At the end of December of the third year of Daming Road, Beijing Mansion, Beijing New Town.

Several streets in the center of Beijing are now bustling with people. This new city was officially started at the beginning of the second year of Tiandao, located in the east of the old city of Yanjing, close to Tongzhou City, and will cover an area of up to 150,000 acres after completion!

Like Jiangdu City, Beijing New Town is a city without walls. The layout is similar to that of Jiangdu City, which is also composed of various functional areas such as administration, commerce, industry, education, and residence. It's just that there is no harbor area, and the barracks area is much larger. The Beicheng camp in Beijing was built according to the standards of the three garrison armies, and next to the Beicheng camp, there were also the Ming Army Military Academy and the Ming Army Ordnance Bureau test site that were moved from the Ming capital.

Of course, a city of this size can't be built so quickly - the new Beijing can't just be like the old Yanjing and make a dirty and messy city. The city of Beijing had large-scale water diversion and drainage ditches (many Song Dynasty cities had them), as well as professional garbage and manure disposal stations. There are even cities that imitate the world of Celestial Buddhism, with public baths, hospitals, and by the way, huge libraries.

Such a city, which has almost reached the level of modern times, cannot be built without a dozen or twenty years of construction. Now, less than two years later, the core part of the building has been built. Daming Palace, Cabinet Office, Yamen of the Fourth Military Department, Yamen of Cabinet Ministries, Tiandao Palace, etc. have been preliminarily completed (a lot of land has been given, and there is still room for expansion in the future), and a small half of the Beicheng Daying has been built. The residential areas of high-ranking officials and heroes such as Dagongfang, Gongmenlou (place name, sounds very unlucky), and Gonghoufang have also begun to take shape. The commercial district of Beijing City has also taken on a certain level, just like the Jiangdu business district. Beijing's business district is also based on the Grand Canal, which also extends from Tongzhou to the city, and is lined with shops and wine shops on both sides of the canal. Bustling with activity.

Relying on this Grand Canal that connects the north and the south, Beijing, Daming, Kaifeng, Guide, Jiangdu, Pingjiang, Lin'an and other prosperous cities of this era are all connected together. If you include the waterways connected to the Grand Canal. A canal connects the major cities of China by water.

As the northern terminus of the canal and waterway, Beijing is also the terminus of the grassland and the Central Plains trade, and although its geographical location is not as unique as that of the Nanjing River, it is still enough to support a prosperous commercial capital.

Moreover, Beijing is now home to countless troops, craftsmen, people, and high-ranking officials and dignitaries of the Ming Empire, so how can commerce not be prosperous?

On the royal street in the center of the city, the residents of Beijing also began to wear gorgeous silk clothes and surged shoulder to shoulder in the streets. At least half of them are pedestrians. There are swords or horizontal swords hanging on the belt, and he walks in a hurry, and he has a very martial and aggressive appearance. Some of them are women, all of them are girls from the Heavenly Dao Academy-now the "college students" of the Ming Dynasty all have to carry swords with them! The lesson of the Song Dynasty's death with weak literature was obviously fully learned by this Chen Ming Dynasty, and even went a little too far.

Several main roads are divided into roads and sidewalks, and pedestrians walk on the sidewalks on both sides of the road, which are raised with bluestone slabs. On the wide road in the middle, there are cars and horses. Coming and going, it is also a peculiar landscape. Occasionally, there are pond horses with flags planted on their backs and bells hanging around their necks passing by on the road. When the bell rings, the patrol inspectors (that is, traffic police) who direct traffic and maintain order on the road. They would wave flags, blow whistles, and shout loudly to get out of the way of other vehicles and horses. Everybody knows. This is the Tangma Urgent Report of the Army Post Office - the Ming Empire did not establish a system of pavilions and posts all over the country like the Great Song Dynasty. However, an army post office was established solely for correspondence, which was used to transmit government orders and military newspapers. It is also possible to send private letters (of course, for a fee). And this kind of Tangma with a flag on his back and a bell all the way. It is the so-called "600 miles expedited", which conveys emergency military information, disaster situations and military and political orders.

Although Middle-earth is generally peaceful now, it is uneven in all directions! The Great War in the South is underway. The battle between Java and Champa has just ended, and now there is news of the conquest of Tianzhu and the conquest of Khmer.

And to the east of the Ming Dynasty, Japan is also fighting a "Heavenly Dao Holy War", one country is divided into two, and it has been fighting for several years.

However, the most suspenseful is still in the west, it is said that there are signs of revival in the Great Mongolian Kingdom, and what Ilkhan and Golden Horde have been subdued by Kublai Khan. Mongolia seems to be a huge disaster in the northwest of the Ming Dynasty again.

Seeing the six-hundred-mile rush Tangma galloping towards the direction of Daming Palace, the pedestrians on the road stopped one after another, looked sideways, but their expressions were different. Some people are excited - war means achievement, it means opportunity! There are concerns – war is always something to worry about.

Of course, there are people who gloat.

"Are you still reckless!" A young man in a tattered Confucian costume with a vegetable face looked at the knight in the distance and scolded Taizhou fiercely. provoked an elderly Confucian beside him to hurriedly pull his sleeve, and opened his mouth in Zheyin, "Shengzhi, this is the ...... on the street of Beijing."

It was Liu Sheng who was called "Shengzhi". He's out of the box now! Several Confucian scholars who believed in the idea of Datong found him and brought him from the construction site at the mouth of the Cross River in Kaifeng to the city of Beijing. He also enrolled him in a "preparatory college", which is a college that prepares for the "university" examination.

Now the education system of the Ming Kingdom is undergoing revolutionary changes. A standardized, systematic, and specialized education system similar to that of later elementary schools, secondary schools (for the time being, no need for high schools) and universities is being developed.

And this system is not built from primary school, first primary school, then middle school, and then university. Instead, it was the other way around, first in college, then in middle school, and finally in elementary school - this is natural, because it is the 13th century, and Chen Dexing has no place to hire foreign teachers, so he can only train some college students (graduates of Tiandao Academy) who are not worthy of the name first. They are then used to educate middle school students, primary school students, and other college students, and at the same time support some of the more outstanding students to engage in scientific research, so as to gradually improve the level of science and technology and the difficulty of education at Daming University.

Moreover, there is no imperial examination system. The Chinese scholars soon realized that the entrance examination for the university and the examination of the junior officials, as well as the Taoist Taoists of the day, were their new upward path. And among these upward paths, admission to university is definitely the most promising. Whether you are an official in politics or a Taoist, a diploma from Tiandao Academy or other universities is a guarantee for step-by-step promotion and a high starting point!

Therefore, more and more young scholars (there is an age limit for university entrance examinations) are now engaged in the "college entrance examination" where thousands of troops cross the single-plank bridge. And the difficulty of the "college entrance examination" is getting higher and higher year by year. Many scholars who have not been exposed to the new type of education will not be able to enter the university at all.

As a result, various "college entrance examination preparatory classes" have been set up in Beijing, Jiangdu and Mingdu, three cities where universities gather. The purpose is to give the scholars a new knowledge so that they can have the opportunity to squeeze into the university campus.

And Liu Sheng also received financial support from several "Datong Confucian students" who still had some net worth, and planned to go to the Political Science and Law Academy in Beijing, so that he could become a lawyer in the future to fight lawsuits for the poor middle peasants in Jiangnan...... At least that's what Liu Sheng thinks now.

"Let's go, let's go!" The old Confucian pulled Liu Sheng and left in a hurry, as if he found some spy from the Secret Agent Bureau watching.

Just when the two of them hurriedly left the streets of Beijing, several horses had already galloped into the forbidden middle school of the imperial city.

"Sage, Mingzhou urgent!" When Yang Po'er hurriedly ran into Xixiu Palace, Chen Dexing happened to be Li Cuixian teasing a newborn baby girl, which was Chen Dexing's fifth daughter and Li Cuixian's fourth child for him.

"Sage, Niangniang, there is a big epidemic in Mingzhou! Smallpox was rampant, and millions of people were sick! ”

Hearing the news, Li Cuixian's body trembled slightly, and she looked up at Yang Po'er in disbelief, "Millions? Sky...... Flower? How can it be!? ”

Smallpox was also found in 13th-century China, but most of it was contracted by children, and it was rarely contracted by adults, and not every child got smallpox.

"How many people are there in Mingzhou?" Li Cuixian frowned, "How can millions of people get smallpox?" Mother-in-law, you're not mistaken, are you? ”

Yang Po'er has already presented the red envelope expedited express with both hands - the red envelope expedited is in triplicate, one is sent to the palace, one is sent to the cabinet office, and one is sent to the military department (first sent to the army staff).

Li Cuixian took the red envelope and hurried, then took out the letter raft inside, first looked at it roughly, and then looked at it carefully word by word. finally gasped and turned his head to look at Chen Dexing, who was still holding his daughter's hand.

"Sage, Meng Qi, Zhou Xiaoqi, and Yang Aguo jointly recited...... Smallpox was endemic in Mingzhou, and millions of people were infected in the Mexica Valley and the Maya alone, and many died! The Governor's Mansion of Zhongmingzhou, the Governor's Mansion of the Mayan Coast, and the Great Sect of Mingzhou are organizing the spread of the epidemic, and they are asking for assistance from the Imperial Court and the Heavenly Dao Palace! Saint, look at this ......"

Chen Dexing was still holding the little girl's hand, with a doting expression on his face. He has many children, but over the years he has been busy with military and government affairs, and he has not seen the children much, and he really has not watched a little baby grow up day by day. Now that I have a little space, I finally have a chance, so I care for this child very much.

Hearing Li Cuixian's anxious question, he didn't take it seriously at all, just smiled: "The natives of Mingzhou don't believe in the way of heaven, they believe in demons, and they will be punished by heaven." This matter still needs to be found by the Heavenly Daoist Sect, mother-in-law, to summon Mo Ying Niang. (To be continued......)