After the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Tang Empire, Emperor Richard revised the rules for routine audience meetings in the cabinet, from twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays to once a week on Wednesdays.

On the one hand, this is based on the maturity of the imperial government and the perfection of the rule of officials, and most of the decisions related to the government can be completed at the cabinet level, and there is no need to play everything.

On the other hand, it is to decentralize power, give more trust to the cabinet, and more room for power, which is a manifestation of the maturity of the constitutional monarchy.

The courtiers discussed major domestic matters, involving appropriately raising the threshold for immigration and gradually reducing the importation of low-level illiterate immigrants, so as to improve the overall quality of the people.

These migrants can be preferentially sent to South American countries, such as Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, to solve the problem of a large local labor gap.

Nowadays, the main driving force of population growth in the Tang Empire comes from newborns, and it is expected that the number of newborns will exceed 6 million this year, showing a trend of rising all the way.

From now on until the end of the decade

The size of the newly born population in the Tang Empire will continue to rise, and the corresponding number of natural deaths will also expand, which is an inevitable phenomenon of the overall population size.

By 1886

The average life expectancy of the Tang Empire was 54.6 years, an increase of 3.3 years compared with 10 years ago, which reflected the improvement of the level of clothing, food, housing and transportation under the overall economic development of the empire.

In the current government budget, there is very little allocation for medical and health services, and Western medicine is mainly some government public hospitals and royal charity hospitals, which are basically popularized in large and medium-sized cities with a population of more than 300,000.

In the cities of the Tang Empire, the streets and alleys are full of traditional Chinese medicine halls, and traditional Chinese medicine shops are the main places for people to seek medical treatment.

The Ministry of Culture, Health and Sports of the Tang Empire is formulating corresponding standards for traditional Chinese medicine, preparing for the establishment of a university of traditional Chinese medicine, implementing a licensed business system, and formulating a corresponding reward and punishment mechanism to regulate the orderly development of traditional Chinese medicine halls.

It is a common phenomenon in the world today that the imperial finance does not pay attention to social medical and health undertakings, and the same is true in the industrially developed countries of Europe such as Britain, France and Germany, and the overall medical level is relatively backward.

As early as 1853, the Crimean War broke out between the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France and Russia. In March 1854, Britain and France officially declared war on Russia in order to aid Turkey, and then the Tang Empire also declared war on Russia and joined the war against Tsarist Russia.

In September of that year, the British newspaper The Times sent back from the front reported that the wounded soldiers had no one to take care of them.

The report said;

The medical conditions of the British army were very poor, and the mortality rate of the wounded was as high as 42%, and no one cared about it after being carried down from the battlefield.

After these facts were revealed by the press, there was an uproar in Britain.

When Nightingale heard the news, she immediately wrote a letter to the wife of the then Minister of War, Herbert, expressing her willingness to lead 40 nurses to the battlefield at her own expense.

Minister Hybert agreed to her request, and in October 1954, Nightingale led nurses to the front line to participate in the care of the sick and wounded, establishing a system of hospital administrators, improving the quality of care, and causing the mortality rate of the sick and wounded to decline rapidly.

After the news was reported, it caused a shock in Europe, including the United Kingdom, and it was only then that countries began to take the care of the wounded seriously.

In November 1858, during the fierce period of the American Civil War, the world's first nursing school was established in Los Angeles, and then many nursing schools were established in Chang'an, Taoyuan, Seattle, and Sacramento.

In 1860, Britain was also the first nursing school named after Nightingale in Europe, two years after the Tang Empire.

However, based on the fact that Western medicine is relatively backward and the diagnosis and treatment costs are relatively expensive, the general public in the Tang Empire is more willing to accept traditional Chinese medicine treatment, and Western medicine will only be considered when it is really not possible.

Therefore, except for a few public hospitals in the Tang Empire, most of the hospitals are private, including the Royal Mercy Hospital, the Royal Puji Hospital and other more than 100 hospitals located in the provinces of the empire.

Nowadays, the health care industry of the Tang Empire is only beginning to take shape, and it cannot cover all the people in society, there is no medical insurance system, and all medical and health expenses are borne by the patients themselves.

There is no pension system, and the traditional home-based care customs of "the old, the old, the young, and the young" are implemented, and there is no nursing home.

The reason for this

Emperor Richard was; "No, not can't".

He clearly knows that the establishment of a social medical system and the improvement of the pension system are the only way for social development in the future. It is the only way for the whole society to improve the level of health care and increase the average life expectancy of the society.

However, doing so will bring a heavy financial burden to the government, and it will be a bottomless fiscal black hole that can never be filled, and it is also an unbearable burden at this stage.

One step ahead is ahead, and two steps ahead is madness.

Before the national economic level has not developed to a high level and formed a jujube kernel-type social structure dominated by the middle class, rashly putting this heavy burden on your shoulders will never be able to get rid of it.

The people of society who have tasted the sweetness will not be willing to go back to the past, which means that the imperial government will always carry this heavy burden and dance in shackles.

And this is an extremely dangerous move in today's world power competition.

Side-by-side comparison

Take Britain as an example when it was the first to industrialize at the same time;

The gap between rich and poor in Britain has never been as high as it was during the Regency years of 1795-1837 (Note; Before Her Majesty Queen Victoria's accession to the throne), it was as obvious as it was in Britain at a time when the richest people enjoyed the fruits of powerful industry, while the working class lived a dirty, cruel and ephemeral life.

In the thirties of the 19th century, the average middle-class in London could expect to live to 44 years, but the average life expectancy of the working class was only 22 years.

In Manchester, 53 per cent of babies do not live to be five years old, and in Liverpool, 57 per cent of babies do not live to be five years old, which is roughly the same rate as the infant mortality rate of black slaves in the South.

In those dark times

The working class in towns such as Liverpool, Preston and Manchester would have been lucky if they had survived to the age of 19, and the British capitalists had not only brutally exploited the colonial people, but also had no mercy on their compatriots at home, and the working conditions were extremely harsh.

During the Regency period, the average life expectancy in Britain was over 40 years, which is surprisingly high in Europe.

On the sewerless streets of Ashton Anderlaine, the low-level artisans have a life expectancy of only 13 years, less than a third of their wealthier compatriots, even if they survive the age of five in their childhood.

Why was the gap between rich and poor in Britain at the beginning of the 19th century so wide?

The Industrial Revolution had clearly led to a deterioration in the living conditions of the poor, and at the same time, it had made the rich richer than ever before.

As John Quincy Adams, the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, wrote in his diary in London in 1816:

"The extremes of wealth and scarcity are more pronounced in this country than in any other country I have seen."

The extreme luxury, for the sake of Britain's wealthy, is appalling in the poor working and living conditions of the people at the bottom.

In the parish of St. Giles, London, in 1830, an investigator from the Public Works Bureau visited a slum terraced house and found the yard;

"Filled with feces that spilled from the toilets, almost six inches deep, people placed bricks in the yard so that residents could walk through the yard without getting their shoes wet".

Investigators are not reporting isolated cases, but are widespread in civilian areas.

A similar situation is prevalent in northern UK towns, where densities of up to 1,000 people per acre in parts of Liverpool can drive people with a phobia of density crazy.

The poor lived in cramped houses, where liquids from the dung pits and foul-smelling garbage scattered on the ground seeped through the cellar walls, while many were forced to sleep in the basements.

There are no doors in the public manure pits in public housing, because the landlord claims that if a wooden door is installed, the occupants will use it as firewood.

Being able to join the army or venture into a colony is seen as one of the very few ways to change your fate.

British wage earners, who make up more than 70% of the population, do not have this option. Those lucky enough to work in agriculture can expect to live to the age of 36, while the average life expectancy of the poor in the cities is only about half that number.

Industrialization in Britain required a lot of coal, and Britain has been the world's largest coal miner for more than a century.

Numerous men, women, boys and girls worked in the mines, and in 1823, in the Cumberland Coal Mine 630 feet underground, writer Richard Ayton held up a lantern;

Richard Ayton saw rows of carriages driven by young girls in the dark tunnels, and he described all the people below as being;

“…… Unusual misery, overwork and noxious gases gave their countenances signs of disease and decay.

Most of these children are half-naked, their bodies blackened with dirt, they are so tragically disfigured and mistreated, they look like a race that has fallen from humanity and is destined to consume their lives in the shadows of these darkness, as if in purgatory".

It was not until the mid-80s of the 19th century that the average life expectancy in British society increased to 51.2 years, which was among the highest in Europe, second only to several Nordic countries.

At this time, the British steam industrial revolution had developed for a century and a half, and the second wave of industrial revolution represented by chemical industry and electrification was surging......

In the Carolina Republic of North America and Brazil, it is a reality today that the average black hired laborer could hardly survive the age of 30 due to the heavy labor and poor living conditions on the plantations.

Emperor Richard did not comment on the new policies proposed by the cabinet ministers, and gave them all royal approval.

As a matter of fact

Before these policies were played, they had been repeatedly polished in various ministries, and the drafts were changed more than a decade, and the advantages and disadvantages of them were considered more thoughtfully, and a fairly mature plan was formed.

Under normal circumstances, after repeated discussions and approvals in the imperial court, Emperor Richard would not easily veto.

The next important topic is the proposal for the establishment of a new province of Colombia, from the complete conquest of Colombia in 1874, and the provinces of Zhongzhou (formerly Ecuador) and Fuyuan (Peru) to the present, the policy of "freeing cages for birds" in these areas under the colonial ministry has basically met expectations.

After 12 years of large-scale infrastructure construction, the above-mentioned new colonial areas in South America have long been renovated, with trunk railways and a relatively complete road network, forming a social and demographic structure in which more than 80% of the population is occupied by Chinese.

Everything the data suggests

The above-mentioned provinces were brought under the direct control of the central government of the empire, and the conditions for the establishment of provinces into regular governance were met.

On the proposal of Count Yuan Guanglin, Minister of the Colonial Ministry;

In order to fully implement the sinicization,Completely abandon the name of the old Spanish colony that is easy to conjure up like "Colombia",It is recommended to divide the large Colombia into two。

Qingzhou Province was set up in the northeast, the original capital Medellin was changed to the provincial capital city and renamed Qingzhou City, and Penglai Province was set up in the southwest, and the provincial capital was located in the former Cali City, which was renamed Penglai City.

It is located in Qingzhou, Penglai Province, Qingzhou City, the capital of Qingzhou Province (formerly Medellin), Penglai Province, and Penglai City, the capital of Penglai Province (formerly Cali).

Together with the original provinces of Zhongzhou (formerly Ecuador) and Fuyuan (ceded by Peru), as well as the Beihai Province in East Asia, the total of the above five provinces will be transferred to the direct control of the empire in early 1888.

After the transfer to the central government, the political, economic and military affairs of the above five provinces have nothing to do with the colonial department of the Tang Empire, and the corresponding financial appropriations are directly allocated by the imperial treasury.

Today, only the province of Cuba is administered by the Ministry of Colony (Note; including Puerto Rico), Luzon, Cebu, Mindanao, Cloud (Note; The former Eritrean region, including Laremacher and Tatai Kulalo, a total of 85,000 square kilometers, plus 124,000 square kilometers of Eritrea, and a total of 210,000 square kilometers of Yunzhong Province), Alaska and Yukon, a total of seven provinces.

The first four provinces are due to the new start time is not long, before and after 10 years, the corresponding in-depth cage replacement policy has not met expectations, and it will take a few years to grind.

The green fruit must not be palatable, and it must always be ripe and good.

These four overseas provinces are all under the direct control of the royal family, and in Emperor Richard's plan, they will be divided among the princes, namely the fifth prince, the sixth prince, the eighth prince, and the ninth prince.

There is no way, who let His Majesty the Emperor have many heirs, and the royal family of the Tang Empire is flourishing, so it is divided into several vassal kingdoms to go out.

These vassal kingdoms are different from the Fuso Kingdom and the Ryukyu Kingdom, and their kingdom territory is part of the territory of the Tang Empire, which does not set up a separate army, and the diplomatic field is unified by the imperial government to speak to the outside world, but the kingdom is autonomous in terms of economy and taxation.

This situation

Similar to the Kingdom of Bavaria, the Kingdom of Saxony, the Grand Duchy of Hesse and Württemberg in the German Empire, they were part of the empire but had a great deal of autonomy.

The proposal for the separation of these five overseas provinces from the Colonial Ministry was successfully approved by His Majesty after discussion in the Imperial Palace.

Then, a few months later, on January 1, 1888, these five provinces were transferred to the direct subordinate of the central government of the empire, and all aspects of treatment were raised by one level, which can be regarded as the result of ripening and falling.

As for Alaska and Yukon, these two provinces were the first two largest provinces in the Tang Empire and the least populated to date.

Alaska has a population of only 33,200 to date. After the discovery of gold in Yukon, a gold rush was formed, and the population has now reached 237,600.

These two provinces are also the longest-infancy provinces in the colonies, and it will take time to develop, at least by the end of the century.

Yunzhong Province is too far away, with a population of 399,200 so far, and due to the disregard of financial allocations, the infrastructure construction is lagging behind, and further cultivation is needed.

If you don't do it, it will fall behind the butts of the late colonies of Cuba and Luzon, and become the last overseas provinces of the empire.

Of course, the Colonial Ministry's jurisdiction was not limited to this, but also included Yemen on the other side of the Red Sea, the area around the port of Suez in Egypt, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, Chile, and the Republic of Mississippi and Florida in North America.

This was common among the great powers of the 19th century, where many of the functions of the Colonial Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs overlapped. It was for a time that Britain abolished the Colonial Office and incorporated it into the Foreign Office on the basis of this consideration.

(End of chapter)