In the late spring of the fifteenth year of Wu'an, a major event occurred in Jiangning City.

"Did you hear that, it is said that the gentleman at Jiangning University has developed a thing called a steam engine, which only needs water and fuel to exert a steady stream of power?"

"Strange skills Yin is just a coincidence, my Great Xia has its own national conditions here, and this kind of thing is also made for the high-ranking masters to play."

"Hey, that's a mistake, the Son of Heaven has always attached importance to the development of science and technology, if this thing called the steam engine can be perfected, maybe it won't take a few years, and it will be everywhere outside."

In a teahouse in Jiangning City, Zheng Jing, who was dressed in short clothes and strong clothes, listened to the chatter of a few flat-headed people next to him, and casually drank the tea in his cup, and then put it on the table.

Li Sixing, the second son of the King of Xining, who was sitting opposite him, poured tea for him with his own hands, and asked with a smile: "Xianzhi, I remember that you were not on an errand in the palace, how much do you know about the steam engine that has been rumored outside recently?"

"I don't know the details." Zheng Jing shook his head and said, "Your Majesty didn't take me with you when he went to Jiangning University, I only know that this steam engine seems to be just ...... Well...... Working model? That's what they seem to say."

"What is a working model?" Li Sixing asked curiously.

"I guess it's a sample." Zheng Jing didn't know how to explain to the friend in front of him, "Anyway, it's still only during the experiment, and I heard from His Majesty that it will take at least ten years to promote it on a large scale."

"That's been a long time." Li Sixing shook his head, and his curiosity about this steam engine suddenly decreased a lot.

The conversation between the two of them was no longer about the nonsense of the steam engine, but instead of discussing the interesting things they had seen during this time.

The steam engine was researched by He Jiuyun, the system affairs officer who followed Su Yan for the longest time in Jiangning University, and a few years ago, he was instructed by Su Yan to begin to study the knowledge of the steam engine.

After so many years of research and failure, he finally mastered the knowledge and laws and began to develop them, and finally developed the first working model of the steam engine.

Of course, there is also a systematic help in this, otherwise how could the East have made a steam engine one step ahead of the West when all kinds of knowledge have not yet been maturely established.

Although the working model is smaller, it can perform the functions of a normal steam engine, requiring only water and fuel to be filled with steam to get the machine running.

Although Su Yan was a little dissatisfied with the slow progress, he also knew that if he wanted to hurry, he would not be able to become fat in one go, so he did not pick a thorn, but encouraged He Jiuyun to continue to develop it, and gave him a rich reward.

Speaking of which, the gap in the level of knowledge of Jiangning University has basically caught up with the teaching level of mature universities in the West.

Su Yan spent a lot of money to hire scholars and knowledgeable missionaries from the West to teach at Jiangning University, including mathematics, astronomy, geography, etc., and also purchased a number of books on the history and philosophy of Western countries, so that the missionaries could assist in sinicization.

Although the level of knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, and geography in China should not be underestimated, Su Yan knows the truth of learning from each other's strengths, and he hopes to blend Eastern and Western cultures to make up for their shortcomings and improve their knowledge in this field.

It turned out that the scholars and missionaries hired by him were quite contractual, and they worked diligently for Su Yan, often having heated discussions with the scholars of the Xia Dynasty.

However, there was a side effect of this—the missionaries who spoke Chinese with an accent could not forget their job and could not resist the desire to proselytize while teaching.

As a result, hundreds of people in the huge Jiangning University have been baptized and become believers in the cross.

Of course, although they believed in the cross, their loyalty to Su Yan remained unshaken, which was rooted in the bones of each of them.

Throughout the territory of Great Xia, in addition to Jiangning University, the imperial court also began to prepare for the construction of several new universities, so that students far away from Jiangning could also be

Further study.

The location of several new universities chosen by the imperial court has a strong political connotation, and as mentioned earlier, there are very loud voices in the court proposing to follow the example of the Ming Dynasty and implement the three-capital system, and set Beiping and Chang'an as the accompanying capitals.

The location of the new university naturally includes these two places, and the imperial court ordered the household department to allocate funds to establish Yenching University in the western suburbs of Beiping and Xijing University in the eastern suburbs of Chang'an.

Look, Yenching University and Xijing University, as soon as the names were proposed, many ministers immediately smelled the political meaning behind them - those who can be called Beijing, I am afraid that the emperor has already moved, and is really ready to set Beiping and Chang'an as the accompanying capital.

In addition to these two universities, new universities will also be built in Guangzhou, Shenyang, Yache, and Dongning, and these new universities will hire scholars from the East and the West as professors, and once completed, students who are far away from Beijing will be able to go to university as they wish.

After the news spread, students from all over the country cheered, and many of them dreamed of going to Jiangning University for further study, and being able to learn new knowledge was only a secondary reason, and more importantly, they wanted to be an official in the imperial examination to get a bonus......

After announcing the construction of new universities in various places, in May of the 16th year of Wu'an, after careful consideration by the imperial court, the official decree was finally drafted, announcing that Beiping and Chang'an would be set up as the accompanying capitals, and that the six departments of Yanjing and the six departments of Xijing would be set up in the second prefecture.

The functions of the six departments of the capital were basically the same as those of the central imperial court, and the six departments of Yanjing were responsible for handling the administrative affairs of the imperial protectorates north of the Yellow River, Guanwai, Mongolia, and Xianbeilia.

The Sixth Department of Xijing is responsible for handling the government affairs west of Shaanxi, including Wusizang, Anxi, Yili Dusi, Mengchi Duhufu and other places.

Every quarter (four months), the two small imperial courts accompanying the capital were required to explain the work results of the past quarter to the central court, and in order to avoid officials from being deceived and concealed, the central court would also regularly send imperial historians to inspect the place, and closely monitor the actions of the small court with brocade guards.

It can be said that under the joint supervision of Jinyiwei and Yushi, the two small imperial courts accompanying the capital have no chance to cheat and harbor ill intentions at all - not to mention that the imperial court of the accompanying capital has no power to mobilize field legions at all, and they can only mobilize the garrisons of the provinces at most to suppress bandits and quell the rebellion.

After the imperial court announced the implementation of the Sanjing system, the Xia Dynasty became the Sanjing and 36 provinces, at least for the current period.

With such a huge territory, if it is placed in the game, the direct administrative power will explode, and if there is no system maintenance, those newly conquered areas will only burst out in a few minutes.

This is also the reason why Su Yan is in a hurry to promote the Chinese language and culture in foreign areas, he wants to assimilate the foreign race as much as possible before his death, and reduce the possibility of foreign rebellion.

……

In May of the sixteenth year of Wu'an, Mengchi was the protector of Zhede Ulu area, Aktau city.

"This damn weather, it's so hot during the day, and it can freeze people to death at night, damn it."

On the city walls, the garrison militia recruited from the local Zhedeullu tribe looked up at the glare of the sun and grumbled with their companions.

"Don't mention it." His companion's gaze looked at the caravan entering and exiting the city gate, and said, "I don't know which damn guy stole my blanket, it almost didn't freeze me to death last night, if I knew who it was, I would have made his ass bloom!"

The garrison militia who was the first to speak was about to say a few words of ridicule, but at this moment, the soldier standing a few paces away suddenly pointed to the distant horizon and shouted, "There is a situation, there are cavalry galloping quickly this way!"

As his words fell, the soldiers on the walls of the city hurriedly turned their eyes in the direction that the man was pointing, and under their gaze, a fast horse galloped like lightning from afar, and they knew very well that it was the direction of the Khiva Khanate.

The cavalryman quickly ran outside the city walls to make his figure visible to the militiamen above, and the cavalryman, dressed in a distinctly Central Asian nomadic robe, looked tired and looked like he had come after a long journey.

The spear-wielding militia under the city gate had been prepared in advance, and they dispersed the civilians who were about to enter and exit the city gate, and formed a thin spear formation in front of the city gate, and the officer at the head shouted to the cavalry:

"Stop! Don't come back again

Finish! Otherwise we're going to shoot!"

The cavalryman obediently stopped less than ten meters before the spear formation, and with a look of haste on his face, he shouted:

"I'm an emissary of the Khiva Khanate, and I have something important to report to the officials of Bactria !

"An emissary of the Khanate?" The commander looked at the cavalryman suspiciously, but saw that the cavalryman was talking and took out the token from his bosom to prove his identity.

After confirming the identity of the other party, the commander hurriedly ordered someone to get out of the way, allowing the cavalry to pass smoothly.

After the cavalry was gone, he looked at the back of the cavalry leaving, and a faint sense of uneasiness rose in his heart.

"Is the peaceful life about to be shattered?" He asked in his heart.

……

"The Persians want to annex your country?"

In Astana, where the Protectorate of the Pond was stationed, Mu Tianbo looked at the messenger who was kneeling on the ground, and had questions in his heart.

"Yes, please lend a helping hand to the Guardians of the Kingdom and save us Khivas!" The messenger buried his head deep in the ground, weeping profusely, and his every move was full of sincere emotions.

His performance fell in Mu Tianbo's eyes, but it made Mu Tianbo unable to make up his mind for a while, he really doubted this, and couldn't figure out why the Persians suddenly wanted to annex their titular vassal Khiva Khanate.

Moreover, he also had other worries - he was worried that the Persians and the Khivas were playing a game, trying to lure the Xia army into sending troops and then turn against him.

Mu Tianbo's worries were the same as those of the Ming Dynasty monarchs and ministers when they heard the news of the Renchen Rebellion in Jiazi, when the Ming Dynasty monarchs and ministers learned of the speed of the Koreans' defeat and retreat, they thought that the Koreans were preparing to join forces with the Japanese to deal with them.

Seeing that Mu Tianbo didn't believe him very much, the messenger hurriedly knocked his head on the ground several times, swearing that everything he said was true, and only asked Daxia to send troops to help.

He also said that if Mu Tianbo didn't believe it, he just had to rest assured that he would be able to guarantee with his life that everything he said was true.

The other party's attitude really made Mu Tianbo unable to see that he was acting, even if he had the experience of being betrayed, it was still difficult to see the flaws of the messenger.

This is actually not difficult to understand, because the envoy did not know that the Persians were acting with the king of the Khan to plot against the Xia Dynasty, and he really thought that the evil Persians wanted to annex his country, and if this was not full of feelings and sincerity, then he had a problem.

Although Mu Tianbo couldn't tell if the other party was lying to him, he was not in a hurry to make up his mind immediately.

He made a hesitant look of thought, and after a while, he said to the messenger, "I already know about this matter, and I will immediately go to the imperial court, and if the imperial court allows the sending of troops, I will definitely lead the righteous army of the Celestial Empire to help you, so you can go down and rest first."

After speaking, regardless of the messenger's performance, he directly waved his hand and asked the soldiers to forcibly put the messenger down.

Subsequently, Mu Tianbo did not rush to write the recital immediately, but contacted the Jinyi Guards in the Mengchi Metropolitan Protectorate and sent someone to the Khiva Khanate to investigate the information, if everything was really true, then he would immediately go to the court.

For a time, the Jinyi Guard, who pretended to be in various identities or had already lurked in the Khiva Khanate and Persia, began to act, sending the information obtained from the spy back to Astana through various channels and handing it over to Mu Tianbo.

The information gathered by the Brocade Guards invariably indicated that the Persians and Khivas were indeed mobilizing for war, and rumors were rife circulating between the two countries that Persia was about to annex the Khiva Khanate.

Within the Khiva Khanate, there were many people who were shocked by the "betrayal" of the Persians, and there were also voices asking for help from the Xia Dynasty and asking for the intervention of the Xia army.

Not only that, but the brocade guards lurking in Persia also gathered some information that they thought could reasonably explain all of this—the objections of the aforementioned nobles.

After reading all kinds of information, Mu Tianbo couldn't help but believe in the rumors that the Persians were preparing to annex the Khiva Khanate, so he ordered someone to prepare paper money, write all this into the fold, play the emperor, and let the emperor decide.

In the recital, he also wrote his own thoughts, arguing that the Persians had at least 80 percent credibility in the military operations of the Khiva Khanate, and that if the imperial court wanted to take this opportunity to reach out to the west, it would be a golden opportunity.

After all, although Great Xia's international reputation has become a bit notorious (or fearful to neighboring countries) due to its continuous external expansion, if it provokes a war for no reason, it is afraid that it will further touch the fragile little hearts of neighboring countries.

Of course, out of prudence, he thought that the imperial court could send troops to Khiva, but at the same time, it was necessary to be prepared for the possibility of the Khiva Khanate defecting - Yidi was cunning and scheming, and it was necessary to guard against it.

and the tsarist Russia, which is eyeing the tiger, must also be on guard.