The New Year is approaching, and Zhu Youzhen feels very busy.

First of all, the Ministry of Education organized manpower to draw up a new Chinese textbook and sent it to Zhu Youzhen for approval. Zhu Youzhen is not an expert in linguistics, but he wants to promote modern applied Chinese at home and abroad, and modern Chinese textbooks are instructed by Xia Rihu to be edited by him, so he has to personally check them.

In Zhu Youzhen's mind, modern Chinese is not only a treasure for inheriting the culture and art of the Han nation, but also a tool for communication and interaction between people, so ease of learning is the development direction of Chinese characters and Chinese.

At the time of the last court meeting, the basic direction of the reform of Chinese characters had already been determined: the study of vernacular, the simplification of Chinese characters, the introduction of pinyin phonetics, the introduction of the standard diǎn, and the new textbooks led by Xia Rihu were written in accordance with these principles, and Zhu Youzhen was basically satisfied with the new textbooks.

He only added two suggestions, one is to increase the content of the vernacular text and reduce the length of the ancient text; The second is to divide the new textbook into several volumes step by step, so that students can learn from easy to difficult, and when students learn the commonly used 3,000 words, they will be able to carry out basic reading and writing, and if foreigners learn these 3,000 Chinese characters, they will be able to communicate with others in Chinese normally.

As for the large number of rare and obscure characters, let the scholars study them, these traditional cultural treasures have no substantive significance for the modern application of Chinese.

Once the Chinese textbook was decided, it began to be printed in large quantities, and as a universal textbook throughout the country, it had to be shipped to all parts of the country, including the border provinces, in a timely manner.

There may be some irregularities and unreasonable places in the new textbooks, and they are not too important, and problems will be found in the process of use in the future, and then they will be revised.

The next step is to compile a Chinese dictionary, there are tens of thousands of Chinese characters, the dictionary compilation is a huge project, according to the current human, material and scientific level of the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid it will take several years.

In order to make it easier for students to check the standard pronunciation of Chinese characters in a timely manner, Zhu Youzhen asked the Ministry of Education to compile a simple dictionary that only contains 3,000 or 5,000 commonly used Chinese characters.

As for the research dictionary, because the Chinese characters included are relatively comprehensive, and the pronunciation, meaning, and usage of many characters need to be verified, let the officials of the Ministry of Education sort it out slowly, and it doesn't hurt to be late diǎn.

The Minister of Education °C≡dǐng°C≡diǎn°C≡小°C≡ said, .2≌3.o↗s_(); Kong Zhenyun was grateful to Zhu Youzhen for spreading the words of the sage to all ethnic groups in the frontier, so he built yì, and the newly compiled dictionary was called Chongzhen Dictionary, which he was going to call Youzhen Dictionary, but in this era, he wanted to avoid the emperor's name, so it was called Chongzhen Dictionary.

Chongzhen is the name of the year, and it can also be regarded as a big dictionary compiled during the Chongzhen period, Zhu Youzhen did not act coyly, and happily accepted this honor, which made Kong Zhenyun, who was a sycophant, very happy.

Another thing is about Myanmar.

Ayutthaya Dynasty's national teacher Puti, with the assistance of the Ming detectives, evaded several pursuits by the Donghu killers along the way, secretly came to Jingshi, and asked the Ming to send troops to help repel the invading army of Donghu.

Zhu Youzhen was afraid that the ministers would oppose the use of troops, so he used military secrets as an excuse and did not discuss it at the court meeting, but after the court meeting ended, he left the chief officials of the three courts to participate in the discussion of sending troops to the Donghu Dynasty.

The chief officials of the three courts already knew Zhu Youzhen's thoughts, that is, to comprehensively and thoroughly resolve the Burma issue, and they did not dare to openly oppose it.

Since Shi Fenglai was targeted by Jinyi Wei because of his opposition to the military reform of the Ming Dynasty, until he was beheaded on the grounds of greed for ink, the ministers knew Zhu Youzhen's methods, and once Zhu Youzhen decided about it, they would never die again.

At present, the relationship between the chief officials of the Third Yuan and Zhu Youzhen is very smooth, and in the final analysis, the Third Yuan is only the executor of Zhu Youzhen to realize his political ambitions, and they do not have much say in major matters.

Zhu Youzhen also reflected on whether he was too dictatorial, and he quickly denied this idea.

The current Ming Dynasty, diplomacy is not smooth, is facing many military aggression and military pressure, but the ministers have no vision of later generations, will only stare at the diǎn power in their own hands, blindly and the opponent of benevolence and righteousness, which shackles the hands and feet of the Ming court, once the opportunity is lost, when others become strong, people will not talk about benevolence and righteousness with the Ming Dynasty.

People talk about strength, more than ten years of Jiannu, a hundred years of Mongolia, they all speak with iron hooves, even the small Donghu Dynasty, but also with swords and soldiers to talk to the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Youzhen briefly described Puti's request for help, and asked the chief officials of the three courts to discuss whether they should send troops to recruit the Donghu Dynasty.

"Your Majesty, the Donghu Dynasty was originally the land of the Ming Dynasty, and it was the six major consolation envoys appointed by Taizu, if you can't recover these lands, it will be unworthy for future generations." The Ming Dynasty established the country with filial piety, and if it is not filial piety, Li Chunye's dǐng hat was pressed down, and he suddenly decided to send troops to the east.

Zhu Youzhen diǎndiǎn head, about the recovery of the Donghu Dynasty in Burma, he had already discussed with Li Chunye, and Li Chunye's absolute support was something he expected.

"Your Majesty, the South China Sea Fleet is fighting in the South Seas, once the conquest of Donghu is carried out, my Ming Dynasty will fall into a two-front combat situation, which will be very unfavorable to the Ming Dynasty." Although Zhou Shipu, vice premier of the cabinet, knew Zhu Youzhen's determination, he could not help but remind a few words.

"Your Majesty, the climate in the south is humid and hot, and the elite of my Ming Dynasty are all in the north, so I'm afraid it will be difficult to adapt to the climate of Donghu," Huang Liji, the premier of the cabinet, also euphemistically expressed his concerns, "In those years, the Mongolian iron cavalry requisitioned countless land, but they planted a heel in the south, because their soldiers did not adapt to the climate in the south." ”

Zhu Youzhen is diǎndiǎn head again, and still doesn't speak.

"Your Majesty, Donghu is too far away from my Ming Dynasty, even if the Ming Dynasty conquers Donghu, can it establish effective rule in such a distant place? If effective rule cannot be established, and Donghu regains its independence decades later, what is the point of today's conquest? The meaning of Qiao Yunsheng's opposition to the President of Justice is very obvious, "The Tang Dynasty once went on an expedition to the Western Regions, but today's Western Regions has long since lost any traces of the Tang Dynasty. ”

Zhu Youzhen's biggest headache is that every time the court meets, the ministers are divided into three factions: the support faction, the slight opposition (neutral faction), and the opposition; if there is a vote, today's meeting may be difficult to achieve the results that Zhu Youzhen wants, and the ministers do not have a world vision, so it is necessary to let them study at the Academy of Sciences for a period of time.

Fortunately, today's opposition does not seem to be too strong, even Qiao Yunsheng is only superficial about his position, and he has no intention of stumbling down.

"I have heard what you Aiqing just said, I know that you are all thinking about the long-term interests of the Ming Dynasty, and you are worthy of being important ministers of the Ming Dynasty, what other opinions do you have on Aiqing?"

Are these reasons insufficient? If His Majesty is not ready to adopt the opinions of the ministers, no matter how good the reason is, it will be in vain, and these so-called important ministers will bow their heads one by one and slander Zhu Youzhen in their hearts, and they will listen to Zhu Youzhen's reasons for sending troops.

Zhu Youzhen saw that the ministers were silent, knowing that their opposition was not strong, and this time it was possible that there was no need to take rogue measures in the court, "Needless to say, the reasons for support are not said for the time being, and there are two main objections: one is how to conquer Donghu, and the loss of the Ming Dynasty should not be too great; The second is to conquer Donghu, what is the question of what benefits I have from Daming. I will answer them one by one to see if they are satisfied. ”

When attacking political opponents, Zhu Youzhen's methods were a little terrifying, such as forcing Wei Zhongxian to death and confiscating Shi Fenglai, but when discussing the problem, Zhu Youzhen was quite amiable, and there was no majesty of the emperor at all, at least the ministers did not feel the majesty of the emperor on the surface, and their awe of Zhu Youzhen came from their bones, just like the awe of a mouse to a cat.

"I first said that if we conquer Donghu, we do not need to mobilize the army of the north, but the army of the south, Yunnan, Guangdong, especially Yunnan, the topography and climate are very similar to Donghu, and the territory of the Ming Dynasty is vast, we must give full play to this advantage, the northern expedition uses the army of the north, and the south requisition the army of the south."

Zhu Youzhen's explanation fully dispelled Huang Liji's worries, and the ministers had to continue to listen to the lecture like elementary school students.

"As for the issue of fighting on two fronts, I have also considered that whether it is the naval battle in the South Seas or the land battle against Burma, the scale is not large, it is not the national war of the Ming Dynasty," Zhu Youzhen sipped his tea lightly, giving the ministers time to think, "They are different from the war with the Mongols during the Taizu period, and also different from the war with Jiannu a few years ago, that is the battle of the Ming Dynasty. ”

“……”

"Although there are two fronts of war now, but they are all local wars, it has little impact on the Ming Dynasty, take a step back and say, even if the two wars are lost, it will not shake the foundation of the Ming Dynasty, it is a big deal to withdraw from Nanyang and Donghu, once a new opportunity appears, the Ming Dynasty can make a comeback, have you ever understood?"

The directors of the three courts are all aware of the situation, they are just influenced by the sage book, they are relatively weak to the outside world, lack the decisiveness and tiger wolf domineering they should have, and they can't know the living environment of the Ming Dynasty.

"Now that Daming has been invited by the Ayutthaya Kingdom, it is righteous to send troops, and it is a joint battle with the Ayutthaya Dynasty, think about it, with the army that Daming has now reorganized, plus the assistance of Ayutthaya, how sure should it be to win?" Zhu Youzhen hoped to use the victory to induce ministers to support him.

"With the current strength of my Ming Dynasty, even without the assistance of the Ayutthaya Dynasty, I should be ninety percent sure of winning, and Donghu will not be stronger than Jiannu." Huang Liji was the first to defect, switching from the neutral faction to the support faction.

"I will talk about the second question, that is, what is the benefit of going to Donghu for the Ming Dynasty," Zhu Youzhen glanced at the ministers, and saw that no one objected anymore, this first article is considered to be in the past, "Any war, as long as it is not forced to defend itself, must consider the cost of the war, as well as the benefits of the war, if there can be peace, no one likes war." ”

“……”

"There are three small countries in the southern foothills of the Himalayas, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal, if the Ming sends troops to attack, the victory rate will be very high, but what will the Ming get after the victory? It is a piece of land the size of a palm, that is, the cost of the war is greater than the expected benefits, so when the Ming Dynasty is not threatened, it will not send troops to attack these three small countries. ”

The ministers seemed to be listening to a wonderful story, staring at Zhu Youzhen's face one by one, without any scruples.

Zhu Youzhen was not angry, knowing that they were still waiting for the next step, but he changed his words: "Ladies and gentlemen, do you know what Daming lacks the most?" ”