The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 212 The Qing Dynasty’s Discovery on the West Coast of North America

Zhu Jianxuan accepted the old emperor's proposal on the city wall and urban planning. The old emperor took out another prepared item and placed it on the table:
"Guess what I found in the Qinglu files..."

It was a rather delicate wooden box with a lock on it, but it was not locked now.

The old emperor opened the box, and inside was a stack of books that looked quite thick, with a stack of large-format folded papers underneath.

The book is titled "Strategy for Rebuilding the Forbidden City Using Giant American Trees."

The old emperor took out the book and showed it to Zhu Jianxuan, while explaining what he had discovered:

"The Qing invaders were preparing to rebuild the Forbidden City because they had discovered many giant trees overseas.

“The large trees that are no longer found in Shenzhou seem to be everywhere in the forests overseas.

"Particularly in the southernmost part of the west coast of North America where they lived, there was a type of cedar tree with a very tall, straight trunk.

“Just a cursory search revealed many fir trees that were at least a hundred meters tall, much taller than any tree we’ve found elsewhere.

“They cut down some fir trees and examined them carefully, and found that the wood of this fir tree was relatively light, but tough enough, so it could grow so tall.

“This type of wood is not easy to catch fire or be eaten by insects, and it is not easy to deform after being repeatedly soaked in water and dried.

"The key is that they mostly grow near the coast, which makes them very suitable for felling and shipping back to build houses.

“With these fir trees, we can increase the height of the main hall to more than 100 meters.

"So Hongli had the idea of ​​rebuilding the Forbidden City, or at least the three main halls. He ordered people to do the design and survey, and the blueprints were drawn.

"Including the three main halls, Wuying Hall, Wenhua Hall, Qianqing Palace, and Kunning Palace, most of the palaces have been designed.

"It's just that the Qing imperial court has always been short of money, and has never been able to officially start construction."

Zhu Jianxuan listened to the old emperor's introduction and flipped through the Qing court document. He was also a little surprised.

The fir tree discovered by the Qing court that the old emperor mentioned should be the North American redwood in his previous life.

Because it is mainly distributed near the western coastline of California, it is often called California redwood.

The North American redwood is the tallest known tree species in the world, and they are taller than other trees overall.

If the height of trees were ranked based on individual trees, there would be a large number of North American redwoods at the top of the list of the world's tallest trees.

Since the westward expansion and the gold rush era, Americans have been cutting down trees in California for almost a hundred years, and there are still many giant trees over 110 meters tall.

Some special North American redwoods are considered sacred trees by the local indigenous peoples of California.

After arriving in California, the Americans bullied the natives and deliberately dug holes at the base of the trunks of these special redwood trees.

These tree holes later became special attractions. When some trees collapsed, the whole world mourned together, which was exactly the same as the turning point of Thanksgiving.

The North American redwood is a tree that is quite picky about its growing environment. It prefers humid areas with relatively constant temperatures, and fog in the air is more suitable for its growth.

However, their ability to survive is quite strong, and the saplings can grow rapidly even at the bottom of the forest where there is a lack of sunlight.

When redwoods encounter a forest fire, other plants would usually be burned to death, but redwoods can continue to survive.

For redwoods, the death of other plants not only reduces competitors, but the ash left behind by competitors also serves as nutrients.

So much so that small-scale forest fires may actually be beneficial to the growth of North American redwoods.

The California region of this world, including the area where the North American redwoods grow, is still in a wild state.

The local original forest is still there and the trees have not been cut down on a large scale. There should be many giant North American redwoods that have grown for more than two thousand years.

It should not be difficult to find a North American redwood with a trunk height of one hundred meters.

If we could get back a batch of giant trees of this level, we would have a chance to build a wooden palace that is over 100 meters high.

The height of a tree is not equal to the height of the trunk that can be used as a beam, because the head and tail have to be cut off.

However, the height of the beams is not equal to the height of the palace. There are roofs and eaves above the beams, so the total height will increase a lot.

After Zhu Jianxuan looked through the strategy for rebuilding the Forbidden City, he picked up the two stacks of design drawings placed below.

It is a design drawing similar to the interior and exterior renderings, and there is no engineering drawing for construction.

At the same time, most of the palaces in the Forbidden City were made in duplicate.

One option is to retain the original base and the basic proportions of the original building, but to maximize the scale, which would not allow the advantages of the North American redwood to be fully utilized.

The second one was to give full play to its advantages and make the building as high as possible, with the design target being ninety-nine meters.

But no matter which plan it is, the Qianlong of this world cannot afford it.

Moreover, the Forbidden City is a ceremonial palace, and Qianlong did not usually work here. It would have been better to use the money to continue expanding the Old Summer Palace.

Zhu Jianxuan briefly read through it and said:

"Father, you don't want to use the Qing Dynasty's engineering plan directly, do you?
"Can a pure wooden palace be built 100 meters high and maintain structural stability? Can our craftsmen build a pure wooden palace of this height?

“The key point is that the base of the Fengtian Hall is only a little over 100 meters wide.

"If the palace is also about 100 meters high, the whole palace will look out of proportion, right?"

The old emperor smiled and said:
"Of course I won't use the Qing Dynasty's plan. As your mother said, the Qing Dynasty's things are too old-fashioned.

"However, the wood they found, the exploration and testing they did in the early stage, and the data they calculated can all be used as references for our design.

"This kind of cedar in North America is really good and very suitable for palace beams. It can indeed build a palace 100 meters high.

“There is no problem in building it. Today’s craftsmen are much more skilled than before. A hundred meters is no problem.

“What you said about the shape is quite correct. The original layout of the Forbidden City is indeed not suitable for building such a large palace.

“If a 100-meter-high palace is built directly on the original platform of Fengtian Hall, the height and width will be very close, and the overall look will indeed be inconsistent.

"To maintain the overall proportion of the building, the total height should not exceed 40 meters, and the pillars only need to be 20 to 30 meters. There is no need to use tall North American cedar trees." So my idea is to expand the base and increase the width of the Fengtian Hall base to more than 200 meters.

"As for other palaces, their platforms will also need to be expanded as their heights increase.

"The entire layout of the Forbidden City will have to be adjusted to be more compact, reducing the open space outdoors."

Zhu Jianxuan was completely stunned after hearing this.

I originally thought that my father also felt that it was inappropriate to build a 100-meter-high palace directly on the base of the Fengtian Palace, and then it would be natural to return to the plan of restoring the Yongle state.

It turns out that my dad's thinking was the opposite.

Since a palace that is too tall would be inharmonious if placed on a smaller platform, the platform should be enlarged rather than reducing the size of the palace.

Zhu Jianxuan opened his mouth:
"No... Father, although these three main halls have been burned down many times, the base is a genuine item from the Yongle era. It's best if we don't move it, right?"

The old emperor was quite stubborn:

“If Emperor Chengzu had discovered this giant tree in North America, the Forbidden City would have been built according to this standard.

"Changing the layout of the Forbidden City now is also to achieve the goal that Chengzu should have achieved."

Zhu Jianxuan made a rather tangled defense:
"If Chengzu had discovered this giant tree, the overall scale of the Forbidden City would have to be expanded, rather than maintaining its current size."

When the old emperor heard this, he seemed to have a new idea:
"Then demolish the Forbidden City, the Imperial City, and all the surrounding buildings, and rebuild a new Forbidden City that is four times the size of the original one."

When Zhu Jianxuan heard the old emperor opening the door in the opposite direction again, he suddenly became a little overwhelmed.

Zhu Jianxuan’s relationship with the old emperor is rather special now.

The old emperor was still the official emperor of the Ming Dynasty, but in reality he no longer held the highest power of the Ming Dynasty.

After the coup d'état and the return to the old capital, all the original officials of the Ming court lost their power.

Now most of the civil and military officials in the Ming Dynasty court are from the Wu Kingdom, which means they are all direct descendants of Zhu Jianxuan.

If Zhu Jianxuan really wanted to restrict the old emperor, the old emperor really could do nothing now.

But Zhu Jianxuan did not dare and would not do so. The old emperor was his biological father in this life and had always taken good care of him.

The coup d'état was also initiated by the old emperor himself, who took the initiative to transfer the actual power into his own hands.

It is neither moral nor logical that I should make things difficult for my father.

But the whole idea of ​​demolishing the Forbidden City and rebuilding it is really too outrageous.

Zhu Jianxuan could only carefully consider his words to persuade:

"Father... it is actually faster to build a new one than to rebuild it. I think that instead of destroying the foundation of the Forbidden City, it is better to build a new one from scratch in a different location."

The Forbidden City is the iconic political and ceremonial building of the Ming Dynasty.

There was one in Shuntian Prefecture, one in Yingtian Prefecture, and there was originally one in Fengyang Prefecture, but it was abandoned before it was completed.

The other princely palaces were also reduced in size based on the Forbidden City.

So it’s not too outrageous to set up one in a different place.

The old emperor smiled and asked back:

"Your Highness is right. Let's not mess with the Forbidden City. Let's find another place to build a new one."

When Zhu Jianxuan heard this, he immediately wanted to cover his face.

It was such a simple roof-lifting strategy, how did I fall directly into the pit?
"Is there anything you like, Father?"

The old emperor said with a smile:

"I think both Meiwangdu and Wuwangdu are good."

Zhu Jianxuan was confused again. You are just teasing me today, right?
"There's no need to bother with all this in these two places. There are already royal palaces built there, so these two places can just continue to be kingdoms.

“Even if we want to build the Forbidden City in these two places, the specifications cannot exceed those in our Ming Dynasty.

The old emperor looked at Zhu Jianxuan meaningfully:
"If we don't build it overseas, Fengyang seems to be the only suitable place. We can build it on the site of the Forbidden City in Zhongdu during the Hongwu period."

When Zhu Jianxuan heard this plan, he felt from the bottom of his heart that there was no need to go through so much trouble.

But I really don't want to compete with this old man:
"I think it's okay."

Zhu Jianxuan said yes, but the old emperor shook his head and waved his hands:

"There is no rush for this matter. We can take our time to consider and plan it. Let's first restore the Forbidden City in Shuntian Prefecture to its size during the Yongle period.

“However, these giant trees on the west coast of North America will be designated as a special forest for the Ming Dynasty’s royal palace, and no one is allowed to cut them down.

“Whoever dares to cut down these trees without the court’s permission will be beheaded by the court.

"At the same time, send someone to negotiate a deal with the Spaniards and spend some money to buy back the land where these trees grow."

Zhu Jianxuan was completely speechless. Was this old man really teasing him? Or was he testing my attitude towards him?

However, Zhu Jianxuan has a soul from the afterlife. Now that he sees something that was severely damaged in his previous life, he doesn't mind controlling it in advance:
"That's no problem. These trees are probably the tallest trees in the world. They should be listed as exclusive materials for the royal court, and civilians are prohibited from cutting them down indiscriminately."

Listing them as royal forests and using them exclusively for the imperial palaces may be the best way to protect these trees.

Now that the Ming Dynasty has perfect lightning rod technology, fires in the palaces no longer occur frequently due to lightning strikes and other reasons.

Even if we really cut down North American redwoods to build the palace, it may be that in the next few decades or hundreds of years, we will only need to cut down dozens or at most a few hundred trees as materials.

This is simply not on the same order of magnitude as civil and industrial demand, and this kind of consumption may even be slower than the natural reproduction rate of the North American redwood itself.

However, neither Zhu Jianxuan nor the old emperor knew that the expedition team arranged by the Zheng family, the Duke of Min, had discovered a gold mine in the valley next to this land.

(End of this chapter)