People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 711: Leaving the palace to see the people, Lao Zhu feels it is worth it! !
The afterglow of the setting sun shone on the golden tiles of the Forbidden City. Zhu Yuanzhang stood up holding his great-grandson, and his sleeves brushed across the stone table, knocking down a few locust flowers.

The old man looked at the koi fighting for food and suddenly laughed: "Instead of arguing here, why don't we go and listen to what the people have to say?"

His rough fingers gently wiped away the cake crumbs from the corner of his great-grandson's mouth, "History books are dead, but the living people on the street will not all tell lies."

Zhu Biao stood up immediately after hearing this: "I will arrange for the imperial carriage right away..."

"Why are you putting up a royal carriage?" Zhu Yuanzhang handed his great-grandson to the nurse and picked up a bamboo stick from the stone bench. "Who can recognize that I am the Hongwu Emperor in this coarse cloth?"

As he spoke, he picked up the torn book on the stone table with his bamboo stick, and the remaining pages fell into the lake with a rustling sound, scaring the fish away.

Chen Han noticed that there were spots of mud from the vegetable field on the old man's linen collar - it seemed that he was really preparing for a secret visit.

Just as he was about to speak, Zhu Youwei had already taken off her dark blue cloak and put it on Zhu Yuanzhang: "Grandfather, you look like a professor of agriculture in our academy."

"That would be great!" Zhu Yuanzhang laughed, revealing his missing molar, looking like an old man in the market.

He suddenly tapped Zhu Biao with his bamboo stick and said, "Boss, stay here to look after the house. If we find out that you've been secretly reviewing memorials until the third watch..."

The bamboo stick made a whooshing sound in the air, scaring the sparrows on the treetops so much that they fluttered and flew away.

After Zhu Biao left with a wry smile, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly pulled out three coarse cloth purses from his sleeves like a magic trick: "Chen boy, can you recognize copper coins?"

The purse turned over, and dozens of Hongwu Tong Bao coins with casting marks rolled out, jumping and arranging in three rows on the stone table.

Chen Han's pupils shrank slightly.

These are clearly newly minted copper coins, with sharp burrs on the edges.

"This is a new coin mold that the Ministry of Industry just presented to us last month." Zhu Yuanzhang flicked a copper coin with his fingernail. The crisp sound startled the child in the nurse's arms and opened his eyes wide. "It's a good opportunity to see if I can spend it."

When passing through the Xuanwu Gate, Chen Han discovered that the guards guarding the gate ignored the three people.

It was not until he caught a glimpse of the plain-clothed Jinyiwei captain in the shadows that he suddenly realized what was going on.

The old man was well prepared for this.

Zhu Youwei seemed to have noticed something unusual, and whispered while adjusting her veil, "Last month, my grandfather had the Royal Guards train the guards at the major city gates to recognize officials who enter and leave in plain clothes."

As he was speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stopped by the stone bridge over the moat.

Following the direction pointed by the old man's bamboo stick, Chen Han saw a metal funnel embedded in the newly carved groove on the bridge pier, and two old men wearing red armbands were scrubbing the stone railings with long-handled brushes.

"This is..." Zhu Youwei moved closer curiously.

"This is the sewage trough!" Zhu Yuanzhang proudly knocked the iron sheet with his bamboo stick, making a clanging sound. "Chen kid mentioned 'garbage classification'. The prefect of Yingtian installed this thing on every bridge over the moat."

The old man suddenly bent down, picked out a fruit core from the gap in the bridge deck and threw it into the funnel. The fruit core rolled along the iron pipe into the wooden barrel below without staining the bridge deck at all.

Chen Han felt a little warm in his heart. He had casually mentioned the "urban drainage system" three years ago, but he never expected that it would be implemented to such detail.

Just as I was sighing with emotion, I heard a crisp bell sound coming from the front. Three men in brown shorts came over pushing a wooden box with wheels. The box had three big characters "Jingjiesi" painted on it.

"Make way! It's time to collect the slop!" The leading man rang a copper bell and carried small wooden buckets out from the doors of shops one by one.

Chen Han noticed that these wooden barrels were of two colors. The men poured the vegetable leaves in the green barrel into a large wooden box, and the coal slag in the gray barrel into another compartment.

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stopped them with his bamboo stick and said, "Sir, I came from the countryside to inquire about something."

He deliberately pronounced the word "Chaye" in a funny way, took out three copper coins and placed them in his palm, "Is the capital cleaner than our village now?"

The men smiled at each other and didn't take the money.

The leader pointed at the red words on the box that read "Report Dirty and Messy Things for a Five-Cent Reward" and said with a smile, "Old Man, if you really want to make money, why don't you go to the teahouse in front? Someone just poured a cup of tea out of the window. He should have been caught by the patrol by now!"

Sure enough, there was a commotion coming from the front.

I saw a businessman in a silk shirt bowing to the old woman with a red armband: "Madam, please spare me! I really didn't know the new rules..."

The old woman unrolled the booklet with an iron face and said, "According to the revised City Appearance Order in the 23rd year of Hongwu, dumping sewage on the street will be fined two cents of silver. If you commit the same offense again within three months after it is recorded in the case, the fine will be doubled."

Chen Han watched as Zhu Yuanzhang’s mouth corners curled higher and higher.

The old man suddenly poked him in the back with his bamboo stick: "You made the rules?"

"My granddaughter discussed this with the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture..." Zhu Youwei was interrupted by her grandfather just as she opened her mouth.

Zhu Yuanzhang squinted at the newly built clay drainage ditch at the entrance of the teahouse. The bottom of the ditch was covered with a layer of fine yarn, and the filtered clean water was flowing into the underground pipe. "This fine yarn needs to be replaced every three days, right?"

The old man suddenly asked.

The man pushing the swill cart stopped to listen and said, "You have a sharp eye! This 'sand filtering method' was the young master's idea."

He pointed to the newly dug sedimentation pond at the end of the drainage ditch and said, "The silt sinks to the bottom, and the clean water flows into the underground canal. Every month, hundreds of dan of fertile soil can be cleared out and sent to vegetable farmers in the suburbs of Beijing."

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly laughed, startling the pigeons under the eaves of the teahouse so much that they flew up.

He took out the three newly minted copper coins and stuffed them into the man's pockets: "This is a reward for you!"

As he turned and walked away, he could still hear the man muttering, "Strange, this money feels heavier than the official money..."

Turning the corner, Chen Han's nose suddenly caught a whiff of a familiar fragrance.

Under a newly planted camphor tree on the roadside, several children were standing on tiptoe to pour black powder into the tree pit.

Seeing the three people stop, the little girl with a pigtail hairpin raised the earthenware pot and said, "We are applying 'Chen Gong fertilizer'! Daddy said that this will make the trees grow faster!"

Zhu Yuanzhang squatted down and rubbed the black soil. Suddenly he turned his head and glared at Chen Han: "Did you leak the fertilizer formula to the public?"

"It's the experimental field of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences..." Zhu Youwei hurriedly explained, but her grandfather raised his hand to stop her. The old man stared at the words "Ciyouju Charity School" embroidered on the little girl's collar for a long time, and suddenly asked: "Does your school also teach tree planting?"

"Yes!" another boy answered quickly. "During the labor class every ten days, Master Li will lead us to clean the streets in exchange for 'merit points'. If we accumulate ten points, we can exchange them for the illustrated book 'The Exploitation of the Works of Nature'!"

As he spoke, he took out a palm-sized booklet from his bosom, with the red seal of "Royal Press" on the title page.

Chen Han was shocked. This was the "Citizen Points System" he proposed half a year ago. He didn't expect that even the reward mechanism for children's books had been perfected to this extent.

Just as I was about to take a closer look, I suddenly heard the sound of orderly footsteps from the end of the street - eight men in uniform indigo shorts were pushing a cart with a water tank, and the copper bell on the front of the cart jingled with their steps.

"Street Cleaning Company's sprinkler truck! Get out of the way!" The leading man blew the whistle, and the roadside vendors moved their shelves along the street inside.

The twelve copper nozzles extending from the bottom of the water tank rotated at the same time, and the fan-shaped water mist drew a rainbow in the sunset. Chen Han noticed that the water flow was just controlled to the extent of soaking the road surface, without dust or water accumulation. Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly slammed his bamboo stick on the ground: "Have you even calculated the angle of watering?"

His voice trembled with disbelief, "When we fought in Yingtian, there was sewage flowing on this street..."

Before he finished speaking, two teenagers wearing white armbands followed behind the sprinkler truck, holding long poles and clamps to pick up the scattered garbage on the road.

The small wooden signs hanging around their waists jingled as they ran, and the words "Work-Study Program at the Imperial College" on them gleamed in the twilight.

"Grandpa, look at this." Zhu Youwei suddenly pulled her grandfather to the small brick house at the entrance of the alley.

There is a wooden sign saying "public toilet" nailed to the wall of a seemingly ordinary house, but when you push the door open, you will find a different world: the floor is paved with blue bricks, the walls are painted with lime, there is a clay water tank behind each squatting position, and a sachet is tied to the pull rope.

The most amazing thing is that the cut straw paper is neatly stacked on the iron rack in the corner.

"One penny per use." The old woman who manages the public toilet handed over a bamboo token with a smile, "You can use the token to buy tea at the teahouse in the front street." She pointed to the "Sanitary Convention" on the wall and added, "The young master has set the rules. If you don't flush the toilet after using it, you will be fined to sweep the alley for three days."

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly snatched Chen Han's purse, poured out all the copper coins and stuffed them into the old woman's pocket: "Let's book the place for half an hour!"

After closing the door, he laughed out loud, with tears in his eyes: "Chen Han, Chen Han, you have tidied up this Jinling City more elegantly than my Qianqing Palace!"

As dusk deepened, the three of them walked to the bank of Qinhuai River.

The river water that was once filled with cosmetics is now crystal clear, and bronze trash cans are placed every ten steps on the newly built stone embankment, with the words "litter dumpers will be paraded through the streets" cast in relief on the trash cans.

At the door of a bookstore on the other side of the river, several scholars were queuing up to put papers into the "waste paper recycling bin". They would receive a stamped receipt for each stack they put in.

"You can get a discount on ink sticks with this." The bookstore owner explained enthusiastically to Zhu Yuanzhang, "The young master said this is called 'resource recycling'."

He pointed at the newly arrived Gewu Weekly on the counter and said, "This issue talks about garbage classification. Would you like to buy a copy, old man?"

Zhu Yuanzhang stroked the clear movable type marks on the newspaper and suddenly asked, "How many households in Yingtian Prefecture use flush toilets now?"

Upon hearing this, the shopkeeper pulled out a blue booklet from under the counter and said, "It was written in last month's Municipal Gazette that six hundred households in the six districts surrounding the imperial city have been connected to pipelines..."

He suddenly lowered his voice and said, "I heard that the palace doesn't have such rules. The masters in the Ministry of Works are so angry that they impeach the young master every day for being extravagant and exceeding the rules."

Chen Han suddenly broke out in sweat on his back.

Zhu Yuanzhang rolled up the newspaper into a tube and hit the shopkeeper hard on the head: "Bullshit! The toilet of the Minister of Industry is the Jingdezhen porcelain toilet I gave you!"

The old man laughed first after he finished cursing, took out his last few copper coins and slapped them on the counter: "Give us a copy of the communique!"

As the lights came on, they stood at the newly widened intersection.

The glass lanterns standing at the four corners illuminated the road brightly, and the night watchmen in red vests were refilling oil into the lanterns one by one.

In the distance came the sound of a night watchman, accompanied by the cry of "It's dry, be careful with fire." But the sound actually came from a tin horn, echoing clearly in the streets.

"Electronic speaker?" Chen Han blurted out.

Zhu Youwei pursed her lips and smiled: "It's an acoustic experiment from the Physics Institute."

She pointed to the copper box hanging on the night watchman's waist and said, "There is a spring gear set inside, which can amplify the sound three times. My husband's "Basic Physics" notebook is being studied by them as a treasure."

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stopped in the middle of the road.

In the moonlight, the old man's gray temples shone silver, and he pointed his bamboo stick at the manhole covers that stretched in all directions. "These, and those," he pointed at the bright lights of the Royal Printing House in the distance, "are all of them what you brought from the future?"

Just as Chen Han was about to answer, a clear nursery rhyme sounded.

A dozen children holding silk lanterns skipped by, their songs echoing crisply on the stone road: "Emperor Hongwu, Mr. Chen, made Nanjing bright and beautiful. The toilets were turned into water buckets, and garbage could be turned into money and food..."

Zhu Yuanzhang's bamboo stick fell to the ground with a clang.

When the old man bent down to pick it up, Chen Han saw some water drops leaving small round marks on the bluestone slabs.

"It's worth it." Zhu Yuanzhang stood up with an unprecedented sense of ease on his face. He patted Chen Han on the shoulder and said, "Even if the history books describe us as devils..."

Suddenly, he pointed to the brightly lit houses in the distance and said, "But these bright windows can't all be fake."

When the last lantern went out, Chen Han saw the old man secretly wipe his eyes with his sleeve.

The moonlight shone on the street that had become smooth again. The newly paved bluestone slabs were shiny and reflected the stars in the sky, as if the future of the entire Ming Dynasty was slowly unfolding on this mirror-like street.

As soon as the evening drum sounded, the lanterns along the Qinhuai River lit up one after another.

Zhu Yuanzhang was walking back to the palace with the help of a bamboo stick when he suddenly heard the sound of wooden wheels rolling over bluestone slabs behind him.

The old man turned around suddenly, and the bamboo stick made a harsh sound on the stone road.

More than twenty men wearing red armbands were pushing glass-covered food carts and lined up along the river bank.

"This...is this a rebellion?" Zhu Yuanzhang subconsciously reached for his waist, but only felt the coarse cloth purse that Chen Han had stuffed into his hand.

The old man then remembered that he hadn't worn the Embroidered Spring Sword for three years.

Zhu Youwei chuckled, and the pearls on her veil swayed slightly: "Grandfather, this is the new night market."

She pointed to the words "Open at twilight hour, close at midnight" painted on the side of the dining car and said, "This was approved last month. I didn't expect Yingtian Prefecture to act so quickly."

Chen Han suddenly pulled the grandfather and grandson back two steps.

I saw a thin man in indigo shorts walking towards me, beating a gong, followed by four officers carrying wooden signs.

A huge copy of "Night Market Management Regulations" was posted on the wooden sign, and the most eye-catching part was the words "It is strictly forbidden to urinate or defecate anywhere. Violators will be fined to sweep the streets for three days" circled in red ink.

"Good fellow!" Zhu Yuanzhang's bamboo stick almost hit the regulations, "Chen boy, your rules are more detailed than my Great Edict back then!"

The old man squinted his eyes and took a closer look, and found that the clauses were so detailed that "stall owners need to bring their own泔水桶 with a lid."

The sound of a gong suddenly exploded on the street corner.

"Listen up!" the man in blue shouted, standing on a bench. "Stalls must be six feet apart, and garbage must be sorted into green and gray!"

He untied a tin trumpet from his waist like a magician, "Especially those who sell fried fruit -" the trumpet dragged out the last sound, "Don't pour the oil residue into the drain!"

……

(End of this chapter)