Zhu Ao smiled slightly, patted her hand on her shoulder, and comforted: "Concubine Ai doesn't have to blame herself, it's not easy for you to help the widow analyze this step, if a woman can be the prime minister, the widow will definitely make you a prime minister." ”

Di Linaza knew that Zhu Ao was joking, smiled sweetly, and said, "If the concubine doesn't let the princess do it, what kind of prime minister will she be?" What's more, the father and the emperor have a clear decree prohibiting the establishment of a prime minister, has the king forgotten? ”

"Also, the widow has forgotten about it." Zhu Ao patted his head, deliberately pretended to be very self-reproachful and said: "Actually, the problem of grain and grass has already been thought of a solution, but now there is still one last step to help Concubine Ai refer to it." With that, he told Di Linaza about the plan to produce canned food.

Di Linaza must not know what the canned food is, she didn't know what it was, she stared at Zhu Ao with big surprised eyes, she really couldn't understand how many strange things were in her head, and said: "If this canned food is really as powerful as Your Majesty said, it can make cooked food not spoil for half a year, then there will be no problem in conquering Warat." As for the issue of secret birth that His Majesty considered, the concubines had a plan. ”

"Oh?" Zhu Ao suddenly looked at Di Linaza with a look of surprise, it seems that the widow did not find the wrong person, this resourceful little girl instantly thought of a way for the widow, and asked with a smile: "Say it quickly, what way?" The tone was already a little anxious, like the groom who was about to enter the cave room.

Di Linaza naturally didn't dare to hang the king's appetite, smiled sweetly, and said honestly: "Your Majesty, has Cao Cao set up the story of the seventy-two doubtful tombs? As long as Your Majesty encircles a few hunting grounds as a cover in the name of hunting, and then sets up a secret military factory in the most secret hunting ground, all the hunting grounds are guarded by troops, and no one is allowed to approach, won't it solve the problem of the secrecy of the military factory? ”

That's right! It's a good way, but with this suspicious tactic, you can deceive other people's ears and eyes, a dignified king, and in the age of playfulness, it is simply normal to build a few hunting grounds to hunt, and no one will have any suspicions. Marrying this wife is really making a fortune, and it is in vain that the widow desperately tries to save her back.

Zhu Ao was so excited, he turned around and stood up, hugged Di Linaza horizontally with a bear hug, kissed her fiercely on the face, and said with a smile: "You little girl has done the widow a great favor, the widow didn't hurt you in vain, anyway, whatever reward you want, the widow will promise you." ”

Seeing that her opinion could make her beloved king so happy, Di Linaza was also very happy in her heart, buried her head in Zhu Ao's arms, smiled sweetly, and said, "This is what a concubine should do." In the future, Your Majesty will become the Ninth Five-Year Honor, and you will reign over all countries, and what the concubines want at that time is not a matter of Your Majesty's words, so why rush for a while? ”

Zhu Ao put her on the table, landed on her, touched her pretty little face and smiled: "The widow didn't mistake you, you are really a concubine who knows the general situation, you have made a great contribution to the widow's country, and you have made great contributions, if the widow can rule all countries in the future, you will be a concubine." Moreover, the sons born to the two of us will also enjoy a large fiefdom. ”

Di Linaza pursed her lips and smiled slightly, and said shyly: "When the time comes, I am afraid that the concubine Lao Zhuhuang will be forgotten by His Majesty." ”

Zhu Ao ignored her, lowered his head and kissed her delicate red lips, and then began to exercise his power as a husband. It was another wonderful night.

In the blink of an eye, it was already the cold winter of the twenty-seventh year of Hongwu, seeing that the New Year was approaching, Zhu Ao reviewed the work process of this year, it was really a busy and fulfilling year, at the beginning of the year, he first negotiated with Di Linazha, and then fought against the Uighurs, and after winning the victory with a lot of effort, he began to rebuild the Su State, and now the various construction undertakings of the Su State are booming, and the troops lost before have been recovered, and a large number of people migrate from the interior to the Su State every day to develop the gold rush.

Zhu Ao's implementation of the "Homestead Law" in the United States was in Suguo, that is, if residents of the mainland moved to Suzhou, they only needed to pay a small amount of money to obtain a large piece of land, and it was permanently owned by themselves, and from now on, anything dug up under the land would be their own, and it would not be easy for eternity. This attracted some powerful people from the interior to go to Suzhou to re-purchase property and start a business, and they spent a lot of money to occupy the land, hired peasants, or simply bought people who had been reduced to slavery because the country was destroyed, and they were exempted from taxation in the first year, and only began to pay grain in the second year, which really made many people's hearts moved.

Although Zhu Ao also enclosed land to build farms, and has never given up the expansion of his royal farm, but he will never attack private capital because of this, he adopts the model of common development of public and private capital, that is, the well water does not interfere with the river water, you enclose your land, I occupy my farm, and no one interferes with anyone.

It's just that Zhu Hao has a lot of resources in his hands, and his strength is very strong, and every time private capital takes a step forward, his state farm will take two steps forward, so there is no need to worry about them threatening the country's tax revenue.

Zhu Ao's farm adopts semi-mechanized management, ploughing, sowing, and weeding all use a large number of horse-drawn and ox-drawn carts, and each large farm has built a very developed irrigation system, whether it is a good year or a drought year, the farm's income can be guaranteed. In order to ensure the enthusiasm of the farmers on his royal farm, Zhu Ao gave them a relatively generous salary and reward system, which was enough to make these people give up the idea of owning land and follow the royal family.

A few people in their own family can not drop much grain when they plant those few acres of thin fields, and they have to pay taxes, and they are likely to fail in a disaster year such as drought, and they have to rely on debt to get by, and they work on the king's farm, and the annual salary is not less than that of their own work, and because the king adopts the mechanized operation of a large farm, the labor efficiency is very high, the sowing speed of the double horse-drawn cocoon is simply not something that manpower can look up to, and the water conservancy system is also very developed, so there is basically no need to worry about the problem of poor harvest. This attracted many farmers to volunteer to work on the royal farms.

Therefore, while the private farm continues to grow, Zhu Ao's royal farm is also developing, the former pays for him, and the latter directly produces grain for him, so that his grain is always very abundant, and the people of Su can basically eat white noodles for every meal, and can eat meat every day, so good living conditions naturally attract more and more people to settle in Su State.

Today is already the twentieth day of the lunar month, and the New Year is about to begin, in today's early court, Zhu Ao excitedly announced the national holiday, and went to work after the first month, which attracted a burst of cheers from the ministers, of course, they did not forget to congratulate the king, and the monarchs and ministers extended New Year's greetings to each other, and the scene was full of joy.

In the evening, Zhu Ao called all his wives to the queen's bedroom, and invited them to eat hot pot, which was of course the predecessor of Chongqing hot pot that Zhu had just developed and put on the market. The famous food proved by later generations with practice is really extraordinary, and it has caused quite a stir as soon as it was put on the market, because winter is the best time to eat hot pot, Chongqing hot pot has even surpassed the roast duck of Suzhou to a certain extent.

"It's spicy, it's delicious." Several of Zhu Ao's concubines were obviously impressed by the taste of hot pot, except for Queen Sun Yunqi, who was pregnant and just tasted it, the others were screaming at the hot pot while eating the hot pot in a big gulp.

Zhu Ao looked at the funny look of a few of them, and couldn't help but feel happy in his heart, and the interest in luxury and pleasure rose again, and said to Tingwei who was standing beside him: "Go and call the few dancers of the widow over, how can there be no dance music in this situation?" ”

Hearing Wei immediately retreated, bent her knees and said a thousand blessings, and said respectfully like a kitten: "Yes, the concubine obeys the order." After saying that, he did not send his palace maids, but quickly ran out to summon the dancing girls into the palace for the king. She knew that the time when the queen was pregnant was the most important turning point in her life, because Zhu Ao would often come here to visit her out of love for the queen, and the queen was inconvenient to have sex, so she often ordered her and Yinhe to do it for her, so this time was the most frequent time for her to contact the king, and she must behave well, strive to get more favor from the king, give birth to a boy and half a girl for the king, and consolidate her position.

The five beauties who were selected by Zhu Ao were not long led by Tingwei to the queen's bedroom, they wore a leather skirt and leather pants specially designed by Zhu Ao, which was very sexy, and their assistants also brought a lot of clothes to change, wanting to hold a concert that Zhu Ao said to please the king.

After the five beauties came to the queen's bedroom, they hurriedly walked a few steps to the hot pot table of Zhu Ao and the princesses, Ying Ying knelt down, kowtowed, and said, "The slave and maid meet the king, the queen, and the three princesses." The king is a thousand years old, a thousand years old, and the queen and princess are blessed with Jin'an. ”

"Get up, and cheer up the widow's dance." Zhu Ao drank a glass of wine and ordered with great interest. Drinking and eating hot pot while holding his wife, and dancing for himself by a girl group selected across the country, what day in this world can be more leisurely than this?

"The slave and maid obey the order, and are willing to cheer for my king." The five beauties immediately got up, took a pose and danced a dance choreographed by themselves according to the movements provided by Zhu Ao, and Zhu Ao couldn't help but be happy when he saw it.

At the end of dinner, Zhu Ao suddenly announced without a beginning or an end: "Queen, concubines, we will not spend the Chinese New Year in Dunhuang this year, we will change places." ”

Queen Sun Yunqi and Xianshu immediately looked at each other, why did they suddenly change places when they were staying well in Dunhuang? Sun Yunqi touched his slightly bulging little belly, smiled sweetly, and asked, "Where does the king want to go for the New Year?" Back to Zhangye? ”

Zhu Ao waved his hand and said very calmly: "Don't go back to that little yamen, the queen is pregnant, naturally you have to go to a better place to raise the baby, let's go to Hami, the palace in Hami is much bigger than Dunhuang." "Time is pressing, and Zhu Ao is a person with strong executive ability, since he has decided to set up a secret military factory in Hami, he has to start immediately, not to mention that he has to set up many hunting grounds as cover, if he doesn't go in person, it is obviously a lie, why set up so many hunting grounds?

"It's okay to go to Hami, it's been so long since Concubine Duan's sister married the king and haven't gone back to see, let's just leave my mother's house thousands of miles away, and Concubine Duan's sister's home is right in front of us, how can we not go back?" Sun Yunqi smiled slightly and followed Zhu Ao's words. Sun Yunqi is a quiet woman, and she has no intention of participating in political affairs, and she is pregnant, so Zhu Ao does not plan to bother her with some military affairs, so she did not tell her about setting up an arsenal. Sun Yunqi thought that Di Linaza was homesick, and persuaded Zhu Ao to make him want to go to Hami for the New Year.

Di Linaza was afraid that the queen would eat her jealousy, which would affect the harmony of the relationship between the two, and immediately defended after hearing Sun Yunqi say this: "Thank you sister for remembering my sister, the king wants to go to Hami mainly to set up a few hunting grounds there to hunt." The grasslands of Hami are vast, and hunting is very convenient there. "Without Zhu Hao's permission, she will not divulge Su Guo's secrets no matter what.

"Hunting grounds?" Queen Sun Yunqi and the second concubine Xianshu couldn't help but tremble in their hearts when they heard these two words, the last time the king was hunting with you, the princess of Hami, and lost it, which caused them to be frightened for several days, and since then no matter why, as soon as they heard the word hunting, the hearts of the three of them were empty.

Zhu Ao knew their thoughts when he saw their expressions, patted Sun Yunqi on the shoulder, smiled at her, and comforted: "The queen can rest assured, from now on, widows will never be in danger when hunting alone, and the reason why we want to set up hunting grounds is to limit the hunting area, so that we will not disappear no matter what." ”

Sun Yunqi's heart fell into his stomach with a "plop", thinking that what Zhu Ao said also made sense, and said with a smile: "Since this is the case, the concubine is relieved, the king has all the opportunities, and he works day and night for the people of the country, and it is good to relax occasionally, but you must pay attention to safety." ”

"Don't worry, queen, for the safety of you and the crown prince, the widow will not be in danger easily."

This meal was extremely corrupt and happy, and Zhu Ao stayed in Sun Yunqi's bedroom at night, still served by Tingwei and Yinhe, and spent a good night.

The next day, Zhu Ao hurried to Hami with a car and 10,000 forbidden troops and the main officials of the Su State, and those officials could only bring their families to Hami for the New Year, no way, who made them the courtiers of the people, if they did not keep in line with the king, the king only needed a word to let them fall from the clouds.

The big palace of Hami has long been cleaned, and Zhu Ao has moved in magnificently, but although this big palace is more magnificent than that of the king of Shazhou, it has not yet met Zhu Ao's requirements, after all, it is only the palace of the lord of a small state, and no matter how grand it can be.

Zhu Ao decided to build his own palace in the future, not smaller than the Forbidden City in Beijing, which Zhu Laosi later built, and the architectural style should adopt a combination of Chinese and Western styles, because Zhu Ao liked European classical architecture very much, especially the castle built of stone, which was both magnificent and durable, much better than the wooden one, at least not often tinkering.

However, there are no specialized stonemasons in the Central Plains, and it seems that if you want to build your own castle, you have to defeat Timur and march into Central Asia, the most famous historical city in Central Asia is now the capital of Timur - Samarkand, which has a history of thousands of years, and has been the capital and the center of Central Asia since Alexander the Great, located in today's Uzbekistan, about 500 miles away from the border of Xinjiang.

Samarkand is located at the hub of the Silk Road, connecting China, India, Persia three ancient civilizations, is the only way to the West, the first by the Sogdians who are good at business in the fifth century BC to establish the West, and the historical cities of Greece, Athens, Babylon in the West of the same age, has a history of more than 2,500 years, the Han Dynasty was called Kangju.

The Sogdians who are good at business will establish Samarkand beautifully, in the ancient Arabic literature is called "the bright pearl of the Orient", because of the pivotal position of the Silk Road, here are merchants from all over the world, is the political, economic, scientific and technological, cultural center of Central Asia, various cultures blend with each other, just like Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty, a cosmopolitan atmosphere.

When Alexander the Great captured the city in the fourth century B.C., he not only exclaimed: "Everything I have heard is true, except that Samarkand is more magnificent than I imagined." So it was decided that the capital would be here.

Later, Samarkand, the capital of the Central Asian power of Khwarazm, was once glorious but was razed to the ground by Temujin and reduced to ruins. After Timur occupied Samarkand, he vowed to make Samarkand the center of Central Asia, so he gathered all the treasures and skilled craftsmen of the conquered regions in Samarkand to build splendid palaces and mosques. This historic city has only recently regained its former prosperity.

Zhu has long coveted the city of Samarkand, not only because of its glorious history and prosperous current situation, but also because of its irreplaceable geographical location. Samarkand can be said to be the loyal of the Eurasian continent, to the east can control the Ming Dynasty, to the north and northeast can control the desert, and then strengthen the control of the Ming Dynasty, to the south can control India, to the southwest can control Persia and Arabia, to the northwest can go straight to the hinterland of Europe. If he really laid down the entire Eurasian continent, he would also choose to build the capital here, and then set up a companion capital in Daming, and the king guarded it.

If the territory is expanded in the future, Zhu Ao still wants to emulate the system of the feudal vassal king of Lao Zhu, because the transportation in ancient times was too underdeveloped, and no matter how wise the king was, no matter how efficient the national operation mechanism was, it was impossible to control the entire continent.

If you don't divide your son as king in a remote area, the general who guards there will become bigger, and it is easy to lose your tail, so that the country you have worked so hard to build is likely to make a wedding dress for others.

It's too early to think about these things, and the top priority is to build a secret military factory first, develop your own strength obscenely, and wait for Lao Zhu to make a splash in the future big war after his death.

In the rumbling sound of firecrackers, Zhu Ao and his family ushered in the New Year of Hongwu 28 years in Hami, at the beginning of the new year, Vientiane was renewed, Zhu Ao specially rewarded his own three concubines each with ten brocades to let them make new clothes, rewarded Tingwei and Yinhe, the two little wives each without a brocade, and on the five pets they selected each three brocade, everyone was jubilant, and they all bowed to their own prince.

King Su's royal hunting grounds also began to be set up in a hurry, and Zhu Ao scattered all the 10,000 forbidden troops he brought, encircled a total of more than a dozen hunting grounds of all sizes, and requisitioned some local people in Hami to guard them, and no one was allowed to approach.

It took a lot of money to do this, and some of the imperial history exhortations were sent from Dunhuang in a few days, and one by one they wept bitterly and advised Zhu Ao, the national strength of the Su country has just been restored, and I hope that my king will not indulge in pleasure to waste the country's money and food, and should work hard to continue to accumulate strength.

Zhu Ao's attitude towards these twists and turns is still the same as before, he knows in his heart that these imperial histories are also for his good, not like the Donglin Party in later generations to scold for the sake of scolding, and even deliberately show integrity for his own selfish interests to persuade the king, but how can his mind tell these imperial histories, so that everyone knows it? So I can only ignore this and let them scold enough.

The location of the military factory is secret, even if it is not close to the resources, it doesn't matter, you can send people to secretly transport the resources over, so the ideal address of Zhu Ao is the hinterland of the Tianshan Mountains, where there are few people, it is very suitable for the study of firearms, this kind of thing with sound, even if the sky is blown up by you, then no one knows.

In order to hide people's eyes, Zhu Ao specially chose the location of several hunting grounds in the hinterland of the Tianshan Mountains, and finally determined that a basin in the mountains was the address of the military factory. The basin is surrounded by mountains, and there are only two roads to get out, which is very conducive to covert defense. And there is a river passing by here, so you don't have to worry about the water problem, which is really a rare and good place.

Zhu ordered the soldiers to guard this area, claiming that it was a hunting ground, and also prepared some hunting tools, but in its most core location, it was the location of a secret military factory.

Hu Jiangtou was very satisfied with this address, and admired the king's vision very much, and built the address here, which can already be completely isolated from the world to carry out research, as long as the two outlets of the basin are blocked, and then a wooden fence is set up at both ends of the river flow and outflow to send people to guard it, you can prevent lawbreakers from mixing in. Hu Jiangtou said that he would definitely follow Zhu Ao's idea to get out all the cans, arquebuses and rear-loading guns within a year, so as to achieve the goal of strengthening the army with science and technology.

After the hunting ground was built, in order to hide people's eyes, Zhu Ao also took Di Linaza and his subordinates to fight a few hunts, and rewarded all the prey obtained to the soldiers, winning their support.