The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 170: The st Year of Xianning

After drifting on the sea for a month, Cui Er finally arrived at the capital of Wu on November 10, the 39th year of Xianning.

Cui Er and the other Shandong people who were traveling with him were all filled with shock the moment they came out of the cabin.

They had taken it for granted that Australia, a place far away overseas, should be a wild land, otherwise there would not be a need for continuous immigration to open up the land.

As a result, when they looked up, they saw a residential area that stretched as far as the eye could see, and countless chimneys emitting white smoke.

This is actually a large city that is basically no different from the Ming Dynasty mainland.

After Cui Er and his group landed at the dock, they were again ordered to walk into the disaster relief camp prepared there and were driven to take another shower.

Then he was arranged to live in a four-story building made of strange stones.

Cui Er and his nephew Ke Sidi, two apprentices, and four companions were considered a family when they registered.

If they were ordinary disaster victims, they would be sent directly to an eight-person dormitory with four bunk beds.

But Cui Er and his group now have positions.

Cui Er himself held the position of a trial centurion, directly in charge of a hundred households of disaster victims.

Although Kosidi was the youngest, he was able to write and do math, so he was in charge of roll call and registration in the original disaster camp and had a trial position as deputy centurion.

The other two apprentices and four companions also had temporary official positions as trial flag bearers, each in charge of ten households of disaster victims.

So the mixed family of eight was allocated an officer's room with three bedrooms and a living room.

Cui Er and his eldest nephew Ke Sidi shared a room, and the other six people shared a room of three each, with each person having a wooden single bed.

There are tables, chairs and cabinets in the living room and rooms.

Cui Er sat on a bed, patted the bed legs and bed board with his hands, and said in amazement:

"This bed is made of fine wood. It's damn better than the one we live in back home..."

Kosidi took a look at the cabinet in the room:

“Indeed… The furniture in this room is all made of fine wood. Your Highness the King of Wu is really rich.

"When the wealthy families in my hometown get married, they can't afford so many fine furniture."

Cui Er and others were surprised, mainly because the good local wood had long been gone, and ordinary rural landlords also rarely had really good wood.

But where the capital of King Wu was located, there used to be a large area of ​​virgin forest.

Building cities and reclaiming wasteland required felling and clearing forests, which directly produced an extremely large amount of fresh wood.

Because it takes time to process wood, only the more neat ones will be processed into furniture and decorations. Ordinary wood is dried and used as firewood.

Cui Er's "family" rested in the room for a day and were called up the next morning to eat in the collective canteen.

Then they were called to gather in the yard and assigned future tasks.

Because Cui Er had a special mark, he and four of his companions, including Hao San, were incorporated into the army.

Kosidi and his two senior brothers were considered craftsmen. They used to work on pasting paper fans and were sent to the Wangdu Flour Mill to repair sieves.

Because Kosidi was young and could barely write and do math, he was assigned to be responsible for collecting maintenance data.

But no matter what they do, they are now part of the Guard Corps and are still considered an officer system, so they continue to live together.

A group of people went out at dawn, returned to the dormitory at dark, and then collapsed in the living room.

Cui Er and several of his companions began to sigh and complain as soon as they entered the door.

"It's so hard to be a soldier in the Ming Dynasty. How can you train all day? I'm almost dead tired."

"How come we are all officers, my second brother is the company commander, and we are all platoon leaders, so why do we still have to train with the soldiers?"

"Damn it, I practiced for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. My waist is going to break."

"Fuck, the military officers of the Ming Dynasty are too fierce. If someone doesn't learn well, they will curse at him. If someone doesn't obey, they will whip him directly."

"There is no military pay yet. If we don't have enough food to eat, we really can't continue to be soldiers."

Cui Er slumped in the chair, motionless, looking even more exhausted, but also seeming to understand more:
"What else do you want? Steamed buns and corn porridge are enough to fill you up, and there are also salted fish and cabbage stewed with chicken? Can you eat this after working all day at home?
"And the commander said that it's not that we don't have military pay, it's just that we didn't have military pay in the first year since we fled. We used the military pay and wages to pay for the ship's fare.

"We will receive our military pay next year, one Ming Wu Wang gold note a month, and it will increase as we serve longer.

"The King of Wu's gold notes can be exchanged for gold at the King of Wu's Gold Shop. It is said to be much more valuable than a silver dollar. Three gold notes are enough to pay the army.

"Besides, you guys rested after training. I accompanied you through training. Then we had two hours of classes at noon and in the afternoon, and followed the instructors to learn to read and write."

Kosidi, who was in charge of the accounting, remembered it more clearly and explained:
"Yes, the factory master also said that after working for a full year, you will get one gold ticket per month, after working for two years, you will get two tickets per month, after working for three years, you will get three tickets per month, and if you are the manager, you will get one more.

"Three gold notes can be exchanged for three grams of gold, which is worth more than four silver dollars. In the Ming Dynasty, fifty grams is one tael, and five hundred grams is one jin."

The ordinary managers and officers had also mentioned the matter of military pay, and Hao San and others remembered it after hearing Cui Er and Ke Sidi's reminder.

"Yes, after three years, I will have a salary of four silver dollars, and the food is really good, so it's not bad. It's worth the effort."

"By the way, what did you say just now, second brother? You still want to learn to read? Do you need to study to be a soldier?"

Cui Er didn't know whether he was proud or helpless when he said:

“Yes, the commander of the training division told me that if I want to be a general, I must keep attending classes and studying.

"You need to be able to do the math, write reports for superiors, give commendations to soldiers, and read maps and artillery tables as well as orders.

"Otherwise, you won't be able to command the team to fight alone." "You guys can't escape either, you just learned less than me.

"The commander said that ordinary soldiers in the future must also be able to read."

Hao San immediately complained:

"This is terrible. Why do you need to be literate to serve in the Ming Dynasty? Why is the Ming Dynasty so unreasonable?"

Cui Er seemed to be able to do it, and he pointed at Hao San and cursed:

"Hao San, do you have any ambition? You are asked to learn to read and yet you complain? In the past, you had to pay a master to learn to read."

Another companion also thought it was okay:

"Yes, I can eat, I can eat meat, and I can learn to read."

At this time, Kosidi interrupted:

"But... we may not be able to go back, we will never be able to go home, and we don't know how our parents are doing.

"Australia is much farther away than Southeast Asia. I don't even know if the letters I write can be delivered home."

The group of people suddenly fell silent.

Cui Er hugged his nephew's shoulders:

"It's pretty good here, with good food and drinks and a safe place to live. You don't have this kind of life in your hometown.

"Uncle saves some money, and you save some money too. In a few years, I will find you a wife and continue the Ke family line."

Kosidi shook his head and said:

"It's too early for me. Uncle, you should think about yourself first. You are almost twenty years old."

This time Cui Er was speechless.

Cui Er's strange family finally settled down in Wudu.

Life in the future will be about eating, training, working and studying every day.

There is no time to think about too many other things, and time passes quickly day by day.

The 39th year of Xianning also came to an end.

In the Shandong region of the distant mainland of China, there was almost no harvest in the past year.

After Cui Er and his party left, the price of grain in Jinan and Caozhou Prefecture continued to rise after the winter, quickly breaking through thirty silver dollars per stone.

All grain merchants are still not selling openly, and one still has to find ways to buy a little bit.

More and more farmers and citizens are starving.

After the arrival of winter, it was too late for the victims to escape from their homes even if they wanted to.

After a winter, no one knew how many people had died in various parts of Shandong.

But this is still just the beginning.

"In the spring of the 51st year of Qianlong's reign, there was a great famine in the prefectures, states and counties of Shandong, and people were cannibalizing each other."

After the beginning of spring, it started raining in Shandong and surrounding areas, which seemed to be a good thing and the drought seemed to be over.

But the people who starved to death last fall and winter will not disappear out of thin air.

"In the summer of the 51st year of Qianlong's reign, there were major epidemics in Rizhao, Fanxian, Shenxian, Juzhou, Changle, and Dongguang, and the number of deaths was incalculable."

This is why a great epidemic will inevitably follow a great disaster.

In the original history, Taizhou, Tongzhou, Hefei, Ganyu, Wujin, Suzhou and other warmer places experienced major epidemics in the early spring of the 51st year of Qianlong's reign.

However, the Ming Dynasty court in this world carried out large-scale and continuous disaster relief last year, and there were no large-scale deaths in these places.

The emperor also knew the basic principles of the plague, which allowed these places to be spared.

But the Ming Dynasty is also unstable this year.

There were floods in Chongyang and Jiangling, severe droughts in Jingmen and Songzi, severe droughts in Fangxian, Yicheng, Zaoyang, Yangchun, Luotian and Macheng, and then a locust plague occurred.

The Ming Dynasty court and local military governors were overwhelmed.

After enduring the forty years of Xianning, and the forty-first year after Xianning, the disaster situation in the north eased a little.

It changed from a concentrated outbreak to a dispersed outbreak.

There was a flood in Shanyang, severe drought in Huangxian and Boxing, severe drought in Ningjin, Dongguang and Pingdu, locusts covered the sky, crops were all destroyed, severe drought in Tengxian, and the Weishan Lake dried up.
A flood peak occurred again in the southern Ming Dynasty.

In May, there were severe floods in Yichang, Changshan, Qingyuan, Nanchang, Xinjian, Jinxian, Jiujiang and Linyu.

In June, severe floods occurred in Jiangxia, Hanyang, Wuchang, Huangpi, Xiangyang, Yicheng, Guanghua, Yingcheng, Huanggang, Qishui, Luotian, Guangji, Huangmei, Gong'an, Shishou, Songzi, Yidu, and Zhijiang.

In July, there was a locust plague in Huanggang, Yidu, Macheng, Luotian and Jingmen.

This year, the whole Hubei Province was hit by floods again.

Floods followed by droughts have happened three times.

The Ming Emperor, court officials, and the Zuo family, Duke of E, are now completely numb.

(End of this chapter)