"Uhh

"Stop fighting! Stop it! ”

In February, amid the sound of smashing and shouting, an alley in the city of Suzhou was heavily surrounded.

Outside the alley, a man in a black uniform from the West Factory rode on horseback, and beside him was the guard of Pingdu Prefecture.

The man didn't speak, and the guards didn't dare to speak rashly.

After a while, two men in black uniforms walked out with more than a dozen soldiers, holding the booklet in their hands, and the soldiers carried the rubbings on their shoulders.

"My lord, the evidence is conclusive, forbidden books are indeed being printed here, and the forbidden books are ready to be sold."

A man in black spoke, and the man on horseback looked down at the Suzhou City Guard when he heard this: "Wang Qianhu, the people who trouble you will take action, arrest and imprison all the people in this bookstore and their relatives, and wait for the will of the imperial court." ”

"Yes, yes...... The end will be done now! The guard was sweating profusely, and hurriedly ordered hundreds of employees from the bookstore in the alley to be escorted out, and their families were arrested according to their addresses.

Not surprisingly, they will face exile in remote areas such as Gansu or Daning.

In the midst of the cries, all the more than 100 people were escorted away, and all the plates in the bookstore were burned, and all the forbidden books were burned.

This situation is just a microcosm of the entire Jiangnan......

"Put Wang Ping's head, and the five generations of descendants will not be hired in the imperial examination!"

"Slave Maid Teaching"

In the Chunhe Palace, when Zhu Gaoxu opened his mouth angrily, he hurriedly responded.

Zhu Gaoxu's anger comes from the spread of teaching materials, and the spread of teaching materials comes from the stupidity of the person in his mouth.

Wang Ping, a native of Jilin, Bohai, was a teacher of Dongcheng in Pingdu Prefecture, Shandong, and spread the textbooks for only fifty yuan, and it was a full set of textbooks.

You must know that Zhu Gaoxu spent two years just writing these textbooks, and it is even more difficult to evaluate the manpower and material resources spent.

As a result, because of personal stupidity, these textbooks were rubbed and sold, and now they have spread to the entire Jiangnan.

Since January alone, as many as 56 bookstores have been confiscated, involving more than 5,000 people.

Originally, Zhu Gaoxu thought that behind this case were officials from Jiangzuo or western Zhejiang and Jiangdong who were making trouble, if this was the case, he could still have a target to vent his anger, but the reality gave him a slap in the face.

"Your Highness, you are ...... dissipated"

Yisha comforted Zhu Gaoxu, but Zhu Gaochu laughed angrily, he walked back and forth in front of the table, and there were words in his mouth:

"I said that I haven't seen them move these days, and they have long known that this case has nothing to do with them, so they are all waiting to see my joke!"

"Give me a mission to the official schools in various places, and give me a notice of Wang Ping's fate, so that the teachers and practitioners in the world can take a good look at how he made the imperial court spend tens of thousands of manpower and material resources for twenty yuan of money!"

"Then issue a fatwa to the Criminal Department, let them add a law, but anyone who sells official learning materials privately will be razed by the three clans!"

"Yes......" Hearing Zhu Gaoxu's words, he also sighed in his heart.

Judging from Zhu Gaoxu's punishment of Wang Ping and the Imperial Punishment Department, Zhu Gaochu did not raze Wang Ping's three clans, but it was already for the sake of Wang Ping's Bohai and Jilin people.

If you are a student from other places, I am afraid that you will already be able to destroy the three clans, and there is no room for discussion.

Because of this, it can also be seen how embarrassed Zhu Gaoxu is.

The Bohai student he cultivated single-handedly sold him for twenty yuan, and whoever heard it would have to vomit blood.

It's not Zhu Gaoxu, Wang Ping is still an ordinary military child of Jilin Shipyard, and he can only stay in Jilin Tuntian for the rest of his life.

Zhu Gaochu gave him a chance, but he directly backstabbed Zhu Gaoxu.

"Your Highness, do you want to use the topic to play, anyway, many students in Jiangxi and Jiangdong have bought textbooks."

Yizha wanted Zhu Gaochu to kill the prestige of Jiangnan, but Zhu Gaochu raised his hand after hearing this: "Order everyone who buys textbooks to return the textbooks, and the imperial court will refund the money according to the market price. ”

This may be the day when Zhu Gaoxu mentioned the "Yi Three Clans" the most, Rao is like this, the person he killed was only Wang Ping, and the rest of the people involved were exiled by him to the Modong Sanwei of the Daning Dusi.

"How is the grain and grass allocated to the north?"

Zhu Gaoxu extinguished the fire and began to care about the northern expedition.

"Modong Sanwei has opened up more than 70,000 acres of tuntian, with an output of about seven buckets, and there are nearly 30,000 military households and people in the local area, and Bohai and Liaodong have also successively transported 600,000 stone grains to the local area, reaching 480,000 stones."

"At present, the problem of the Northern Expedition is mainly the problem of the people."

Yizha explained the situation in the north, and Zhu Gaoxu touched his mustache after hearing this:

"150,000 people were requisitioned from Hanzhou, Changchun, Zhaozhou, Jilin, and Andong, with a daily wage of 20 wen per person, and waited for the imperial court to assemble."

"Shandong transported 500,000 stones to Liaodong, and Liaodong bought 500,000 stones from the people to go north to Hechengwei."

Zhu Gaoxu only arranged logistics, as for the army, it was not within his consideration, Zhu Di would handle it himself.

This time, the Ming Dynasty had to deal with the main thing that was entrenched in the Arutai Department of the Hulunbuir Grassland, and after repelling them, they left their troops to garrison the western section of the Harawen Mountains, and marched towards the upper reaches of the Trouble River little by little.

At this moment, there are 50,000 or 60,000 soldiers capable of fighting in Arutai, and 300,000 or 400,000 troops.

If you count Warat, it should have a population of more than 1 million, and 1230,000 soldiers capable of fighting.

If the Central Asian Mongols moved eastward, it is estimated that the Tatar and Warat divisions can really pull out a population of 1.6 million and nearly 150,000 troops to fight with the Ming Dynasty.

Because of this, Zhu Gaoxu thought of letting Zhu Di send troops to weaken Arutai first, and not wait for Benjamin and Arutai to converge before making a move.

Tatar and Uliangha are different, Uliangha is not strong in the first place, and even so, he has been fighting in Modong and Zhu Gaoxu and Zhu Di for more than ten years.

In comparison, Arutai, who can pull out 50,000 or 60,000 armor soldiers, can be said to be a powerful opponent, not to mention the Warat nobles such as Mahamu, Taiping, and Sulpo Polo.

In terms of the two largest northern expeditions in the early Ming Dynasty, they were 130,000 during the Battle of Hongwu's Northern Expedition to Yuerhai, and Zhu Di's first imperial expedition to Arutai, about 120,000 during Benya's loss.

Far from the supply center, the largest scale of the Ming Dynasty was 130,000.

Of course, if you are a little more ruthless, you may be able to get 150,000, but there is no need for that, because the Mongols really have no chance of winning against the Ming army.

As far as Zhu Di's personal expedition to Arutai is concerned, the 120,000 troops plus the 500,000 people made up by more than 300,000 people actually transported to the front line, and only 20,000 or 30,000 people around Zhu Di were transported.

Even so, Zhu Di relied on 20,000 or 30,000 people to defeat 50,000 or 60,000 people in Arutai and Benjamin.

This is still the Ming army in history, and the current Ming army has artillery and arquebuses, and its combat power is even greater than history, and the distance of the northern expedition is also directly shortened.

From Hechengwei to the upper reaches of the river, only 50,000 troops and 150,000 people were needed.

Taking advantage of the fact that Benjamin did not advance eastward, he first beat Arutai to the point of being half-paralyzed, and then rested for two years before cleaning up the Warat, and crippled Mahamu, Taiping, and Bal Polo.

In this way, at least Daming can win more than ten years of peace.

Zhu Di's five northern expeditions, the reason why the last three did not gain much was because the first two northern expeditions hurt the Tatar and Warat headquarters respectively, and these two departments ran for their lives when they saw Zhu Di, especially Arutai even lost the grain carts and herds, resulting in the people being frozen to death and starving to death.

In Zhu Gaoxu's view, as long as the northern expedition is carried out twice, it is enough to ensure the peace of Modong.

As long as the Modong Sanwei of Daning is given ten years, the Modong Sanwei will definitely be able to serve as the granary of the Ming army's westward expedition in the future, and continuously deliver grain and grass to the Ming army.

With the Modong Sanwei as the foundation, coupled with the control of Hami in the future, the Ming army could completely attack the Tatar and Warat divisions from the east and west.

As long as a few thousand field cavalry are kept every year to smash the nests of the two divisions, it will not be possible for the two divisions to move westward in a few years.

Thinking that the Mongolian problem could be solved, Zhu Gaoxu's originally angry mood because of Wang Ping's matter couldn't help but calm down.

"By the way, how's the Loop?"

Taking a deep breath to soothe his emotions, Zhu Gaoxu sat back in his place and asked about the Hetao.

"The Hetao is in good shape!" When it comes to the Hetao, I also lose a little bit of spirit.

"After Lin Su arrived in Hetao, he migrated more than 30,000 Hu and Han people from Shaanxi, Shaanxi and other places to graze, reclaim and build water conservancy in the local area."

"From the three years of Yongle to the present, the cultivated land in the Hetao has increased frequently, and now there are nearly 500,000 acres of cultivated land, including the local military households, there are more than 37,000 households, nearly 180,000 people."

"If this continues, the Hetao should be able to revert to a state and a government."

In the past four years, the Ming Dynasty has invested in the Hetao regardless of the cost, and has allocated 4 million stones, 200 tons of gunpowder, 600 tons of cement, and 4,000 tons of coal for grain alone.

It is for this reason that the Loop has recovered so quickly and has established its own "industry".

"I let Lin Su get the Jiuyuan Iron Mine, how is he doing?"

Zhu Gaoxu asked with a smile, and after hearing it, he immediately said happily: "This is exactly what the slave wants to say." ”

"Since the iron ore has been excavated for four years, nearly one million catties of wrought iron have been produced every year, and the cost is only five wen per catty, but the sale is enough for thirty wen."

"With this income alone, Jiuyuanwei can harvest more than 20,000 yuan in income, although it is not yet self-sufficient, but with the passage of time, I believe that day is coming."

"In addition, the Chahan Naoerwei (Ordos) under the rule of Jiuyuan Wei has also found the coal mines you mentioned, some coal mines are difficult to mine, and there are many coal mines that can be easily mined."

"According to your explanation, Your Highness, thousands of local military households specialize in mining coal for their livelihood, and thousands of people can mine more than 30,000 tons of coal every year."

"Right now, the Shanxi Political Envoy and the Shaanxi Political Envoy are quarreling over this matter."

"The Shanxi Political Envoy believes that the local area belongs to the Shanxi Xingdu Division, so it naturally belongs to Shanxi."

"The Shaanxi political envoy believes that the local area has been subordinate to Shaanxi since ancient times, so it naturally belongs to Shaanxi."

Yizha said the quarrel between the officials of Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces as if he was telling a joke, and Zhu Gaoxu also chuckled after hearing it:

"In the early years, when this was a barren land, none of them took over, but now that there are iron ore and coal mines, they are fighting for it."

Zhu Gaoxu touched his mustache: "No matter who they belong to, I have a decision in my heart." ”

"It's not a good time to set up a government for the local area, at least we have to wait until the end of the first northern expedition."

"But if the news of the iron ore and coal in this place leaks out, then the Tatars and Warats in the north may want to occupy this place."

Human beings are waging wars to compete for resources, and the Hetao, which was once barren, can produce iron ore and coal, two necessities of the Ming Dynasty, which will naturally be coveted by others.

If the Tatars and Warats can obtain the current Hetao, then it will not be a problem for them to equip tens of thousands of sets of iron armor a year.

These treasures buried in the land, if Zhu Gaoxu does not wake up, I am afraid it will take hundreds of years to see the light of day.

Zhu Gaoxu still remembers a lot of places like this, such as Luzon in the south......

"How does the situation in Luzon compare to the Loop?"

He inquired about it, and he replied about it: "The Western Fleet arrived in Luzon only a month ago. ”

"The Governor of Luzon has received your order, and Jiang Gui will soon send the native soldiers of Luzon who have been trained for two years to the north to build roads and explore gold and silver mines."

"Wait a minute......" Zhu Gaoxu raised his hand to interrupt, and at the same time asked Yishu: "What do you say the commander is called?" ”

"Jiang Gui" also lost his answer, thinking that Zhu Gaoxu knew, so he also said deliberately; "He's from Yanfu."

"Born in Yanfu?" A smile appeared on Zhu Gaoxu's face, he really didn't expect to pick up a famous general in the orthodox period.

"Let him do a good job, as long as the gold and silver mines in Luzon can be found and mined, I will take his credit and transfer him back to the north."

"Yes......" Yizha didn't understand how a district guard commander could make his Royal Highness so happy, just that Zhu Gaoxu and Jiang Gui had an old relationship.

After a brief report on the work, he ordered the eunuch on duty to pass the meal.

Zhu Gaoxu was also happy because of the excavation of Jiang Gui and the fact that Hetao and Modong were on the right track.

In addition to his happiness, what was even happier than him was Zheng He, who had returned to the Old Port Propaganda Division.

"Let's go! Let's get it! ”

"Get out of the way of the people in front and don't crowd in the middle of the road!"

Compared with when Zheng He first arrived, the Palembang Pier in Yongle was cleaner, neater and more prosperous.

Shi Jinqing led people to greet Zheng He, Chen Xuan, Cui Jun and others, while Liang Daoming chose to return to his hometown after accepting Zhu Di's canonization in the Ming Dynasty, and Zheng Bo chose the same as him.

At present, there are only two guards in the Old Port Propaganda Division, and twelve princely states under the Propaganda Division.

The chieftains of these princely states followed Zheng He to Beiping and accepted the canonization of local officials under the Ming Dynasty.

"You have already discussed the dispatch of the guards, and you don't have any opinions, since this is the case, then the payment of the dispatch will be sent to the Yamen of the Xuanwei Division in September every year, is there a problem?"

Standing on the docks of Palembang, Zheng He talked to them in front of the twelve fetters about the problem.

The Ming Dynasty will send errands to the Tusi under his rule, even if it is three propaganda and six consolations, they must pay the errands regularly, and these twelve princely states on the island of Sumatra are naturally the same.

According to their strength, Zheng He asked them to pay various amounts of spices for chafa, and these chases were almost 50 to 100 taels per princely state.

Of course, for them, the spices needed for this poor hair are not much, and it will not affect their lives.

Only by paying the Old-Port Propaganda Division could they be granted asylum and avoid being annexed by Aceh to the north and Majapahit to the south.

"We'll keep ...... in mind"

The twelve toasts nodded one after another, and when Zheng He saw this, he greeted Shi Jinqing: "Send troops to escort them back to the station." ”

"Yes!" Shi Jinqing, who was wearing the robe of the commander of the guard, saluted respectfully, without the previous rebelliousness, only deference.

These days, he followed the Nanyang Guard stationed in Palembang to chase down many pirates, and saw with his own eyes the power of the Ming army's artillery, so he naturally lost his previous idea of seizing the old port.

Now he is full of meritorious service and climbing up, and it is best to achieve the position of the old port propaganda envoy.

After Zheng He's explanation, he immediately led his troops to escort the twelve Tusi back to the station, and Chen Xuan, who was not far away, saw Zheng He finish speaking, and immediately came over and said:

"This Palembang is much more prosperous than I imagined, and it is not inferior to the wharves in Songjiang, Yangzhou and other places."

Chen Xuan and Zheng He spoke, and at the same time, their eyes also turned to the dock.

I saw that the wharf was crowded with various types of boats, from small fishing boats to large cargo ships, and the crew members were wearing colorful costumes and working hard.

The wharf is bustling with people, and the vendors take advantage of this busy place to pick up all kinds of goods and shout for sale, attracting people to stop and stop.

There are Nanyang women singing in capes, jugglers in colorful costumes doing acrobatics, and monkeys and tigers performing tricks, which make people applaud frequently.

In addition to the noise of people and the crowded scene, there are many special features to be seen, such as a group of Malays with vicissitudes of face who are safely at the helm between the crew and the dock workers.

They have fished on the river all their lives, and some of them have been pirates on ships when they were young, and these experiences have enriched their sailing experience and judgment, and have become a sight to behold at the docks.

They waited here, waiting for the fleets of the Ming and the merchant gangs of the countries to be hired, but their wishful thinking was doomed to be in vain.

Before the fleet headed south, Zheng He had already trained the helmsmen of the merchant gangs, and equipped each of the armed horse ships of the merchant gang with two experienced sailors to go to the West.

Because of this, the entire fleet has not run aground on the way from the south to the present.

They resupplied in Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Jiaozhi, Champang, and Manraka until they arrived at Palembang City, where the Old Port Xuanwei Division was located.

In the sunlight, the Palembang Pier is even more vibrant, with a few newly renovated boats carefully lifting their anchors along the Moses River, the mother river of Palembang.

Standing here, you can also see some ships ready to enter the port at any time.

They are ships that come to Palembang to sell some local products, although the Ming Dynasty prohibits private private trade in Nanyang, but this prohibition is mainly aimed at more than 300 lucky boats, not such fishing boats with dozens of materials.

"When are we leaving for Little West?"

Chen Xuan and Zheng He got into a carriage and rode to the former Srivijaya Palace.

It had been approved by Zhu Di to be used as the yamen of the Old Port Propaganda Division, so they could live in it.

"The construction here is not enough, at least the cement brought from Annam must be used to pave the road surface so that the roads in the city and the wharf can be leveled before leaving."

Zheng He sat in the carriage and opened the window and motioned for Chen Xuan to look outside.

Chen Xuan looked at it, although the road on the street has been repaired, due to poor drainage, cracks have begun to appear now, and I am afraid that it will collapse soon.

"I didn't expect that I would go to the West, and I would have to do these livelihood things."

Chen Xuan smiled heartily, and Zheng He also smiled bitterly: "I also thought so when I first went to the West, but His Royal Highness gave it to me...... Alas! ”

He sighed, but Chen Xuan smiled: "I know why your last trip to the West was delayed for two years." ”

"In this case, a two-year delay is already a good job."

"But......" Chen Xuan paused, and while closing the window, he asked carefully: "Do we need to collect taxes on these merchant ships?" ”

"I see that they are now proficient in the use of the ship's iron cannons, and although I don't think they pose any threat to us, I am still worried that these guys will try to plot against us when they collect taxes."

Since Chen Cang was secretly killed by Yang Zhan in the naval battle of Chongming Island, Chen Xuan doesn't look like a good person in anyone.

Zheng He smiled heartily when he heard this: "I don't blame you, you didn't see the scene of us hitting the pirate ship with artillery along the way." ”

"Don't worry, when you get out of the Manraka Strait, those merchants will definitely not dare to have any other thoughts after seeing the fate of the little Western pirates."

"So confident?" Chen Xuan stroked his short beard, but still said heartily: "Anyway, you are the right envoy, I will believe you!" ”

"Good!" Zheng He also smiled: "If there is anything I carry, don't think that I am a eunuch and despise me, I also followed Your Majesty to kill me from the sea of corpses and blood!" ”

Chen Xuan couldn't cry or laugh when he heard this: "That won't happen, I'm still your subordinate......

The two looked at each other when they heard this, and they laughed heartily, in terms of temper alone, they were quite right-tempered, they were all right about things and not about people.

After a while, their carriage stopped in front of the Srivijaya Palace, and when they got off, the stone plaque of the palace had been removed, and the new one was replaced by the stone plaque of the [Daming Old Port Xuanwei Division].

Under this stone plaque, the two walked side by side into the city that had been converted from a royal palace into a yamen, and in the corridor, the elongated shadow seemed to say that they would be comrades-in-arms for many years......

(End of chapter)