I'm really not doing business

Chapter 918: Only by Self-improvement can there be a New Life

His Majesty Zhu Yijun, the supreme emperor of the Ming Dynasty, finally had a birthday as a emperor should have. The four governor-general's offices presented valuable gifts, officials from all levels of the Ming Dynasty submitted congratulatory messages, the entire Ming Dynasty had a three-day holiday, and temple fairs were held in various places.

This is also the highest-level Longevity Festival in the history of the Ming Dynasty, even more grand than Zhu Yuanzhang's Christmas.

At the same time, it also allowed the meat-eaters throughout the Ming Dynasty to breathe a sigh of relief.

Your Majesty is going to be an emperor after all. His previous aura and attitude of wanting to destroy the Ming Dynasty and change the world really scared all the meat-eaters. This high-profile birthday celebration proves that Your Majesty is still a conservative and will not act too radically.

This does not mean that the Wanli Reform has stopped, but that Your Majesty should still follow the past pace, doing things bit by bit, and changing this terrible world bit by bit.

In other words, Your Majesty thinks that the Ming Dynasty is very bad, but if you ask the Japanese, the Southeast Asian barbarians, and the Westerners, they will all say that the Ming Dynasty is the Celestial Empire.

Being conservative and self-satisfied is certainly not good, but extreme radicalism will only lead the Ming Dynasty into purgatory. To prevent conservatism, the main thing is to prevent extreme radicalism.

Wang Chonggu, Zhang Juzheng and Qi Jiguang put forward some suggestions for improvement on the military review on the second day. That is, the fact that the Yaowu Infantry Battalion pointed their guns in the direction of the emperor during the drill was worth discussing.

This is what His Majesty ordered.

It is not to doubt the loyalty of the Ming Dynasty's Beijing Army, but to prevent accidents from happening and to protect the Beijing Army itself.

If one of the three thousand people was bribed and shot His Majesty during the review, it would be a devastating event, especially for the Beijing troops, and would be extremely dangerous.

Violence is a double-edged sword. If you don’t use it properly, you can easily hurt yourself.

Zhu Yijun agreed with the suggestions of the general, the first minister and the second minister. In future military reviews, guns would no longer be allowed to be pointed at the emperor, and all firearms and artillery used in military reviews would be non-fired fire sticks.

In fact, Zhu Yijun made such arrangements deliberately in order to scare the powerful and wealthy businessmen in Songjiang Prefecture. It was not out of bad taste, but to let them face such pressure directly so that they could truly know fear.

Zhu Yijun was always a king who accepted good advice. If what was said was right, he would adopt it; if what was said was wrong but the direction and values ​​were correct, he would give a detailed reply; if what was said was wrong and the direction and values ​​were wrong, he would severely reprimand and observe. If there was no change, he would dismiss the person.

"Your Majesty, although these congratulatory messages are full of clichés, there is one among them that is still worthy of your Majesty's reading." Zhang Juzheng was the chief minister of the cabinet. He was in charge of attaching floating tickets to memorials. Although Your Majesty did not need to read these congratulatory messages in detail, he still read every one of them.

Zhang Juzheng chose to admonish and reprimand all the plagiarism, ghostwriting, typos, formatting errors, etc. in the congratulatory letter. If it was written like this again next year, the accusation of disloyalty would be put on his head.

"Oh?" Zhu Yijun sat up straight and asked with a smile, "Are there any other congratulatory letters that might catch your eye?"

Zhu Yijun would not care about the New Year's greetings or birthday greetings as long as they were not obviously copied from last year or the year before.

Zhang Juzheng took out a congratulatory letter and a book and handed them to Your Majesty.

Zhu Yijun took the congratulatory letter and looked at it. It was written by Hou Yuzhao, the governor of Zhejiang Province. The book was also written by Hou Yuzhao. The book was not thick, with only seven volumes and sixty-seven chapters, about 200,000 words. The book had no title.

The book is a birthday gift from Hou Yuzhao to His Majesty the Emperor.

Zhu Yijun finished reading the congratulatory letter, flipped through two pages of the book and said, "Old Zhao asked me to write a preface for his book and write a name. I have to read it carefully and then give the name. So, I will reply to you tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."

"I obey your order." Zhang Juzheng, Wang Chonggu and Qi Jiguang bowed their heads and took their leave.

Zhu Yijun spent two days reading the book carefully three times, and then gave it to the cabinet with a comment:

I have finished reading it and named it "Uprising". I have ordered the imperial guards to send it to the Northern Yamen for printing and hardcover printing, and then send it to all prefectures, counties and cities in the two capitals and 270 provinces of the Ming Dynasty. The officials have days to report their opinions, and I will personally inspect it.

Zhu Yijun's reply was a detailed order. The name of the book was determined, the inner study completed the copying of the book and sent it to the Northern Yamen. This was the first time that Zhu Yijun required officials in the Ming Dynasty to reply with their thoughts, and he also ordered that he would personally check the thoughts and not to muddle through.

This shows that Zhu Yijun attaches great importance to it.

The congratulatory letter can be fooled, Zhu Yijun doesn't care, but if you still want to fool the personal experiences, don't blame Zhu Yijun for being ruthless.

"What is written in this book?" Wang Chonggu was surprised after receiving the emperor's reply. Lian Mao said that His Majesty did not issue an order to report his experience, but this book actually attracted so much attention.

Zhang Juzheng exhaled and said, "Hou Yuzhao wrote down his experience of returning farmland to Lin'an County, Zhejiang Province, in seven volumes and sixty-seven chapters. It is written in colloquial language and words, and every sentence is his personal experience. Hou Yuzhao originally named it "Records of Returning Farmland", but I felt that it was not right, so I asked Your Majesty to give it the name."

"This is a gift from Hou Yuzhao to your majesty. He still has five years left in his term in Zhejiang. He plans to write another book on how to prevent the repetition of the order to return land. Your majesty has given it the title "Deep Flipping."

Wang Qian had a book originally called "Analysis of Valuable Tickets", which was renamed "The Four Secrets of Wang Qian's Wealth" by the emperor himself; Wang Chonggu had a book about the ups and downs in officialdom, which was renamed "Self-cultivation of the Five-Step Snake" by the emperor.

Hou Yuzhao's book was also given a name by His Majesty. Unlike the slightly joking names given in the past, His Majesty's naming this time was very serious, and he required Ming officials to read it carefully and write down their thoughts, which shows how much importance he attaches to it.

"My lords, the copy of "Uprising" in the inner study has been completed. According to the order of His Majesty, you are also required to write down your thoughts." Feng Bao walked into the Wenyuan Pavilion set up in the palace and handed the copied book to the lords.

"I want to see what's so magical about this book!" Wang Chonggu took a copy and opened the first page, which was the preface written by the emperor himself.

Wang Chonggu looked at the preface with a frown on his face. He then turned to the end of the book, which was a postscript written by His Majesty himself, which was a summary of the book.

Giving a title, writing a preface and a postscript represent the emperor's attitude towards the book "Uprising".

Wang Chonggu calmed down and finished reading the preface.

[Wheat has ripened thousands of times. Every time a dynasty changes, every time a society undergoes a major change, some new words will appear. The birth of these words is never the result of scholars’ nitpicking, but rather the summary of historical lessons, such as the First Emperor, the Hongmen Feast, the Siege of Gaixia, the Champion Marquis, the Migration of the Gentlemen to the South, and so on.]
[The Wanli Reform was a huge social change. It was the Ming Dynasty's self-reform and self-improvement to save the nation. In this great change, some new words appeared. The ability to change nature is called productivity. Labor gives value to commodities, which is divided into use value and exchange value. What is taken away by exploitation and oppression is called surplus value. Classes are described in detail, etc.]
[Today, the most important word is "fan shen", which literally means to turn over while lying down. However, the Zhejiang farmland restoration project was completed. For the people who worked hard in the fields, "fan shen" meant that they had obtained land, livestock, and farm tools.]
[Is that all? Absolutely not.]
[The revolution also means that, under the tide of the times, the people of the Ming Dynasty seem to have gained the right to universal education, and reading, literacy and understanding are no longer out of reach; it also means the bankruptcy of the production relationship of strong personal dependence, and the loosening of the shackles of strong personal dependence that could lead to beatings and scolding at the least and hammering to death at the worst; it also means that the people seem to realize that they have extremely powerful power.]
[The powerful and wealthy, the local gentry, seem to hate the word "fanshen" the most. Today, I use this word to name this book.]
[Perhaps, whether it is turning over or returning the land, it will fail in the end, but this book bears witness to the path of self-redemption and self-salvation of the Ming Dynasty.]
[Only by strengthening oneself can one have a new life.]
The reason why Zhu Yijun wrote this preface was because he saw from Hou Yuzhao's book that the success of returning farmland to Zhejiang was not accidental, as thousands of people worked together to achieve the goal. After the imperial court set the goal, the people burst out with astonishing strength and completed the return of farmland.

Wang Chonggu only read one page and closed it, sighing and saying, "Xiao Zhao is a man who gets things done, but this is a little too difficult to do."

Wanting to release this power to all people is almost the same as ascending to heaven.

This is the conclusion Wang Chonggu came to after seeing the first page. Returning the land to the farmers is really difficult to do. The biggest obstacle Hou Yuzhao encountered in the process was the resistance from tenants, poor laborers and farmers.

It was not that the landlords were using the people to bully others, but that the poor laborers were genuinely afraid of returning the land.

"Section 1. Can we really be our own masters?" Zhang Juzheng read out the title of the first chapter and sighed heavily.

The farmers in the Ming Dynasty have been living like this for generations. Suddenly, the imperial court sent people to say that they should not do this and should do this and that. The farmers' first reaction was fear, genuine fear.

The dilemma of returning farmland to Zhejiang was completely different from that of Songjiang Prefecture. The income from farmland in Songjiang Prefecture had dropped sharply. With favorable timing, location and people, and the emperor's sharp knife, the landlords in Songjiang Prefecture had no choice but to give up their land in exchange for ship deed and ship contract.

After the Songjiang Prefecture government office completed the thorough "merger", the Songjiang Prefecture government office rented the land to farmers in the form of a lease, but the lease term was twenty years, and the rent was a fixed rate of 6% of the value. If the land was to be used to build houses, shops, workshops, etc., it would depend on the planning of the prefecture office.

The difficulty of returning farmland to the countryside in Zhejiang is much higher than that in Songjiang Prefecture.

"From the book 'Uprising', we can see that if we blindly promote the success of returning farmland to Zhejiang to the heartland of the Ming Dynasty, it would be advisable to at least use the official-village system as a transition first." Zhang Juzheng said sincerely as he flipped through the book.

Zhang Juzheng has read the book "Uprising" over and over again. The successful land return in Zhejiang does not mean that other places in the Ming Dynasty can succeed.

Zhejiang is already the most prosperous place in the Ming Dynasty, and has the economic foundation to do it.

But other places do not have this kind of talent, and if they blindly implement it, they will eventually make extremely radical mistakes.

Wang Chonggu leaned back in his chair and said helplessly: "Isn't this the same old contradiction? If we want to return the farmland to the land, we must first transform into a commodity economy; if we want to transform the small peasant economy into a commodity economy, we must first return the farmland to the land. It's an unsolvable dead end."

An unsolvable knot. Only by returning the land to the farmers can the production relations be changed and the commodity economy be ushered in. However, without the foundation of the commodity economy, returning the land to the farmers will only cause great pain to everyone. To put it nicely, it will be labor pain, but the price will be the selling of children, the starvation of people, and the death of people on the roadside.

Zhang Juzheng's brows were knitted into knots. He sighed and said, "Songjiang Prefecture and Zhejiang have both completed the return of farmland, but the methods used are in two directions. One is absolute annexation, and the other is absolute suppression of annexation. It seems that they have the same goal in different ways."

"But in the end, it is the people who will bear the price." Wang Chonggu looked at the book in his hand and said, "I must read it carefully. Even if I die, I must die with understanding."

Wang Chonggu firmly opposed the order to return the land, as he knew it was an unsolvable knot.

The method of Songjiang Prefecture can only be used in Songjiang Prefecture. Absolute annexation, annexing all the land into the hands of the court, and then leasing it out, is an unrealistic fantasy to realize it in other places.

Complete merger and complete monopoly are equal to complete power. Power will be willful and will oppress the people. During the Song Dynasty, a pound of coal cost 200 coins, which was a bloody lesson.

Songjiang Prefecture was established because it was a thoroughfare connecting nine provinces and swallowed up all the commercial goods in the world. The commercial taxes from Songjiang Prefecture alone were equal to the total commercial taxes from Shaanxi, Gansu, Suiyuan and Shanhaiguan combined.

Zhejiang also did it because Hou Yuzhao found another answer in practice. In his book "Turning Over", Hou Yuzhao found a new way out of this deadlock, which can be roughly summarized as the agricultural industry upgrading route.

At this time, in the imperial study of the palace, the Ming Emperor Zhu Yijun was dealing with the memorials that had accumulated over the past few days. Most of them were congratulatory messages and clichés wishing the emperor a happy birthday.

The Liaodong Agricultural Reclamation Bureau has reclaimed 12,000 hectares of new farmland this year. Although Shanghai is still hot in September, Liaodong is already preparing for winter.

The Agricultural Reclamation Bureau was divided from the original one bureau into the General Agricultural Reclamation Bureau and three bureaus in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning. Administrative regions were divided and the water bubbles were drained. Reclamation was very tiring, but when the harvest came, people were filled with joy.

Suiyuan's wool business has reached a new high, and this year's furs from the Xianbei grassland have once again grown beyond expectations. It is obvious that the Duntai and Yuanhou who came from the Ming Dynasty to raid the mountains and drive horses have won the friendship of many tribes in the Xianbei grassland, and the number of furs has begun to surge.

Without the fur business as its treasury, the Russian Empire obviously became more difficult and its methods became more cruel. The Xianbei Plains began to resist bravely. Although the Ming Dynasty's bird guns were useless, the swords, spears, halberds, bows and crossbows, these sharp weapons, gave the Xianbei Plains the confidence to resist.

Li Chengliang finally settled down in the Western Regions and returned to Hami City. Li Chengliang reported to the emperor that the barbarians were breaking their promise. He had promised to surrender, but they went back on their word and even launched a surprise attack on him. He would definitely take revenge next year!

Good news came from the Lanzhou Woolen Factory. Worsted woolen cloth could finally be mass-produced. The Ming Dynasty's control over the Qinghai area was unprecedentedly strengthened. The economic bondage centered on wool, felt, and woolen cloth was constantly increasing. The battlefield in the southwest against Toungoo was still the same. While the victory reports were coming in frequently, nothing was gained. The Ming Dynasty was not in a hurry to attack, and was not even in a hurry to let Mangyingli die.

When you cut flesh with a blunt knife, only the person being cut knows how painful it is.

The news coming from the Northern Yamen was all very stable, especially for the powerful and wealthy people in Shuntian Prefecture. In the absence of the Emperor and Prince Lu, they were very well-behaved and were finally able to live in peace for a few months. No one jumped out to seek death.

What is more interesting is that the powerful and wealthy were keen on donating money to normal schools to expand their influence among scholars. However, the powerful and wealthy were also short of people, people who could stand on their own, so the court still had to compete with the people for people.

"Your Majesty, Yao Guangqi requests to see you." A eunuch bowed his head and said.

"Xuan."

"I am Yao Guangqi, the magistrate of Shanghai County, and I am here to pay my respects to Your Majesty. Long live Your Majesty. Long, long live Your Majesty." Yao Guangqi had just walked across the threshold and did not dare to go beyond it. He performed the great ceremony of five bows and three kowtows. The reason why he, a county magistrate, was able to meet the emperor was all because of the special nature of Shanghai County.

"No need to be polite, take a seat, and let's talk. When we meet privately in the future, you don't have to be so polite, my dear." Zhu Yijun gestured with his hand, indicating that Yao Guangqi should take a seat.

Yao Guangqi was very handsome, but the scar on his face ruined his handsomeness and made him look more sinister.

"I have also heard that you were called a great meritorious person in Shanghai County. In Shandong, you protected the kelp of fishermen. In Songjiang Prefecture, you protected the safety of the people. I am very pleased." Zhu Yijun said with a smile: "Songjiang Prefecture will be moved from Huating County to Shanghai County. You, the magistrate of Shanghai County, are now a fifth-rank official."

Yao Guangqi was promoted to the fifth rank, and was on the same level as Shen Shixing.

"I have no doubt about the government office being moved to Shanghai County. I will cooperate with the prefect and the governor's office on this matter." Yao Guangqi said hurriedly.

Zhu Yijun frowned and asked, "I heard that Wang Qian is looking for trouble with you, my dear?"

"Your Majesty, Magistrate Wang is not the kind of person who does not know the importance of things. He has never caused me any trouble on official business. They were all private matters." Yao Guangqi smiled when he talked about Wang Qian causing trouble for me.

Zhu Yijun asked curiously: "Who won between you two?"

"I win. Wang Qian has always wanted to find out whether I have any romantic affairs with a concubine or a concubine's child. I am henpecked and never dared to do so. If I don't have any, he naturally couldn't find any. So I win." Yao Guangqi replied with a smile on his face.

Wang Qian is a dissolute young man, and Yao Guangqi is an abandoned son of the family. Wang Qian cannot understand Yao Guangqi's cautiousness.

After being abandoned by his family, Yao Guangqi got married to Wang Ci Fu in order to sell kelp. Yao Guangqi was henpecked because he did not dare to offend his wife's family. It did not mean that Wang Chongyi's daughter was unruly and hateful. On the contrary, the two lived in harmony.

Wang Qian searched for a while but found nothing, so he naturally lost.

"Hahaha." Zhu Yijun laughed after hearing what Yao Guangqi said.

Yao Guangqi went to see the emperor alone to show that he still had the emperor's favor. It was difficult to work in Shanghai County, which was no different from being the chancellor of Shuntian Prefecture in the capital. The emperor's favor was what Yao Guangqi needed most. Even if there was no substantial support, the fact that he had someone above him was well known to all the powerful and influential people in Shanghai.

Secondly, he really has something to report to His Majesty.

"Your Majesty, I have a memorial to the emperor." Yao Guangqi, somewhat confused, submitted a memorial to the emperor.

The Shanghai County Machinery Factory encountered unprecedented difficulties in its operation. Even Wang Chonggu didn't have a good solution, so he could only come to the emperor for help.

The Shengping No. 6 iron horse and Shengping No. 5 iron horse produced by Shanghai County Machinery Factory consume more energy and break down faster than the iron horses from Beiya. Their service life is far shorter than that of the iron horses from Beiya. They use the same technology, so how could this be?

As the son-in-law of the Wang family, Yao Guangqi turned to Wang Chonggu for help. Wang Chonggu sent a master craftsman to the Shanghai County Machinery Factory to find out the problem.

Soon, the master craftsman found the problem. Cleanliness is the key to the quality and life of the Tiema cylinder.

According to the standard, the impurities in a cylinder should be less than 0.0015 centimeters, which is taels. However, the iron sand in the cylinder of the Shanghai Machinery Factory weighed more than one ounce, nearly times more than the standard. In addition, the flatness of the cylinder and other aspects were the same.

There are various problems with the machinery at Shanghai Machinery Factory. These are definitely not problems with workmanship or technology, but problems with management and production responsibility.

To this end, the master craftsman implemented a set of strict standards to inspect all the machinery produced by the Shanghai Machinery Factory to ensure that they met the standards of Beiya.

But this master craftsman was on secondment. A year later, he left the Shanghai Machinery Factory. Within two months, no one was willing to implement the strict inspection standards anymore.

There was no other way, so Yao Guangqi had to ask Wang Chonggu for help again. This time, Wang Chonggu reported it directly to the court and sent a master craftsman to the factory to keep an eye on the quality issues. But this time, the old method only worked for two months before the old problem recurred.

The chief craftsman even left Shanghai County overnight, saying that he would never come back, and went back to Beiya.

Zhu Yijun saw this and immediately said, "I heard about this incident in August of the fifteenth year of Wanli. Wang Cifu even asked the chief craftsman about it. The chief craftsman was very secretive and didn't want to talk about it after returning to the Northern Yamen. Why did he leave overnight?"

A master craftsman is not someone who can be easily bullied like a skilled craftsman or a laborer. There are a total of 23 master craftsmen in the Beiya Xishan Coal Bureau. Each of them is a treasure, but some of them were forced to run away overnight.

Wei Youshan was born a great craftsman. He invented water and fertilizer, benefiting farmers all over the world.

"Because there are ghosts." Yao Guangqi sighed and said, "Someone is pretending to be a ghost and scaring people. The master craftsmen who came to Shanghai were so scared that they couldn't sleep or eat well."

The master craftsman is not comfortable telling others about the messy things like the door rang in the middle of the night when no one was there, the kitchen knife moving by itself on the chopping board, ghosts howling when getting up at night, babies crying on the way home at night, etc.

It is said that if you have done nothing wrong, you won't be afraid of ghosts knocking on your door. Being afraid of ghosts means you have done something wrong. The master craftsman didn't want to mention it to anyone, just like he was no longer afraid of these strange powers. After being tortured like this, the master craftsman finally couldn't stand it anymore and passed away.

"How did the Songjiang Prefecture shipyard solve the problem?" Zhu Yijun asked a little puzzled: "Wang Ci Fu is in the Northern Court and can't help you. You can go to the shipyard to learn from him."

"Your Majesty, the shipyard is the navy's arsenal. Who dares to act so rashly in there? Can the coastal defense inspectors let them go?" Yao Guangqi seemed a little distressed.

The Iron Horse Factory is a people's livelihood, the Legislative Office is staffed by retired soldiers, the Shipyard is directly protected by the Navy for safety, and the Legislative Office is staffed by active-duty coastal defense inspectors. The reason for this difference is to prevent past incidents from happening again.

In the ninth year of the Zhengtong reign, the Zhengtong Emperor ordered the construction of ships in Fujian for sailing to Southeast Asia. After the ships were built, a civil uprising broke out and the ships were burned down, leaving nothing behind.

Yao Guangqi continued, "Your Majesty knows me. I am used to being shameless, so I turned to Wang Ci Fu for help, and Wang Ci Fu was willing to help."

"But this time many people in the machinery factory said: The great craftsman from the north does not understand the actual situation of the Shanghai machinery factory. Why do we need to invite an outsider to manage it? Can an outsider be good at chanting sutras?"

"And you said that there are more than 8,000 craftsmen working in the Shanghai Machinery Factory, and they can't find a master craftsman to check the quality of the products?"

In other words, Wang Chongyi died for Wang Chonggu, and Yao Guangqi was his son-in-law, so he could ask for help repeatedly, and Wang Chonggu had no choice but to help. If the relationship was otherwise, he would never have helped like this.

"That happened in August of the fifteenth year of the Wanli reign. Two years have passed, and the problem seems not to have been solved." Zhu Yijun read Yao Guangqi's memorial with a frown.

"I am incompetent." Yao Guangqi let out a breath and said with his head down.

Is it really that Yao Guangqi is incompetent? If Yao Guangqi is incompetent, he would not be able to be a great meritorious person. Yao Guangqi is very capable and decisive. Even so, the predicament of Shanghai Machinery Factory cannot be overcome.

"What are you going to do?" Zhu Yijun learned about the situation and asked Yao Guangqi what he planned to do.

"Dissolve the Shanghai Machinery Factory and do not reorganize it." Yao Guangqi sat up straight and gave his own answer.

Zhu Yijun looked at Yao Guangqi with a puzzled look and said, "You relied on Wang Cifu's connections to land the machinery factory in Shanghai. Now, you want to disband it? You are willing to do so. This is the result of your promotion. Don't you feel sorry to ruin it like this?"

It takes great courage to make a drastic self-reform. The machinery factory worth 1.5 million silver dollars was disbanded in an instant and would not be reorganized. Even Yao Guangqi's promotion would become difficult.

Yao Guangqi said very seriously: "Your Majesty, only by disbanding the machinery factory and not reorganizing it can we let the government factories and resident craftsmen in the world see the fact that government factories can fail."

“Only in this way can other government-owned factories and resident craftsmen make the survival of government-owned factories their top priority.”

"Leave the memorial here and I will send a decree to the cabinet for inquiry." Zhu Yijun thought about it again and again, but still did not agree directly.

First, he had to make sure that Yao Guangqi was not transferring the means of production such as equipment, land, and craftsmen from the government-owned factories to the private sector; secondly, he had to confirm whether the situation at the Shanghai Machinery Factory was as serious as Yao Guangqi said; finally, he had to seek the opinions of his ministers.

People's hearts are fickle. In the past, Yao Guangqi risked his life for the fishermen, but now he may cheat the emperor for silver. The huge sunk costs in the past do not affect current decisions.

The Imperial Guards quickly investigated the matter, and the opinions of the ministers were summarized on the emperor's desk, and they all approved of Yao Guangqi's approach.

In this era, it is impossible for the machinery factory to be transferred to the private sector. The core machine of the machinery factory is the iron horse. The craftsmanship and technology of this thing are all in the court. Without the support of the master craftsmen of the Xishan Coal Bureau, it would be impossible for it to appear out of thin air. The private sector has no ability to produce iron horses at all.

Part of the equipment in the official factory would be sent to Xuzhou to build the Xuzhou Machinery Factory, and part would be transported to Wuchang Prefecture in preparation for the Beijing-Guangzhou Highway.

The land was converted into Shanghai Normal School, and the Dinghai school system was implemented.

"The reason why Yao Guangqi is incompetent is very simple. This is a collective crime." Zhu Yijun finally approved Yao Guangqi's memorial. Yao Guangqi was not incompetent, but this was a collective crime. No matter who was in his place, the same thing would happen.

The problems at the Shanghai Machinery Factory were much more serious than what Yao Guangqi described.

An imperial edict suddenly arrived at the Shanghai Machinery Factory. For the 8,000 craftsmen there, it was like the sky falling.

(End of this chapter)