"Last year, the new soldiers and horses of the third battalion of the soldiers and horses were ......"

"Last year, the Criminal Department newly recruited 60 teams of government officers, and exiled 170,000 prisoners......"

"The ...... of the Ministry of Labor last year"

"Go to the ...... of the Imperial Prosecutor's Office"

In the Imperial Palace, with the performance of the six departments one after another, Zhu Youzhen calmly answered their questions and solved their needs.

All this was seen by Zhu Ciran, and he couldn't help but sigh at the speed of Zhu Youzhen's handling of government affairs.

In just a few breaths, he can come up with various ways to deal with different departments, and it is no wonder that civil and military officials admire him.

"Something happens...... Nothing to retreat from! ”

Zhu Youzhen opened his mouth in a loud voice, this time no one did anything, and Honglu Siqing also rang the bronze bell when he saw this: "Retreat ......"

"Hooray... Banzai... Hooray......"

The feeling of long live Shanhu appeared again, but this time Zhu Ciran didn't enjoy it so much.

After observing his uncle's various problems up close, he knew why his father was reluctant to sit on that dragon chair to meet his ministers.

To put it bluntly, the emperor's knowledge must be broad enough, at least a rough understanding of marching and fighting, governing the family and country, the process of exempting the emperor, the laws of the Ming Dynasty and so on.

To put it more bluntly, the emperor must be clear about the cattiness of all the yamen, so that he can solve the problems of each yamen one by one.

If you can do this, you are already a master of ZTE.

However, it takes at least three years to understand a yamen.

Calculated down, the Governor's Office of the Five Armies, the Six Ministries, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the Political Division, and the Judicial Division, it will take 15 years in general, and at least 45 years if you subdivide it.

There is no talent that is different from ordinary people, even if a normal emperor starts to take the throne at the age of fifteen, he has to be sixty years old to roughly understand the cats of each yamen.

Normally, the longer an emperor reigns, the more experience he has in government.

Like Li Longji, it is entirely because of the invincible opponents around him, and the arrogant soldiers will be defeated.

The current Ming Dynasty is more invincible than in the Kaiyuan and Tianbao years.

After all, among the 750,000 troops of the Ming army, 300,000 were armed with breech guns, and there were millions of horses and horses in the officialdom.

As long as Zhu Youzhen adjusts the tax back to ten to three, and then goes west regardless of the people's strength, then he can completely start an Asian war with all his troops and defeat the whole of Asia.

But what about after the fight? Can the Ming digest these lands?

The territory of the Tang Dynasty was also very large, but how much was left after Wu Zhou usurped the throne?

Such an expansion is an ineffective expansion.

Zhu Youzhen prefers his current effective expansion of immigration in the next place.

Although it is slow, the territory will be stable, and the basic plate of the Han people can be expanded step by step.

Not to mention anything else, if the Ming Dynasty collapses now, then the historical task of the next dynasty is to occupy at least the four northeastern provinces, the nine northern provinces, the ten southern provinces, and the three southeastern provinces with more than 50% of the Han people.

As for Nanzhou, Xiaoxiyang, South Kunlun, and Yingzhou...... These places that can be abandoned because of population problems are basically regarded as ineffective expansion, and they are not counted as the basic market of the Han people.

Therefore, the population of more than 50% is the standard of this era, which determines whether the next dynasty will recover it, and whether it will break away from the control of the main ethnic group at the end of the dynasty and become an existence similar to "Goguryeo" and "Nanzhao".

Zhu Youzhen's national policy will not change much until Luchuan, Jiaozhi, and Nanzhou are digested, and it is still to maintain stability, plus medium-scale local wars.

For example, in the Western Regions and Mobei, with the current strength of the Ming army, only 30,000 cavalry, 60,000 people, plus 120,000 horses and horses are enough to recover the two places.

But even so, the cost of sending troops on such a scale will be as high as millions of taels or millions of stones.

This money and grain, Daming can't take it out for the time being.

With a slight feeling of regret, Zhu Youzhen and Zhu Ciran walked out of the Imperial Palace and got on the elephant wheel to go to the Qi Palace's mansion at the back door.

As soon as he got in the car, Zhu Ciran couldn't wait to take off the crown, and moved his neck by the way: "This thing is so heavy." ”

"I'll be fine when you're older." Zhu Youzhen bowed slightly, and a smile appeared on his face: "How do you feel today?" ”

"This job is really tiring, sure enough, Uncle Qi Wang, you are suitable!"

As soon as Zhu Ciran's words came out, Zhu Youzhen's smile immediately stiffened.

"You can take your time, if you don't like the big court, you can also hide in your own room and deal with the sparseness like in the carrier hall."

In order to prevent Zhu Ciran from rebelling, Zhu Youzhen still held back his temper and decided to coax him.

"Yes, you can do this, but it's too boring to stay in the same place all the time, I kind of know why my father doesn't stay in the capital anymore, he doesn't think those officials are difficult to deal with at all, but he thinks it's not fun to have too many things."

Zhu Ciran's words made Zhu Youzhen say a little bit, but he still gushed endlessly:

"My father gives people the feeling that he has been wronged, but in fact, I heard my mother say that he has a lot of fun in Dading Palace and Midsummer Palace."

"I heard that the railway in Xi'an and Shenyang was completed, and my father was also going to let Wei Daban build two palaces in Huashan and Hara City as palaces."

"Actually, it's good to repair, if I go to play at that time, there will be a place to stay, do you say...... Uncle? ”

Zhu Ciran let go and said, but Zhu Youzhen's face was obviously dark.

Obviously, today's Great Dynasty Meeting did not make Zhu Ciran fall in love with the feeling of being under one person and above ten thousand people, but had the opposite effect.

"You are the prince, you are the prince, when you are fifteen years old and crowned, it is almost time to supervise the country, you have to study hard in the past two years."

Zhu Youzhen commanded Zhu Ciran with a calm face, which made Zhu Ciran a little dumbfounded, and cautiously asked tentatively: "Then my ...... to the south?"

As soon as he heard the journey to the south, Zhu Youzhen's face darkened.

Is he really a workaholic? He didn't want to rest yet, but the problem was that neither father nor son would carry the burden, only he would carry it.

Originally, I thought that they would pick up the burden when they grew up, but now it seems that the old ones are greedy for fun and pleasure, and the younger ones are also doing the same.

If these two men are allowed to go on like this, he Zhu Youzhen will die young sooner or later.

Besides, he also needs time to accompany his family, especially Zhu Cihong's character, if he doesn't accompany him well, I'm afraid he will become a little withdrawn in the future.

He cultivated Zhu Ciran, to put it bluntly, he knew that Zhu Youxiao couldn't handle so many government affairs, so he just let Zhu Ciran share it.

Now Zhu Youxiao can at least bear some of the burdens of the military department and the ritual department, but Zhu Ciran doesn't want to bear it at all.

"How can it be so easy to ......"

Zhu Youzhen glanced at Zhu Ciran, and then said with a smile: "Since this is the case, then you can go to the south, how about leaving next month?" ”

"Really? Uncle doesn't blame me for being lazy? Zhu Ciran was a little surprised, and Zhu Youjian's scalp was numb.

You also know you're lazy......

Zhu Youzhen gritted his teeth and continued to say with a smile: "It's not in the way to play, and the matter of the prison country can also be pushed back." ”

"Fifteen-year-old prison country is still too early for you, after you come back, you will be given four months of vacation every year to visit the people's livelihood, and the remaining eight months will be by my side to study, and you will wait until you are eighteen years old to think about the affairs of the prison country."

"Uncle!" Seeing Zhu Youzhen so "enlightened", Zhu Ciran simply loved him to death.

"Or are you open-minded, unlike my mother and my father...... Alas! ”

Zhu Ciran sighed, clasped his hands to his chest, stared out of the window, and had a smile on the corner of his mouth, as if he was saying that his parents were difficult to bring, and at the same time he was imagining the experience of traveling south.

Looking at his appearance, Zhu Youzhen smiled and bowed his head, but he was thinking in his heart, "Can I still let you run?" ”

The elephant carried the two towards the Qi Palace, and Zhu Ciran was still lamenting his uncle's open-mindedness, but he didn't know that he had been calculated by Zhu Youzhen to the bones.

The two returned to the palace of the king of Qi to deal with the song, and when they were dealing with the song, Zhu Youxiao donated 1 million taels of silver from the internal treasury to the household department for disaster relief, and at the same time ordered Wei Zhongxian to build Huashan Huayang Palace, and Li Yongzhen went to Hara City, Modong Province to build the North Moraine Palace.

The two palaces used 240,000 taels of silver, which is not much, so no one refuted the construction of the palace this time.

Zhu Youzhen, who learned the news, did not blame Zhu Youxiao, but said that there were many palaces in the world, and the mansions of the prince and the vassal king had been taken over to the national dynasty, and it was suggested that all the mansions should be assigned to the imperial horse supervisor for management and repair.

If the emperor was traveling, he could use these palaces as his residence.

If the emperor does not travel, he can also be idle as a reward for the residence of important ministers in the future.

There are many palaces in the Ming Dynasty, and it takes manpower and material resources to maintain them, so it is better to assign the palaces to the inner court as the emperor's private property.

In this regard, Zhu Youxiao agreed, but the maintenance of these princes and county kings' mansions also requires an annual expenditure of more than 200,000 taels, which is a large amount of money.

Time passed little by little, with the arrival of spring rains, the entire northern land was moistened, and for a while, the extremely severe drought last year was also curbed accordingly.

However, spring rains have fallen in some places, but not in others, and where there is no rain, drought conditions will inevitably begin.

Beginning in February, the water levels in the Shuntianfu and Yongping Prefectures in Beizhili had dropped, and Zhu Youzhen had no choice but to order the Armaments Institute to use 2,600 steam engines as pumping machines, so as to ensure the water supply of nearly one million mu of dry land in the two prefectures.

At the same time, Baoning, Shunqing, Chongqing, Tongchuan in eastern Sichuan ......

Shaanxi Yan'an, Xi'an, Fengxiang, Hanzhong, Qingyang......

Shanxi Pingyang, Fenzhou, Liaozhou, Zezhou, Lu'an, Qinzhou......

Runing, Henan, Xining, Lintao, Hexi, Fengyang, Xuzhou, Huai'an and other six provinces, thirteen prefectures and four prefectures only after one or two spring rains, it did not rain.

Although the damage in each province is not as great as last year's, and two spring rains have fallen, nearly 10 million mu of dry land in these places is still uncultivateable, and paddy fields can only be planted as irrigated fields, and irrigated fields can only be planted as dry fields.

It's a little better than last year, but it's not much better.

On the first day of February, Zhu Ciran rode his four-wheeled bicycle, escorted by more than 100 Jinyi guards, from the Yongning Gate in the west of Beijing, and the route was Shanxi-Shaanxi-Hexi-Sichuan-Yunnan-Guangxi-Guangdong-Fujian-Zhejiang-Nanzhili-Shandong, and then arrived in Beizhili.

Hearing about Zhu Ciran's route, Xu Xiake, who had taken his mother to the capital for half a year, also bought a bicycle and traveled with Zhu Ciran's team.

Their route is said to be southward, which is actually equivalent to traveling around the original two capitals and thirteen provinces except for Liaodong.

This route was not formulated by Zhu Ciran himself, but by Zhu Youzhen.

Zhu Ciran's identity as the crown prince is destined for him to maintain the rule of the Ming Dynasty, so some of the things he sees are more real than the things that Jinyiwei handed over to Zhu Youzhen.

Shanxi and Shaanxi, two provinces that have suffered from drought for nine years, Zhu Youzhen continues to know how the local people are doing and whether the new policies of the imperial court are working.

As for Hexi, what Zhu Youzhen wanted to know was whether there was any essential difference between Hexi and the Hexi he had seen back then after the influx of more than 3 million people.

For example, whether the Han people who migrated in the past have been Yinized, or have the local religious atmosphere been completely changed, what is the living situation of the local people, and whether they can supply the 30,000 army to the west to conquer and recover the Western Regions.

The real situation of these three provinces is of great help to Zhu Youzhen in governing the Ming Dynasty.

On the other hand, in the six provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, and Fujian, Zhu Youzhen is confident that they are very nourishing in several provinces, because the amount of arable land and the number of people are there.

For the rest of Zhejiang, Nanzhili, and Shandong, Zhu Youzhen wanted to use Zhu Ciran's eyes to take a look at the local population and cultural situation.

Of course, this time I saw it through Zhu Ciran's eyes, and next time I saw it by Zhu Youzhen himself.

This time, Zhu Youzhen gave Zhu Ciran a ten-month vacation, because according to the route and the prefectures and counties he had to go to, he had to walk at least 26,000 miles.

Although he can take a train or choose to ride a tourist car of his own invention on this way, he still needs to travel more than 80 miles a day.

If this was placed twenty years ago, it would definitely be an impossible task, but in the current situation where the provincial roads and government roads are connected in series, it is not very difficult for Zhu Ciran.

Not only did he not find it difficult, but he also completed the journey from the capital to Juyongguan on the first day with great interest.

According to what Zhu Youzhen said, he recorded his experience in words one by one.

Due to the existence of Xu Xiake, a person who has written a travelogue for more than 30 years, Zhu Ciran's travelogue is similar to the popularity of the Ming Dynasty in terms of sentences and fluency.

Although Xu Xiake and Zhu Ciran traveled together, the content recorded was not the same.

Zhu Ciran's travelogue mainly records the local humanities, and focuses on the difference between the livelihood of the local county and the livelihood of the countryside.

Xu Xiake's travelogue is even richer, not only making detailed records of geographical, hydrological, geology, botanical and other phenomena, but also focusing on handicraft industry and mining, agriculture, transportation, commercial trade, urban settlements, ethnic minorities, and local customs and customs.

Whenever the two of them went to a place, they first went to understand the local culture, and after Zhu Ciran set off, Xu Xiake traveled all over the local area, recorded various local minerals, and recorded the mining and smelting of local minerals.

In addition, because Xu Xiake read a lot of "Yanshan Textbooks", he would correct the water conservancy facilities in various places from the hydrological point of view whenever he went to a place.

For example, on 9 February, Xu Xiake put forward different opinions on the construction of the Xinqi Reservoir in Yangyuan County, but after dialectical and verification, it was often Xu Xiake's opinions that best suited the local conditions.

Since then, officials along the way have asked Xu Xiake to help check the local water conservancy.

Some people are really for the people, and some people are interested in his status as a waiter in the Ministry of Rites, hoping that he will be able to promote himself in the future.

In short, as a result, Xu Xiake's trip was delayed, so that the distance between him and Zhu Ciran became farther and farther away.

By 15 February, Zhu Ciran had arrived in Zhiyangqu County, Taiyuan Prefecture, while Xu Xiake was still surveying for local officials in Datong Prefecture.

"Ahh Ahh Ahh ......"

On 16 February, with a cheerful humming, Zhu Ciran led the team to continue southward, and today his goal was to follow the Fenshui all the way south to Jiaocheng County, a hundred miles away.

Since the road was flat along the way, Zhu Ciran was very cheerful and leaned on the handlebars, and on the car beside him were three well-proportioned eunuchs of the East Palace, and behind him were dozens of plainclothes brocade guards who followed from afar on horseback.

"This Shanxi road is still good, wide and flat, since leaving the capital, this section of the road is the most comfortable to ride!"

Enjoying the wind, Zhu Ciran happily looked at the Taihang Mountains and enjoyed the cultural landscape.

It's just that the three eunuchs next to him are almost "running out of oil".

Once upon a time, they were also the three fattest people in the East Palace.

It's just that after 26 consecutive days of travel, the weight of the three people plummeted by more than ten pounds.

If they continue to ride like this, they will have to be adults......

Thinking so, they looked at His Royal Highness the Crown Prince with their eyes, but found that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince at this moment didn't even step on his feet, just looking at the scenery in the distance.

Compared with the unchanged Beijing, Yanshan, and Fangshan, when Zhu Ciran saw the natural scenery of Shanxi, where mountains are stacked, hills are undulating, and ravines are crisscrossed, his first reaction is naturally to be shocked and enjoyed.

In the distance, the mountains of Dai color rose and fell, towering into the sky, like tall and majestic warriors, guarding the plains behind.

Compared to the capital, this place is simple, just like the people here, as simple as loess.

Those who are digging and eating in the fields seem to be a little dirty and messy, but their hearts are very simple.

Shanxi in the late Ming Dynasty still retains many temples, Taoist temples and various places of interest in the Han and Tang dynasties.

Like later generations of travelers, Zhu Ciran would also visit these places.

Although the word "commercialization" did not exist in this era, there were always many street vendors in famous places.

Under the great drought, in order to support their family, they shouted for business and sales, eager to get a guest and complete a transaction.

Although there is a severe drought in Shanxi, there are still many paddy fields on both sides of the Fenshui River.

Zhu Ciran went south along the road, and seemed to have seen enough of the scenery on the provincial road, and then turned to the government road, or even the more remote county road.

After walking to the county road, he could be regarded as seeing the real life of the people in Shanxi under the drought.

In the arid fields, some farmers carry two buckets of water to the fields and splash them with their hands to moisten the sweet potatoes, potatoes and other crops in the dry fields.

The clothes they wore were dusty, not because they were working, but only this one.

In this era, although the price of bicycles is not expensive, because the annual production has not exceeded 100,000 units, it often exists only in the city.

The four-wheeled four-seater bicycle that Zhu Ciran rode received a lot of attention along the way.

As the time came to noon, Zhu Ciran, who was out of water, began to pinch the brakes:

"There is no water, you leave one person to watch the car, and the others will go to the village with me to beg for water."

Although it is the end of February at the moment, it is the lunar calendar in the final analysis, and in fact, it is almost April when it is changed to the Western calendar.

Therefore, Zhu Ciran's face was flushed, and he changed from a little black fat man to a young man with a relatively well-proportioned figure.

He was dressed in coarse linen clothes, and he looked like a child from another village.

After greeting the eunuchs, he walked to the village in front with two eunuchs, carrying a dozen empty water bladders in their hands.

"Wang-"

As soon as they entered the village, the pastoral dogs in the village began to bark wildly, but most of them were chained to the door, and they couldn't do any harm to Zhu Ciran.

"Auntie! Let's beg for a drink! ”

When he came to the door of a family, Zhu Ciran looked at an old woman who was carrying a wooden bucket to water the vegetable field at the door, and stepped forward to say hello with a smile.

"Drink water? Drink water and go to the side to get ......"

The old woman pointed to the river in the distance, obviously not wanting the water she had just brought up to cheapen these outsiders.

"Howler!" Zhu Ciran was not angry when he was refused, but walked to the river not far away with a water bladder.

As he walked, he also took a look at the situation in the village.

In general, this village is located at the foot of the Taihang Mountains in Shanxi, and the river in the village should also flow from the Taihang Mountains.

This village is different from the village in Beizhili, Zhu Ciran often goes to Li Dingguo in Yanshan County to play, Li Dingguo and the people in his village can build small courtyards with white walls and gray tiles, while this village in Shanxi is basically adobe houses.

The houses are all adobe, not to mention the courtyard walls.

The so-called courtyard wall is nothing more than a tofu scum project with some dead branches inserted in the ground and surrounded by vines.

With such a courtyard wall, Zhu Ciran can kick it with one foot.

Zhu Ciran did not rush to fetch water, but walked around the village.

Since it was afternoon, the people in the village were either taking a nap or cooking, Zhu Ciran walked around the village, and finally found a house that could afford to use bricks and stones.

The two village officials in the office didn't seem to care, sitting at the door, setting up a small coffee table and chatting while eating.

When Zhu Ciran passed by, they glared at Zhu Ciran dissatisfied, thinking that it was a child who was disobedient.

Zhu Ciran was so unimpressed that he just smiled happily, and at the same time glanced at the food on the table of the village officials.

It is enough to see how the people in a place are doing, and to see how the village officials are eating, this is half of the method that Li Dingguo taught Zhu Ciran.

Along the way, he saw the meals of village officials in Shuntianfu, Xuanfu, Datongfu, and Taiyuan Mansion, and the degree of enjoyment was also sorted from front to back.

The village officials of Shuntianfu often sit in a pavilion built at their own expense to eat and drink, and no matter how bad the table is, they can still have a pot of four taels of rice wine, a meat dish, a cold dish, plus a hot dish and soup dish.

To put it simply, it is the configuration of three dishes and one soup, which is a little better than that of ordinary people, but it is also limited.

When I arrived at Xuanfu, the configuration was still this configuration, but the wine I drank became sweet potato roast.

When they arrived at Datong Mansion, there was no wine on the table of the village officials, and when they arrived at Taiyuan Mansion, there were no meat dishes on the table, only two stir-fried vegetables and one soup dish, and the poke of rice had become smaller.

When I arrived in Taiyuan Mansion, it was basically a bowl of stir-fried vegetables and a soup dish, cold dishes, meat dishes, and wine, which were things that could only be enjoyed during the New Year.

The scene in Taiyuan Mansion is a scene that Zhu Ciran can see in a village with paddy fields on the edge of Fenshui, and when he arrived at this village where it is basically dry land, the things on the village official's table made Zhu Ciran feel the impact of the drought more intuitively.

Even the village officials, who are twelve taels of silver a year, only have a plate of fried cabbage on the table of the two of them at this moment, and a bowl of cabbage soup and a plate of dried pickles next to it, and the rice in their hands has also turned into brown rice.

Eat brown rice...... This kind of thing can be surprising when it comes to officials, even village officials.

The same kind of silver can make people eat meat in Beizhili, but in the remote towns of Taiyuan Prefecture, which has suffered from drought, they can only eat some fried cabbage and pickled brown rice.

The village officials are like this, but what do the people eat?

Courageous, Zhu Ciran walked around the village.

Maybe everyone is not doing well, so everyone is very vigilant about Zhu Ciran, a fresh face.

It's just that even so, Zhu Ciran still saw many scenes that made his scalp tingle along the way.

In the wooden fence, a family of seven sat in the courtyard to eat, and in addition to seven bowls of sweet potato porridge less than the size of a fist, there was a pot of boiled cabbage and a plate of chili peppers on the table.

The two children of the man's family are five or six years old, but the clothes on their bodies are so tattered that they can't even get patches, and they can only expose their skin to the air.

This scene made Zhu Ci tremble, and it wasn't until he walked to the river that he felt more intuitively what the people of this village had experienced.

】

The three-zhang wide river channel is empty at the moment, and the soil layer washed out by the water level on both sides gradually descends like steps to the lowest valley of the riverbed.

No one could have imagined that the stream, which was only a foot wide and only a thin layer, and could not even reach the instep of the foot, was once a large river three feet wide and six feet deep......

At this moment, Zhu Ciran faced Shanxi, which had suffered from nine years of drought, and knew why the old woman was unwilling to let herself fetch water just now.

For them, these dozen water bladders are only a day or two of water, but for the sixty-year-old woman, these waters require her to walk two miles and pick up three or four turns back and forth before she can bring them home.