I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 925 Zhang Juzheng's Expectations for Fang Fengshi

The sound of horse hooves came into the carriage from outside, followed by a humming sound, breaking the silence in the carriage.

Why are there steam locomotive whistles sounding in the inner city?

The three of them turned to look out the window and saw a somewhat strange car coming towards them. It was ten meters long and was running on standard railroad tracks laid on the ground.

"Are there new things in the capital?" Fang Fengshi asked casually with a smile.

Zhang Juzheng nodded and replied, "Yes, this is the Public Transportation Bureau of the Beijing Municipal Government. Under the strong recommendation of Nangong Ye, four steam railcars were introduced from the Jizhou Vehicle Factory."

"Jizhou Vehicle Factory?"

"Yes. Since the completion of the Beijing-Luanzhou Railway, factories have begun to open along the railway. The Jizhou Rolling Stock Factory is a subsidiary of the Jingji Manufacturing Bureau Group Company, which was founded under the leadership of Nangong Ye."

"So that's it."

The three turned to look at the car, which was emitting white steam, passing their own carriages, making a constant clanging sound, and moving further and further away.

As Ming Dynasty technology developed, steam locomotives became smaller and smaller.

The steam tram we just walked past is a newly designed vehicle specifically for urban public transportation, driven by a small steam locomotive placed at the front of the vehicle.

This steam engine does not burn coal, but heavy oil.

At this stage, after Zhu Yijun opened a door for the Ming Dynasty with his cheating skills, the engineers and other technical personnel who had been vigorously trained for more than ten years have come up with endless creative ideas based on his cheating skills.

Zhu Yijun did not interfere much, and everything was market-oriented.

These people use the current technology and conditions to save up whatever they can.
If it is safe, practical and can be sold for a reasonable price, naturally people will continue to delve deeper into it and make it better and better.

If it is unsafe, impractical, no one buys it, and there is no profit, those technicians will naturally turn to other directions.

What Zhu Yijun had to do was to pay attention from time to time, and provide angel investment through the Shaofujian for projects that were on the right track and had great prospects.

Alternating current power transmission systems, phonographs, telephones, and internal combustion engines are all included, but these things are still only very primitive prototypes and require continued investment in research and development.

Zhu Yijun, who has played the roles of Descartes, Kepler, Newton, Lavoisier, Faraday and others, knows that it is impossible for him to memorize all the theories of scientific knowledge.

With his strong support, the Cabinet and the Ministry of the Imperial Household invested heavily every year in basic theoretical research in mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc., and over the past decade, hundreds of outstanding mathematicians, physicists and chemists have been trained.

The Ming Dynasty had a population of over 100 million, and many talented people emerged. All we had to do was guide them to change direction and transfer their intelligence and talent from writing eight-legged essays in imperial examinations to scientific research, and the brilliance that would emerge would be dazzling.

Starting from the tenth year of the Wanli reign, Zhu Yijun and Zhang Juzheng vigorously promoted national education across the country, starting with math classes for elementary school students and teaching them natural knowledge.

In middle school, students begin to study mathematics in depth, as well as gain preliminary knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology. Tens of thousands of such students graduate every year.

Don't underestimate this number.

High school students trained in this way can be sent to Europe to beat the so-called mathematicians there.

There is indeed a university there, which is even older than the Ming Dynasty.

But most people study theology because they can become priests and have a bright future. Only a small number of people turn to study mathematics and physics to work hard to prove the existence of God.

Over the years, there are probably only a few thousand mathematicians in Europe.

Let’s look at the Ming Dynasty, where tens of thousands of high school students with higher quality and deeper knowledge graduate every year.

Zhu Yijun asked the Ministry of Rites, the Education Department and various universities to ensure that most middle school students could be admitted to universities and vocational colleges and receive higher education and vocational education through recruitment examinations and major assignments.

At the same time, we ensure that half of the students in higher education study science and engineering, and that vocational education is basically all science and engineering. In this way, two-thirds of the tens of thousands of middle school students will subsequently pursue further studies in science and engineering.

According to the missionary work of Taichang Temple, studying science and engineering has great prospects.

You can enter the official career and rise rapidly as an official with the help of technical skills.

In retirement, you can rely on your skills to provide a small fortune for your family.

You can advance or retreat, which is much better than studying liberal arts.

Moreover, such news is often published in major newspapers every year.

Someone from a certain place invented a piece of machinery or a technical patent, or developed a new drug or medical device, which was acquired by a certain company and became rich overnight!
Get rich overnight, my dears!
Tell me, studying science and engineering has many promising (money-making) prospects!

Tens of thousands of science and engineering talents are recruited every year, and hundreds of thousands will emerge in ten years. Now that the environment in Daming is so encouraging, it is normal for hundreds of outstanding scientists to emerge.

It is precisely because of these foundations that Zhang Juzheng and others have clearly felt in the past two years that the science and technology of the Ming Dynasty is in a stage of accumulation and is ready to explode.

After the steam tram went away, Zhang Juzheng turned around and answered Pan Sheng's question.

"Siming, I have been the prime minister for ten years, and half of my energy has been spent fighting against the bureaucrats in the court and the local governments, both big and small.

Some of them are conservative and unwilling to make progress. Some are progressive and far more radical than I am.”

Pan Sheng had been serving as the Minister of Rites, and had been promoting educational and cultural reforms under the guidance of Zhang Juzheng. He had also encountered what Zhang Juzheng mentioned.

"What Uncle Da said is right. Some people are learning new knowledge, and in many ways they are more radical than you and me. But when it comes to implementing certain new policies, they openly oppose it and secretly obstruct it.

why?
It is these new policies that infringe upon their interests.”

Zhang Juzheng nodded.

"That's right. The emperor once said, what is reform? Reform is to constantly break the old distribution of interests and promote a more reasonable and fair distribution of interests.

Therefore, it will definitely be hindered by the old beneficiaries!

As we continue to deepen reform, we will inevitably encounter many obstacles, both old and new."

At this point, Zhang Juzheng closed his eyes, looking a little tired. "Wang Yi'e has courage, perseverance, and means.

After the eleventh year of Wanli, the reforms of the Ming Dynasty's Wanli New Deal will be more rapid and more radical. The impact on all aspects of the country will be enormous, and the obstacles encountered will be beyond imagination.

But I am not worried that Wang Yi'e will not be able to hold on. He is fully capable of breaking through these obstacles.

He is a man who has wielded a sword to kill Japanese pirates. He has much more courage than me!"

"That's right!" Pan Sheng and Fang Fengshi agreed very much with Zhang Juzheng's evaluation.

"Pan Yinglong is good at economics and has a flexible mind. Yang Jinshui was able to run the Coordination Office, the Donation Bureau and the Ministry of Finance so well, and a large part of the credit was due to Pan Yinglong.

The emperor commented that he had an extremely keen intuition and extremely profound understanding of the market economy.

In terms of economic development, I think no one in the country can surpass him. Even if there is, we have to wait for the new generation of students to gain experience in practice, which will take ten years. "

Pan Sheng and Fang Fengshi continued to nod, agreeing with Zhang Juzheng's evaluation of Pan Yinglong.

“The emperor has made such arrangements for the cabinet because he hopes that the entire cabinet will devote itself wholeheartedly to the economic development of Ming Dynasty, accelerate the industrial revolution, and continue to be far ahead of this era.

This is one of the topics of the Emperor's speech at the next month's court meeting.

However, being too aggressive can easily lead to too many hidden dangers.

The emperor helped Zhang Fengpan up.

Do you understand what I mean?"

Pan Sheng understood, "The emperor asked Zhang Fengpan to fight against those conservative bureaucrats, those bureaucrats who only care about their own interests and ignore the overall situation!"

"That's right. Zhang Fengpan is definitely not good at governing. But he is really good at governing people. He has gained experience over the years.

The emperor let Zhang Fengpan fight these people, which really shows how to use people wisely."

Having said this, Zhang Juzheng turned around and said to Fang Fengshi, the successor to the Chu Party whom he had high hopes for.

"Xingzhi, think about it, if the emperor just wanted Zhang Fengpan to be a biting dog, there are many official positions he could have arranged for him, why did he choose to arrange the position of director of the Spiritual Civilization Construction Steering Committee?"

Fang Fengshi bowed respectfully and replied, "Uncle, please teach me."

"Do it. Yangming Gong once said, it is easy to defeat the thief in the mountains, but it is difficult to defeat the thief in the heart.

Economic development can advance by leaps and bounds, but the bad habits and prejudices of the people of the Ming Dynasty will be difficult to change in a short period of time.

These days, the emperor and Zhang Siwei have been speaking in unison in the newspapers, clarifying the new direction and new tasks of spiritual civilization construction.

In the past, Zhang Siwei’s task was only to destroy the old cultural ideas, but now he has to rebuild a whole new set of spiritual civilization.

Ideological and moral construction and scientific and cultural construction.

You must have read the detailed content, and after reading it, you should feel the emperor's great spirit."

"Yes, uncle. The emperor not only wants to transform the Ming Dynasty, but also the entire world and era."

"That's right. Reforming the Ming Dynasty is not just about making the country strong and the people rich. Now that I think about it, why did the emperor look so disdainful when I said in Xi'anmen Academy that the ultimate goal was to make the country strong and the people rich?

In the emperor's vision, the transformation of the Ming Dynasty is to be from the inside out, from material to spiritual, from having enough food and clothing to the entire spirit, all of it must be transformed.

Now you also understand very well why the emperor must abandon the old Confucianism and completely overthrow it? Because only by overthrowing and destroying it can a new one be built. "

Zhang Juzheng narrowed his eyes and looked deep.

“Before this, the emperor had not made any move, because the new school theorists headed by Li Zhi had been constantly integrating the emperor’s new school of dialectical materialism with the theories of various schools of thought rooted in Chinese civilization.

It was a bit rough in the past few years, but has been integrated very well in recent years. It also borrowed ideas such as logic and political science from the Western Barbarians, and is now very complete and perfect.

With a new and complete theoretical system, the emperor can begin to build a new ideological and moral architecture.

This is one of the important responsibilities of the Spiritual Civilization Construction Steering Committee.”

The carriage was still rumbling forward, and Fang Fengshi was listening very carefully.

Although he was three years older than Zhang Juzheng and had taken the imperial examination two years earlier, he was more like a student at this time, listening to his teacher impart his lifelong experience.

"There is another important responsibility. That is scientific and cultural construction. The emperor has made it very clear that scientific and cultural construction is the solid foundation for the Ming Dynasty to continuously promote the industrial revolution, develop the economy, and improve productivity.

Before this, all the talented people in the world devoted themselves to studying Confucian classics and eight-legged essays. You and I came from the same background. No one cared about other knowledge.

Whether scholars educated in this way can govern the country and handle state affairs depends entirely on luck and talent.

The emperor wants to break this bad habit that has lasted for thousands of years!
In fact, according to the emperor's theory, the economic development and productivity improvement of the Ming Dynasty relied entirely on the development of science and technology, which triggered the Industrial Revolution.

Now the Ming Dynasty needs a revolution, an ideological and cultural revolution, to improve its ideological and cultural system and establish production relations that are compatible with productivity.

The emperor entrusted this revolution to the Steering Committee for Spiritual Civilization Construction.

Zhang Siwei, and you, are the pioneers who push this revolution forward!"

Fang Fengshi nodded solemnly: "I will keep your kind advice in mind!"

He completely understood what Zhang Juzheng said.

Zhang Siwei is very cunning. In this revolution, he has neither the courage nor the determination to be the first to take the lead. It is very likely that he will slip away halfway as he did in the past.

At that time, I must step forward and take over the burden!
If you catch it, you will also catch great achievements and wealth.

The Chu Party even found a new area for survival and development!
(End of this chapter)