"Woo Rumble Rumble ......"

"Beware of the little stones in the ground!"

"Yes!"

On February 19, it was the day of spring ploughing, and the sound of tractors continued to sound for most of the century.

However, only the people of the Ming Dynasty who are known as the "jade people" can operate the tractor.

If it is to be subdivided, it should be said that only the Ming Dynasty, as the suzerain, and the Qi State, as a foreign minister, can use tractors.

However, after more than ten years of change, the tractor, which weighed one ton and looked boxy, has also changed its appearance at this moment.

On a farmland more than 50 miles north of Xijing City, a crawler tractor that resembles a small locomotive is moving slowly in the field.

Around this ten-acre field, there are also officials and people on the third floor and the outer three floors.

The reason why they care so much about this tractor is because this tractor is the first tractor that can act on its own under the system of the Great Ming Sect.

But in addition to tractors, they are more concerned about ......

"The Xuanyuan tractor uses a high-pressure steam engine as the power, adding 100 catties of coal and 200 catties of water each time, with a total weight of 2 tons and 6."

"The tractor can cultivate about five acres of land with one fuel, and if it is used for reclamation, it is estimated that about 30 acres of cultivated land can be cultivated in a climate like Xijing City throughout the year."

"It's just that the cost is a little more expensive, two hundred and fifty-six taels and four dollars......"

On the edge of the farmland, Xu Shihou of the Qi Academy of Sciences was reporting to a man dressed in the prince's regular clothes.

While he was reporting, thousands of people around him were looking firmly at the man he was reporting to.

The person who can get such favor from the people is undoubtedly the current King of Qi......

Zhu Youzhen, the once high-spirited His Royal Highness King Qi, is now nearly half a hundred years old.

The years have left too many marks on his face, no matter how much the imperial doctors in the hospital recuperate, at most Zhu Youzhen looks about the same as his early forties.

Standing behind him, Zhu Cihong, Zhu Cixuan, and Zhu Cijiong looked at his back, with mixed feelings and mixed feelings in their hearts.

The father, who used to be tall and unattainable for them, is also old, and they can't say it in their hearts, but they feel a little uncomfortable.

"It's nothing more expensive, and it's not the time to appear, so you can continue to research and reduce the weight and cost."

Zhu Youzhen looked up at the crawler tractor that was working in the field, and at the same time handed the information in his hand to Xu Shihou next to him.

"Send the drawings and model No. 2 to the armaments institute of the dynasty, and the two sides will work together to study it."

Zhu Youzhen still made the moves he had always done in the past ten years, sending the latest scientific and technological achievements of Qi to Daming, without hiding anything from Daming.

Standing next to him, Xia Yunyi responded, and Xia Wanchun next to him also picked up the notes and asked people to go down to handle it.

"I went to the central capital city to take a look, although the local people are doing well, but the land there is very tight, stop the population migration work in the central capital for a while, don't put pressure on the local officials."

Zhu Youzhen turned around and walked towards the village not far away, and the people and officials also moved with him.

Zhu Cihong and the three of them followed closely behind, looking at his back with the eyes of Wuyue.

Although the land of Qi is vast and sparsely populated, the infrastructure construction is not slow, and most of the villages with Han Chinese have built cement roads.

Walking on the cement road, Zhu Youzhen's eyes were around, and also on the people on both sides of the road.

He glanced at the fact that almost all of the people were dressed in factory-made cotton cloth, and a few wore silk to welcome him.

They are mostly stout, and older ones tend to be a little emaciated.

This kind of situation made Zhu Youzhen's eyes flash with a trace of satisfaction, at least the phenomenon of people not being able to wear clothes like the one in Shanxi did not appear in Qi State, but he still felt that it was insufficient.

The king of Qi went out on patrol, such things often appeared in the Qi country in the past ten years, and after a long time, some rules were naturally formed.

Since Zhu Youzhen went to some villages from time to time, he randomly went to some villages, so in the daily life of all village officials, it became one of their jobs to train the people not to "encircle, chase and intercept."

Although this greatly reduced the chaos caused by Zhu Youzhen's appearance in the countryside and the excitement of the people, it made Zhu Youzhen feel that something was missing, but he did not have the feeling of Qinghai Lake back then.

Zhu Youzhen led the team forward, and the people also moved with him, but they couldn't bear it and didn't make too much noise.

At the end of the road is a village, and the houses in the village were all built by the Ministry of Industry many years ago, basically in the style of Jiangnan courtyard.

It's just that no matter how clean and tidy these yards were when they were delivered, after so many years, the messy ones were also dirty.

The courtyards on the street were all open, and Zhu Youzhen walked to the door of a house and walked in, and Zhu Cihong and them were the same.

The courtyard is mainly composed of the main house in the middle and the four transept rooms in the front and back, plus thatched houses and pigsties, cow and horse sheds and chicken coops.

There are four transepts, each with two bedrooms on the left and right, and the two rooms in the main house make a total of ten rooms.

Zhu Youzhen did not go to the people's rooms, but looked at the kitchen and firewood room.

Xia Yunyi asked the owner of the house to be called, and a simple man in his forties dressed in cotton clothes, top and pants walked into the kitchen sweating profusely.

Zhu Youzhen opened the rice cylinder, and it was estimated that there were less than 100 catties of rice in the three-foot-high rice cylinder.

The rice in the jar was eaten five inches deep, Zhu Youzhen turned over the rice with a gourd scoop, and after not finding anything greasy, he looked at the simple man and smiled:

"There are so many people in the family, is this rice enough to eat?"

"Enough, enough! Side kitchen...... Firewood, firewood and three large jars of rice that have not been molted are all eaten for two years......"

The man spoke a little nervously, mistaking the firewood room for a kitchen, but it also seemed more real.

Zhu Youzhen smiled, chatted with him about the shortcomings of his parents, and looked at the other jars of sauce, vinegar, salt and tea, which were basically half used, or had just been opened and used for a few days.

Not far from the stove, a seven-foot-high, three-square-meter firewood stack attracted Zhu Youzhen's attention.

He walked over and looked at the stack of firewood, and then at the dozens of honeycomb coals next to the stack, and couldn't help asking:

"With so much firewood, when can you use it?"

"It will be used up in July or August." The man replied nervously, his forehead covered with sweat.

Zhu Youzhen smiled, picked up a clean linen cloth hanging on the door and handed it to him, signaling him to wipe his sweat and not be nervous.

"This firewood is finished, should you buy it or cut it?"

"There aren't so many big forests nearby, so I have to buy them, but now the timber merchants only sell sawn trees and stomping."

"A two-foot tree stomping, three pennies a penny, can split twelve large pieces of firewood, eighteen pieces of small firewood, enough to burn for a day."

The man explained their life to Zhu Youzhen, Zhu Youzhen nodded after listening, and the three of Zhu Cihong, who were standing at the door and listening, gained a little more knowledge.

In the Ming Dynasty, firewood is more expensive than the price of coal, the price of coal is three catties per penny, and the cost of one hundred catties per load of river firewood costs about fifty wen, so it is usually to buy coal.

In the man's words, fifty wen is enough to buy one hundred and fifty tree stampedes, and each stomping is basically about twenty or thirty catties.

If this is the case, then the firewood used by the peasant people of Qi Country is cheaper and affordable.

Not only these, but under the watchful eye of Zhu Cihong and others, Zhu Youzhen discussed with men the price and purchase convenience of firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea.

The price of these materials needed for life is often only about one-third of that of the Ming Dynasty.

From this point of view, although the income of the people of Qi is not as good as that of Daming, their lives are more comfortable than that of Daming.

"Let's go to the warehouse."

Zhu Youzhen finished looking at the kitchen and took people to the warehouse next to the kitchen.

The warehouse is only about ten square meters, and there are three large vats four feet high and three feet wide, and the vats are full of untreated grain.

Next to the grain jar, there is also a wall full of fodder, soil and fertilizer, which seems to be forty or fifty bags.

Zhu Youzhen glanced at it slightly, walked around for a while, and then nodded with a smile and went to the miscellaneous courtyard behind.

In the courtyard, there was a horse and a mule under the cow shed.

Next to it is a three-story chicken and duck coop knocked out of wood, six feet high, five feet wide, and one and a half feet deep.

There are more than a dozen chickens and ducks in the chicken and duck house, and they are chattering non-stop.

In addition to the cow shed and chicken coop, he also went to see the pigsty in the miscellaneous yard, and there were seven pigs lying in the pen, two large and five small.

It can be said that in terms of the value of these livestock and poultry in the miscellaneous yard alone, the standard of living of this family has caught up with some rich peasants in the eighties and nineties.

"How many people in the family have divided a few acres of land, how are you doing?"

When Zhu Cihong was inspecting the miscellaneous courtyard by Zhu Youzhen, he smiled and asked the nervous head of the household man next to him, the man didn't know Zhu Cihong's identity, but he was an accompanying official, and the pressure couldn't help but be less, so he replied:

"There are two parents, two husbands and wives, and three children, a total of seven people, and in the nine years since they migrated here, they have divided the land nine times, and there are 45 acres and three points of land in the household."

"The days are very good, I have enough to eat every day, there is no shortage of vegetables, fruits and meat, and after the spring planting and autumn harvest, I will buy a set of clothes for everyone."

The man in charge of the household told the situation at home, which caused Zhu Cihong to be speechless.

He is in a sparsely populated county like Fangzhang County, and the people are only four acres of land per person.

Judging from his experience as the abbot of Zhixian County, one more acre of land and one less acre of land, the difference is worlds apart, let alone two or three acres of land.

It makes sense that the people of Qi have lived a nourishing life, they caught up with the industrial revolution of Qi country, and they came directly between the first and second industrial revolutions.

Coupled with the vast territory of Qi and the countless developable places, it is more difficult not to be rich.

"Let's go, go to the other people's homes."

Zhu Youzhen, who had seen enough, interrupted Zhu Cihong's speech, and took Zhu Cihong and them to go door-to-door to see the lives of the people.

Walking down one by one, in fact, the life of each family is almost the same.

With the continuous population and industrial blood transfusion of the Ming Dynasty to Qi State, coupled with the demographic dividend of nearly 20 million people of Qi State, it is difficult for more than 7 million people to think about it.

After Zhu Youzhen finished reading, he took Zhu Cihong and the three of them and the people in the village, and the village officials held a meeting in the drying field next to the village officials' office.

Zhu Cihong watched his father mingle with the people, chatting about the shortcomings of the parents, and at the same time, he did not forget to remind the people to supervise the appearance of officials, and he was a little confused for a while.

When he was young, Zhu Cihong didn't think about it, but as he got older and older, he only felt that his father was really great.

He could have been the emperor, but he didn't.

He could have enjoyed himself after coming to the Qi Kingdom, but he didn't.

On the way to Qi State, when he heard Xia Yunyi say that his father even had to take care of the affairs of each county, he thought that his father had more restrictions on the power of Qi officials.

He didn't find out until he came to Qi and followed his father to deal with government affairs for a few days.

His father was not so much restricting local officials as he was supervising them.

For the performance of local officials, his father first gave him approval, and then put forward his own opinions, which gave the local officials enough respect.

Except for some of the local officials who did not treat the people as human beings and liked to engage in various projects, they were scolded by their father, who seemed to respect all local officials.

This kind of negotiated way of dealing with it is very difficult to appear in the Ming Dynasty.

Whether it is their own imperial uncle or their own eldest brother who is in charge of the country, they all follow their own ideas and political opinions, and firmly grasp the power in their hands.

Such a difference makes Zhu Cihong feel very unreal.

When Zhu Youzhen had a meeting with the people, Zhu Cihong frowned, trying to put himself in the position of his father.

But in doing so, he realized that power is really scary sometimes.

There is no way for him to guarantee that he can be like his own father, and he will respect the officials below him for a long time, and it is even more difficult to imagine that he would have to explain and consult with officials who have raised objections to his policies.

He listened to the whole process of the meeting almost with a frown, and it was not until Zhu Youzhen got up that he was pulled back to reality and returned to the carriage on the country road surrounded by the people.

The four-wheeled carriage with four large horses was wide enough to accommodate a dozen people.

However, except for Zhu Youzhen, only the king of the three counties, Xia Yunyi and Xia Wanchun, could get on the bus.

The six of them got into the carriage, and Zhu Youzhen sat on the main seat.

"How do you feel after watching it in the past few days?"

As soon as Zhu Youzhen sat down, he asked about the king of the three counties who had just sat down, just because he was paying attention to his three children almost the whole time.

The three of them almost frowned and listened to the entire meeting, and in the face of Zhu Youzhen's inquiry, Zhu Cixuan and Zhu Cijiong were a little embarrassed, and they didn't know how to say the words when they came to their mouths.

However, when Zhu Cihong heard the inquiry, he muttered for a moment before he spoke:

"The government and the people of the country are harmonious, although there are occasional frictions, but in general, the people trust the imperial court."

"As for the officials, Erchen feels that the officials of his country are younger than the national dynasty, and they are more capable and daring to do things."

"These are all advantages that need to be maintained."

Zhu Cihong said his thoughts on inspecting the towns around Xijing City in the past few days, and Zhu Cixuan and Zhu Cijiong also nodded in agreement.

Looking at their appearance, Zhu Youzhen was a little satisfied, but also a little dissatisfied.

"I know the situation of Daming, I can't say that Brother Ran did wrong, and I can't say that he is not wrong, but he is always a little harsh on officials."

"Harsh?" Hearing that his father finally said this, Zhu Cihong couldn't hold back.

Zhu Youzhen has been away for sixteen years, and Daming has already demonized him.

In public opinion, Zhu Yuanzhang standing next to Zhu Youzhen can be called a white lotus.

The officials and their families who died directly and indirectly at the hands of Zhu Youzhen are no less than one million.

Among them, the most conspicuous is Dongshan Mansion (New Guinea Island), where Zhu Youzhen often liked to exile officials when he was in power.

According to the statistics of the household department, Zhu Youzhen exiled a total of 370,000 people to Dongshan Mansion.

By the thirtieth year of the Apocalypse, that is, seven years after Zhu Youzhen had left the Ming Dynasty, the population of Dongshan Mansion was only more than 174,000.

Nearly 200,000 people have died in the region, and this is just a microcosm.

Zhu Youzhen, who has such "results", said that Zhu Ciran was "harsh", which inevitably made people in a trance.

"Corrupt officials should be severely punished, but for officials who have nothing to do with them, what needs to be done is to give them enough courage to do things."

Zhu Youzhen opened his mouth to speak, and said the shortcomings of Zhu Ciran's nearly 20 years in power:

"Brother Ran asked all the officials to follow their own ideas, and did not reply to the questions raised by the officials."

"Maybe he's busy, or maybe he doesn't feel the need to reply, but it's not a good thing after all."

Zhu Youzhen picked up a book of brocade guards from the table and gestured:

"Jinyiwei came with the news, and during the first month, Jinyiwei, the Criminal Department, and the three divisions of the Metropolitan Procuratorate took action, and there were no less than 10,000 arrested officials and businessmen in Jiangnan and Qilu."

"With Brother Ran'er's habits, he is most likely ready to implicate this group of people and their three tribes, and even the six and nine tribes, and then send them to Ganges Province."

"Judging from the scale of the main culprit alone is 10,000, I am afraid that no less than 200,000 people will be implicated this time."

"If he does this, what will the temple officials think of him? What about the merchants? ”

Zhu Youzhen said, but Zhu Cijiong said bluntly: "But didn't my father do the same back then? ”

As soon as Zhu Cijiong's words came out, Xia Yunyi and Xia Wanchun, who were sitting next to him, both sighed in their hearts.

However, in the face of Zhu Cijiong's words, Zhu Youzhen smiled and lowered his head to pour himself a cup of tea, and responded at the same time:

"It wasn't the same as it is now."

"When the slaves in Jiangnan were in rebellion, almost all the people in Jiangnan hated the local gentry and heroes, so forcing them to relocate was something that the people liked to see."

"But this time, it's ......" Zhu Youzhen took a sip of tea:

"Most of the current businessmen are rich peasants who turned to business, and the environment in Jiangnan is not as bad as it was back then, so the people don't have much hatred for these rich businessmen."

"Under such circumstances, involving more than 500,000 people, I am afraid that public opinion will not be so good."

Zhu Youzhen explained, and at the same time, it also made Zhu Cihong and the three of them a little clearer about the reasons why Zhu Youzhen dared to do something to Jiangnan back then.

In general, in Jiangnan at that time, the gentry and merchants jointly oppressed the people, and there were many slaves in the house.

But now, in the general environment, the people's lives are good, and the businessmen are also rules for doing business, there is no price gouging or anything, and the people rarely scold the businessmen for their high prices.

In such a situation, if Zhu Ciran wants to take action against the businessmen, he will have to withstand the pressure of public opinion.

"You can pay close attention to it, and learn how Uncle Huang and Brother Ran deal with it."

Zhu Youzhen said, and at the same time smiled:

"I'm also old, and the affairs of Qi have to work together with your three brothers."

"From tomorrow, Brother Xuan will go to the Ministry of Industry on an errand, Brother Jiong will go to the Ministry of Officials on an errand, Brother Hong, you will handle government affairs in the Carrier Palace."

Zhu Youzhen delegated power to his three sons, but still guaranteed that Zhu Cihong's power was the largest of them.

"The retainers are ...... to receive orders"

The third son responded, a little apprehensive and a little excited.

The father and son were all satisfied, not to mention Xia Yunyi and Xia Wanchun next to them.

Knowing that Zhu Youzhen was going to delegate power to the three county kings, their father and son were overjoyed.

No one knows Zhu Youzhen's physical condition better than the two of them, his body has been running at full capacity for many years, and if it continues like this, one day he will suddenly be unable to withstand it.

Now that the three county kings are back, Zhu Youzhen can also have a little more time to rest.

Thinking of this, Xia Yunyi and Xia Wanchun glanced at each other, and they both smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

(End of chapter)