Rule over Ming Dynasty

The sandalwood in the imperial study has been lit. On the east wall hangs a world map, with the words "Empty talk ruins a country, hard work makes it prosperous" still written on the top.

Song Cheng has returned from Shandong, but there is no sign of fatigue on his face.

In Shandong, he not only handled the case of the previous Yansheng Duke, but after a thorough investigation, he found that the crimes of the entire Kong family were simply too numerous to list.

Those who accompanied him back to Beijing this time included Kong family members such as Kong Hongchu and Kong Wenshi who had committed serious crimes. These people will not be able to escape the law and will need to pay the price for their crimes.

"Student greets teacher!" Yan Song, who came in for special reasons, had already noticed his teacher. He seized the opportunity to step forward and greet him.

Although the chief examiners of the imperial examinations no longer accept student letters from newly graduated Jinshi, and the teacher-student relationship established by an examination is no longer popular, these candidates usually still regard themselves as students.

Song Cheng had a good impression of Yan Song, and said indifferently, "Although the gifts you sent a few days ago are all specialties from America, their quality is too good. Send someone to take them back later!"

"Dear teacher, I know that you have been honest all your life, so the things I sent you are all inexpensive local specialties. I just picked out some with good quality. This is the only small token of my appreciation that I can give you!" Yan Song knew that Song Cheng was honest, and he said with aggrieved look.

Song Cheng knew that a dam thousands of miles long could be breached by a single ant hole, and the actual value of the gift from this student was not low: "Do as I ask!"

"Student will obey the master's orders!" Yan Song was a smart man who knew when to advance and when to retreat, and he expressed his position immediately.

Song Cheng's expression eased, and he earnestly warned: "Your Majesty is kind, you should speak louder when you explain, and don't be too nervous! The construction of a new overseas granary in America has been finalized, you just need to state the truth."

"Thank you for your teachings, my teacher!" Yan Song said humbly.

All the important officials have come to the Imperial Study. Three years is not a long time, but it is not a short time either. Some new faces have come here, but some old faces have also left.

Liu Xuan, the Minister of War, was originally from Jiangxi. Because he served in the army in northern Zhili, he was orphaned at an early age. He served in Lulong on behalf of his father and studied day and night in the stable.

In the first year of the Jingtai reign, he passed the provincial examination in Shuntian Prefecture and won the first place.

In the second year of Jingtai, he passed the imperial examination and was selected as a Hanlin Academy student and appointed as an editor.

During the Hongzhi period, he was highly regarded by the emperor and was first appointed Governor-General of Liaodong and later promoted to Minister of War for his merits.

During his years as the Minister of War, although Liu Xuan did not make any outstanding military achievements, he vigorously developed the martial arts of the Beijing Guards and trained countless outstanding generals for the Ming Dynasty.

This minister of war who came out of a stable made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty, but unfortunately he could not escape death. Although he had decided to resign and return home due to illness, he died on the way.

The current person who has taken over as the Minister of War is Zhang Jin, the Governor-General of Liaodong. During his tenure, Zhang Jin not only brought peace to the entire Northeast region, but also continued to expand the territory, allowing the Ming Dynasty's territory to connect to the Sea of ​​Japan in the east.

In addition to the Minister of War, the changes in the Vice Ministers of the six ministries are naturally greater.

The assistant ministers of the six ministries with outstanding performance were sent to local areas to serve as governors and governors-general. For example, Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Revenue Qian Sen and Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Works Yu Ming have already been sent to local areas, and their positions have also been filled by new forces.

"Your Majesty, we greet you. Long live the emperor!" When the Prime Minister Yin Tai and other important officials saw the emperor appear, they immediately knelt down in an orderly manner and said.

Although Yan Song was mentally prepared, when he was faced with Emperor Hongzhi who strode in from outside, he prostrated himself on the ground.

That year, he was able to stand out from many candidates and be selected as the third place among the twelve top talents, all thanks to the emperor in front of him.

Now that I meet this wise and capable emperor again, I am loyal to him from the bottom of my heart and only hope that in the future I will have the opportunity to become a prime minister and a favorite of the emperor.

Zhu Youtang, wearing the dragon robe, has entered the young adult stage from a seventeen-year-old boy. Although his pampered life has given him fair skin and delicate facial features that still make him a young emperor, the imperial power he exudes is no weaker than that of Emperor Taizong back then.

This kind of scene in the imperial study was already commonplace. He went up the stairs to the attic as usual, and then let this group of important ministers discuss government affairs downstairs.

What concerns him most now is maritime hegemony, and the granary that supports the Ming Dynasty's control over the world's territory. One of the important topics today is the American granary.

Zhu Youtang came to his fixed coffee table, saw that the tea was ready, and waved his hand gently.

Liu Jin, wearing a bullfighting suit and holding a whisk, stood in front of the attic railing and said, "My Lords, please start the meeting!"

The chief minister of the cabinet, Yin Tai, is the head of all civil and military officials. He also presided over the meeting this time, and the first item was about the Kong family in Shandong.

Song Cheng, the Minister of Justice, has been in charge of the overall situation in Shandong during this period. He is most familiar with the situation of the Kong family, so he will make all the investigation results public here: "Although the Kong family is a descendant of a saint, they have been passed down for thousands of years and are nothing more than a local tyrant. The people are humiliated by them, and dare not speak out. The children of the Kong family are rampant in the streets, robbing property, and even insulting people's wives and daughters without any scruples. The people are living in misery and complaints are everywhere. The evil of the Kong family is hated by both humans and gods..."

Facing the important officials present, he did not defend the face of the Kong family, but instead presented his own observations and investigation results to everyone.

"How dare Kong Hongchu take human life so lightly?"

"Poisoning one's own father is truly unprecedented!"

"Using your own wives and concubines to seduce your own nephew is truly the behavior of a beast!"

"It's not just the direct descendants of the Kong family who are like this. The evil deeds done by the side branches are equally heinous!"

……

After the important officials present learned of the evil deeds of the Kong family, although they had long known that the Kong family's descendants had oppressed the good people in Shandong, they could not hide their indignation and criticized them at this moment.

The purpose of this supreme meeting is not just to criticize, they have to come up with a real solution.

After half an incense stick of discussion, the cabinet chief Yin Zhi stated the conclusion of the discussion: "Your Majesty, we believe that the lineage of the sage has lost its moral integrity, and there have been acts of treason by disobeying the emperor's order and beating the emperor's personal guards. Therefore, we believe that the Duke of Yansheng should be stripped of his title, and the relevant people should be severely punished!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Wang Yue and other important officials immediately expressed their opinions: "We second this motion!"

This... Yan Song was not one of the participants in the highest meeting venue, but now seeing that all the important officials in the court had agreed to strip Duke Yansheng of his title, he couldn't help but swallow his saliva secretly.

Although he had learned about the evil deeds of Duke Yansheng's lineage in his early years, he did not dare to criticize them too much because those people were descendants of saints after all and had the blood of saints flowing in their veins.

However, it was unexpected that the important officials in the court did not back down because of this. Instead, they were able to uphold justice and even dared to propose the plan to abolish the title.

However, at this moment, he clearly felt that the current Ming Dynasty was indeed different. At least the important officials present had the courage to do practical things.

"Approved!" Zhu Youtang seemed very satisfied with the resolution of the Supreme Conference and nodded happily to approve it.

The cabinet chief Yin Zhi and other important officials bowed solemnly again: "Your Majesty is wise!"

With the first topic over, the next topic is the issue of the American granary, which will be a big step for the Ming Dynasty to move towards the world. After all, Chinese history has proved that the rule that relies on the grain transportation model from the Central Plains is not long-lasting.

Now that the Ming Dynasty is determined to unify the four oceans, it needs to ensure food security, and America, across the Pacific Ocean, needs a large granary comparable to the Northeast.

After several years of investigation, the Governor-General's Office in America has roughly understood the situation along the coast of America and has repeatedly discussed the plan of building a large granary in America.

Although China has always been proud of the Central Plains and its vast land and abundant resources, with continuous overseas exploration, it has also realized that the conditions of some overseas lands are actually not bad.

Not to mention anything else, just speaking of gold and silver, China, which originally lacked gold and silver, ended up with gold mines in Luzon in Southeast Asia, silver mines in Iwami in Japan, and America, across the Pacific Ocean, possessed vast amounts of gold and silver.

Yin Zhi, the chief minister of the cabinet, had a good impression of Yan Song and said with a smile, "Yan Song, it will be your turn to explain the situation in the Golden Basin. Don't be nervous!"

Yan Song passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi at the age of 20. Although four years had passed, he was only 24 years old, which made him stand out among the ministers.

It’s just that as a historical figure, his psychological quality is often stronger than that of ordinary people.

Yan Song bowed politely in response, then walked to a map of America and began to explain.

It was his first time to appear here, so he was inevitably a little nervous. Although he could not see the emperor in the attic here, as long as the emperor was here, he would not let go easily.

However, although I was nervous, when the explanation actually started, I quickly took on the role of commentator.

North America has a very advantageous geographical location, with most areas experiencing a subtropical and temperate monsoon climate, which is actually very conducive to the development of agriculture.

Originally, the most favorable area was eastern North America, which had vast plains and had already selected several locations, but in the end the situation took a dramatic turn.

Although they discovered gold mines in the west, the western region is basically vast desert Gobi, salt marshes, and volcanic lava areas. Foen winds often occur in this area, which can cause the local temperature to rise by 30 to 40 degrees, or even more than 50 degrees, in an instant, and last for several hours or even a day.

This climate makes the already rain-less West even drier and harsher. However, there are always oases in the desert, and the central and western parts of North America are no exception.

While mining for gold, they discovered a valley in the western part of central North America. The land was flat, with an average altitude of less than 100 meters. To the east were the Coast Mountains at about 700 meters high, and to the west were the Sierra Nevada Mountains at nearly 1500 meters high. There was only a small 400-meter-high volcano in the middle of the basin, and the only narrow exit was the gold mine in the middle.

Because this basin is located at the entrance of the gold mine, they also named it the "Golden Basin".

The Golden Basin is extremely rich in resources and covers a large area. It not only has sufficient water resources, but also fertile land. It is equivalent to half of Zhejiang Province and can accommodate a population of tens of millions.

However, the local indigenous people have not made proper use of such a large basin.

Compared with farming, they seem to prefer hunting, and they also don't know how to build water conservancy projects, so there are not many indigenous people in this golden basin.

After the Ming fleet discovered this place, it immediately set it up as the base camp of the Governor-General's Office in America.

On the one hand, they started mining gold, and on the other hand, they developed agriculture in this gold basin, turning it into the granary of the entire Ming City in America.

However, this valley is too big, covering half of Zhejiang Province, and it is all plain. It would be a waste to build it into a granary for Daming City, so Zheng Yong proposed the idea of ​​using immigrants to build a granary in America a few years ago.

Zheng Yong participated in the recovery of Jianzhou and even led his troops to be stationed in the Northeast for a time to ensure the court's development of the Northeast, so he also hoped that the court would apply the immigration policy of that year to the Americas.

That’s right, the first advocate of the Americas Granary Project was none other than the Governor-General of America, Zheng Yong.

The Governor-General of America initially mobilized only a thousand people, but found that the land reclaimed by this group of people was less than one ten-thousandth of the Golden Basin, and at least thousands of times more people were needed to reclaim the entire valley.

Of course, if the Ming Dynasty wanted to build the Golden Basin into the granary of America, it would need to invest a lot of money in water conservancy infrastructure construction, just like it did in the Northeast.

"Yan Song, what's the situation of the rivers in the Golden Basin?" Chen Shen, the Minister of Works, listened very carefully, and then asked about the water source issue that concerned him most.

Yan Song had already entered the role, and immediately pointed to the two red lines and said: "There are two major river systems in the Golden Basin, namely the Dongliujiang River in the north and the Golden River in the south. Both rivers flow from east to west into the East China Sea. If water conservancy construction is carried out, it can fully meet the agricultural irrigation needs here!"

"There is no problem with the soil! Our Ministry of Agriculture has conducted two field investigations, and the soil conditions there are no worse than those in the Northeast!" Liu Zhong, the Minister of Agriculture, is also involved in this major project, and stated the results of his own office's investigation.

After half an incense stick of heated discussion, the cabinet chief Yin Zhi stated the conclusion of the discussion: "Your Majesty, we believe that the upper limit of 2 million immigrants should be adopted!"

When the bankruptcy bill was enacted, the plan for the Great Grain Transport to America had already been finalized, but there was a disagreement on whether to immigrate 20,000 or 2 million people. Now was the time to resolve the disagreement.

"Approved!" Although Zhu Youtang could make the decision on his own, the resolutions of the Supreme Council would usually be adopted. This time, the Supreme Council chose the highest standard of two million immigrants, so naturally there was no reason to veto it.

However, if the population is two million, a more massive official system will be needed. After all, this number is already greater than that of the remote provinces.

After some discussion, the American province was formally established, and the Ming Dynasty officially became two capitals and fourteen provinces.

"The other adults can leave now, but Yan Song, the Viceroy of the American Governor's Office, can stay!" Liu Jin also conveyed the emperor's order at the end of the Supreme Council. (End of this chapter)