The New Year arrived, and the whole of Nanjing was buried in the snow.

This year's snow is particularly heavy, Chen Ming listened to Beijing's Qintian supervision report as early as around the winter solstice -- this winter, when there may be heavy snow in northern Xinjiang, enough rice grain has been allocated to the north, thanks to the blessing of this year's bumper harvest in Nanyang, Annam and Siam, China now has no shortage of rice grain. It is conservatively estimated that the grain stock in the granaries of various localities is enough for the people of the whole country to eat with their stomachs open for three or four months.

This is calculated by Chen Ding, based on the amount of two catties of rice per capita a day, which is a very crude number. But he made a quite big article around this number - the main meaning is that the grain depot has too much rice and grain in reserve.

There is no need for county-level grain stations to maintain such large grain reserves.

In recent times, grain prices have been rising, but grain prices have fluctuated more and more, which is directly related to the amount of old grain processed in this local grain depot.

Chen Ming is still sending people to investigate.

In addition to the allocation of rice grain to the north, the grain depots in the northeast, northwest, Inner Mongolia, and Susu have all been mobilized. The food sector in these places must be prepared for snowstorms.

Chen Ming ordered the local government to deal with the resettlement, livelihood and post-disaster reconstruction of the affected people in the event of a disaster.

Although it is no longer the same as before, many families, including city residents, did not have overnight food. Once encountering bad weather such as a snow disaster, there is no work for a long time, there is no rice to cook at home, and it is common for the whole family to starve to death.

Regardless of the Ming and Qing dynasties, when winter or when there is no harvest, some kind families, or those who deliberately invite people to buy fame, will set up sheds in various places inside and outside the city to take in refugees, and set up porridge shops to relieve refugees.

In this case, it gives a lot of ruffians an opportunity to take advantage of, and there are naturally more people who are traitors in the world.

Because no one wants to be starved to death, do they?

Now the livelihood of the Chinese people is much better, but no matter how rich the place, there are also poor households. The emperor also has three poor relatives.

Chen Ming asked his subordinates to prepare better, on the one hand, in order to appease the people and win the hearts of the people; On the other hand, it is also to let the local government take the opportunity to count the poor population, so that the officials can feel the trouble of the poor households, and when they find people to immigrate to Nanyang, North America, and Myanmar next year, the local government can report more people.

Moreover, thousands of years ago, China's disaster relief in all dynasties was only given porridge and medicine, and clothes were not counted. Chen Han has now added this item. Li Xiaomei is still very concerned about this, and she is even more strict with the management of charity accounts, if anyone dares to reach out and move the money inside, Li Xiaomei will definitely ask for people's heads.

Because she knew very well that this 'charity' was invited by the emperor to buy her fame, and the benefit was not only to make her own position stable and unshakable, but also to benefit her precious son.

As a mother, she is strong, and when her status reaches Li Xiaomei's part, what else can she ask for? Naturally, it is the crown prince of the baby son. Letting her son inherit the throne is the highest pursuit of a queen.

And after all, she is also the one who follows the old lady to worship the Buddha every once in a while, and doing good deeds is to accumulate blessings for her and the children, and the Bodhisattva has a spirit, and will bless you. Whoever dares to stretch out his hand in this matter will destroy her foundation and her son's future, and that is looking for death!

When it also snowed heavily in the south of the Yangtze River, of course, the city of Nanjing was also built with porridge sheds, in just three or five days, the snow reached the calves, and Chen Ming, who was frightened by the heavy snow, couldn't sit still in the palace, taking advantage of the fact that there was nothing in the palace, Chen Ming took the queen to go outside the palace in person.

The carriage was unpretentious, both in wood and carving, it was ordinary, and the sturdy steel and cotton deck inside, not afraid of gunfire at all.

Inside the simple-looking carriage outside, the decoration is extraordinary, Chen Ming and his wife are dressed differently, Chen Ming is just wearing winter clothes, which looks very thin, but no one knows that there is a layer of soft deerskin inside the thin-looking coat. With Chen Ming's physique, it is already okay to wear such a thick one in winter.

And Li Xiaomei, who was sitting next to her, of course would not be wearing a queen's robe, but a purple mink coat would definitely not think that this ordinary carriage was really ordinary.

There was still a charcoal fire in the carriage, and there was not a trace of smoke.

Through the window, the couple looked at the queue in front of the porridge shed, and Chen Ming was relieved that the queue outside the porridge shed was not very long, and the people who came to drink the porridge were not full of vegetables, and even the clothes they wore were relatively normal, but the older people seemed to be the majority, and of course they could see a few ragged people.

"Sir, ma'am, many of them are from the neighborhood. It's not that I can't really eat, it's that I don't want to fire anymore. ”

"Look over there, there are piles of melons, vegetables, and fruits, as well as dry goods and groceries, which these people brought."

Liu Wu went out to investigate, and ran back with a strange face. It's strange that there are such people. Is it a few dollars of coal left, or is it nostalgic for the hard old days?

Chen Ming looked in the direction he pointed, on the right hand of the porridge shed, two tables of eight immortals were put together, and there were two big dustpans on top of the boss, which indeed contained a lot of vegetables and fruits, as well as vermicelli, dried bamboo shoots, potatoes and so on.

Li Xiaomei asked Liu Wu to take a bowl of porridge.

This is a vegetable porridge, there is still shrimp skin floating in it, Chen Ming stirred it with a spoon, and found that there is kelp and tofu, which tastes okay, although it looks a little thick, but there is no sand or soil in it. Rice, red beans, mung beans and red dates are the main ingredients of several things boiled together.

Liu Wu just turned around outside for a while, and snow fell on his hat. This year's snow is really heavy.

By the time of the Chinese New Year, news came from the Northeast and Mongolia that both places had attracted white plagues. However, because the local government has been prepared, the overall loss is much less. As for those who do not listen to the advice, they deserve to lose so much.

Therefore, the year of the ninth year of Chengtian is destined to be tight on the outside and loose on the inside. There is a snow storm outside, and the conclusion of the Sino-Spanish war has not yet come to fruition, and of course the New Year cannot be peaceful. But in reality, there is nothing.

However, when it comes to the New Year's Festival, he wants to reward the sergeants and comfort the generals who are working hard to lead the troops outside, and Chen Ming will reward their families.

This year, the list of guests in the palace has expanded considerably.

This is not only the case in the Fengtian Temple, but also in the harem. Is the harem like a microcosm of the previous dynasty, Chen Ming invited someone over there, and the qualified female dependents in the family also want to come in. Moreover, many of the generals' dependents who are away from the army are no longer men, and women are also invited. Overall, it is more lively than the Fengtian Temple.

After a period of brewing years ago, the news of Chen Ding's marriage has spread throughout Nanjing, although no one knows who this will be, but many people are staring at it, but there will be no fake.

In addition, with the mention of Chen Ding's marriage, several people in the royal family who have reached the age of marriage are also targeted by the courtiers. The emperor's remaining sons are still young, but the emperor's younger siblings are not young. The big ones have been given, and now the smallest ones are left.

If you can't marry a prince, you can marry a prince; I can't marry the princess of Imagami as a daughter-in-law, but I can marry a princess to be a brother-in-law of Imagami. That's all on the spot, and there's no need to hide it anymore.

You must know that these princes and princesses of the Chen Han Dynasty are all irreplaceable. marrying the prince, that is the queen, the real queen, not the princess; Shang princess, that also has its own territory, although the fief is small, but it is a beautiful place. Whether it's a personal development or a contractor, it's a lot of money.

All of them are 'landlords', the real 'landlords'.

On the 15th Lantern Festival, another banquet was held in the palace, and this time it was a real family banquet, only for those surnamed Chen. A matter that Chen Ming was a little unexpected, was brought up by Chen Hui, and his younger brothers couldn't sit still.

After all, they're teenagers. Everyone has the heart to pay attention to their own territory.

Now Chen Han has made it clear that he will take a hard bite on the territory of the Spaniards in North America, such a large area, not to mention sealing one or two, sealing four is enough. So they found Chen Hui, and then Chen Hui took the opportunity of fifteen to ventilate Chen Ming.

"The site was demarcated for them early, and they could 'invest' in it with peace of mind."

Chen Ming returned to the Qianqing Palace, hugged Li Xiaomei at night and talked about it, but Li Xiaomei also agreed: "What my father said is also right." The younger brothers are all old and are about to get married, and it is beneficial and harmless to have a good morning in their hearts. "What's more, finding a good place for these little uncles can also tempt the people in the harem to learn from them.

Competing for the dragon is a high-risk and high-reward thing, with amazing returns and profits, and amazing risks.

As long as there is a little timidity, and there is a beautiful other way in front of you, then you can share a share of the danger.

Chen Ming didn't think so far for a while. It didn't matter to him.

On the contrary, the royal fiefdom can also inspire more desire among the retainers. This is more exciting than sending Chen Jing to North America.

The next day, Chen Ming opened a cabinet with the key in his own hands, and took out a map from it, which was a map drawing of North America, with more than a dozen pieces painted in different colors.

Most of these patches are found in the United States, and only three in Canada: Vancouver, Ottawa, and the western part of the Great Lakes.

There are only six of Chen Ming's younger brothers, and Chen Ming's own sons have ten so far.

Although North America is large and divided into 16 countries, it is not a good place. Moreover, Tokyo, Hanjin and New York on the east coast of North America are still points that Chen Han has always had to maintain in Chen Ming's plan. So this map division also made him anxious.

For example, the Xiajiazhou Peninsula can be one, but Seattle can be counted as one?

Today, Seattle and Vancouver are part of the same development.

South of Tokyo [Los Angeles] and south of Hanjin [San Francisco], can this be counted as one, and then two more to the north?

Chen Ming wanted to give it at the beginning, whether he wanted to make a square grid on the map, five horizontal and five vertical, exactly sixteen pieces, deducting Tokyo, Hanjin and New York, and then adding the three pieces in Canada, exactly sixteen.

Just like the division of provinces in the United States in later generations, the division of provinces in Canada is called a horizontal and vertical, which is very similar to Chen Ming's style.

But the consequence must be that someone is being pitted to death.

The most important thing is that Chen Ming now has a limited territory in his hands, and the west coastline of North America is controlled by him, but he has advanced inland to the mainland, and he has not crossed the Cordillera Mountains at the deepest.

Anyone who has studied geography knows that the Cordillera Mountains are the watershed of the Americas, stretching for about 15,000 kilometers from Alaska in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south, and running through the western part of the American continent. The northern part of it can be called the Rocky Mountains, and the Americans in the original space-time plane crossed the Rocky Mountains and flocked to the coastal Pacific region in droves during the third great migration after the start of the westward expansion, which can be said to be very spectacular.

Ignore the painful history of the Indians in this, Chen Ming doesn't need to know this, he just needs the final result.

The Americans' westward expansion movement is very powerful and has achieved great results, but will China's eastward expansion movement also do what it wants?

At first, Chen Ming also had an impulse, but soon he suppressed this immature thought.

It's too subjective. The difference in conditions, technology, and strength between the two sides, and the success of the Americans' westward expansion movement are likely to be the failure of China's rash eastward expansion movement.

The westward movement lasted for more than half a century, but it was divided into three steps. Even if China is much stronger than Lao Mei, it is difficult to eat a fat man in one bite, right?

Lao Mei's initial westward expansion was to take advantage of Napoleon's overwhelm to rob and get Louisiana, which was an industrial expansion with agriculture and animal husbandry as the main body. The reclamation of wasteland led to the establishment of capitalist farms on a large scale. No matter from the perspective of the population and employment structure of the western region of the United States at that time, or from the level of investment and national income, agriculture has always accounted for the vast majority of the national income for quite a long time, even in the middle and late of the century, and even after entering the modern era, agriculture still occupies a particularly important position in the economic structure of the western region. For a long period of time, agriculture in the Midwest provided a raw material base for the industry in the eastern United States, and also provided a consumer market, basically forming a unified market and the prototype of economic integration between the eastern and western parts of the United States, and the pattern of economic complementarity between the eastern and western regions was basically formed: the manufacturing belt in the eastern region; grain production and distribution in the central and western regions; The mining industry in the remote western mountains has its own positioning.

Moreover, by the time the Westward Expansion Movement of the United States developed into the third wave, the revolutionary change in transportation was ripe. Railroads became a bridge between the east and west of the vast North American continent, which is not possible in this era.

"What do you want to do?"

Chen Hui looked at the colorful map of North America in front of him, and his eyes were full of confusion.

Chen Ming has just popularized the geography, climate, mineral resources, and area size of these places, and these sites can be said to have the potential for independent development, depending on how their owners operate.

But Chen Hui can't remember. So many things, where does he remember.

"Dad, this piece of land is what we have now, and everything within the red line is ours. The total area is not necessarily smaller than that of the Central Plains. "From Vancouver to the south, the entire west coastline of North America, plus the southwest of the United States, the total area is really not much smaller than the traditional Han land.

"I'm going to give this place, the Xiajiazhou Peninsula, to the second child."

"The area south of Tokyo, all the way to the beach across from here. There is a click in the middle, which is the third and fourth. ”

It was rowing from the west coast of North America to the east coast - the Gulf of Mexico, the latter, the point that Chen Ming knocked on was the location of modern Houston. At this time, it was still desolate.

"The fifth and sixth, one is in Yatu and the other is here."

Yatu is Seattle, Chen Ming can give Seattle to others, but he will not give Vancouver to his brother who has no big feelings. Because the vast area north of Vancouver is clearly not conducive to development, at this point in time, those lands are no different from Siberia, they are worthless and cold fields. But in the 20th and 21st centuries, it was a treasure land rich in natural resources.

And the other place where Chen Ming clicked with the stick in his hand was New Orleans.

New Orleans is a humid subtropical climate rich in sulfur, salt, timber and cotton, sugar cane and rice. It is the only highland at the mouth of the Mississippi River and was originally the territory of the French. But during the Seven Years' War, the Treaty of Fontainebleau traded New Orleans as a political gift to the Spaniards.

The Spaniards had only been ruling the country for more than two decades, and now it was time for a change of lordship.