Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 200
Wenhua Hall was first built in the 18th year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty. It was originally the emperor's permanent imperial palace. In the Tianshun and Chenghua dynasties, it was used as a place for the prince to observe government. In the Jiajing Dynasty, it was still changed to the emperor's imperial palace.

The so-called side hall is a commonly used palace other than the main hall. That is to say, the emperor of Ming Dynasty usually manages politics in Qianqing Palace, and he will come to Wenhua Palace to deal with other matters.

The Wenhua Palace is five rooms wide and three rooms deep. There are more than ten rooms, large and small. There are quite a lot of large rooms.

Early this morning, after the early court, Taichang summoned the prince Zhu Youxiao, the letter king Zhu Youjian, a group of cabinet scholars, bachelors and six ministers, and the Zuodu Yushi of the Metropolitan Procuratorate to a room in the Wenhua Palace. Among the rooms in the lobby.

This room is indeed big enough to accommodate more than a dozen large round tables for banquets. However, there is only one conference table about ten feet wide and four to five feet long in the room at the moment.

Of course, there is no such thing as a conference table at the moment, and roughly long tables are called bar tables.

Everyone knows that the emperor likes to use this kind of table, and there is no airs when he is with his cronies, just like when he is with relatives.

Therefore, as soon as Taichang waved, everyone sat down on both sides of the table without any restraint.

However, everyone's faces were more or less curious.

Why did the emperor call everyone here?
Taichang didn't hesitate, just raised his hand and said loudly: "The picture above."

Outside the door, Taipu Si Qing Li Zhizao, who was already there, walked in excitedly holding a scroll taller than him.

This Li Zhizao was a Jinshi in the 26th year of Wanli. He was in the same discipline as Bi Maokang, and he had a very good personal relationship with Xu Guangqi.

However, this person's hobbies are a bit special, and he doesn't like to fight for power and profit, so he didn't do very well in the officialdom. When Xu Guangqi recommended him to Taichang, he was still serving as the magistrate of Kaizhou, a remote village in the north of Chongqing Prefecture.

When Taichang learned about this person's hobbies, he attached great importance to him, and directly promoted him to be the minister of Taipusi.

So, what are his hobbies?

To put it bluntly, his hobby is astronomy and geography!
This hobby is very common in later generations, but in this day and age, very few scholars would be so bored.

That's all for astronomy, if you learn it well, you're still a bit of a fool these days, and you need to know astronomy to compile an almanac.

Geography is not very useful. Drawing a map is quite time-consuming, and most scholars will not spend time on such a hopeless thing.

However, Li Zhizao likes to draw maps very much. When he was 20 years old, he hand-painted the whole map of the two capitals and thirteen provinces of Ming Dynasty!
I have to say that he is really good. He spent most of his energy on drawing maps, but he was still able to pass the Jinshi exam.

However, what he brought over at this moment was not the complete map of the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty, but the "Complete Map of Kun Yu Wan Guo".

He spread out the three-meter-long and nearly two-meter-wide painted version of "Kun Yu Wan Guo Quan Tu" on the big table as if offering a treasure, and the curiosity on the faces of the people present became more intense.

Of course, everyone knows about the Quanyu Quanguo Tu, because in the 36th year of Wanli, when Li Zhizao presented the Quanyu Wanguo Quantu, Shenzong was very happy for a while, and ordered people to copy and draw [-] copies, and passed it on to the officials in Beijing. For a while, and then, there is no more.

Emperor Shenzong Wanli generally thought it was a strange thing to see, so he asked everyone to see it too, that's all.

Now, what is the emperor ordering Li Zhizao to put the "Complete Map of Kun Yu Wan Guo" on the big table?

This is strange, except for Wen Zhenmeng and Ni Yuanlu and other new scholars, most of the other officials have seen it.

When they first saw the "Kun Yu Wan Guo Quan Tu", they were really surprised, but after reading it, there was nothing to worry about, because Daming practiced the strategy of banning the sea, and basically everyone had no chance to travel to Wan Guo, so, see Just watch it, there is no need for research.

At this moment, the emperor called everyone together in a serious manner, and placed "The Complete Map of Kunyu and Wanguo" among them, obviously not just to let everyone see it as a surprise.

So, what does Taichang want to do?

He wanted his son and this group of cronies to take a broad look at the world, and then discuss how to become the real kingdom of heaven, that is, the overlord of the sea!
This "Kun Yu Wan Guo Quan Tu" is really well drawn. It is really not easy to draw the whole world map on a piece of paper without satellite detection.

Taichang stared at "Kun Yu Wan Guo Quan Tu" for a while, then raised his head and said: "Everyone should know that just yesterday, the Fanbang envoys arrived in the capital. So, do you know what this Fanbang is called and where it is located? How big is the territory?"

Someone really knows this.

Xu Guangqi, the chief assistant of the cabinet, looked at the bewildered crowd, then stood up, pointed to the southwest corner of Oulu and said, "Your Majesty, the name of this country is Xixi Bayouya, and Ming used to call it Flangji, and its location is In the southern corner of Europa, its territory is roughly equivalent to that of Sichuan Chengxuan Political and Envoy Division."

Well, this Xu Guangqi is really powerful. He has profound attainments in astronomy and geography, firearms manufacturing, agriculture and even mathematics.

Taichang nodded slightly and said: "Yes, this country is called Ezebania, or Spain in simple terms. Its own territory is not very large, but its expanded territory is frighteningly large."

As he said that, he picked up the white wax pole in front of him, pointed to America on the map and said: "Look, this is Amerigo, its area is as big as three or four Ming Dynasty, and the middle one is about [-]% of the area. The area has been taken by this Spain."

"what?"

When everyone heard this, they were all surprised.

A small country that is only about the size of Bashu has conquered a territory larger than the entire Ming Dynasty. This ability to expand the territory is too great!

Seeing everyone's surprised expressions, Taichang couldn't help but sighed slightly: "Oh, we Daming have been in seclusion for too long, if this continues, we will be worse than Fanbang."

This!
When everyone heard this, they were even more shocked.

It is really unexpected that the emperor would say such a thing.

However, if it is only calculated in terms of territorial area, Daming is indeed not as good as this small foreign country!
Immediately afterwards, Taichang said earnestly: "Think about it, how many minerals and materials are there in such a large territory, just like rubber, we can't find it in Ming Dynasty, and people can easily bring thousands Tens of thousands of barrels, or copper, we can only produce four to five million catties a year in the Ming Dynasty, and others can easily bring in tens of millions of catties. Their supplies are too abundant, once they turn these supplies into their own strength , turned into muskets, cannons, and gunboats, you say, can Da Ming beat them?"

This is really hard to say.

Everyone heard the words, and their faces were dignified.

Taichang put away the white wax rod, and then solemnly said: "Everyone, open your eyes and take a good look at this world. In the future, there will be more and more maritime powers like Spain, and there will be more and more places in this world." Become their turf. If our Ming Dynasty does not want to fall behind others, be bullied, or even become their turf, we must continue to become stronger and surpass them. We don’t mean to destroy other countries and become My own territory, at least, has to make all the foreign countries around Daming become our vassal states of Daming!"

(End of this chapter)