A hundred years later, it was the island nation in the west that plunged the entire Chinese nation into a hundred years of ruin through the shameless opium trade. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

even used this as an excuse to start a war, and the key is to be proud of it, saying that it helped you open the country and enable you to enter a new era, and you have to thank him for humiliating you.

Even later, many Chinese people were also proud of being colonized and invaded, whether this kind of thinking was extreme and ignorant or not, I have to admit that the spiritual disaster brought to China by opium was no less than the literary prison of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Now, a hundred years ago, the Ming Dynasty wanted to let the island countries in the west also taste the pleasure of being poisoned by opium, perhaps the island country should also thank the Ming Dynasty, thank the Ming Dynasty for promoting your change and progress.

Although the Ming Dynasty's ocean-going trade has now retreated to the Strait of Malacca, and even the control of the offshore area is in the hands of the major pirates, who can be sure that a few years later, the Ming Empire, which organized Zheng He's seven voyages to the Western Ocean, will not come to the sea to show its might.

And Zhu Youxiao now knows that some people from Jinyiwei and Dongchang have crossed the ocean by infiltrating pirates or foreign ships, and even to the Americas and Europe.

Even at the end of last year, Xu Xianchun, the commander of Jinyiwei, also reported a news from Western Europe.

The content of the news was the "Thirty Years' War" of the Catholic and Protestant civil wars, which involved Denmark as well.

At that time, Zhu Youxiao directly asked Xu Xianchun to publish this foreign news in Daming Daily, and also wrote the ins and outs of this war in detail in Daming Daily, which can be regarded as opening the eyes of the people of Daming, and letting the people of Daming know that on the other side of the distant Atlantic, there are many new things happening, and even many are potential threats to Daming in the future.

Most of the people do not understand why such a long and long story as Daming Daily is a small country with an area less than a large Ming Dynasty.

But for this war, many citizens still showed a strong interest, and some scholars directly left a message on it to ridicule the monarchy of these barbarian countries, which made the church have such great power, and if it goes on like this, how can the dynasty rule the world, and even the scholars who are dissatisfied with the current Ming Dynasty can't help but sigh that there is a worse country than the Ming Dynasty.

This is why the different strengths of the countries determine the different feelings of the people after learning about the outside world.

A hundred years later, people learned more about the West after worshipping and admiring, and even once suspected that their civilization and writing were the root of backwardness, advocating the abolition of Chinese characters and directly using English as their mother tongue, but now in the Ming Dynasty a hundred years ago, people are more contemptuous and confident in these Western countries, and they find that compared with these countries, the Ming Dynasty is so good.

Although blind self-confidence will make a person or nation lose the confidence to forge ahead, it will also allow more people to support the Son of Heaven for the sake of stability and happiness today.

Among the officers and cadets of the first batch of officers and graduates who were interested in naval warfare or were good at mastering maritime knowledge, they also rushed to Nanjing, but the most dazzling of them was Chen Zilong, who was originally in history because of organizing the people to resist the Qing Dynasty in Taihu Lake, and later threw himself into the water and died for the country.

Chen Zilong is the most educated officer in this period, as early as the sixth year of the Apocalypse, he was already a member of Songjiang Mansion, he was only twenty-one years old at this time, and he was married less than a year ago.

But when he was newly married Yan'er, he resolutely gave up the qualification for the township examination that he had obtained by passing the scientific examination because of the enrollment information of the Royal Military Academy on the Daming Daily, and ran away from home alone despite the opposition of his family, and came to the capital to apply for the Royal Military Academy.

It has been six full months since the end of the first phase of the first phase, and due to the strict secrecy measures of the Royal Military Academy, his family still does not know his whereabouts and news.

Qin Botong was officially appointed as the Admiral of the Ming Praetorian Guard, based on the two battalions of the Praetorian Guard he brought and the original screening of the Caojiang Navy, which was officially organized and trained as the first navy of the Ming Dynasty, and was directly incorporated into the Praetorian Guard system, the full name is the Ming Royal Praetorian Navy, which is usually referred to as the Praetorian Navy.

The provisional number of soldiers in the Praetorian Navy is 10,000, which is already comparable to the number of Janissaries at the beginning, but the requirements for training and screening are no less than the original selection of the Praetorian Guard.

First of all, the two battalions brought by Qin Botong were the most brave in the Xuzhou Praetorian Guard, that is, the elite battalion with the highest proportion of veterans.

Secondly, although the training methods and armaments of the Caojiang Navy are backward, they have not been directly reduced to ordinary people like the Weisuo Army, after all, it is Nanjing that is guarded here, and there will not be a situation where the Navy can't even hold the rudder and swim, and after the water and underwater assessment and the land physical fitness assessment, those who can stay can fight with ordinary pirates even if they are pulled on the battlefield now.

The more than 10,000 soldiers were divided into five battalions, each with more than 2,000 men, of which a single battalion was organized as a marine battalion.

The Marine Battalion was dominated by veterans brought by Qin Botong from Xuzhou, and Liang Zhaoyang, a native of Liangguang who was the former commander of the Heavy Battalion and a graduate of the Royal Military Academy, was appointed as the commander of the Marine Battalion.

The remaining four battalions were formed on the basis of the four ship formations with the No. 1 Fu Ship as the core after the repair of the Daming Ship Administration.

The first battalion is commanded by Chen Zilong, and is the main battalion of the four battalions, the most advanced equipment, its No. 1 Fu ship is equipped with the "father of steam power in the Ming Dynasty" Mao Yuanyi "the latest development of the foot pedal mechanical human propeller, the sailing speed is much faster than the original Fu boat, and even other ships such as eagle boats, net instigation boats, chain boats, etc. are more complex than the other four battalions, and even equipped with hot gas engines, which can monitor the hydrological and climatic environment, so as to anticipate the enemy first.

But it also cost a lot, the equipment of the entire first battalion plus the latest artillery and all kinds of firearms and mines cost tens of millions of silver dollars, and therefore, now the Ming can only equip one battalion.

The other three battalions were also inferior to the first battalion at least in terms of power and firepower, but the fleet equipped was already relatively advanced at that time, at least the quality was guaranteed.

For water training, Qin Botong, who came from the door of Xu Hongji, the Duke of Wei, had been a commander in the Caojiang Navy for several years, and later went to Beijing because he wanted to tie up the civilian system and wanted to be promoted to the general army, and now he continues to come back to train the Navy is also very proficient, and then with reference to the previous training methods of the Royal Military Academy and the Praetorian Guard, he sorted out a set of naval water training programs within a few days.

Zhu Youxiao was very satisfied and relieved after watching it, although he was a black critic of water training, he could also tell whether this Qin Botong was this material.

The construction of the barracks and school yard has also been completed, and like the Praetorian Guard training ground in the capital, it has also been built into a closed place integrating living, training and learning facilities.

But the current Praetorian Navy did not immediately start basic queue and physical training, on the contrary, they were all arranged to study in the classroom hall now, yes, study.

In addition to basic military literacy, it is necessary to have at least a systematic understanding of various types of climate and hydrological knowledge, and even to know a little physiological knowledge, such as what is sepsis.

Although many of the officers and men of the newly formed navy know how to adjust their speed and course, and even some of them are masters who can set foot in the deep sea, they are more likely to have accumulated experience in the water environment over the years, and do not have a systematic understanding.

Nowadays, the first thing the officers of the Royal Military Academy do is to let their soldiers learn to read and write, and learn how to analyze the weather.

And Colonel Zhu You will often come over to explain the situation of maritime countries to these naval soldiers, which can be regarded as enriching their knowledge.

In addition, Zhang Dai, the chief writer of Daming Daily, was also arranged by Zhu Youxiao to go to the Praetorian Navy Camp every three days to explain the actual situation of the Japanese rebellion and the harm caused to the people of Daming after the rampant piracy for Daming Daily.

"When there are more than 100 families in the land of 10,000 families today, it is not the tyranny of the Son of Heaven, but a good prescription for severe diseases!"

In addition to Zhang Dai, Chen Zilong, as a loyal believer of Zhu Youxiao, also analyzed the current affairs and politics of the current situation to them when popularizing knowledge for the soldiers of the Praetorian Navy.

For example, Chen Zilong made a unique analysis of the recent Huangzhuang distribution of the land obtained by the seizure of his family to the people, and in order to achieve his affirmation and support for today's son Zhu Youxiao, and his strict logic and extremely sensational rhetoric also made the Praetorian Navy soldiers, who were blank in the ideological field, have to believe in his ideas.

In a pepper room in Nanjing's Forbidden City, Wei Min'er, the deputy chief writer of Daming Daily, is reading thousands of Chinese characters on the blackboard in Fengyang Mandarin.

Every time Wei Min'er recited a Chinese character, Zhu Youxiao had to phonetize these Chinese characters.

Originally, Zhu Youxiao thought that this was just a simple task, but in this era before Mandarin, due to the differences in dialects, the phonetic syllables that are generally applicable to Mandarin sometimes cannot accurately phonetize some words in Fengyang's official language.

Because of this, Zhu Youxiao had to let Wei Min'er live in the Forbidden City, and he would come over every once in a while to help him with his pronunciation, but after a long time, he also felt extremely boring, and Wei Min'er was very happy about it.

For thousands of years, the pronunciation of sentences has been passed down orally by Mr. Teaching, but different Mr. Teaching has different accents, so that after a long time, it is difficult to have a standardized reading method for each Chinese character, but now Wei Min'er found that this unfamiliar character can actually make Chinese characters get rid of the pronunciation differences caused by oral transmission.

Zhu Youxiao could see that Wei Min'er was very interested in these Latin letters.

Outside the palace wall is the morning exercise shouts of the Praetorian Navy, majestic and passionate; Inside the wall is the graceful and elegant voice of Min'er reading words.

Zhu Youxiao is enjoying the current state very much, and the Ming Dynasty is developing steadily under his own control.

From scientific research to the military, to the economy, their own reforms are quietly carried out, although there are also fierce conflicts, but they have not caused major changes, on the contrary, according to the report of Yang Shouchun of the Royal Bank, although the Janissaries are expanding, major projects are being carried out, and agricultural taxes are falling again and again, but in the first half of this year, it is still very profitable.

The reason is that the income from the house alone can be used for such a high amount of expenses as ten years.

Not only that, but the new taxes collected by Fengyang, Shandong, and Shaanxi as a result of the three reforms have increased several times compared with last year.

Especially the collection of commercial taxes in the Fengyang area, although Ma Shiying, the governor of Fengyang, has been scolded by many merchants as the governor of scraping money, but the commercial tax he paid to the central court within half a year is as high as more than five million silver dollars!

It is difficult for Zhu Youxiao to imagine what his own financial revenue would be if he let the Ming Dynasty's two capitals and thirteen political envoys collect commercial taxes, and perhaps he could also generously exempt the peasants from paying taxes all over the world at that time, which is estimated to completely change the development pattern of history.

Think about it, after being exempted from taxes and forced labor, who would be willing to surrender their land to the gentry as slaves.

Without further ado, seeing that September is approaching, the ceremony of sacrificing filial piety is gradually on the agenda.

Zhu Youxiao's personal sacrifice to Xiaoling is a challenge to Zhu Youxiao's right to speak on etiquette in the eighth year of the Apocalypse, because he has the military power and the factory guard in his hand, so it did not make too many waves, but Zhu Youxiao does not want to end his struggle with the civil official group in the right to speak in etiquette.

He took the initiative to leave Beijing and personally came to worship Zhu Yuanzhang, which was just the beginning, starting from the sacrifice of filial piety, he wanted to let everyone in the world know the legitimacy and authority of Zhu Youxiao's rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Li Mingrui, who has been promoted to the scholar of the Middle Pole Palace, is the host of the sacrifice to the filial piety mausoleum, and this night, when he reported the progress of the renovation of the filial piety mausoleum and the arrangement of the entire ceremonial process, Zhu Youxiao suddenly said: "The sacrifice of filial piety is not the business of me alone, but also the matter of the descendants of the entire Zhu royal family. ”

Li Mingrui was stunned for a moment, and immediately understood Zhu Youxiao's thoughts.

As a close minister of the Son of Heaven, and has been a Beijing official for many years, he naturally knows that it is not only the official gentry who do not pay the imperial grain and national taxes in various places that really drag down the finances of the Ming Dynasty, but also these imperial relatives who parasitize in various parts of the Ming Dynasty and absorb the people's fat and people's ointment.

Now it can be seen that His Majesty, who is interested in the central Ming Dynasty, is going to attack these vassal kings, and the reason why he has suddenly proposed an edict to order the vassal kings from all over the country to enter Beijing is to deliberately make the vassal kings of various places late or miss the sacrificial time, so as to find the purpose of depriving these royal relatives of their wealth.

"Your Majesty, can you delay the edict for a few more days, although there is also an example of the descendants of the ancient rites sacrificing to the ancestors, but in the end, it has not been followed for thousands of years, how about waiting for Weichen to go down and then reorganize the etiquette itinerary and then ask Your Majesty to edict?"

It stands to reason that as soon as Zhu Youxiao's words came out, it became an unchangeable holy decree, but after all, Li Mingrui is a cabinet scholar who joined the Xinuan Pavilion, and he also has a certain right to refute it.

"It can't be more than three days, otherwise it will delay the sacrifice, and I will spare you", Zhu Youxiao said and got up and went back to the inner palace.

But Li Mingrui was secretly happy in his heart, thinking that he had really guessed what His Majesty meant, and how to explain that the sacrifice of filial piety had to be done by the vassal kings from all over the country and also had to come to Nanjing, and it was not difficult for them to find a reasonable argument by citing scriptures and classics for a minister like Li Mingrui who was familiar with Confucian etiquette.