglin Party of later generations came up with a couplet of "the sound of the wind and rain, the sound of reading, and the concern of family affairs, national affairs, and everything in the world".

This couplet has the praise of not forgetting the safety of the country in later generations, but in fact, this couplet originally appeared because of the accusations and dissatisfaction of the frustrated Donglin Party against the imperial court.

At the beginning, they were not worried about the country and the people, but just to fight for power and profit.

Another reason is realistic, and that is cost.

In this era of heavy agriculture and suppression of business, newspapers had no advertisements. The cost of newspapers is high, and no one buys them when they are expensive, so how can they be sustained?

You know, today's materials are tight, most of the papermaking is a handicraft workshop, and the cost of paper is surprisingly high.

To give a simple example, today's a steamed bun has a copper, and a meat bun has two coppers, but the cost of printing a book of 50,000 words is one or two hundred yuan, and the price will increase by more than 50%, because the transportation cost is also very high.

In later generations, a 4-open newspaper cost a few cents of paper, but in this era, the cost of paper accounted for more than eighty percent of the cost of the newspaper, which was enough for many people to have a restaurant.

Not to mention printing and ink, including labor costs such as transportation.

Not to mention printing multiple newspapers, only one 4-page newspaper is issued at a time, not counting transportation, paper and printing, and the labor cost is more than 20 wen.

The cost of a newspaper is enough for the people to eat for three days, who can afford it?

What's more, most of the people are illiterate.

Therefore, after learning about this, Zhu Zhanji also gave up the idea of running a newspaper.

But after Zhu Di set out, Zhu Zhanji gradually took control of the overall situation, and now he needs a mouthpiece to speak for himself.

Although Di Bao is useful, Di Bao is not enough, he needs a wider influence.

For example, Shandong's grain corruption and officials' ungodly targeting of immigration policies are the disjointed relationship between the imperial court and the common people.

Like later generations, if there is any movement in the imperial court, the common people will be able to know, so what official dares to disobey the yang and the yin?

Although the current imperial court is controlled by Zhu Zhanji, this control is still very weak.

In other words, throughout the feudal era, the emperor's control over the entire world was very weak.

Nominally, the emperor is in charge of the world, but what an emperor can really manage is at most one place, that is, the palace.

In addition to the imperial palace, the emperor in the feudal era needed to control the three systems in order to ensure the implementation of government decrees and the stability of the regime.

One is the royal direct management system, which in the Ming Dynasty includes the internal supervisor and the Jinyi guard, as well as the Beijing guard.

This is the basis for whether an emperor can sit firmly in his position, without the stability of this system, there will be no stability of the other two systems.

The second is, of course, the system of government decrees, which is the embodiment of the authority of an emperor, and any policy of administration needs to be reflected through this system.

In order to guarantee its authority, it needs a third system, that is, the military system.

The military restricts civilian officials, civilian officials restrain internal supervision, and internal supervision restricts military generals.

During this period in the early Ming Dynasty, the previous emperors maintained the balance through this balance, so that the emperor's authority was maximized.

However, this restriction is not static, because in many cases, the relationship between the three is mutually restrictive, and it mainly depends on the emperor's skill.

If Zhu Zhanji just wants to maintain stability, then he can do nothing at all, and only need to maintain the balance between the three systems.

But he wants reform, he wants the army to conquer abroad, he wants civilian officials to rely on professional governance, and he wants the internal supervision and direct system to form a tighter surveillance.

Then he had to change.

Any change will disrupt the balance between the three, so the adjustment of this change, in addition to being careful, must let everyone understand his determination and direction of reform.

It is even more necessary to let the people of the whole country outside these three systems become the third eye of the royal family.

The common people in the feudal era were not valued, they did not have any rights, they were just an exploited class.

But if this class is used, even if it is only a part of it, it can play a very small role.

This requires the guidance and propaganda of public opinion, so no matter how high the cost is, Zhu Zhanji has to run the newspaper.

Di Bao is an information channel for officials in this era, so the purpose of running a newspaper is to form an information channel known to the common people of the whole country.

This information channel can only be controlled by the royal family, and no one can interfere.

Only news favorable to the rule and only news favorable to Zhu Zhanji can be published, and no one else has the right to interfere.

Under such thinking, Zhu Youzhu, who is in charge of the world's literature and publishes publications, was pushed to the forefront by Zhu Zhanji.

Zhu Zhanji used him, not because of his status as a member of the imperial family.

As a member of the Zhu family, it is almost impossible for him to betray the Zhu family and stand on the side of Wenchen or military generals.

Under Zhu Zhanji's arrangement, he resigned from the Ministry of Rites in the summer and began to form the "Daming Royal Daily".

Except for a few officials of the Ministry of Rites, this newspaper is composed of two parts, one is the content department composed of Jinyiwei, the Internal Supervision and Information Department, and the General Administration Department.

This department is mainly responsible for the collection and compilation of newspaper content. The decrees of the imperial court, the corruption cases of officials in various places, and the direction of reform of the imperial court will all be collected through this department.

There is also a development department composed of internal supervision, printing and ribbon supervision, the Ministry of Industry, and the internal treasury.

This department is responsible for paper production, printing, advertising, and sales, regardless of content.

The Ministry of Internal Supervision and the Ministry of Industry are now the two major departments of the imperial court, and the products they produce are sold throughout the country. It can be said that advertising does not need to go to customers at all, and their own product advertisements can feed this newspaper.

Zhu Zhanji originally wanted to directly set up a propaganda department, but after thinking about it, he still only set up a newspaper department, which belonged to the royal family.

Because he is not a real emperor now, it is easy to carry out the reform of the ruling party, but it is not justified to carry out the reform.

What's more, a newspaper office has been able to temporarily meet Zhu Zhanji's needs, and it doesn't matter much what the name is.

Zhu Youzhu served as the Langzhong of the Di Bao Division, and Zhu Zhanji assigned some of the functions and powers of the Ministry of Rites on publishing to this new department.

The editor-in-chief of the newspaper is Xie Jin, Hu Yan, and other cabinet scholars, and any page of the newspaper except for advertisements needs their consent before it can be printed.

Under the auspices of Jin Kuo, the chief eunuch of the Seal Ribbon Prison, the internal eunuch set up a total of 11 printing workshops in Yingtianfu, Beibianzai, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Xi'an, Yizhou, Luoyang, Wuchang, Nanchang, Changsha and Zhaoqing.

After the layout of the newspaper in Yingtianfu is determined, these printing workshops will obtain the same typesetting as quickly as possible through the post station system of the Department of General Administration, and then print them.

At the beginning, Zhu Zhanji did not want to make a daily newspaper, but a semi-monthly magazine, that is, a newspaper printed every half a month.

As for the timeliness, don't consider it for the time being, with the current speed of transmission, even if the imperial court vigorously promotes, some remote counties can get the latest newspapers one month after the publication of Yingtianfu.

The newspapers mainly publish news about government decrees, and they are not afraid of losing their timeliness, but they are afraid that people in remote areas will not be able to see the newspapers.

Zhu Zhanji's attention to the newspaper has also been seen by many people during the nearly half-year preparation time.

Don't underestimate the wisdom of people in this era, public opinion propaganda is the top priority at all times. It's just that in the past, no one was willing to spend such a large cost to carry out public opinion propaganda.

For the sake of a newspaper, so many departments joined forces to form a new agency. After that, each issue of the newspaper requires a lot of manpower and material resources to and fro for takeout, and the money lost is not a small amount.

In ten years, Zhu Zhanji did not think that he could make money, except for places like Yingtianfu, Ningbo may be slightly profitable. But selling a newspaper to a remote area can cost several newspapers.

For this reason, Zhu Zhanji is not worried that someone will follow the trend and run a newspaper, because no one can lose anything except him.

What's more, Zhu Zhanji will not allow him to follow the trend and run a newspaper, even if he wants to run a newspaper.

When he got the "State and the Nation" written by the Confucian family, Zhu Zhanji had already thought about it, and the first issue of the newspaper would be published nationwide on the 16th day of the first lunar month, and the main content was to excerpt some of the contents of the book.

From the first issue of the newspaper, it is necessary to establish the concept of the state and the nation in the hearts of the people.

It is not only necessary to let the people understand the relationship between the country and the family, and the interests of the country. It is also necessary to let the people understand that in addition to interests, there are deeper collective honor and blood feelings.

This is certainly not an easy task, but it is a long-term job that will take decades, even hundreds of years, and generations to cultivate.

There is another important link in this, that is, the Ming Dynasty's colonization global plan.

Even if the ships in the future are all steam ships, it will take more than a month to go to Dongzhou and Xizhou.

At such a long distance, and there is no land connection, whether it is a feudal domain or a garrison, different interest groups will be formed.

While he was still alive, he believed he could control the situation and not deteriorate.

But what about later? Now these clans dare not rebel, and his sons will not be independent if they are divided in the future.

But what if Zhu Qizhen comes to power, or after his grandchildren?

If the family relationship is weakened, and the means of interest cannot be controlled because of the emperor's limited ability, then local independence may become a trend.

Although there is a Confucian idea of great unification, even Zhu Di has to compete with his nephew for the world, who can guarantee that the future vassal kings will be honest and obedient.

Strengthening the cultivation of national sentiment at present can also make the independence of various localities lose public opinion as much as possible, and even if the country is independent, national sentiment can still bring all localities together.

At such a time, it is impossible for any country, or any nation, to shake the dominance of the Chinese nation in the world.

After the time entered December, the New Year's flavor of Ying Tianfu became stronger and stronger.

But in the distant Persian plateau, the war descended into the fiercest confrontation.

Although the Ming Dynasty occupied the granary of Terrabat, because the autumn harvest had been made before the arrival of the army, the grain obtained was mainly obtained from the city of Terrabat.

There is not much of this food, and relatively speaking, hundreds of thousands of sheep are more reassuring food.

But sheep also need to eat grass, and in the snowy season, it is also a difficult task to get enough grass for these sheep.

In short, although the Ming Dynasty has an absolute advantage on the battlefield, there are still many troubles and laborious things.

Zhu Di has completely recognized Huang Yuan's ability, this young man who is only thirty years old, has shown a co-ordination ability that far exceeds his expectations.

Enough flocks of sheep can also allow hundreds of thousands of Ming soldiers and tens of thousands of Indian soldiers to live a good year.

Before the Spring Festival, Zhu Di was no longer ready to go to war. The soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were difficult to deploy, and he was unwilling to risk the lives of the soldiers to touch a strong city.

All kinds of artillery and trebuchets were arranged outside the city of Herat, and only after the end of the New Year would the Ming Dynasty launch a thunderous blow.

It was also at this time that they finally got in touch with the Northern Route Army, and learned that Zheng Heng had set off a few months ahead of schedule and was now preparing for battle in Shattered Leaf City, which made him even more confident.

Zheng Heng arrived at Broken Leaf City at the end of November, and while actively liaising with the surrounding tribes, he sent a cavalry force of more than 2,000 men to march south along the mountainous area in the eastern part of the Hezhong region with great difficulty to establish a perfect communication channel.

The central and western part of the Transoxiana region was occupied by the former Western Chakhatai Khanate, now the Timurid State.

Only the eastern mountainous region belonged to the territory of the Eastern Chahatai Khanate. The two great powers, which originally belonged to one khanate, were real mortal enemies at this time because of the struggle for faith and power.

Two years earlier, the Ming Dynasty, with the support of the Eastern Chahatai Khanate, also known as Yili Jiangli, had set up some strongholds in their territory.

But the high roads in the eastern mountains, especially the Pamirs, were simply insurmountable in this era.

Whether it is the ancient Silk Road or the Tang Sanzang scriptures, they all avoided this area.

Even though the Ming Dynasty successively sent more than two hundred students who graduated from Yulin Wei School to come here, trying to find a passage that could allow the army to pass, it has never succeeded.

Problems with water and supplies prevented the army from passing, but the long mountain roads could not stop the passage of the well-supplied and meticulous crops.

As long as the number of people is small and there are enough supplies, some places can still pass.

It took two years to finally find a safe passage in the vast no-man's land.

When the fine work of the Northern Route Army came to Peshawar from between the mountains and mountains, Zhang Xin, who was stationed here, was very surprised.

This meant that although it was difficult, the Southern Route Army and the Northern Route Army were finally able to get in touch.

In Peshawar, Zhang Xin and Mu Xin still had 9,500 cavalry under their command, and they had been recuperating here for more than half a month.

And in order to cover this passage, they can come in handy.

The Southern Route Army had suspended its offensive and was preparing for the New Year, and Zheng Heng of the Northern Route Army was still pulling more tribes to take refuge, but Zhang Xin's side sent a guard cavalry led by Chang Fuliang to pass through the Khyber Pass and began harassment tactics.

Afghanistan in later generations will be a barren land in the hearts of all people.

But in this era, because the land has not yet been desertified, it is a famous pasture and granary in Central Asia.

The Timurid state has always attached great importance to the rule of Afghanistan, the capital of Samarkand in the north, the capital of Herat, the capital of the south, and Kabul, the trading capital of the east, this triangle is the essence of the entire Timurid state.

Out of the Khyber Pass, Kabul, a famous trading center on the Silk Road, is located.

Chang Fuliang's forces were limited, and he had no intention of targeting the city, not even raiding, but only harassing tactics in the wilderness to make those tribes retreat to the periphery of the city.

Without forage, the herders' livestock will die, and the more animals die this winter, the more their power will be weakened the following year.

There is a more important reason, and that is to find out the road in the middle of the country of Timur.

The army had to advance all the way to the north, and if it did not grasp the terrain of Timur, it would have a huge impact on the march.

In the past years, although the Ming and Timurid countries have not broken contact, they often send envoys to each other, and these envoys also know most of the roads.

But there are no road signs, there are no building eras, still in the grassland, on the Gobi Desert, many roads change with the seasons.

In addition to preparing for the war, Zheng Heng is also waiting for news from his son, and he wants to know whether Zhu Zhanji will support him to garrison in the river.

If he does, even if the progress is slower, he will take care to maintain the relationship with each tribe.

But if he doesn't support it, in order to open up the situation as soon as possible, his attitude will definitely be tougher.

It's just that Zheng Neng, who was pinned on by him, almost died because he was infected with the wind cold as soon as he arrived in Beiping.

After recuperating in Beiping for more than a month, his health improved slightly, Zheng Neng did not dare to delay any longer, braved the severe cold and rushed to Tianjin and got on a sea boat.

On the day of the New Year, he arrived in the capital, and in the afternoon of the same day, he handed a post of the audience to Honglu Temple.

And Zhu Zhanji has always wanted to understand the situation on the grassland today, so at noon the next morning, he met Zheng Neng, who was seriously ill and gained a lot of weight.

Although Zheng Neng is a general of three generations, his growth was also accompanied by Zhu Di's martyrdom.

At the age of forty this year, he has been in the army since he was a child, but because Zheng Heng is now sixty-four years old, he is still strong, so he has never been allowed to lead the army alone.

However, he is the recognized heir of the Wu'an Hou faction, so he is not in a hurry about whether he can lead the army.

On the contrary, because of the amazing gains in Beimingshan in recent years, with his father leading the army, his energy is more focused on planning for the family.

His intention to come to Beijing is actually not difficult to guess, there are only two reasons why the Marquis of Wu'an can transport all their profits over the years to the capital.

One is to show loyalty to Zhu Zhanji, and the other is to have other plans.

Fifty thousand taels of gold, equivalent to five hundred thousand taels of silver, is not a small amount for any family.

Based on all aspects of intelligence, Zhu Zhanji already knew his intentions.

So in the face of Zheng Neng openly and honestly confessing Zheng Heng's thoughts, he laughed. "The legitimate income of any family is protected by the law of the Ming Dynasty, and Lone will not ask for the silver that belongs to your family. …… As for the garrison in Samarkand, Lone can't promise you now. Lone wants to see first, what kind of battle can this battle be? In the future, the Ming garrison can only make a decision if it can be profitable. ”

Zheng Neng is not young and has rich experience, so he easily understood the meaning behind Zhu Zhanji's words.

First of all, this battle depends on whether Zheng Heng fights well or not. It is necessary to subdue the country of Timur, but also not to destroy it, let alone let the people there deviate from morality.

Otherwise, a ruin, what is Daming going to do?

The people there regard the Ming Dynasty as a vengeance, how can they settle down? Now the most popular things there are horses, and cotton, which requires the continuous support of the locals to be profitable.

Therefore, Zheng Neng hurriedly said: "Weichen understands, my father has already made it clear to Weichen when he went to the northwest. In this battle of the northwest, we must pull a few more powerful allies for the Ming Dynasty. ”

This is not what Zhu Zhanji wants to say, in terms of winning over allies, three Zheng Heng are not as good as one Chen Cheng, and now that there is Chen Cheng as a red face over there, Zheng Heng should be a white face.

Blindly being gentle is not in the long-term interest. Those peoples in Central Asia are white-eyed wolves, and no matter how good they are, they can only hold a gun in one hand and sugar in the other.

So Zhu Zhanji said again: "Wu Anhou should always remember that he is a general first and foremost......

Zheng Neng understood it now, the emperor killed people in the south, what are you doing in the north? Only by following the emperor's footsteps first, and then waiting for the emperor's order to use the Huairou policy is right. "Weichen is foolish and almost made a big mistake, His Highness Xie reminds you."

Zhu Zhanji turned around again and asked about Xue Lu's takeover after he went to Beimingshan.

Although he has a summary of the news from all parties, he can understand it more clearly by listening to the direct feelings of Zheng Neng, a party.

Hearing Xue Lu's Xiao Gui Cao Sui, he was also a little relieved, now that the northwest was at war, he didn't want Xue Lu to arouse the anger of the people in Warat and Tatar in Beiming Mountain.

In the end, Zheng Neng was still a little relieved, and asked again: "Your Highness, what about these golds......

"Let's put it in the bank first, whether it will be stored in the bank or exchanged for various materials, we will always wait until this battle is over. Don't be anxious, since Wu Anhou arranged for you to come to the capital, by the way, I will also help Gu do something......"