The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 2: Reversing History
In the eyes of Ming Emperor Zhu Zhonglin, his new child was definitely a genius.

When Zhu Jianxuan was eight months old, he was already able to call his parents clearly.

When he was just one year old, he was able to speak complete sentences.

At the same time, he showed a strong interest in books.

When someone around him is reading a book, he would follow and read with great curiosity, and would even ask what the words in the book mean.

After Zhu Zhonglin explained it several times in person, he specially arranged for several literate palace maids to read the contents of various books to Zhu Jianxuan.

Zhu Zhonglin quickly determined that Zhu Jianxuan was most interested in history books, especially the Ming Dynasty and world history after the Chongzhen period.

Then there are the court's existing criminal laws and daily official documents, as well as newspapers that contain news about specific civil affairs.

Such a young child not only likes history, but is also interested in serious laws and civil affairs.

This made Emperor Zhu Zhonglin even more amazed and delighted.

Zhu Jianxuan listened to the book while reading it himself, and soon he recognized most of the words in the book.

That is the standard Chinese characters that I was most familiar with in my previous life, commonly known as simplified characters.

However, Zhu Jianxuan did not show it immediately. He deliberately took almost a year before he demonstrated the ability to read books on his own.

When he was just two and a half years old, Zhu Jianxuan took the initiative to ask for permission and began to practice writing under the guidance of a teacher.

By the time Zhu Jianxuan was three and a half years old, he was already able to write very neat documents.

Ordinary children may not be able to do these things when they are ten years old.

To the extent that Zhu Zhonglin had to start thinking about the future arrangements for his genius child when Zhu Jianxuan just turned four years old.

However, what Zhu Zhonglin didn’t know was that the four-year-old Zhu Jianxuan had already begun planning his own future.

Zhu Jianxuan has now basically figured out how the Ming Dynasty was able to survive successfully.

According to the historical materials I have heard and read, the history of the Ming Dynasty and the world before the 17th year of Chongzhen is basically consistent with what I remember.

However, in the 17th year of Chongzhen, history began to show obvious deviations.

Emperor Chongzhen changed his previous indecisiveness and suddenly and firmly demanded that the court move south immediately.

However, a large number of bureaucrats and almost all nobles still strongly opposed the migration to the south.

Zhu Jianxuan judged that this was probably because the relationship networks and interest chains of court officials and nobles were all in the north.

After they followed the imperial court to the south, they had to start their business all over again on someone else's territory. Especially the nobles and military officers were left with almost nothing.

However, Li Zicheng had already ascended the throne in Xi'an and proclaimed himself emperor. He quickly led his troops out of the border and headed straight for the then Beijing city.

Li Zicheng was unstoppable along the way, and a large number of officials along the way came to join him.

When the officials and nobles in the capital received the news that Li Zicheng was approaching, they finally had to accept Emperor Chongzhen's order to move south, and then they all fled south in a panic.

Chongzhen ran to Nanjing as fast as he could.

After taking a breath, he did not, like many protagonists in historical time-travel novels, quickly perform a bunch of weird operations to forcibly reverse the situation.

Instead, he actively sought peace with foreign countries while at the same time granting official titles and making promises to people at home.

First, he negotiated with Zhang Xianzhong, directly gave him the title of Duke of the country, gave his four adopted sons the title of Earl, and allowed Zhang Xianzhong to be in charge of the military and political affairs of Sichuan.

The emperor issued an edict to appease Zheng Zhilong and directly granted him the title of duke. He also conferred the title of earl on his son Zheng Sen and allowed Zheng Zhilong to be in charge of the military and political affairs of Fujian, Dongfan and Ryukyu.

Officials and generals from all over the south were granted titles on a large scale, and were allowed to return to their hometowns to serve as stewards or lords.

Chongzhen gradually granted them almost all power in their respective fiefdoms.

They can appoint and dismiss local officials, make most local laws, and decide and handle all local affairs on their own.

They only had to pay a tribute to Emperor Chongzhen's treasury every year.

At the same time, they would have to solve all problems of the fiefdom on their own, and the imperial court would no longer be responsible for the safety and profits and losses of the fiefdom.

Chongzhen actually implemented the feudal system.

At the same time, Chongzhen reorganized the Nanjing court with the northern officials and meritorious generals who followed him south as the core.

These northerners who had no roots in the south had basic interests consistent with those of Emperor Chongzhen, so they were willing to cooperate with him.

Perhaps it was because Chongzhen, the orthodox Ming emperor, was the backbone, or perhaps it was because Chongzhen's historical reversal of the feudal system divided territories among various forces, objectively limiting and easing the conflicts between local forces.

The constraints and factional struggles among the warlords, nobles, and officials in various parts of the southern Ming Dynasty were not completely out of control.

The Southern Ming court organized by Chongzhen barely managed to survive.

On the other hand, Li Zicheng occupied Beijing basically without bloodshed.

The Qing Dynasty outside the Great Wall had long been preparing to enter the Great Wall to fight for the world. After receiving the news that Li Zicheng had occupied Beijing, it immediately mobilized all its national strength to enter the Great Wall to compete for the world.

All male members of the Eight Banners who were between ten and seventy years old had to follow the army.

Before fleeing to Nanjing, Chongzhen gave Wu Sangui an imperial edict.

He conferred the title of Duke of Liao on Wu Sangui and asked him to lead the Guanning Army south and follow him to Nanjing.

This should be an attempt to win over Wu Sangui.

But Wu Sangui had already given up the Ming court at this time and was only considering whether to surrender to Li Zicheng or to the Qing Dynasty.

In the end, Wu Sangui chose to stay in Shanhaiguan and then surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.

The allied forces of the Qing army and Wu Sangui fought against Li Zicheng's Shun army at Shanhaiguan and won a decisive victory.

Afterwards, Li Zicheng's Shun army suffered defeat after defeat and continued to flee westward.

Chongzhen took the initiative to send envoys to contact Li Zicheng, asking him to remove his imperial title and change his name to King Shun of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty would then be willing to work with him to resist the Qing army.

Li Zicheng originally disagreed, but after several consecutive defeats, he had to accept the conditions.

Among the Ming, Qing and Shun dynasties at this time, the Qing Dynasty in the north was in a period of overall rise, and its comprehensive military strength was the strongest among the three kingdoms.

As a new organization, Shun State currently has the highest organizational vitality, but it also has the least political experience and no mature base. The remaining land of the Ming Dynasty was the least damaged by the war, and its overall economic strength is theoretically the strongest.

However, the organizational structure of the Ming Dynasty court was the most outdated, and the political system it implemented at the beginning could be said to be the most backward.

The national structure has regressed to the feudal system, and the combat efficiency of local warlords who are not under the jurisdiction of each other cannot be high.

After the Ming Dynasty and Shun Kingdom joined forces, they gradually managed to hold back the Qing army's offensive.

After more than a decade of high-intensity fighting, all three parties showed signs of exhaustion and the intensity of the fighting gradually decreased.

However, in the following 100 years, the three kingdoms never signed an alliance and were nominally in a state of war.

The border areas of the three countries were also not peaceful, with large and small armed conflicts breaking out every now and then.

In order to defeat their opponents, the Three Kingdoms were constantly accumulating strength.

The Qing Dynasty vigorously developed the land in Liaodong.

Defeated the Russian explorers and troops in the East and seized the land in eastern Siberia from Russia.

Then they continued to explore eastward along the coastline of Siberia, even crossing the Bering Strait and entering the Alaska region of North America.

Then continue south along the west coast of North America, and you've probably explored California by now.

The Shun Kingdom vigorously developed the Western Regions.

He gradually defeated and conquered the Dzungar Khanate, and successively conquered several khanates in the Central Asian steppes.

Eventually found its way into India through Afghanistan.

After Shun State entered India, a land full of hope, the focus of the entire ruling group quickly shifted to India.

They took advantage of the civil strife in the Mughal Empire to gradually conquer and control large areas of land in northern India.

At the same time, Shun State's sphere of influence in mainland China continued to decline, and the land within Jiayuguan gradually fell into the hands of the Qing Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty expanded all the way to the south.

The first step was to bring Jiaozhi back into his core.

Then they gradually controlled and developed the lands of Indochina and the South Pacific Islands.

Southern vassal states such as Laos, Cambodia, Siam, Burma, Johor, Aceh, and Brunei successively annexed the country.

Java Island and Borneo, Luzon and Medan Islands, as well as Sumatra Island where the old port was once located, also became the mainland of the Ming Dynasty.

The land and islands around the South China Sea were incorporated into the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

As a result, within the mainland of Shenzhou, a general pattern of Southern Ming, Northern Qing, and Western Shun was formed.

The battle lines and borders between the Ming and Qing dynasties were basically stable along the line from the Qinling Mountains to the Huai River.

The battle line between Shun and Qing was initially along the Taihang Mountains, but later moved westward and eventually shrunk to the Jiayuguan area.

The history and pattern of China's mainland can be said to have undergone tremendous changes compared to the same period in Zhu Jianxuan's memory.

However, outside the areas directly influenced by the Ming, Qing and Shun dynasties, the history and structure of other parts of the world, mainly Europe, America and Africa, are still not much different from Zhu Jianxuan's memories of his previous life.

There will probably be many differences in details, but the major historical context remains basically unchanged.

After all, the improvement of steam engines was still in progress, the First Industrial Revolution had not yet officially begun, and the East and West were still generally divided.

Neither China nor European countries have yet been able to directly interfere in each other's homeland.

However, there are more direct contacts between the East and the West than in the same period of previous history, and the mutual understanding between them is also deeper than in the same period of history.

After Emperor Chongzhen stabilized the situation, he wrote a book called "Kunyu Geography".

In a very simple and straightforward way, he introduced the geographical and cultural features of the world, and also included many hand-drawn maps by him.

Although its accuracy was far lower than that of later printed maps, it was the most accurate and comprehensive map in the world at that time.

In particular, it explains in detail the methods of traveling from the Ming Dynasty to India, Europe and America.

Special introduction is given to ancient India and the situation at that time.

There is a detailed route from the Hexi Corridor through the Ili River Valley, across the Transoxiana Steppe and the Seven Rivers Region, and into India via the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan.

There is a saying about "Five Great Lands of Abundance", which are the five most suitable regions for farming in the world.

The first one is of course the Central Plains and Jiangnan regions of the Ming Dynasty.

The second is India, which was called Tianzhu in ancient times.

The third is the plains along the Black Sea coast of Eastern Europe.

The fourth is the coastal plains of southeastern North America.

The fifth is the coastal plain of the Milky Way (La Plata River) in southeastern South America.

The situation of India and the indigenous peoples of North and South America is also described.

It explains the process and current situation of the Spanish and Portuguese occupation of America in Europe.

Finally, the route from Alaska to North America is mentioned.

The tone of the entire book is obviously intended to lure the people of China to turn their attention to the overseas world.

After Chongzhen finished writing the book, he used his imperial power to request the court to print the book on a large scale and distribute and disseminate it widely throughout the world.

Even the flow to Shun and Qing countries was not prohibited.

This book was also the direct reason why Shun and Qing were able to find India and America.

In the end, the Qing Dynasty cut off Tsarist Russia's eastward advance claws, took over the baton from Tsarist Russia and climbed to California, and further south was Mexico.

In the process of encroaching on Indian land, Shun State had already dealt with the British East India Company, which was also encroaching on India.

The Ming Dynasty even fought wars with Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch, and seized their colonies in Southeast Asia.

(End of this chapter)