Ming Dynasty: Domination of the World from the Imperial Examination

Chapter 373: A few names in history, countless barren hills in Beimang! !!
Xia Zhibai walked around the house.

once Upon a time.

He also became the person he once hated the most.

Although this feeling is quite refreshing.

Looking at the words left by the charcoal pencil on the wooden board, Xia Zhibai also felt mixed emotions. In the past, he had a superficial understanding of the words in the history books, and even thought that this sentence "Spring swallows return and nest in the trees" was a very beautiful picture.

But as I grew older, I felt a chill whenever I read these sentences.

There are too many such examples in history books.

He then used deception to kill them all, leaving only 240 young ones to return to Zhao - however, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zhao soldiers were omitted here.

Prosperity, people suffer; death, people suffer.

The bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no cock crowing for thousands of miles.

Locusts swarmed in Guandong and flew west to Dunhuang.

During the Yongjia Rebellion, there were less than a hundred households in Chang'an.

Select the weak men and women to provide food for the army.

Of course, there is also the most concise sentence: When there is famine, people eat each other!
This short sentence means the displacement of millions of people and the bones of millions of people. Therefore, he was extremely dissatisfied when Liu Sanwu and others chose "Preface to the Lanting Poems" and other articles that were like burning the zither and cooking the crane.

A clear spring was flowing gently, and several scholars were sitting in the pavilion. Some of them were playing the musical instrument, some were making tea, and some were reciting poems. Then they clinked cups, drank tea and composed poems. The scene was very romantic and cozy, and it made people feel relaxed and happy.

But such days are destined to be few and far between.

Cruel and bloody reality is the norm for most people.

Cannibalism is taboo for all historians, and is unanimously considered to be "anti-human". However, in the writings of historians, "cannibalism" is not uncommon. Historical books such as "Zizhi Tongjian" and "Old Book of Tang" have clear records of it.

The deeper he delved into history, the more he immersed himself in it, the more chilled he felt.

I also admire Lu Xun's incisiveness more and more.

Especially the word "cannibalism", which really reveals the cruelest and most realistic side of history. What he has been trying to achieve over the years is to prevent "cannibalism" and "eating one's own children" from happening again, at least in China.

But it's difficult.

Xia Zhibai had been to local areas and learned about the local production conditions. He had also consulted a lot of history books. As for the most recent dynasties, the Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming, their grain yields per mu did not exceed 400 kilograms.

Although the background of 'cannibalism' was largely due to serious problems such as land annexation, corruption, and war, as well as natural disasters that were unavoidable during the Ming Dynasty, in this case, the efficiency of food production would only be greatly reduced, making it difficult to feed the people of the country. To be fair, the Ming Dynasty had the most complete and sound system for disaster relief in all dynasties, but even so, it was still difficult to provide relief.

The fundamental reason is that the production efficiency is too low.

However, the issue of production efficiency is difficult to solve in a short period of time.

He also had no way to solve the problem of fertilizer. The difficulty of activating this "high-tech" fertilizer was too high. It almost required maxing out most of the modern technology points, which was not something that the current technological level of the Ming Dynasty could achieve in a short time.

His current efforts are to improve production efficiency.

At the same time, it solves the problem of "difficult transportation" of grain.

The disaster relief system of the Ming Dynasty was very complete, but the efficiency was not high, because the government could only use mules, horses, ships and other means of transportation. The efficiency of grain transport was high, but it was very difficult, especially after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, when the silt in the Yellow River increased sharply, and most waterways were difficult to pass. For places like Henan, Shandong, Gansu, etc., if they wanted to wait for food, they could only rely on mules and horses with extremely low efficiency. Not only did it take a long time to wait for the food to arrive, but the transportation expenses were also surprisingly high.

One of the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty was "ineffective disaster relief."

It’s not that I’m incompetent, it’s that I have no other choice.

Therefore, Xia Zhibai tried his best to develop technology, create the "iron horse", and dredge sea transportation to facilitate the transportation of goods throughout the world. As for improving the level of agriculture, it can only be achieved bit by bit over time. Secondly, by opening up the sea and starting the great voyages, he could find high-yield varieties such as sweet potatoes and corn in America. What he had to do was to try his best to ensure that there would be no large-scale starvation in the world.

This is also what Xia Zhibai wanted to tell Lu Cang and the others.

Their ambition should be to end the long-standing "suffering" in the world.

Seeing that Lu Cang and others had finished copying and thought for a while, Xia Zhibai followed the usual practice and began to randomly select people.

After a while of dodging, this nerve-wracking interrogation finally came to an end.

Xia Zhibai smiled and said, "There is nothing wrong with your answers. The Ming Dynasty has just ended the war, and most of you have experienced the life of displacement, so you have some feelings about these words. Your answers are correct."

"Swallows normally nest under the eaves, but at that time they did not do so and built nests in the trees instead."

"This seemingly elegant sentence actually hides a bloody storm."

"Thousands of miles of barren land, people displaced."

“This is a tragic scene in troubled times!”

"You all survived the war. The peace we have now is hard-won, so you should know how to cherish it and be grateful. Your kindness is not for me, but for more people in the world to have peace, to have more food to eat, and not to starve to death or to be displaced and homeless."

"I don't want you to be scholars."

"The vision of scholars is too high. They only see elegance and great ambitions."

"I want you to focus on the local areas, and work hard to improve the lives of the people, so that more people can afford to eat, no longer suffer from war, and no longer have to be so helpless in the face of natural disasters, so that the world can have real peace and tranquility."

"It's hard."

“But this is the era you and I live in.”

"It is also a fate that you and I cannot escape in our lifetime."

“That’s also my earnest expectation for you.”

"The Ming Dynasty was born under natural disasters, and is destined to be plagued by disasters. As the people under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, we should have the heart to help the world. I don't ask you to make great contributions in the future, but just want you to keep it in mind."

"There are only a few names in the annals of history, and countless barren hills in Beimang!"

"There are few truly prosperous and well-fed people in the world. I teach you to read and write, and teach you knowledge and principles, because I want you to do some real good things for the people of the world when you grow up, so that having enough food and clothing will no longer be a synonym for prosperity, but just a basic norm under the rule of the Ming Dynasty."

"."

After a few brief words, Xia Zhibai began to explain this excerpt.

Lu Cang and his companions understood the excerpts very quickly. Except for some words that they could not recognize, they understood the specific contents immediately because they were too familiar with the scenes described in them.
This is what they have personally experienced in the past.

(End of this chapter)