Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 519 After the Northern Expedition
In late December of 4051 AD (1354 AD), while Wang Dayuan and others were still in Mexico, building Xiangxun Port and collecting local products from Lizhou, Lu Jin, who had returned to Jiankang after the successful Northern Expedition, was also busy on the other side of the ocean.

As news of the Northern Expedition's victory gradually spread in the south, the three regions of Chuzhou, Jianning, and Shaowu in southern Zhejiang, as well as the troops of Xiong Tianrui, a former general of the Xu and Song dynasties in southern Jiangxi, successively submitted petitions to surrender. Upon Lu Jin's return, he naturally had to deal with them.

Needless to say, the situation in southern Zhejiang was quite different. Since southern Zhejiang had submitted to the imperial examinations relatively late, they hadn't been selected in the previous examinations. In order to win over the hearts of the local scholars, Lu Jin issued a special decree to recruit local celebrities to serve as officials. He also asked Ye Chen, who had come as an envoy to present a memorial, to recommend them to him. As a result, Zhang Yi, who was known as one of the Four Gentlemen of Eastern Zhejiang along with Ye Chen, Song Lian, and others, was also recommended to the court.

Although Ye Chen and Zhang Yi lacked military talent, they were particularly adept at domestic affairs and management, and were also very skilled at local governance. Ye Chen once served as the assistant magistrate of Shexian County during the Yuan Dynasty, where he oversaw papermaking, producing five million sheets of paper annually.

After Zhang Yi surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, he was in charge of managing the military farms. Both of them made significant contributions to the post-war economic recovery in the early Ming Dynasty.

Lu Jin would certainly not let such talent slip by. Now that the country has just been established, the war has just ended, and everything is in need of rebuilding. This is precisely the time when people like him are needed to contribute.

In this way, three of the Four Gentlemen of Eastern Zhejiang ended up in Lu Jin's hands. As for the last one, Liu Ji, Lu Jin had no intention of recruiting him, as he had never thought much of this person.

Liu Bowen has been mythologized by later generations. If we were to say that he made any concrete contributions in the early Ming Dynasty, there are probably only two things: first, as Zhu Yuanzhang's military advisor, he offered some ideas on military strategy during the establishment of the Ming Dynasty; second, he was responsible for designing the layout of Nanjing City in the early Ming Dynasty and the construction of the Nanjing Forbidden City.

However, Lu Jin has no use for either of these. He has already almost finished fighting the war himself. Based on his understanding of the original historical course, he seized various strategic opportunities in advance and pacified most of the country in just three years. In addition, Lu Jin is now going to carry out military reforms. Even if he recruits Liu Ji, Liu Ji will not understand these things and will not be of much help.

As for building the Forbidden City in Nanjing, this piece of Lu brocade is unnecessary. He does not intend to make Nanjing the capital for a long time. He only plans to build a university in Nanjing to make do for now. The real capital will have to be Beijing.

Therefore, the contributions he made in the original history were of little use to Lu Jin. On the contrary, Liu Bowen was a rather traditional and conservative Confucian scholar who opposed territorial expansion and was even less willing to wage war overseas.

Historically, Emperor Zhu sent envoys to Japan to persuade them to pay tribute, but the Ming envoys were killed by the Japanese. Enraged, Emperor Zhu twice wanted to launch a campaign against Japan, but Liu Ji stopped him both times. In the end, Liu Ji even created the Imperial Ancestral Instructions, which listed a bunch of countries that should not be conquered. This was influenced by Liu Ji's conservative attitude.

Putting everything else aside, based on this alone, Lu Jin would never have recruited him into the imperial court.

Lu Jin was determined to fight Japan. He did not believe in the wisdom of later generations. The main reason was that Japan was currently closed off from the world, divided into the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and would later fight the so-called "Warring States Period". At present, Japan seemed "harmless" and did not pose any threat to the Ming Dynasty.

The so-called Japanese pirates were nothing more than a minor ailment and could not threaten the rule of the Ming Dynasty. Within 150 years, it would have been difficult for traditional Confucian scholars of the Ming Dynasty to see Japan's ambitions and the dangers it posed.

By the time Japan's Warring States period ends, and a Japan that has integrated all its internal forces and possesses the ability to wage wars abroad, and shows signs of expansionist ambitions, it will be too late to attack Japan then. Moreover, who knows what the Ming Dynasty will be like a hundred or two hundred years later?

Furthermore, Lu Jin also needed to expand into the Americas, and Japan was the best forward base for this expansion. Domestically, he needed to develop industry, and Japan's gold and silver mines could serve as initial development capital. Logically and emotionally, he had every reason to destroy Japan, and he had to eliminate Japan within his lifetime.

In this situation, bringing Liu Ji to the Privy Council would be utterly self-defeating; wouldn't that just create trouble for the attack on Japan?
Having resolved the issue of Zhejiang's submission, there was still Xiong Tianrui in Jiangxi. This man was no easy trouble either. In the original history, after submitting to Zhu Yuanzhang, he soon betrayed him and joined Zhang Shicheng's side. Although Zhang Shicheng no longer existed in this timeline, Lu Jin still made some arrangements to prevent this man from having second thoughts.

First, Xiong Tianrui's original troops were ordered by Lu Jin to be reduced to the old and weak, and they were only given the quota of a reorganized division. They were temporarily assigned to Liao Yongjian's 10th Army Group under the name of a provisional independent division, and were prepared to attack Guangdong and Guangxi from the two directions of southern Jiangxi and Hunan.

In addition, Lu Jin also learned that Xiong Tianrui had a younger sister named Xiong Jingfu, who was not yet married and stayed in her hometown of Jingmen to serve her parents. In order to win her over and prevent her from having any further thoughts, Lu Jin simply wrote a letter to ask for her hand in marriage and to take her as a concubine. He then brought Xiong Tianrui's parents and sister to Jiankang. One reason was to win her over through marriage, and the other was to hold his parents hostage and see how he could rebel.

After arranging for the forces in southern Zhejiang and southern Jiangxi to submit, Lu Jin instructed the Ministry of Personnel to quickly select officials to take over these lands as soon as possible, implement the new policies of the Ming Dynasty, and rapidly digest these territories.

Having settled these two matters of surrender, the next step is to conquer Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi, and Sichuan. However, this will have to wait until Zhu Liangzu's Second Front Army and Chang Yuchun's Ninth Army Group return from the north. Moreover, both of these forces have just finished the Northern Expedition and have marched such a long distance that they will need at least three or four months to rest and replenish their lost troops. The earliest they can launch an offensive will be next year, and it is definitely too late this year.

Therefore, Lu Jin was not in a hurry. He simply asked Bao Yu and Xia Yu to gather intelligence on both locations and formulate an attack plan in advance.

In addition, there is Fang Guozhen, who occupies the Zhoushan Islands, as well as Taizhou and Wenzhou. Although Fang Guozhen had long secretly surrendered to Lu Jin, now that the Northern Expedition is over and the Yuan Dynasty has been destroyed, he no longer needs to pretend.

The Zhoushan Islands, Taizhou, and Wenzhou were all incorporated into the territory and placed under the jurisdiction of Zhejiang Province. Fang Guozhen's navy was also officially reorganized. He had handed over half of his ships to Lu Jin, and now Fang Guozhen still had more than 400 ships of various sizes. When attacking Fujian and Guangzhou next year, he would definitely need the navy, and then he could let his navy contribute.

After dealing with matters in the south, the next step is to arrange border defenses in the north.

Currently, the main forces of the Shengwu Army, consisting of two army groups, are responsible for guarding the northern border: the First Army Group of Liao Yong'an and Xu Da, and the Third Army Group of Yang Jing, totaling more than 200,000 main forces, guarding a large defense area from the Hetao region all the way to the Yalu River in Liaodong.

It's definitely not good to put so many main forces on the frontier. These are all elite field armies. It's a waste of manpower to use them to guard local areas. The main field armies should take the initiative to fight or go to strategic locations to hold the line.

Moreover, this type of garrisoning also incurs exorbitant military expenditures, necessitating the replacement of these main forces with internal defense and agricultural reclamation troops, thus freeing these field forces from local garrison duties.

In addition, Lu Jin also plans to carry out military reforms, which will reduce the size and number of all the main field armies and turn them into pure firearms armies. If they are kept stationed in the north, how can he carry out military reforms?

Therefore, Lu Jin issued a decree to Shanxi and Shandong provinces to investigate single young men in the two provinces who have no land or little land, and to organize seven divisions of troops from each province next year, that is, 94500 people from each province, totaling 189,000 troops, to form agricultural reclamation corps and migrate to the north.

Of the seven divisions from Shandong, one was to be stationed in Tianjin, which is currently called Haijin Town and has only a few thousand people. Dagu Port in Tianjin is an important sea route for transporting grain from the south to the north. Such a strategic sea route needs to be populated, so a division of 13500 people was to be relocated there.

In addition, one should be placed in Jinzhou, Gaizhou, and Fuzhou on the Liaodong Peninsula. Each division has three regiments, and each regiment is a county. In this way, if a division is immigrated there, the military settlements can be disbanded and the counties can be converted into prefectures and counties after a few years.

Furthermore, Dongning Prefecture, west of the Yalu River (later Dandong), also required the relocation of a division and the establishment of three new counties. This was not only to provide provisions for the local garrison and alleviate the pressure on military expenditures, but also to relieve the main force of its garrison duties. This would free up the main field force from Liu Futong's Provisional 11th Army Group stationed along the Yalu River, allowing them to move south at any time to deal with Goryeo. In addition to these three divisions, the remaining four divisions were to be deployed: two along the Shenyang-Siping line, and the other two along the Songzhou (Chifeng), Daning, and Quanning (Tongliao) areas. This would increase the population in the north, both to alleviate the food burden on the garrison and to free up the main force for a gradual northward advance.

Of the seven divisions in Shanxi, four were relocated to the Hetao region, and the other three were relocated to the area from Zhangjiakou to Yingchang Road, which is near Xilinhot in later generations.

Currently, regarding the strategic situation in the north after the Northern Expedition, the Ming Dynasty has only occupied the easternmost edge of the Hetao region. It's not that they don't want to occupy the west, but that area is currently uninhabited, with no population, so how can they station troops there? Therefore, this time, four divisions will be relocated to the Hetao region at once. With each regiment representing a county, these four divisions can establish 12 new counties in the Hetao region, gradually filling the Hetao region to the west. At the same time, Xu Da's main force can also advance westward to block the relocated troops to the outermost edge, turning the entire Hetao Plain into a rear area.

Of course, such a small population is not enough to maintain stability, and such immigration activities will continue in the future.

There was also the issue of the organization of the agricultural reclamation corps. All newly established agricultural reclamation corps used for immigration had a five-year service period. During the five years, they ate from the same pot, reclaimed land together, and built cities together. During this period, they did not receive military pay. Part of the grain produced from the land was handed over to the military granary, and the part was used for their own consumption.

Five years later, they were registered as civilians and each person was allocated fifty mu of land. They paid taxes at a uniform rate, but remained under the jurisdiction of the Corps and were not yet established as provinces.

The first wave of immigration was definitely the largest. In the future, it will be one or two divisions every year, continuously sending people out. One wave after another will expand outwards, gradually increasing the population of the northern border regions.

When the population reaches a certain size, it will be changed to the Hetao Province and Jingsai Province of the Lujin Plan.

After finishing these military arrangements, Lu Jin once again focused his attention on education and industry.

The primary school Chinese textbooks compiled by Song Lian, Chen Yu, and others are almost finished. The mathematics textbooks are being compiled by Lu Jin's two disciples, Meng Zhifang and Tao Guangyi, and are also nearing completion. They are just waiting for Lu Jin's final review before they can be printed and distributed.

However, to support Lu Jin's plan to popularize education, simply compiling books is not enough; industrial support is also needed. Otherwise, if even the paper needed to print so many books cannot be produced, how can education be popularized?

Primary school education is five years long, with each academic year divided into two volumes, which requires ten books. In addition, there is a primary school history course, which also has two volumes, and a science course and a geography course, which also have two volumes, making a total of sixteen books.

Even if only two volumes are printed for one semester a year, based on the previously calculated population and school size, with approximately one primary school per county, at least tens of millions of textbooks would need to be printed annually. Moreover, these would have to be distributed free of charge; otherwise, students would certainly not be able to afford them.

Based on the historical record that the Ming Dynasty produced approximately ten million sheets of paper annually at its peak, printing so many books was definitely unrealistic. Therefore, they had to find a way to increase productivity.

In 4051 AD, 1354 AD, the first year of the Ming Dynasty, on the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month, just before the end of the year and the last few days of the holiday, Lu Jin had not rested. Instead, he called a group of people to the Zhaowen Hall on the east side of the Dazheng Hall in the Imperial Palace, which was also the office of the Grand Secretariat, to review these newly compiled teaching materials together.

Besides Li Shanchang and Feng Guoyong, there were also Song Lian, Chen Yu, Meng Zhifang, Tao Guangyi and others who were in charge of editing the book. Even the newcomer Ye Chen was called over to review the manuscript together.

Everyone sat around a long conference table, each taking a copy of the manuscript to review. After reading it, they passed it around to others to exchange and record any issues they found, so they could offer their opinions later.

Lu Jin was also at the head of the table flipping through the textbook manuscript, but he only glanced at it and waited for others to give their opinions. After all, these textbooks were originally written according to his requirements, so they were definitely to his liking, but it was hard to say whether they would suit other people's tastes.

Besides textbooks, Lu Jin is also most concerned about lesson plans. To popularize education, students and textbooks alone are not enough; a large number of teachers are also needed. How can so many teachers be trained quickly? This can only be achieved through lesson plans.

It doesn't matter if the teacher isn't proficient. As long as the lesson plan is prepared first, then the teacher can just read from the plan. The teacher writes down the process of the lesson and all the knowledge points to be taught. The teacher is just a machine responsible for reading, an assembly line worker. This is the industrialized education model.

Lu Jin was looking at the lesson plan manuscript, while the others were looking at the textbook manuscript and frowning frequently. Li Shanchang had no objection to the Chinese textbook, but after reading the math textbook, he shook his head with a wry smile. This math was much more difficult than before.

The Tang Dynasty had a mathematics exam, and the Song Dynasty had a similar one, but both were considered minor and miscellaneous studies. Even if you did very well in the mathematics exam, you could only get a low-ranking ninth-grade official position at most. Confucianism, on the other hand, was considered the main path to the imperial examinations. The top three graduates would start as eighth-grade officials, and the top two graduates could even be directly granted the seventh-grade county magistrate position. This starting point was much higher. Now, Lu Jin has elevated mathematics to the same level as Confucianism, which is hard to say whether it is a good thing or a bad thing.

Even so, Li Shanchang and the others at least knew in advance of Lu Jin's intention to reform the education system, while the newcomer Ye Chen was completely shocked.

The first-grade elementary school Chinese textbook started with pinyin instead of the familiar Thousand Character Classic and Three Character Classic. He frowned when he saw those crooked pinyin symbols. The later lessons were mostly excerpts of poems and various articles, and they were more in vernacular Chinese. Even the new characters were mostly in simplified Chinese characters. The change was too big.

In mathematics, when he opened the textbook, he saw a bunch of strange foreign characters, but fortunately there were only ten Arabic numerals from 0 to 9, which he could understand at a glance. When he saw the vertical calculation at the end, Ye Chen let out a soft exclamation. He suddenly realized that these Arabic numerals, along with various arithmetic symbols, combined with vertical calculation, were much easier to calculate than counting rods. This thing was indeed worth promoting.

Further on, there were topics such as arithmetic operations, equations, and geometry. Although he only had a general understanding of them, he could tell at a glance that they were good material and definitely worth promoting.

Ye Chen couldn't help but sigh inwardly, "Is this the Gongshu Suanjing? It's truly brilliant."

After putting down his math work, he stood up, cupped his hands, and asked Lu Jin a question.

"May I ask Your Majesty, will the imperial examinations of the new dynasty be based on the contents of this book?"

Upon hearing this, Lu Jin immediately put down the lesson plan in his hand, looked at him and said, "In the past, scholars were divided into Tong Sheng, Xiu Cai, Ju Ren, and Jin Shi. The new dynasty is similar. Primary school is equivalent to Tong Sheng, junior high school is Xiu Cai, senior high school is Ju Ren, and university is Jin Shi. What you see now is just the content of primary school. Even if you learn it all, you will only be a Tong Sheng. The imperial examination will definitely be more difficult than this."

(End of this chapter)