After the Mid-Autumn Festival of this year, the courtiers found that the new emperor's style of acting had changed a lot.

The emperor no longer took the queen to the court, which made everyone breathe a sigh of relief, and privately discussed that although the new emperor occasionally had a place where he was young and reckless, he could still listen to the advice.

However, they soon found out that the new emperor had made a new moth.

Chen Youcong became obsessed with ships and sailing.

The descendants of Yan and Huang are a people who grew up on the yellow earth, have a deep awe and attachment to the land, do not advocate adventure, and do not emphasize the exploration of distant and unknown places. For those who have begged for food in the land all their lives, the sea is too mysterious and unpredictable, and it is better to stay away.

Although the overall trend is like this, it is not without exceptions, such as Chengzu.

During the reign of Chengzu, he sent the Three Treasures eunuchs to the West seven times, and traveled to Java, Sumatra, Tianfang and Guli and other countries, bringing back countless treasures, and at the same time remembering the name of Dayan in these places along the way.

But the voyage of the Three Treasure Eunuchs, after his death, could not be continued.

Although Chengzu is not the founder of the country, he won the world on horseback, with great ambition and vigorous energy. Born in Yunnan, the eunuch Sanbao was not educated in Confucian culture, and yearned for distant places and the sea since he was a child. Therefore, under the joint promotion of this pair of monarchs and ministers, there was a feat of seven trips to the West.

When Chengzu and the Three Treasures Eunuchs were still alive, the civil officials of the court had already advised Chengzu to stop this voyage that cost people and money. It is believed that this kind of behavior is not beneficial to Da Yan except for empty consumption of materials.

Although the eunuch of the Three Treasures retorted: "If you want the country to be rich and strong, you must not ignore the ocean." Wealth comes from the sea, and danger comes from the sea. …… Once the king of another country captures the South Seas, China is in danger. China's fleet is invincible, and it can be used to expand business, subdue foreign lands, and make it dare not covet the South Seas. ”

However, most civil officials believed that the land was the root of the Great Yan, and if they were afraid that other countries would invade from the sea, then they would impose a sea ban to prevent foreigners from coming to land, and they would not allow people to trade at sea without permission. As for the loss caused by the ban on maritime trade - the vast land of Dayan, are you still afraid of this loss?

During the reign of Chengzu, he overrode public opinion and suppressed the impeachment of the eunuchs of the Three Treasures.

And after Chengzu died and Renzong succeeded to the throne, the impeachment of the Three Treasures eunuchs was a great achievement, and the twists and turns of labor and wealth flew like snowflakes. The Three Treasures Eunuch embarked on his seventh voyage under heavy pressure, but died halfway through.

After the death of the Three Treasure Eunuchs, the Great Yan Imperial Court never sent a fleet to the Western Ocean, and the navigation logs of the Three Treasure Eunuchs who went to the Western Ocean seven times were not well preserved, and many were lost. Dayan's shipbuilding technology also stalled due to the interruption of the navigation business.

Now, it has been another year since the death of the Three Treasure Eunuchs, but Chen Youcong has begun to order people to search for the Three Treasure Eunuchs' navigation logbooks and shipbuilding maps. After getting my hands on it, I immediately began to read without sleep or food.

In the world that Zhang Weizhao described to him, the sooner he opened his eyes and focused his eyes on the more distant frontiers, the stronger the country would be. The exploration of unfamiliar continents can bring many unexpected benefits, such as those crops that are easier to grow and have higher yields, which Zhang Weizhao calls sweet potatoes and potatoes, and plants that can squeeze out thick sap and use them to make a variety of utensils, which are said to be called rubber trees.

The continent on which these things were located was two to three times longer than the farthest distance traveled by the fleets of the Three Treasure Eunuchs. This is a very risky move, but once the risk is successful, it will have an immeasurable impact on Great Yan.

This move of the emperor immediately attracted the attention of people from all sides. Do you want to follow the example of Chengzu today, reorganize the fleet and start sailing? Now there are Tatars and Warats in the north, and floods in the south from time to time. At this time, if a large amount of gold and silver were to be raised for shipbuilding and navigation, it would put a lot of pressure on the finances.

Out of this concern, some officials, especially the imperial historians who were tasked with advising the emperor, had begun to persuade the emperor, believing that the emperor should focus on attaching importance to agriculture and controlling floods, which was the foundation of the country's social welfare.

Unexpectedly, the emperor, who had always been good at Chanaya dialect, ignored these persuasions this time, and not only gathered more shipbuilders to discuss the manufacture of long-distance ships, but also began to plan the establishment of government-run shipyards in several different commercial ports on the southeast coast.

The emperor did more than that.

Half a year has passed since the emperor's wedding, and there is only one queen in the harem. Empress Dowager Yu and the elders of the Chen clan are urging the emperor to take a concubine. It's a good thing that the emperor doesn't love women, but the concubine is a major matter related to the continuation of the heir, and it should not be ignored.

After three urgings and four invitations, the emperor finally issued an edict and began to look for candidates, but the people who were looking for them were not to enrich their harem, but to be assigned to the queen as a palace maid and female official.

In the Great Yan Harem, the original regulations on the grade of palace maids, and the palace maids belonged to the six bureaus and twenty-four divisions. The supreme commanders of the six bureaus are: Shang Gong, Shang Yi, Shang Fu, Shang Shi, Shang Bed, Shang Gong, and the official rank is the fifth grade. This is the highest grade among the palace maids.

The six bureaus lead the twenty-four divisions, and there are official ranks such as secretary, secretary, secretary, and musician, which are the seven products.

However, the newly recruited female officers under the queen this time were not among the six bureaus and twenty-four divisions, but were classified into the two new institutes established by the queen: the painting academy and the hospital.

The so-called painting academy is not a place to decorate the court with paintings of flowers, birds, fish, insects, landscapes and beauties, and all girls or girls who are selected to enter the academy must first learn arithmetic, geometry and perspective painting. These children are not so much trained as painters as designers and engineers.

Those selected by the hospital specialize in medicine and nursing.

Several children from Songzhu Girls' School were selected to these two academies, and the little palace maids of Feixian Palace were also selected. These children have been studying with Zhang Weizhao for a while, and they were selected because they have unique advantages.

But Zhang Weizhao did not limit his vision to the students he had brought before. Girls or girls between the ages of eight and fourteen in Beijing, regardless of their origin, can be selected as long as they can pass the test.

If you have just entered a painting academy or hospital, there is no grade. Zhang Weizhao promised that if he had excellent grades, he would be promoted, ranging from nine to five grades.

When she first started recruiting, Zhang Weizhao didn't expect a wide response, but she didn't expect that there were more girls willing to sign up for the exam than she imagined.

Before this exam, the best way out for these girls is to find a good family, loved by their in-laws, respected by their husbands, and live their lives to the end.

Now there is a sudden opportunity to get the official rank of the imperial court without a wife relying on a husband, but by virtue of his own intelligence and intelligence, and he can get an official salary every month, attracting many women who are unwilling to spend their lives in silence in the back house. All of a sudden, it became popular for girls in Beijing to learn arithmetic, painting skills and medicine, and some of them worked harder to prepare for exams than they did for scientific exams.

Most of the people who took the exam were the daughters of ordinary scholars and low-ranking officials. Most of the big families have a wait-and-see attitude towards this, and they are unwilling to let their daughters take this risk. The daughters of poor families lack the opportunity to receive education and do not have the capital to pass the exams.

In the first batch, the painting academy and the hospital each summoned 20 people. The painting academy was run by Shi Yan, and the hospital was run by Du Zhong. Each of them was named a monk and a doctor, and they were all five products.

Chen Youcong and Zhang Weizhao's actions made everyone in the harem and the previous dynasty stunned, and they couldn't react, and they didn't know whether to go to the court for a while? If so, where do you start?

To say that the queen has some preferences and summons people to flatter, this is not without precedent in the previous dynasty, and now the harem is empty, and it is not a big deal for forty or fifty people to come in.

But there is such a big stir, it is an examination, and it is an official position, is this to open up another style of scientific examination among women?

Some people began to talk behind her back about the queen's arrogance and sexual flirtatiousness, and then they made such a big move. Some people also say that this is the queen's trick to compete for favor in another way, and in this way she appears to be different from the customs.

These comments also reached Chen Youcong's ears one after another, but Chen Youcong only ignored them completely.

In fact, whether it is opening a shipyard, opening a painting academy or a hospital, it is the result of Zhang Weizhao and Chen Youcong's discussion for a long time.

Throughout history, all reforms have been very difficult. What is especially difficult to change is the old rules and old concepts. Therefore, they are not going to touch the bureaucracy, the material selection system and the economic system of Dayan first, but they want to start with the most basic things: to eliminate hunger, increase wealth and improve health.

In order to achieve the first two goals, Chen Youcong planned to reopen shipping routes, develop maritime trade, and look for high-yield crops. In order to advance the last goal, Zhang Weizhao planned to systematically train a group of female officials with high-level medical and nursing skills to provide medical and health services for the court and nobles. The court and the aristocracy were the fashions of the time, and the services they enjoyed were bound to attract the imitation of the local gentry, thus promoting new medical and health concepts.

As for the Academy, the children who learned arithmetic, geometry, and perspective were prepared for the invention of new tools. Although these are all girls, Zhang Weizhao found when he was in Songzhu Girls' School that because there are few outlets for women, these talented and ambitious girls, as long as you give them a chance, they will redouble their efforts and be eager to make achievements.

In Zhang Weizhao's original world, many major discoveries, such as the theoretical prototype of IFI, artemisinin, were made by women. So she believes that as long as the conditions are sufficient, these girls can also make major breakthroughs.

Moreover, training these girls to try scientific inventions and tool improvements is much more low-key than Chen Youcong's original proposal to add engineering to the imperial examination. After all, at this time, the vast majority of men with a talent for learning are based on the Four Books and Five Classics, and a rash turn will cause a great backlash.

Zhang Weizhao's consideration, Chen Youcong also felt that it was very reasonable, so in the Forbidden City, there were two sets of two hospitals, the painting academy and the hospital.