Yao Guangxiao replied: "The situation in the north is not very good, and Jiang Sheng said that there are indeed coal and iron producing areas, but most of them need to be redeveloped. Take coal as an example, most of the coal is concentrated in Shanxi, and from Shanxi to Hebei to transport coal, can only take the Jingcheng Road to the east, the Hutuo River water transportation is convenient, but the transportation in the Shanxi political envoy is very troublesome, and the Mongols are in the north, the king of Jin is in the south, they are all ready to move, Datong's strength is a problem, Ping'an, Sheng Yong's hands are too little, and if the Jin King is not solved, I am afraid that Shanxi's resources are also difficult to exploit smoothly. ”

"What about the iron ore in Liaodong?"

If Jiang Xinghuo remembers correctly, Liaodong has the largest iron ore mine in Asia, and fortunately, although the actual control range of the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong is only the Liaoxi Plain after the Liaoxi Corridor comes out, this iron mine happens to be on the side, and the soldiers and horses under Baoding Hou Mengshan can keep an eye on it at any time.

And it is a pity that the coal resources in the Northeast, the top four coal mines, are all from Heilongjiang, and Heilongjiang in this era, for the Ming Dynasty, is obviously a little beyond the reach of the whip, can only implement the local indigenous rule, want to go to mining is really difficult, and transportation is also a problem that cannot be solved at all.

"There is no problem with the mining of iron ore, Baoding Hou replied, as long as you want to mine, you want as much as you want, the previous dynasty was not short of iron, and there was a shortage of craftsmen in Liaodong, so it has not moved."

"That's good."

Jiang Xinghuo thought for a while, and then said: "If Shanxi's coal resources are indeed difficult to exploit, then Beijing's Xishan and Yongpingfu's Kailuan are all coal mines, which should be enough to start. These two coal mines can be used first, and then the coal mines in Shanxi can be mined after the transportation conditions are renovated in the future. ”

The industrial revolution in Britain was in the logical order of textiles, metallurgy, coal mining, steam engines, and railways, which were five major fields, and it was in these five fields that many new machines and new technologies were invented, which greatly improved production efficiency, and at the same time allowed the factory system to replace handicrafts.

Although the model of the industrial revolution of the Ming Dynasty is fundamentally different from that of the Ying, it is almost the same in terms of the order of development of the industrial sector.

The first area is textiles, the British Industrial Revolution invented a variety of textile machines, such as Jenny spinning machines, hydraulic spinning machines, barrel machines, shuttle looms, etc., these machines made the cotton textile industry develop rapidly, cotton cloth became one of the most important export commodities in Britain Of course, these machines also made the artisanal weavers lose their livelihoods, triggering a series of riots against the machine.

Jiang Xinghuo has basically completed the first stage of this matter, and has effectively controlled the impact on the domestic family handmade textile industry.

The second field is metallurgy, during the Industrial Revolution, Britain invented a variety of metallurgical technologies, such as coke iron smelting method, Pudel method, Corning method, etc., it is these technologies that have greatly improved the production and quality of iron, so that high-quality iron has become one of the most important materials in the industrial revolution, and high-quality iron can be used to make various machines, tools, weapons, etc.

Jiang Xinghuo intends to go through the progress of the military industry, to force the progress of material science, and then promote the development of the metallurgical industry, in fact, now firearms are indeed facing difficulties in materials, many technical indicators can not be realized, this is also the reason why Jiang Xinghuo intends to lay out heavy industry in the north, as I have said before.

The third field is coal mining, during the Industrial Revolution, Britain invented a variety of coal mining technologies, such as water pumps, fans, safety lights, etc., these technologies make coal mining more safe and efficient, coal has become one of the most important energy sources in the Industrial Revolution, coal can be used to drive steam engines, heating and smelting, etc.

At the same time, coal is also a precondition for steam engines.

The fourth field is the steam engine, the steam engine is the most important power source in the industrial revolution, can be used to drive various machines, tools, vehicles, etc., and the fifth field is the railway, such as rails, locomotives, carriages and other railway technology has made the industrial revolution reach a new stage, and the railway has become the most important means of transportation in the industrial revolution.

Jiang Xinghuo has already made the layout of these five major areas clear to Yao Guangxiao, so Yao Guangxiao's trip to the north to explore the resource endowment conditions is also clear about the importance of the subsequent industrial revolution.

Yao Guangxiao nodded, and then asked about what happened during the time he left, and Jiang Xinghuo explained it to him one by one.

The changes in the south are now somewhat impressive, the handicraft workshops are steadily producing, the foreign wars are well on the way to obtain dumping markets for overseas goods, the interior has already experienced a round of ideological shock, and although science is still very weak, everything is developing in a good direction.

At present, the focus of domestic affairs is the two major systems of finance and currency, in terms of currency, the financial system with Daming Bank as the core has been initially established, and the value of the treasure banknote is rising, and it is expected to reach the standard line of banknote exchange in two to three years; On the fiscal side, a new local supplementary tax system is in the pipeline, while the tax on monopoly commodities such as salt and tea is facing reform, and the commercial tax is waiting for the 2.1 million taels of gambling agreement to take effect, and then carry out large-scale reforms.

The fiscal and monetary reforms are a little more treacherous than the difficulties encountered in the previous reforms.

If there had been some definite enemies or groups in the previous reforms, then at this stage, when it came to the fiscal and monetary affairs of the entire country, this kind of directional opponent disappeared.

No, it may not be accurate to say "disappear", it is invisible.

It is like a giant ship that has sailed through the windy sea and sailed into the boundless ocean, which does not mean that the danger is reduced, on the contrary, the invisible danger on the surface is the most terrifying.

Because it means that you can no longer achieve victory by physically eliminating or defeating anyone, but you can only adjust fiscal and monetary policy little by little according to the changing situation.

And this giant ship is too big, and once it deviates slightly, it will lead to countless unpredictable consequences.

Walking on thin ice, trembling.

"Good news from Annan has arrived."

Jiang Xinghuo was swimming in the lake outside this afternoon, so he didn't know until then.

After receiving the information handed over by Yao Guangxiao, Jiang Xinghuo looked at it carefully, his expression remained unchanged, but a big stone fell to the ground in his heart.

"Li Jinglong didn't disappoint this time."

"You don't see who is beating." Yuan Heng interjected.

"Then next."

"Wait."

Yao Guangxiao confirmed that no one was snooping and eavesdropping around the quiet room, and said in a low voice: "Jiang Sheng, look at the hexagram." ”

In different eras, the enduring superstitious activity of divination has different tools, and in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the most popular was the cup.

The cup is made of two pieces of wood or mussel shells shaped like ears, and when the cup is thrown to the ground during divination, there will be two positive results, two negative, one positive and one negative, and the diviner presets the meaning of the three results, and then determines the good and evil according to the results.

Lao Zhu was forced to be cornered, received a letter from Tang He, and used this thing when deciding whether to participate in the rebellion of the Red Turban Army, Zhu Yuanzhang successively used a cup to divinate the escape, leaving two futures, the result was a great omen, and later divined the future of the army, the result was a good fortune, Zhu Yuanzhang was relieved, stepped forward, and embarked on his road to hegemony.

However, as an occult expert of this era, Yuan Heng used a little more advanced, which was yarrow handed down from ancient times.

The first chapter of Confucius's "Hexagram Biography" has a cloud: "The work of the sages of the past is easy, and the yarrow is praised by the gods, and the number is leaning on the sky, and the view of changes is in the yin and yang and the hexagram is established", that is to say, yarrow is originally a kind of grass, and it does not know the good and evil, and the reason why it is said that it knows the good and the bad, and calls it a god and a god, is because the saints such as King Wen of Zhou have "praised" (plus buff) on it.

Combined with the number of heaven and earth (i.e., the number of days 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and the number of places 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10), the yin and yang are obtained according to the Zheng method and the changes of yin and yang are observed, so that a hexagram can be obtained.

The principle of yarrow arithmetic is actually an arithmetic problem, and the algorithm is very simple, that is, "divide into two, hang one, draw four, and return to Qi" and other steps, so it is the first to have a hexagram and then a hexagram, not to put the sixty-four hexagrams there, and take what happened to sit down, but to establish a hexagram through the Zheng method to predict what will happen in the future.

Jiang Xinghuo looked at the pile of yarrow and fell into deep thought.

He lacked knowledge of the occult and could not understand it at all.

"Ahem."

Yuan Heng explained to him a hexagram.

"Gentleman cultivates with fear, do I have to do things according to the hexagram?"

"Well, not exactly, the hexagram is just some kind of prediction, or a hint, and the future direction of each hexagram will be very different."

"Hmm," Jiang Xinghuo fell into thought.

Jiang Xinghuo didn't believe in this kind of occult thing, but he did discuss it with the old monk, Yuan Hui, and Zhang Yuchu, who were great masters of Buddhism out of curiosity before.

The answer is that such as Yuan Hui's physiognomy, Zhang Yuchu's feng shui, and the old monk's method, they can indeed get some results about predicting the future, but whether this result can be realized, they themselves don't know, anyway, according to the method handed down, it will definitely be able to produce results.

That is to say, talented people can predict people's fate after hard study and training, but no one dares to guarantee the accuracy of the prediction results.

In addition, it is 100% certain that there is nothing in this world such as internal force, true qi, aura or any other way to cultivate to become an immortal and become a Buddha, and the heavens have never given any clear instructions to the underground.

And there is such a thing as martial arts, but like Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, they are all fighting skills, which belong to the genre summary of experience and routine skills, and individual combat effectiveness will decline with age.

The ceiling of force in this world is currently Zhu Gaoxu.

In the case of wearing heavy armor and having a war horse, if you are facing light armored infantry and no heavy armor-piercing weapons, and the terrain is flat, you can indeed do "one enemy hundred" on the battlefield.

"Even if Jiang Sheng predicts the future at some point, it will change, everything is dynamic, so it is not necessary to act according to the hexagram, but I think it is better to give up some things." Yao Guangxiao said.

"What do you mean?"

"Even if there are no hexagrams, I don't think we should touch them."

Hearing Yao Guangxiao's suggestion, Yuan Hui was also a high-ranking official at the level of a waiter back then, and nodded deeply at this time.

Jiang Xinghuo began to seriously think about the suggestions of the two.

At present, he is involved in only three areas in the army, namely the vice principal of the Daming Royal Military Academy, the technical adviser of the Ordnance Bureau and the War Bureau, and has also participated in the training of tax guards.

The first one must be resigned, because in terms of the military academy, it is indeed impossible to splash water, Qiu Fu is very strict, and it seems that he was instructed by Zhu Di and was very wary of him. Although Jiang Xinghuo got acquainted with some teachers and students, on the whole, the resistance to interfering in the next generation of military circles is still very large, and it is very taboo.

So instead of hanging so awkwardly, it's better to just quit.

And the influence on the military can only be through indirect means, that is, to manage the contacts of these senior generals of the Ming Dynasty.

In terms of the Weapons Bureau and the War Bureau, this Zhu Di doesn't care, and no one else can do it except himself, which is not the same as the military academy, and it is an irreplaceable position that greatly benefits the imperial court.

At present, the first batch of backbones who participated in the Jiangnan Pacification War have been transferred to fight in Annan with Liu Sheng, which is the seed of the world's first pure firearms unit, and it is believed that as the performance on the battlefield becomes more and more excellent, it will grow into a towering tree in the future.

Well, in the army's military reform plan, if nothing else, the three major battalions of the Beijing Division will definitely not run in the future, that is, a composite force with a mix of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and these veterans of the tax guards will also become the foundation of the Shenji Battalion.

In the future, the tax collectors may become a place to train and train real tax collectors and tax collectors, and train them in numeracy and literacy and other literacy work, so that they can really become part of the national tax system, rather than a firearms unit that sold dog meat at the beginning.

Jiang Xinghuo thought for a while and said: "What I said is indeed reasonable, in this way, I will resign from the position of vice principal of the military academy another day, and the matter of tax guards and literacy eradication is now also available with teaching materials, and there is a mechanism for the old to bring the new, so I resigned together, and only retained as the technical adviser of the War Bureau and the Weapons Bureau." ”

"That's the best."

Yuan Hui cleaned up the yarrow and left with a heavy heart.

He never understood what the hexagram that the hidden dragon didn't use before meant.

After Yuan Heng left, Yao Guangxiao also said a heart-wrenching remark: "Judging from the current situation, the development of the army is outside but not inside, and the people are not in the officials. ”

"What do you mean?" Jiang Xinghuo seems to have been inspired in some way.

Since one road doesn't work, it's not impossible to change tracks!

"Annan is the first battle, this battle Li Jinglong fought beautifully, and after taking Annan, there will be an advance base for exploration in the South and Western Oceans, and there will be more and more overseas exploration and colonization in the future, and the civilian maritime armed forces will definitely flourish together with the footsteps of the army."

Jiang Xinghuo also understands this truth, but he is a little obsessed, but now he is suddenly enlightened.

Yao Guangxiao looked at him, twisted his white beard, and sighed.

"Jiang Sheng, you have been here for too long, so indulged in the tedious things in front of you, that you have lost your vigilance for some things."

There are not too many compromises in the progress of history, throughout the dynasties, once the transmutation occurs in the top-level structure, how can there be so many warm veins? Life and death is the greatest possibility, and you can't have too many illusions. ”

Jiang Xinghuo said frankly: "I understand this truth, but now I can't see through it, let alone make up my mind." ”

"Our generation can't see the most distant future, what can be seen is only the situation that can be inferred according to the law in the future, which is actually similar to fortune telling, but it should be more scientific."

"Artisanal workshop owners, new nobles of military merit, maritime merchants, bankers, privateer owners, burghers, workers. The rise of these new strata is inevitable, but in the next 20 or 30 years, I cannot judge to what extent their power will grow, and whether it will really reach the point where the process of history will change from quantitative to qualitative. ”

"At the same time, the power of the bloodsuckers of the feudal imperial power is still strong, and through non-military means, there is no hope of any essential change, even if through the change of imperial power, the throne comes to the hands of the emperor who is biased towards the bourgeoisie, this contradiction rooted in power will not disappear, it will only intensify."

Yao Guangxiao understood Jiang Xinghuo's thoughts, but he still said: "So Jiang Sheng thinks that in twenty or thirty years, it is impossible to change the nature of society and the top-level structure. ”

"Yes."

Although in the history of Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, the Glorious Revolution in Britain (1688) was earlier than the Industrial Revolution (1760), the usual view of historiography also believes that it is Britain that has the conditions to start the industrial revolution in terms of politics, economy, law, culture, etc., such as a stable and peaceful environment, free market and trade, the rule of law and property rights protection, scientific and technological progress, etc., the most important thing is of course a stable and peaceful political environment, that is, the bourgeois revolution established the constitutional monarchy. The power of the king was limited, and the rights of the parliament and the people were guaranteed.

Finally, Britain had vast colonies and overseas markets, provided ample raw materials and sales channels for the Industrial Revolution, and built the world's most powerful navy, protecting its own maritime trade and colonial interests, while implementing a policy of free trade, abolishing guild systems and tariff barriers, and promoting market competition and the flow of goods.

But in Daming, it is obvious that the specific situation faced is different.

If we only rely on the spontaneous and original bourgeois germination of the Ming Dynasty, then it may not be able to produce qualitative changes in one or two hundred years, and it will be interrupted by the invasion of foreign enemies, and there will be no spontaneous qualitative changes to change the top-level structure, and naturally there will be no possibility of technological explosion.

Therefore, the industrial revolution carried out by the Ming Dynasty is actually a reverse, military-rather than civilian-led model, and its internal logic is different.

The normal industrial revolution is the need to mine coal and iron ore, so the steam engine is needed to pump water, and after the appearance of the steam engine, it began to be widely used in all walks of life, and steam trains and ships appeared, which changed the transportation situation.

So what did the Ming Industrial Revolution look like? It is the first technological innovation in the textile industry, the interests of the Ming army in order to hoard excess cotton textiles to find a dumping market, so to carry out foreign wars, textile dumping to obtain profits, and then continue to explore and wage war, with the progress of this model, the domestic production, transportation efficiency, put forward higher requirements, for weapon casting, there is also a greater demand, so the need for coal and iron combination, the need for the emergence of steam engines to further improve efficiency.

This kind of way, in fact, is not the path of Britain, but the road of Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, that is, the military-industrial complex develops new technologies based on military needs, and then uses military technology to promote the development of civilian technology, and then drives the progress of the whole country.

It is precisely because of this that the feudal imperial power will become the waterer of the budding bourgeoisie.

And it is precisely because of this way of reversing the practice of leading the British that in the next twenty or thirty years, the military nobles will become extremely powerful and unprecedentedly powerful, and become a complete freak that was barely comparable to the five dynasties and ten kingdoms period in the past.

The entire army, from top to bottom, will fall into a frenzy of active expansion.

This is because the army not only earns a large amount of profits from commodity dumping, but also through the development of the coal and iron industry, it will continue to upgrade its weapons and push it into the era of thermal weapons, and at the same time, the army's belligerence will be unstoppable.

In this case, if the new social class, without mastering the use of force, wants to carry out a change in the top-level structure, it is tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg.

Because the army will firmly safeguard their interests, and the Ming army, which has entered the era of thermal weapons, cannot be confronted by any stratum.

"The combination of maritime traders and civilian armed forces is necessary, but relying only on external and non-governmental forces may not be enough to promote the emergence of fundamental social changes."

"So no matter how you envisage it, in the next two or three decades, there will be no fundamental top-level structural changes."

Yao Guangxiao's expression was a little gloomy.

It seems that not only can he not see the arrival of the other side, but he can't even see the moment when the evil dragon rules the world.

But Yao Guangxiao quickly perked up and asked, "So what exactly did Jiang Sheng plan?" ”

"Perhaps in the next fifty to sixty years, the top-level structure can be transitioned to another form with the change of the material foundation, through gentle compromise or bloody conflict, but in twenty or thirty years, the imperial power is still strong and unshakable, and the essential source of power of the imperial power lies in the military power, 'the Son of Heaven, the strong and strong are for it', since the interests of the new class and the imperial power will not be fundamentally separated for the time being, then there is no need to use the force of the new class to resist the existing military system of the Ming Dynasty."

"In other words, the final foothold is still on the heir to the throne."

Jiang Xinghuo's expression was also a little complicated.

In the past, he thought that he could avoid all this and promote the development of the entire Ming Dynasty from a neutral point of view.

Now he understands that although he can be neutral, if he is neutral, he will have to suffer the consequences of neutrality.

That is, all these things that I have worked hard to change may be affected by the corrective force of history, and I will return to the situation of feudal imperial power and scholars ruling the world together with the natural economy of agriculture as the material foundation.

The landlords and gentry are congenitally contrary to everything in the new era.

Although some of the landlords and gentry could participate in the maritime trade and could be transformed into the merchant class, the vast majority of them were still stubborn and conservative.

However, this relatively stubborn and conservative force in the face of the historical trend is currently occupying the absolute dominance of the top-level structure.

The material foundation has changed, and the landlords and gentry who live in the temples, even if they are sluggish, should realize that their foundation has been shaken.

Moreover, although the landlords and gentry are a backward force in the historical trend, it does not mean that they are stupid, on the contrary, there are many elite talents cultivated under the existing education system.

So now Zhu Di can hold the town, but if Zhu Di dies twenty or thirty years later, the landlord and gentry will fight back, which will definitely occur, which is an inevitable law of history.

And in the history of Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, even if there is no industrial revolution and overseas trade that he has caused now, just Yongle went to the West and conquered Mongolia in the north, what became after Zhu Di's death, isn't it all written in the history books?

In the Renxuan and Xuan dynasties, the Ming Empire began a comprehensive strategic contraction, and finally stopped going to the West, giving up the Nuer Gandu Division in the Far East, abandoning the Old Port Xuanwei Division in Malaya, and giving up the Kaiping Wei Han and Tang Dynasties in Monan.

In other words, this is the embodiment of the invisible corrective power of history.

If you get through, then you will naturally turn into a butterfly, and if you can't get through, history will be turned back to its original track.

It is conceivable that in this world, this historical correction force will be even stronger, just like a spring, the harder it is pressed, the higher it will bounce.

Then there is naturally only one way in front of him.

That is to continue to support the military aristocracy who can still walk the same road for a long time, and at the same time support the spokesperson of this class, his founding disciple Zhu Gaoxu, became the next generation of emperors of the Ming Empire and completely changed history.

Jiang Xinghuo has a good impression of Zhu Gaochi, and he also likes Zhu Zhanji, although Zhu Gaochi is benevolent and has a city government at the same time, although Zhu Zhanji is smart and scheming at the same time, but this does not affect Jiang Xinghuo's personal likes and dislikes.

But the dispute between Zhu Gaochu and Zhu Gaochi over the throne has gone beyond Jiang Xinghuo's personal likes and dislikes.

This is a class struggle whose interests are irreconcilable at all, and behind it are the interests of hundreds of thousands of people, and no one can back down and give up the throne to others, because giving it to others means that the entire class will be completely liquidated and will disappear from the stage of history.

And Zhu Gaochi obviously could not give up his basic plate of gentry and civil officials, and the military nobles represented by Zhu Gaochu also had serious conflicts with the gentry and civil officials themselves.

"So, did it come to this point after all?" Jiang Xinghuo closed his eyes and was stunned.

Yao Guangxiao slowly twisted the beads: "Someone told me before that even if a person has all kinds of abilities in this life, he can't defeat the destiny of heaven after all. ”

"At that time, I didn't believe it, I told him that I have dragon support, which is this destiny, but if there is a chance, it should be changed."

"And now?" Jiang Xinghuo opened his eyes and looked at the old monk fixedly, and at the same time had a plan in his heart.

"Now, there are always people in this world who want to be chaotic ministers and thieves, and they have already done it once, why can't they do it a second time?"

Yao Guangxiao laughed softly: "I learned the dragon slaying technique from Jiang Sheng, and I will try my hand at changing to an emperor in the future. The emperor has not changed. ”

(End of chapter)