Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 328 Steam Locomotive
Zhu Houzhao was about to escape from the questioning of Hu Zongxian and Zhang Juzheng when he saw many people running towards Yongding Gate, shouting that a steam locomotive had started running outside Yongding Gate.

Zhu Houzhao didn't expect that the appearance of the steam locomotive would make these people so excited, so he couldn't help but smile and followed. He knew that steam locomotives were a new thing for the Ming Dynasty at the moment.

After all, before this, steam locomotives had only appeared in newspapers.

When Zhu Houzhao arrived, he saw that both sides of the cement main road outside Yongding Gate were crowded with people, even some officials and gentry in tall hats and wide belts. In the middle of the Han landscape wall composed of these people in silk clothes and long hair, there was a black steam locomotive spewing white mist. The locomotive was very large, like a locomotive, but it was obviously simpler than a locomotive.

The soft morning light spread over the top of the Yongdingmen Tower and shone on the two words "Da Ming" on the top of the locomotive. The metallic luster on the steam locomotive looked even more dazzling, as brilliant as the smiles on the faces of the Han people on both sides of the road at this time.

Bang!

The huge steam power was transmitted from the cylinder, directly driving the rotating shaft, causing the locomotive tires to suddenly change their static state, and suddenly it moved forward like a tall black horse galloping.

At this time, the Han people were already shouting excitedly: "It's moving! It's moving!"

These people grinned with joy and called their friends to come and watch. Some schoolchildren used their superficial mechanical knowledge to explain the principles to their families.

At this time, the official from the Ministry of Industry who was still standing on the locomotive was obviously a little slow to react. When the steam locomotive started, he suddenly leaned back and realized that the steam locomotive had moved. He couldn't help but get excited for a moment, and without even bothering to straighten his black hat that was tilted by the shake, he grinned and laughed regardless of his status: "It's moving! It's moving!"

In this era, in the Ming Dynasty, there was no closed and conservative national policy, no invasion by foreign races, and the people of the empire, freed from the shackles of Confucianism, no longer had to worry about food and clothing. They were wealthy, knowledgeable and educated, and even had ample opportunities to come into contact with new things.

The empire's technology did not stagnate due to the short-sightedness of foreign races, the Confucian supremacy, and the conservatism of the small peasant economy. Now the new steam industry has officially begun to intervene in the field of transportation.

The leaves on the roadside were blown by the breeze, gently brushing the tough shell of the steam locomotive.

The four tires made of natural rubber were also very large. They were moving on the road that had just been wet by the early summer rain. The rotating connecting rods also rose and fell continuously, and the hearts of the Han people also started moving. After all, the visual impact of the metal monster in front of them was too great!

Even the old scholar Tang Jingyi, who was about to leave Beijing, couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at the four rubber iron wheels carrying the heavy locomotive moving on the ground, and couldn't help but sigh: "Incredible! Incredible! The carriage doesn't need horses, and it can carry more than ten people. Can the skills of hundreds of craftsmen really change the times?!"

"As expected, corrupt scholars cannot save the country, only strange skills and tricks can make it prosperous. With this locomotive, the world will no longer need to raise horses, and the people in the capital and Shandong who are burdened by the court's money for raising horses can be relieved from their difficulties!"

At this time, Zhang Juzheng said that although he was only fifteen years old, he had already begun to care about the common people.

Tang Jingyi turned around and glared at Zhang Juzheng, wanting to say something, but couldn't say anything.

When Zhu Houzhao saw that the old scholar Tang Jingyi was so angry that he was holding his breath because of Zhang Juzheng's words, he felt even more pleased. For the common people, the emergence of the steam locomotive might just make them feel new, but for the Ming Dynasty, it would indeed change the social ecology of the empire.

Before the emergence of mechanical power, horses have always been the most important means of transportation. Whoever controls the horse resources will have the most advantageous military and transportation power. Horses have also always been an important strategic resource. In fact, horses have always been the main product of nomadic peoples. Because of this, the Ming Dynasty was often restricted by horse resources.

Of course, the Ming Dynasty also had its own horse farm, but the cost of this horse farm was at the expense of the interests of farmers. After all, using the arable land within the Great Wall as pasture was a waste, and it was also difficult to breed high-quality horses.

Now that steam locomotives have begun to appear, it means that the status of horses as a strategic resource will gradually decline, mechanical power will become the main source of power for vehicles, and transportation will no longer rely on animal power, which will undoubtedly cause the advantages of nomadic peoples to begin to decline.

More importantly, as Zhang Juzheng said, once steam locomotives replaced horses, the people would no longer have to bear the heavy burden of supplying horses to the court.

Of course, it is still just a vision at present. After all, the speed of a steam locomotive is obviously not as fast as that of a horse, and the manufacturing cost is actually higher than the cost of purchasing a horse. However, the loading capacity is obviously far greater than that of a horse.

Zhu Houzhao did not stay outside Yongding Gate for long. After seeing the steam locomotive running successfully, he quietly returned to the Royal West Garden. However, as soon as he returned to the Royal West Garden, Zhu Houzhao received the news that the Southern Front Corps had occupied Thanh Hoa City in Jiaozhi.

"Once Thanh Hoa City is occupied, it means that our southern army will have a landing point in Jiaozhi. The cabinet will immediately begin to prepare internal affairs plans for ruling Jiaozhi and developing Jiaozhi. Policies will be introduced to encourage the people of the Ming Dynasty to move to Jiaozhi. According to the pre-planned strategic plan, Jiaozhi will implement the military farming plan. Yan Song will be appointed as the Governor-General of Jiaozhi and the Left Vice Minister of the Grain Industry Bureau. He will be stationed in Thanh Hoa first and will start working on this matter immediately."

Although Jiaozhi had not been completely recovered, the southern troops had not completely destroyed the Nguyen family and had only occupied the city of Thanh Hoa, but Zhu Houzhao was now eager to get enough food resources from Jiaozhi immediately, so he directly asked Yan Song to go to Thanh Hoa to take up the post of Governor of Jiaozhi.

There was no way around it. Zhu Houzhao had to admit that the Ming Dynasty was plagued by disasters, with droughts and floods always happening. In addition, the Little Ice Age was becoming more and more obvious. The arable area in the north was gradually shrinking, and the demand for agricultural products was increasing sharply after industrial development. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty now had to speed up the development of Jiaozhi to obtain sufficient supply of agricultural products.

Yan Song went to Jiaozhi, and as soon as he arrived in Thanh Hoa, he got a group of prisoners of war, the so-called monkeys, the local natives.

These natives had already been frightened by the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty. They were also very afraid in front of Ming officials such as Yan Song. They all sat obediently in the makeshift cement-walled cells as prisoners.

These natives had already been numbered by the Guards when they were captured. Therefore, at this time, these captives had no names. When they were placed in front of Yan Song's copywriter, they were just a bunch of names, with only simple gender and physical statistics, and distinctions between the old, middle-aged, and young.

According to the Ming Dynasty's arrangement, these natives were to be arranged as farmers, regardless of whether they were officials or Confucian scholars in Jiaozhi before, they all had to work in the fields.

Of course, much of the arable land in the Thanh Hoa area is still cultivated by local indigenous farmers, and even by landlords.

However, the Ming Dynasty had no intention of taking away the opportunity for these indigenous farmers to cultivate the land, but only of taking away the agricultural products grown on these lands.

But there are also methods and approaches.

Following Zhu Houzhao's instructions, Yan Song's initial strategy was to launch land reform, and to force it. He distributed the land of the Jiaozhi landlord class to their tenants, and re-established the land register and the land tax.

As for the problem of population increase due to farmers getting married and having children in the future, and the increase in the number of landless people due to insufficient land supply and land mergers, we naturally cannot control it now.

The only thing that can be done is to develop industry and commerce in the future to absorb the landless population.

The farmers in Jiaozhi were naturally the happiest. After all, they could get a share of the land, and what they handed over to the Ming government was equivalent to handing it over to the previous landlord class, and even much less.

The landlord class in Jiaozhi was naturally unwilling to accept the emergence of the Ming Dynasty, and they rose up in resistance one by one, but in the face of the empire's powerful military force, they were all dealt with.

Naturally, all the surplus grain in the homes of the landlord class in Jiaozhi would be taken away, leaving only enough food to satisfy the hunger of the main family members. The so-called maids and slaves would also be naturally captured. In addition, these masters of the landlord class would be given land and become real farmers, contributing land taxes to the Ming Dynasty.

A team of Ming Dynasty police soldiers were standing on the edge of a field, pointing their guns at the natives who were reclaiming the land.

These natives were either captured monkey soldiers, the landlord class of Jiaozhi, or slaves of the landlord class. Both men and women were uniformly renumbered and arranged to open up wasteland and cultivate crops in Thanh Hoa.

These people are not farmers or are landlords who live by sucking the farmers' means of production. Naturally, they are unwilling and unable to work on the land, so they need to be managed by police soldiers with force.

Yan Song listed the amount of cultivated land reclaimed and the amount of grain harvested as key assessment indicators. Therefore, the officials and police soldiers sent to Jiaozhi all carefully supervised the work of the middle and upper-class native Jiaozhi people who usually acted arrogantly.

A native of Jiaozhi who used to be a landlord was obviously unwilling to work. After working for a few times, he was so angry that he wanted to get up and run away.

Snapped!
At this time, the police soldier fired a shot and killed the native on the spot before he ran into the woods.

Seeing this, the other Jiaozhi natives became much more well-behaved and had to continue working honestly.

Of course, there were still many Jiaozhi natives who were unwilling to become serfs of the Ming Dynasty and wanted to escape, and some of them did.

Yan Song even promulgated the Fugitive Law for this purpose. As the Governor of Jiaozhi, he had the power to legislate, but according to regulations, it was only effective for non-Ming citizens during his term of office. Therefore, this decree naturally only targeted the natives of Jiaozhi.

Yan Song required that every county in Qinghua organize the execution of fugitive slaves every three months, and that all those fugitive slaves who attempted to escape be executed in front of all the Jiaozhi natives. They would be shot directly with the Ming version of the Gatling machine gun, and after they were killed, they would be burned to become fertilizer to increase soil fertility.

Basically, all the landlords, their subordinates and soldiers of Jiaozhi who were not engaged in agricultural production were turned into serfs and could only engage in agricultural production every day.

Influenced by the Fugitive Law, most of these new serfs from the Jiaozhi natives began to get used to their new identities and started to live peacefully as serfs and cultivate the land.

As for the original self-cultivating farmers and tenant farmers among the Jiaozhi natives, they still cultivated their own land as usual, but they had to pay summer taxes and autumn grain every year. In general, in the area of ​​Jiaozhi Thanh Hoa that the Ming Dynasty had occupied, the original landlord class was completely eliminated, and it basically became a simpler small peasant economy society. Except for some necessary towns, most of them were natural villages, both old and new villages, but each village had a certain number of police soldiers, and the head of each village was a Han Chinese.

Because of this, even in the early stages of the war, after the Ming Dynasty occupied only the Thanh Hoa area, nearly one million shi of grain were transported back to the Ming Dynasty.

Most of these grains came from the original landlord class in Jiaozhi, and some were from the summer tax that had just passed.

In any case, this allowed the Ming Dynasty to obtain more raw materials, and naturally it did not have to care whether these raw materials were obtained in a rough or more civilized manner.

of course.

Although the land in Jiaozhi was forcibly confiscated and turned into public ownership, the serfs in Jiaozhi only had the right to use the land. However, even with the right to use the land, they inevitably had private property. Where there is private property, there will be transactions. Where there are transactions, there will be commerce. Where there is commerce, there will be a private economy. The existence of a private economy means exploitation, and there will be a landlord class or bourgeoisie that exploits the workers.

Yan Song basically suppressed this phenomenon.

Therefore, when he proposed to the Ministry of Personnel, the local officials of Jiaozhi that he recommended were basically Confucian officials. They believed in the idea of ​​emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, and advocated the Confucian concept of governing the country. They imposed heavy taxes on commerce, basically restricting the exchange of goods by serfs back to the level of barter.

This basically restricted the commercial development of Jiaozhi. After all, as serfs, apart from the demand for currency, they had basically no demand for agricultural products because they could produce them themselves.

Once these serfs inevitably produced too much agricultural products and were forced to engage in commercial trade, the government would levy taxes on them so that the surplus agricultural production materials would be taken away by the government.

In short, Yan Song tried his best to stifle the possibility of the development of commodity economy in Jiaozhi.

The Confucian officials transferred to Jiaozhi also worked very hard to implement these measures, which ensured that the serfs in Jiaozhi were basically able to stay in a state of not starving to death.

But the emergence of the landlord class is still inevitable. After all, the landlord class is the inevitable product of the small peasant class.

First of all.

The Ming officials and police soldiers who came to Jiaozhi became the first batch of landlords.

Because they are now the rulers of Jiaozhi, it is easiest for them to possess more wealth, and they are the first-class subjects of the Ming Dynasty and are allowed to own land, so they can buy their own land or cultivate their own land in Jiaozhi through the Ming government.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty also encouraged the first-class subjects in the inland, namely the Han scholars and civilians, to move to Jiaozhi. Since it was an encouragement, there were naturally preferential policies. For example, going to Jiaozhi not only gave them the right to use the land, but they also had the right to keep the second-class people as slaves. They would also be exempt from taxes for three years and even enjoy legal privileges.

For example, Yan Song immediately promulgated the Han customary law that was in line with the outline of the imperial constitution. The core idea of ​​its content was basically to give the Han people legal protection that was higher than that of the local indigenous people.

To be honest, under the influence of the development of capitalism over the years, and the fact that the Ming Emperor Zhu Houzhao was a man who pursued equality for all within the nation and protected the personal rights and interests of the Han people as much as possible in the system, the vested interests in the country lived very unfreely. If it were not for the fact that their income was constantly increasing with the empire's external plunder and expansion, they would have long been eager to rebel against the Ming Dynasty.

Nowadays, those who migrated to Jiaozhi could obtain land use rights and be exempted from taxes for three years. Most importantly, they could keep slaves and become the superior ones. At least they would not be held criminally responsible for killing someone. They could also enjoy the more comfortable feeling of tyranny brought by the improvement of wealth and status.

Therefore, people from the landlord class and the bourgeoisie began to migrate to Jiaozhi.

The gentry in particular began to flee from the Ming Dynasty, where even the princes and nobles could not do whatever they wanted. They liked Jiaozhi as much as they liked Goa.

After all, only in these places can aristocrats act like aristocrats.

Only those from the lower classes of the empire truly like the environment within the Ming Dynasty, and only the common people within the empire truly like the current Ming Dynasty in their hearts. As a result, the number of members of the Loyal Emperor Society expanded rapidly among major universities and grassroots organizations, and Zhu Houzhao's prestige among the people became increasingly high.

But the funny thing is that once these people from the bottom of society became middle class or above through education or other means, they began to get tired of and dislike the policies within the empire, began to feel that they had been brainwashed by official education, and began to hope that they could have more special treatment, so that once these people from the bottom of society became rich, they also began to migrate to places like Jiaozhi and Goa.

But in order to make the Ming Empire prosper for a long time, the emperor and the upper echelons of the empire could only continue to take care of the interests of the lower classes, continue to maintain a balance, and continue to emphasize the civil rights of the first-class subjects of the Ming Dynasty, because with the development of industry and the popularization of education, a large number of Han workers and farmers would need these.

Today, Jiaozhi has undoubtedly become the second place after Goa for the migration of the Ming Dynasty's vested interests, the gentry group.

The first thing the gentry did after arriving in Jiaozhi was to buy people and land, repeating the rhythm of the landlord class's life on this land.

The land in Jiaozhi was limited to begin with, and even if it was reclaimed, it would be impossible to reclaim enough land in a short period of time for the natives who had become serfs to cultivate. Naturally, many of the natives would still be used for trading.

After arriving in Jiaozhi, these Confucian scholars would also purchase a large number of these serfs as their own slaves.

Ren Han, a famous scholar who once served as a Hanlin Academy scholar, also migrated to Jiaozhi. Born into a bureaucratic family, he could not accept the concept of citizenship brought about by the influence of equality ideas in the inland Ming Dynasty, which made him unable to be a gentry who could arbitrarily beat and kill slaves and execute clan members by lynching.

This made him feel very depressed.

Moreover, when Ren Han thought about how he happened to catch one of his farmhands carrying dirty manure entering the yard from the front door, and he scolded the worker for being disrespectful and ordered the farmhands to enter and exit from the back door in the future, he was criticized by many writers for discriminating against ordinary people, which made him feel even more depressed and uncomfortable.

But he could not tolerate the students' behavior of not considering the face of his famous scholar teacher, nor could he accept the idea that the lower-class people who only knew how to visit brothels, talk dirty and do hard work were equal to him in status.

However, he also knew that he could not refute it, because the ancient sages did not say that as a Confucian scholar he should treat common people as grass.

Because of this, Ren Han also migrated to Jiaozhi, where he could establish a strict hierarchical clan covenant, keep slaves, and become a clan leader and patriarch who could control his clan members and family. Even if he beat his own son to death, it would not be illegal. He felt that Jiaozhi was obviously much freer than the inland areas of the Ming Dynasty.

Even Yan Song himself was somewhat reluctant to leave. Now he could enjoy the back and leg massages from the female slaves he bought. However, he had the desire but not the courage to do so because of the tyranny of his wife Ouyang. However, his son Yan Shifan was very unrestrained in Jiaozhi and had no less than three or four female slaves every day.

The idea of ​​equality for all is most beneficial and most necessary for the common people, but it is obviously unacceptable to the ruling class, even if they have to accept it on the surface.

And now, it is precisely because of this that this phenomenon has occurred.

The rich and powerful began to migrate to Jiaozhi, while the common people remained in the country. However, once these common people accumulated wealth, they began to migrate to Jiaozhi again.

In his heart, Zhu Houzhao actually yearned for the life of his countrymen living in the colonies as superior people.

Because now he found that he had dug a hole for himself. His investment in the liberation of thought, the opening of trade, and education made it difficult for him, the emperor, to execute people at will as he did before. Sometimes, Zhu Houzhao also wanted to keep a few female slaves to try and do something exciting.

But Zhu Houzhao finally restrained the bestial side of his heart, but he also thought that perhaps in the future even if the social economy is highly developed, only partial equality can be achieved. Perhaps those who enjoy equality and freedom will never think that they are actually exploiters, but it is not through their own hands, so they will feel how noble they are.

For example, the civilians in the interior of the Ming Dynasty today do not realize that the reason they can enjoy high welfare benefits now is that the court has continuously distributed to them the profits exploited from the colonies and other ethnic groups, allowing them to grow up happily drinking the blood of other ethnic groups without worrying about the survival crisis.

"I don't understand why the court has to divide people into two classes. Since the people of the Ming Dynasty can be given citizenship, why can't the indigenous people of Jiaozhi be given citizenship? Since everyone is equal, why can't we respect these indigenous people? Why are they so brutal? Respect their culture and respect their beliefs!"

Bai Ruoyi said this in the newspaper, which even aroused enthusiastic response from some so-called emerging intellectuals.

After seeing this, Zhu Houzhao was both happy and scared. He was happy because the emergence of these Madonna theories must be because the Ming Dynasty had indeed become prosperous and the people indeed lived a prosperous life, otherwise it would not have been noble enough to love all human beings.

What we are afraid of is that this Madonna-like concept will become more and more prevalent as the number of wealthy people increases, causing more and more people to ignore the fact that the essence of natural law is the law of the jungle.

"The story of the farmer and the snake must not be forgotten! Today, people who have no worries about food and clothing want to love people of other races, but they don't know that their ability to have no worries about food and clothing depends on the sacrifices of people of other races. If they want people of other races to be equally prosperous, they must be willing to be slaves!"

Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but sigh.

Thanks to the book friend Don't Book Demon for giving 100 Qidian coins to the book friend Sword Soul Platform for giving 500 Qidian coins to Tianma Feixiang for giving 100 Qidian coins to the book friend

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(End of this chapter)