"Woo-"

In October, when Kandahar, Kabul and other places were recaptured, the Mughal army, which was still trying to break through the Khyber Pass, began to retreat and build fortifications behind the Khyber Pass.

Seeing that the Mughal army was silent, Zhu Ciran also ordered the Western Expeditionary Army and the Northern Army to change their guards.

At the same time, Zhu Ciran generously gave every soldier of the Western Expedition a half-year vacation, and he was sent as usual.

At the same time as the news of the victory in the war came, Zhu Ciran also sent people to ask Zhu Youzhen and Zhu Youxiao, who were far away in Yunnan, about the policy of governing Hezhong and how to deal with the peace negotiations in the direction of Lin Dan Khan.

The whistle of the train meant that Zhu Youzhen had boarded the train with Zhu Youxiao, and Yang Lian did not come to see Zhu Youzhen, because he knew that the emperor did not want to see him.

After a month and a half of absence, the two brothers met again on the train, and naturally there was inevitably a greeting.

"My brother has hacked a lot ......"

Looking at Zhu Youzhen, who was much darker than a month and a half ago, Zhu Youxiao, who got into the car and hugged Zhu Youzhen enthusiastically, began to sigh.

"It's better for men to have black spots." Zhu Youzhen replied with a smile and sat down with Zhu Youxiao.

"Beep-"

The whistle of the train departing sounded, and Zhu Youxiao had nothing to ask Zhu Youzhen, after all, he knew that Zhu Youzhen had been visiting farmland, schools, and people with Yang Lian for a month and a half.

However, Zhu Youzhen was very interested in Zhu Youxiao's experience, but he resisted his curiosity and first commented on the things in the west.

"The whole territory of the river has been recovered, but the situation is not optimistic."

"According to Cao Wenzhao's recital, the land in the river is as vast as the Central Plains, and although most of the area is the Gobi Desert, there are many places to live."

"But in the huge river, there are only 120,000 people with colored eyes at the moment, and all of them are religious, and it is difficult to control."

"For these 120,000 people, it is impossible for the imperial court to hand over the tractor to them for farming, and maybe one day they will take the weight of this country to Persia, Mughal and other places."

"The immediate priority is to distribute prisoners and their families from all over the world to the river this year, replenish the local population, and distribute tractors to them."

"In the shortest possible time, we must restore more than one million acres of land in the middle of the river to production, and at the same time reclaim new arable land to feed the army."

Zhu Youzhen knew very well that the rule of the Ming Dynasty to the west had actually reached its limit long ago, and the reason why Zhu Ciran hurriedly withdrew the 40,000 troops of the Western Expedition was because of supply difficulties.

Now that the 40,000 troops of the Western Expedition have been withdrawn and the 24,000 permanent Gongwei battalions have been replaced, the supply has been alleviated, but the safety of the river has also become a problem.

Anxi and Beiting are now the transportation hubs of the Ming Dynasty in the western region, but even they have a population of more than 1.7 million at the moment, and one-tenth of them are the families of the local garrison.

In addition, after the investment of nearly 100,000 tractors in the imperial court in three years, the total cultivated land of the two provinces is only 4 million mu.

It is very difficult for these cultivated lands to feed the local people, and they still need support from Hexi, let alone Hezhong and Lingbei.

In addition, there is no railway leading to Hezhong, so if you want to transport one stone of grain to Mengchi Prefecture, you have to transport at least five stones, not to mention Hezhongfu County, which is far away from Hezhong and Xihai.

It was a cruel situation where twenty stone of grain was shipped and only one stone was delivered to the front line.

What makes people feel even more cruel is that the yield of various local grains is only seven buckets per mu, and after the wheat husk is removed, it is only five buckets, less than 80 catties of wheat.

Millions of acres of cultivated land, in the current situation that there are nearly 150,000 soldiers and civilians, although as long as production can be restored, but in the next year, the Ming Dynasty will have to transport grain from the Central Plains to the river.

150,000 soldiers and civilians needed at least 300,000 stone of rice and wheat, and if they wanted to transport this rice and wheat to the front, they had to carry at least 6 million stone of rice.

Perhaps the only good news for Zhu Youzhen was that they captured more than 500,000 cattle and horses and more than 2 million sheep from the Khiva Khanate.

These sheep are enough to solve the meat problem of the local soldiers and civilians, and although the more than 200,000 stone of grain obtained from the attack on Kandahar and Kabul is not delicious, it can also solve part of the problem.

Therefore, in Cao Wen's edict, the amount of grain transferred to the local army and civilians was only required to be 100,000 stone.

This is good news, because if it is delayed for a few months, there will be more arable land in the Western Regions next year, and more grain will be produced, and grain can be transported directly from the Western Regions to the river, and the loss on the road will not be so large.

However, from this question alone, it can also be seen that the Ming Dynasty's rule over the river was quite difficult.

Although Khiva, Bukhara, Kazakh, Mughal and other countries also cultivated land in the middle of the river, the world temperature in the Ming Dynasty was too low, and there were too few places to cultivate before industrialization.

The recovery of the river is more than worth the loss for the current Ming Dynasty, and before entering the era of internal combustion engines, this place is not very tempting for the Ming Dynasty.

Fortunately, Zhu Youzhen took Zhu Ciran, Zhu Youxiao, Hong Chengchou, and Sun Chuanting, the four people who will rule the Ming Dynasty for at least 20 years, to see various scientific and technological models of the Armaments Institute, and tell about the changes in oil and oil in the Hezhong region in the future.

In other periods, Zhu Youzhen did not dare to guarantee, but in the next twenty years, it would be impossible for the Ming Dynasty to give up Hezhong.

Twenty years later, the railway was opened to traffic, so even if the internal combustion engine did not progress, it would be impossible for the Ming Dynasty to give up the Hezhong region.

"At the moment, the drought is in the south, and it may be difficult to migrate to the river."

Zhu Youxiao looked at the performance of the household department on the drought situation, and replied with an embarrassed expression, but then he breathed a sigh of relief, because he saw the performance of Zhou Yanru, the secretary of the criminal department:

"However, the Ministry of Criminal Affairs has involved many officials because of Jinyiwei's self-examination, and the number of prisoners has suddenly increased to more than 90,000, and if all of them are exiled to the river, it should be able to restore production in the river while cultivating new farmland."

Jin Yiwei self-examined, this is undoubtedly Zhu Ciran's handiwork, and Zhu Youzhen has no dissatisfaction with this.

Since he decided to hand over power, he will not regret it.

"At present, Jinyiwei's self-examination is just the beginning, and the officials who bribed them in the past will also be dismissed one after another."

Zhu Youzhen glanced at Song Shu, looked at Zhu Youxiao and continued:

"There are so many corrupt officials in the world, even if you can only catch one-tenth of them every year, you can restore the prosperity of the Han and Tang dynasties in Hezhong."

"What is needed in the river is the population, and with the population we can use tractors, build water conservancy projects, and continue to cultivate new farmland."

"With the potential of the river, the dynasty can maintain more than one billion acres of grassland and 80 million acres of arable land."

"It's not a problem to feed 20 million people in this place, the problem is that you have to have people."

"In addition, if the population is sufficient in the future, it should also be established as a province step by step."

Zhu Youzhen said his opinion on Hezhong, which was also nodded and approved by Zhu Youxiao.

"How is my brother going to deal with the peace negotiation of Tiger Rabbit Squatting?"

Zhu Youxiao asked about Lin Danhan's begging for peace, and Zhu Youzhen also tapped his fingers on the table and said:

"It's okay to negotiate peace, but Lin Dan Khan's plan must be a firearm."

"Firearms can be sold, and there are still more than 100,000 rifles in the arsenal of the national dynasty, but the tiger rabbit squat does not have enough silver to buy it."

"I am ready for him to use the lands east of the Volga and west of the Ural as a condition for peace."

"As for the purchase of materials, if there is gold and silver, the court can sell it to him, and if not, he can sell the land to the court."

Zhu Youzhen said what he thought.

For Da Ming, those hundreds of thousands of step guns are already the product of elimination, and it is not impossible to sell them to Lin Dan Khan, not to mention that Lin Dan Khan can also be used to stir up the situation in Eastern Europe, which is very beneficial to Da Ming.

"I'm afraid it's not very easy to ......"

Zhu Youxiao frowned, feeling a little unrealistic about his younger brother's idea.

East of the Volga and west of the Ural are the main pastures of Lindan Khan now.

If Lin Dan Khan ceded this land, then he would only be left with more than 10 million acres of grassland west of the Volga River.

Peace was not the only thing he wanted, he still wanted food, iron and firearms.

Zhu Youzhen asked him to sell the land, which means that Lin Dan Khan will return to the situation of nomadic tribes.

If he can't take the lands of other countries, then his people will simply leave him.

"He doesn't have much choice, and he can't fight against Lu Miguo (Ottoman) with his strength."

"Although the country of Lu Mi is not well armed, it still has a population of nearly 20 million, 200,000 soldiers and horses, and a national strength of 12 million taels."

"Every year, the Crimean captives plundered people in the countries of Eastern Europe, all in order to sell them to the country of Lumi."

"Therefore, Lu Miguo will definitely ensure the safety of the Western Prisoners, so it is destined to send troops to drive the tiger and rabbit squatting."

"The current relationship between the country and Persia and Lu Mi is not bad, and it can't directly tear off its face for the time being, so it is destined to support the tiger and rabbit to squat to contain Lu Mi Guo."

"You can canonize Hutu Squatting as the king of Shunning, let him be the screen of the dynasty, and buy time for the dynasty to immigrate to Eastern Europe."

"As for the matter of land, the national dynasty will not let the tiger and rabbit squat at a loss, with one mu of cultivated land five taels, ten acres of grassland one tael, one hundred taels of foot guns, one hundred taels of Yanshan five catties of cannons, and one catty of gunpowder one tael as the criterion for land transactions."

Zhu Youzhen was snickering when he said this so-called criterion.

As the mining industry of Daming entered the first industrial revolution, the price of iron began to fall, and the decline of raw materials also gave way to the cost of guns and artillery.

Now the cost of a rifle is only two dollars of silver, and the Yanshan five-pound cannon is only twenty taels.

That is, a two-dollar silver step gun can be exchanged for two acres of cultivated land, or one hundred acres of grassland.

This deal, Daming can't afford to lose.

Moreover, the use of land to maintain trade is also a disguised attempt to force Lin Dan Khan to invade other countries, thereby stirring up the situation in Europe.

Now the battlefield in Western Europe has entered a high tide, which will last for three or five years at most, and then it will enter a low ebb period, and all countries will develop a war-weary mentality.

As long as the people of all countries begin to be war-weary, then in the end, the Ming Dynasty can stand up and be a peacemaker and completely end the war.

However, according to this trend, the Thirty Years' War may be changed to the Forty Years' War.

In the past ten years, what Daming has to do is to digest the Hezhong region, and at the same time support Lin Dan Khan to become a small overlord in Eastern Europe, or directly become the overlord of Eastern Europe.

Only in this way can the Ming provoke the second and third European wars.

Once the Forty Years' War was over, the Great Mongols would be able to march westward......

Thinking of this, Zhu Youzhen handed over the content of the peace agreement and the terms of land trade that he had written to Lu Wenzhao, who had been standing next to him.

"Give it to the crown prince and the cabinet, and then send officials to negotiate."

"Yes!" Lu Wenzhao responded, took the two notebooks and retreated.

Zhu Youzhen turned his head to look at Zhu Youxiao, but found that he was sipping tea with his head down:

"Hehe, my brother went to Luchuan this time, what did he find and understand?"

Knowing that Zhu Youzhen was knowingly asking, Zhu Youxiao still said happily:

"Well, after going to Luchuan, I discovered the advantages of immigration and the importance of immigration."

"The land of Luchuan is not as barren as the civil officials say, but the land is fertile and very rich."

"When I went to Luchuan, more than 70% of the local population was already Han Chinese, and it is said that Hong Chengchou ordered the local people to be relocated to Demasa Province in the northwest of Luchuan."

"The West Sea Railway was not completed, so I don't have the life of the natives that I saw in Demasa."

"It's the life of the Han people in Luchuan, Mengyang, Mubang and other prefectures, and I really feel a lot of emotion after watching it."

Zhu Youxiao's face showed reminiscence, and then he came back to his senses and said with a wry smile:

"I originally thought that the lives of the people in Sichuan and Yunnan had already satisfied me, but the lives of the people in Luchuan made my eyes shine, and I also understood what my brother said that the needs of the people would change."

Zhu Youxiao sighed: "The people of Shanxi and Shaanxi, a family of seven or eight people, the annual income is only five or six taels of silver, all they want is to be able to eat a full meal, and it is enough to eat a meal of meat during the New Year." ”

"The people of Yunnan and Sichuan, although a family is also seven or eight people, has an annual income of twenty-seven or eighty taels, and the demand is not only to eat enough, but to hope to eat meat at once."

"When I arrived in Luchuan, the local people had five or six people in a family, but their annual income was more than 50 taels of silver."

"People no longer have any demand for food, but have a demand for travel and shelter."

Speaking of this, Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but lean forward:

"Does my brother know? I even saw some people in Luchuan who were dissatisfied with the narrow roads built by the government, so they took the initiative to raise money to help the government widen the roads. ”

"Some people can't wait for the government, so they pool money to build bridges and roads, which is really eye-opening for me."

Zhu Youxiao sighed, and the things he said, although the former Ming Dynasty also had this phenomenon, but those who are qualified and have money to do this kind of thing are local squires.

It is very difficult for ordinary people to earn dozens of taels of silver a year.

It's just that under the policy of immigration and land division, the people of the Ming Dynasty are getting richer and richer, and the court is getting richer and richer.

All this is because of his younger brother......

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but look at Zhu Youzhen, and became more and more reluctant to let his younger brother leave.

Although he thinks that his son and himself can do very well, he does not think that they can do better than his brother.

Zhu Youxiao's uneasiness about Qi also stems from this.

If there was no Zhu Youzhen in the Qi State, then it would only be a relatively powerful vassal state under the Ming Dynasty.

But if there is Zhu Youzhen in the state of Qi, then it is not just a vassal state.

"It's a pity that the Qin Emperor and the Han Dynasty are slightly inferior to the literary talents, and the Tang Dynasty and Song Ancestors are slightly inferior to the coquettish ......"

With the passage of time, Zhu Youxiao felt that his younger brother was describing his own words.

"Where are we going next?"

Zhu Youxiao asked about Zhu Youzhen, but Zhu Youzhen replied without thinking: "Jiaozhi ......"

"The Kunzhan Railway has been completed, and we can take a boat from Cham to Qiongzhou and Guangzhou, and then take a train to Huguang and Henan, and return to Beizhili."

Zhu Youzhen did not plan to go to Jiangnan, because his brother had lived in Jiangnan for several years and knew the situation in Jiangnan very well.

Secondly, after he started the feudal domain, the preparation time would take several months, and he had plenty of time to study Jiangnan.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty is a two-capital system, as long as the imperial power is not restricted, the emperor can go to live in Nanjing City in Nanzhili at will, which is different from the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China, and later generations.

Jiangnan needs to pay attention to only Jiangxi and Zhejiang, while Nanzhili is nothing more than a patchwork product, and it is more specifically called the fourteen directly administered state capitals.

As long as the imperial power is not restricted, the emperor's decrees are unimpeded in the local area, which is why after Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, he and later kings did not split the southern Zhili like the Qing Dynasty.

The emperor is in the north, and the south is directly under the jurisdiction of the fourteen state capitals, so there is no need to split them.

In the past, when taxes were paid, the northern and southern subordinates were the first to pay, because they belonged to the direct jurisdiction of the central government.

After splitting the Nanzhili provinces, the center will lose a financial source that can be directly controlled, and there is not only one more political secretary in the middle, but also one more judicial department, so that the two provinces that are separated from the Nanzhili have soldiers and horses, and the gains outweigh the losses.

Later generations criticized Nanzhili and felt that Nanzhili should be abolished into two provinces, which was nothing more than falling into the thinking of "clearing and mingling".

For the Ming Dynasty, Nanzhili was the basic plate for the rise of the Ming Dynasty, while the Qing Dynasty was different.

Due to the excessive number of killings in the customs, Jiangnan hated the Qing Dynasty extremely much, which made it impossible for them to maintain the Ming Dynasty's two-capital system of Nanzhili.

In addition, there are too many Han people in the local area, and the Qing Dynasty is a small and large clan, so it has to be guarded against.

After setting Nanzhili as Jiangnan Province, the Qing Dynasty still felt that it was not safe, so it divided Jiangnan Province into east and west provinces.

The main reason for this is that neither province can have a complete Huai River defense line, nor can it have a complete Yangtze River natural insurance, which is also in line with the principle of dogs and teeth.

But for the Ming Dynasty, letting Nanzhili have the Huai River defense line and the Yangtze River natural danger is to ensure that no northern force can directly cross the two defense lines to attack Nanjing City.

The two-capital system gave the Ming Dynasty enough flexibility, the emperor was in the south, and the fourteen directly governed prefectures in the south immediately had a unified command, which was a good retreat for the emperor.

For the imperial power of the Ming Dynasty, it was Jiangxi and Zhejiang that were difficult to control, and these two provinces were difficult to split, let alone necessary.

Population migration is what Zhu Youzhen wants to do, and after 22 years of policy restrictions in these two provinces, no less than six million people have been relocated during this period.

If you count Nanzhili, the total migration population of the three places is not less than 10 million.

But even so, the population of the three provinces is still more than 56 million.

However, this also shows that the potential of the three provinces is indeed huge, and they will continue to bear the heavy responsibility of foreign migration in the future.

As long as the two-Beijing system does not collapse, there is a need for Nanzhili to exist.

Worrying about Nanzhili becoming bigger is like worrying that the economy of a country's capital is too high......

"In the future, my brother and Brother Ran will still have to walk around in southern Beijing and continue to maintain the two-Beijing system."

"As long as there are no problems in the two capitals, the imperial court can directly collect one-fifth of the imperial court's tax revenue without going through any political secretary."

Zhu Youzhen explained to Zhu Youxiao, and Zhu Youxiao also nodded solemnly.

The two brothers looked at each other and smiled, and Zhu Youzhen also spoke:

"It's morning for the horse, and it's time for a lunch break to sleep."

"Brother, go to sleep first, and I'll take a look at these national policies you wrote." Zhu Youxiao responded.

Seeing this, Zhu Youzhen didn't say much, and after bowing his head, he turned around and left the carriage.

Zhu Youxiao was the only one left, and he also buried his head in looking at the various national policies written by Zhu Youzhen in the past month and a half.

Compared with the leisure of the two of them, Zhu Ciran, who is far away in Beijing, can be said to be very busy.

In the Chunhe Hall of the East Palace, eleven tables and chairs are neatly placed.

On the main seat, Zhu Ciran was sitting, and there were mountains of three hundred pieces on the table.

The two on the left and right are the cabinet ministers Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting.

Further down, there are Li Changgeng, Zhou Yanru, Wen Tiren, and Kim Xuan.

These six people are the cabinet ministers of the Ming Dynasty, and behind them are Sun Kewang, Liu Shun, Zhang Xiu, and Du Yinxi of the East Palace.

Li Yongzhen, the eunuch of the East Palace, was guarding next to Zhu Ciran, responsible for passing one note after another.

These notes were handed over to the ministries, and then transferred to Hong Chengchou's hands.

Although Hong Chengchou dealt with these notes quickly, he was extremely unhappy in his heart.

Ever since Sun Chengzong became a minister, he has always felt that he is the next cabinet chief.

It's just that reality gave him a hard slap in the face.

Neither the King of Qi nor the Emperor announced who the new Shoufu would be, but left the position vacant.

If it's just like this, forget it, he Hong Chengchou has endured it for more than 20 years, and he can endure it in the past few years.

But the problem is that the subsequent King of Qi and the Emperor announced that Jin Xuan and Yan Yinshao would enter the cabinet, and let Hong Chengchou handle the affairs of the first assistant on his behalf.

This way of dealing with it is like letting an ordinary employee do the work of the supervisor, but the treatment and title are still the same as that of an ordinary employee.

Although everyone calls him Hong Chengchou "Hong Ge Lao", only he Hong Chengchou himself knows.

Before the decree came down, he was always just a minister, not an elder.

This situation is like an inspection period, during which Hong Chengchou has to tremble and be careful in everything, for fear that if he does something wrong, he will get a "bad review" from King Qi.

This method is not torture for people like Sun Chuanting, because Sun Chuanting doesn't care about his position, he cares more about how much he can do, and even he worries that he is not worthy of the position.

But when he arrived at Hong Chengchou, he felt as if he had been hanging his appetite, and his mind and body were suffering from the double torture that he should not bear.

The emperor could not think of such a means, because he could not understand his own character.

Only the King of Qi, only he could come up with such a means......

As soon as he thought of this, Hong Chengchou wanted to cry without tears, looking at the piece of music that only the first assistant of the cabinet can be regarded as the right to approve the red, Hong Chengchou could only sigh in his heart.

In front of King Qi, he was really played with like a mouse.

This feeling is really uncomfortable for him......

(End of chapter)