With Chongzhen's official stance on the anti-land reform case, the Daming Times, which had been in a state of restraint, finally began to take an all-out attitude, mercilessly criticizing the opponents of land reform.

From the Yanshenggong case to the Canal case, the grievances accumulated by the gentry were placed on the Shandong gentry who supported and opposed the land reform. For the first two cases, everyone knew that the evidence was true, and the emperor's attitude was also very clear, so he only dared to complain a few words in private, and did not dare to overturn the case excessively.

But the case against agrarian reform was different, and in the eyes of the gentry, agrarian reform itself was a policy that was neither legal nor reasonable. This looks like Choi Chengxiu's invitation to the emperor. Even if Cui Chengxiu put on a big hat of a cultivator who has his own land for this plundering of people's wealth, it can't change the fact that the gentry know.

Even if Choi Chengxiu wanted to intimidate these gentry with the charge of rebellion, he never made them succumb. Because they think that this is nothing more than a villain fabricating accusations, and justice is always on their side. As long as they continue to fight, maybe things will change when the emperor returns to Beijing. Some people also believe that even if the case cannot be overturned, there is still a law that does not hold the public accountable.

But to their surprise, this time not only did the people at the bottom not support them, but even after the emperor returned to the capital, the Ming Times, which represented the emperor's will, quickly changed its position, and regarded the gentry and landlords who opposed the land reform as hypocrites who hindered the revival of the Ming Dynasty.

Unable to gain the support of the lower classes of the people and the approval of the emperor, the gentry, who were still making a big noise in public opinion, immediately began to fall apart. As Chongzhen said, once they saw that something could not be done, these gentry and landlords quickly switched from an attitude of opposition to a position of how to reduce losses.

As Wang Xiangchun's family had to sell their farmland, move to the Bo Ni Kingdom under the supervision of the court officials, and live with the former British princes, there were not many Shandong gentry who dared to stand up against the land reform policy.

At the same time, the Yansheng Gong case and the Canal case were also closed. The Yan Sheng Gong clan was divided into ten branches, and the patriarch of each branch could take over the position of priest and patriarch in turn, and the title of Yan Sheng Gong that had begun in the Song Dynasty came to an end. After this news came out, the biggest reaction was not the Ming scholars, but the North Koreans, Vietnamese, and Houjin.

Huang Taiji even personally published an article in the Dajin Times criticizing Chongzhen's treatment of the Yan Shenggong clan for being too rash and too frivolous as a human monarch. After the Daming Times continued to publish articles accusing Hou Jin of many crimes, Huang Taiji finally understood that instead of protesting to the Ming Kingdom all day long, it was better to run a newspaper and scold the Ming Times, which would be more effective.

Therefore, when dealing with Mang Gurtai, he ordered the members of the Wenguan to run a Dajin Times. As soon as the newspaper was published, it was used to attack the reputation of Mang Gurtai. Let the soldiers and civilians in Shenyang City know about the deeds of this Sanbeile who killed his mother to seek glory, which made Mang Gurtai's reputation quickly discredited, and even his subordinates who were in the blue flag were a little suspicious.

As for the case of the canal gentry instigating the workers to besiege the yamen and killing people. After striking at this interest group that combined the local gentry, bureaucrats, merchants, and dock gangs, there were not many people who actually dealt with it.

Zhang Xianzhong was very dissatisfied with the hasty conclusion of the case, and he believed that it was right to kill the heads of those who were inferior and corrupt officials in order to deter later talents. Instead of exiling a group of gentry, dismissing a group of officials, and ordering the merchants to hand over a fine, it would be over, wouldn't it be in vain for more than a year of his hard work?

What made Zhang Xianzhong feel the most resentful was those dock workers. He did so for the workers, but the dock workers, after receiving a little compensation from the merchants, turned to intercede for the merchants, which was simply ungrateful. Most of the workers' representatives believed that since the merchants had made concessions and were willing to raise their wages, shorten their working hours, and provide some labor insurance expenses, their goal had been achieved, and they should not continue to fight with the merchants, after all, the other party was still their food and clothing.

Listening to the resentment exuded by Zhang Xianzhong during the report, Zhu Youzhen just smiled and said: "Strictly speaking, these workers really don't need to be grateful to us, after all, we used their power to attack the interest groups on the canal." ”

Zhang Xianzhong was suddenly a little stunned, and he couldn't help but say: "What power do those workers have?" If we had not organized them with trade unions and protected them with the army, they would have been suppressed by the gentry, bureaucrats, merchants, and gangsters, and where would they have gotten the gains they have now. ”

Zhu Youzhen looked at him and said, "Without the support of these workers, how could the union force these people to submit so quickly?" Even if it is an army, it needs to be made up of personnel. Isn't it clear how powerful the Guards are?

Now that our purpose has been achieved, there is no need to worry about the problems of the branches and leaves. Besides, we have to allow the workers the right to compromise, otherwise that's *annoying..."

After Zhang Xianzhong thought about the emperor's words all the way and left, Xu Xingsheng walked in with a report on the Internal Affairs Office. After the Ministry of Internal Affairs counted last year's income, Zhu Youzhen found that the raw silk and silk trade, which was once a flourishing force, had been surpassed by the cotton cloth business.

Last year, the cotton cloth that flowed into the market in Daming officially exceeded 100 million horses, and the commercial cotton cloth produced in the south has increased compared with previous years, reaching nearly 40 million horses, but the northern region has doubled compared with previous years, forming a cotton textile center in Gyeonggi, Luoyang, Xuzhou, Jinan and other regions.

In addition to the expansion of the cotton textile industry, the steel products, glass manufacturing, oil extraction industry, soap manufacturing industry, cement manufacturing industry and building materials industry have all developed rapidly in Hebei, Shandong and Henan. Especially because of the railway, the land transportation between Hebei and Shandong has surpassed the crowded and inconvenient canal transportation.

For example, the railway between Jinan and Qingdao not only provides convenient transportation conditions for iron factories and coking coal plants along the way, but also opens up a channel for Jinan to go overseas. In particular, there is a large amount of high-quality coal near Zibo, and with the opening of mines in this place by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Shandong San Francisco and many local gentry also heard the news, and more than 30 pits appeared for a while, each pit ranges from hundreds of tons to tens of thousands of tons per year, and the total annual output is about 70,000 or 80,000 tons.

Of course, this is only the beginning, once it enters the stage of mature mining, it is no problem to increase the annual output by seven or eight times.

Just 50 miles west of Zichuan, there is an iron mountain that can be mined in the open pit, after the railway connects the two places, the iron smelting plant originally located in Laiwu began to divert to the Zibo area, and the cities along the Jiaoji Railway have begun to move towards the road of rapid development.

However, what made Zhu Youzhen most pleased was the converter steelmaking method invented by the Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant, and the news of the successful migration of rubber trees from Hainan Island.

He quickly told Xu: "The converter steelmaking method can be licensed to other ironworks, but they have to pay Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant a royalty of 2 yuan for every ton of converter steel produced."

Wei Liangqing was notified to record the technical points of planting rubber trees, and also sent them to relevant personnel in the form of text for study. In addition, several batches of experts in planting rubber trees will be trained, so that they can spread rubber trees throughout Nanyang and expand the planting area of rubber trees as soon as possible..."

Xu Xingsheng was suddenly a little reluctant, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has the highest holding in the three ironworks in Tangshan, Mentougou and Zibo, but basically has no shares in other iron factories. It's nothing to share converter steelmaking technology with the other two iron mills, but to share it with other iron mills, isn't this cultivating your own competitors?

In this era when the price of steel exceeds the price of pig iron by five or six times, they can sell as much steel as they produce, and the profit is much stronger than charging a patent fee of 2 yuan per ton.

"Your Majesty, is this converter steelmaking technology for Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant to study for a period of time, there are still some flaws in the current technology, and I think that it may be more beneficial to spread steelmaking technology if these flaws can be removed."

After Zhu Youzhen glanced up at Xu Xingsheng, he said: "Give you half a year to improve, and after half a year, invite major iron factories to authorize patents."

Okay, what's the situation on the Japanese and North Korean side? Have the central banks of these two countries helped them to set it up? ”

Hearing the emperor ask about this, Xu Xingsheng couldn't help but shake his head and said: "It's okay on the Japanese side, before the suspension of sailings last winter, the Bank of Japan had already completed the preparation and sent our mint* 100 million yen banknotes.

By May, the first 30 million yen will be shipped to Japan. According to the calculations of the Bank of Japan, the exchange ratio between the Japanese yen and the Ming yuan is: 2:1.

In addition, seven Japanese copper merchants formed the Nippon Copper Company and sold 10% of its shares to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 5% to the Four Seas Trading Company, and 15% to the Bank of Japan, thus gaining the right to develop copper mountains in western Japan.

We have already suggested that Japan Copper build railways and ports around these copper mountains so that the output can be transported to our country for further processing. According to Shikai Trading's calculations, if the copper smelting process and transportation methods can be improved, the amount of copper that Japan can ship abroad each year will increase from the current 1,000 tons to 2-3,000 tons.

And our dynasty is used to press copper coins every year, it takes 1,500 tons, and now Yunnan produces about 1,000 tons of copper annually, which has almost accounted for ninety percent of the copper mine output of the Ming Dynasty. If we add the copper demand for casting other utensils, the copper gap required by Daming is about 3,000 tons per year.

Therefore, if Japan's copper mines can be fully developed, it will greatly alleviate the current situation of copper shortage in China.

As for the DPRK side, the DPRK king is still unwilling to allow me to intervene too deeply in the internal affairs of the DPRK, and has always adopted delaying tactics in response to our proposals to establish the Central Bank of the DPRK, to train a new army and navy, and to allow our businessmen to open mines and factories in the DPRK.

Therefore, we can only take the local route now, and the two classes of nobles in Gyeongsang Province and Jeolla Province are willing to cooperate with us under certain conditions, but these places do not have any minerals worth developing other than rice and fishing.

Although a lot of minerals have been discovered in the northern part of Korea, the current North Korea lacks the ability to protect itself, and the development of the northern part is easy to be plundered by the Houjin, so we think it is better to maintain the current level of trade with the DPRK..."