The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 221 Ceylon and Suez
Zhu Jianxuan arranged the exploration plan for the Northeast and felt that he could not discuss any more things today:

"Okay, let's end today's meeting here.

“After you go back, first adjust the departmental organizations, implement the matters discussed today, and take over the daily affairs of the central court.

"I will be working in Wenhua Hall these days. If you have any urgent matters, you can come to me directly."

All the officials immediately stood up, bowed to Zhu Jianxuan, and then slowly left the hall.

The newly reorganized Ming court quickly became busy.

The department adjustments alone take a long time, and there are many things that need Zhu Jianxuan's confirmation, and many official documents require Zhu Jianxuan's seal.

Wenhua Hall is the palace closest to the various government offices and also the palace closest to the cabinet.

Zhu Jianxuan just lived here.

Deal with issues arising from various ministries at any time.

Most officials are happy with the current busyness, because this process is not only a process of power integration, but also a process of collective and comprehensive promotion.

At the central level, officials from the Wu Kingdom directly became officials of the Ming Dynasty’s central court, and most of them jumped four levels.

The scale and extent of promotion of local officials are also very large.

The overseas areas conquered by the former Wu State were not established as provinces on a large scale because there were not enough local officials. Most of them were officers from the Siwei.

In the areas that were originally notified by the Qing Dynasty and taken over by the Wu State, all officials at or above the provincial level were dismissed.

Now, all the provinces where provincial yamen have been emptied, as well as the newly established provinces overseas and in the northeast, must re-establish the Sansi yamen.

It’s hard to count how much is missing.

Even if all the county officials of Wu State were promoted to the provincial government, it would not be enough.

After all, Wu was just a small country with only a few million people, and the size of its bureaucratic system could only support a province at most.

However, Zhu Jianxuan also deliberately opened a bunch of three government offices at the same time.

The purpose was to absorb a group of middle-level bureaucrats from the former Ming Dynasty court and middle and upper-level local bureaucrats.

Most of the central court officials who were originally at the fourth and fifth ranks, as well as local officials outside Yingtian Prefecture, could not interfere in the top-level affairs of the court.

Therefore, the Yi Chu coup and the Yingtian Prefecture uprising had nothing to do with them.

The now rebuilt court will give them a number of additional promotion opportunities and incorporate them into the new vested interest group.

Only then can the situation at the court and in the local areas be truly stabilized.

People in the south used to participate in politics through the third-rank provincial government, but now they have the opportunity to go directly to the north to serve as provincial governors.

Although the rank seemed to have been upgraded by one level, the provincial governors and councillors of the new court were all downgraded by one level, which was actually a promotion of two levels.

The assistant officials were directly transferred to other places to serve as chief officials, which was a treatment only given to favored officials in the past.

The prefect of the southern province who was originally a fourth-rank official had the opportunity to go directly overseas or to the northeast to serve as a provincial governor. In terms of rank, he was promoted two levels, so the actual effect was that he was promoted four levels.

This is because of the overseas benefits, which directly brought huge profits.

A large number of councilors and councillors under the Sansi Yamen were also sent out, and a large number of southern officials were transferred to the north and other places.

Zhu Jianxuan basically did not directly interfere in the selection process because he was not familiar with who these people were.

The officials of the newly formed Ministry of Personnel did not know the specific situation of these people.

We can only screen based on past assessment data and officials' native places, which actually feels like randomly selecting people for promotion.

The cabinet members headed by Yao Nai, together with officials from the new Ministry of Personnel, came to ask Zhu Jianxuan for his opinion.

Zhu Jianxuan actually gave them a screening requirement:
"Those who go to the new Sansi Yamen in the north and overseas, as well as all new officials in the world, are not allowed to own shares in any factories or businesses.

"Officials in the south who already own shares in factories and businesses will not be allowed to directly participate in management in the future. Before the shares are sold, they will only be transferred horizontally, not promoted."

Before the Chongzhen period, officials of the Ming Dynasty court were not allowed to engage in business, because merchants’ household registration made it impossible for them to become officials.

However, many officials would secretly hold shares and receive dividends through their family members or servants.

After the Chongzhen period, craftsmen and merchants were given the opportunity to take the imperial examinations, which actually relaxed the restrictions on officials engaging in business.

As a result, many bureaucrats with business identities gradually appeared in the court.

With the continuous development of industry and commerce, there are more and more such bureaucrats. In recent years, they have begun to influence the government.

Zhu Jianxuan took advantage of the reorganization of the central court and the local economic crisis to block this loophole again.

Yao Nai and the officials of the Ministry of Personnel had no objections. They were not businessmen at all. All the bureaucrats of Wu were professional bureaucrats and had nothing to do with businessmen.

They all completely stand on Zhu Jianxuan's side, and they also really think that officials should not engage in business, as this will lower their image and status.

After hearing Zhu Jianxuan's instructions, the two immediately did as requested.

As time went by, the procedures of the cabinet, the most critical institution of the Ming Dynasty court, were completed first.

Duan Yucai was officially appointed as the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, and also served as the special envoy with full powers arranged by the Emperor and the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty.

Then he chose an auspicious date, took letters from the Emperor and the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty, and official documents from the Ming Dynasty court, and went to Tianjin to board a steamship to Spain.

Also traveling with them was a group of messengers heading to the United States to inform American ministers of what was happening in the Ming mainland.

The ships on this trip included four 1,500-ton Beihe improved steel warships and eight traditional wooden-hulled conventional steam paddle-wheel sailing ships of equivalent tonnage.

The admiral of this fleet is Nelson, who has been promoted from the initial temporary captain to the official admiral of the battleship fleet.

The fleet sailed south from Tianjin, bypassed the Shandong Peninsula, and continued south after replenishing in Zhoushan.

Out to the South China Sea, passing Malacca, and stopping at Ceylon.

During the American War, the western coastal area of ​​Ceylon was a Dutch colony.

But at this time, the Netherlands was already on the decline and did not have enough manpower and resources to occupy the entire island.

The "Kandyan Kingdom", a regime established by local indigenous people, still occupies most of the land on the island.

Before the Dutch, the Portuguese began to invade Ceylon in the 16th century.

The Kingdom of Kandy resisted the Portuguese invasion for a long time, which prevented Portugal from occupying the entire island.

But the Kingdom of Kandy was also unable to drive out the Portuguese.

Later, the Kingdom of Kandy tried to cooperate with the Dutch and repelled the Portuguese with the assistance of the Dutch.

But as the saying goes, it is easier to invite a god than to send him away. After the Dutch drove out the Portuguese, they stayed behind and occupied a large amount of land in the coastal areas of the island.

In the original history, the Kingdom of Kandy cooperated with the British in the late 18th century to drive out the Dutch who were deadlocked on the island.

The British also didn't want to leave after they came, and they were even more brutal than the Portuguese and the Dutch.

After the British occupied Colombo on February 1796, 2, they continued to attack and control the entire island of Ceylon, completely conquering the Kingdom of Kandy.

However, Portugal, the Netherlands and Britain were not the first foreign countries to intervene in Ceylon.

Even earlier than them was the Ming Dynasty.

When Zheng He visited Ceylon during his voyage to the West, the powerful Ceylon official Arikunaru attempted to rob Zheng He's fleet. He was captured alive by Zheng He and sent to the Ming Dynasty for trial.

Yalekunair's political enemy at the time, Yebananaixian, took the opportunity to seize the throne and accepted the Ming Dynasty's enthronement as the King of Ceylon.

The Kingdom of Kotte founded by Yabananathan gradually unified the entire island of Ceylon.

It was not until the arrival of the Portuguese that they defeated the main body of the Kingdom of Kotte, established a puppet king, and had the puppet king make a will, donating the entire country to Portugal after his death.

But the officials and people of the Kingdom of Kotte did not accept this and directly split into three countries to continue to confront the Portuguese.

The other two kingdoms collapsed one after another, and the last remaining one was the Kingdom of Kandy.

The current monarch of the Kingdom of Kandy is still a descendant of the King of Ceylon who was enthroned by the Ming Dynasty.

After Zhu Jianxuan became the King of the Netherlands, he was the monarch of both the Dutch and the Ceylonese, so naturally he had to go to the island to "advance justice."

The Wu Kingdom first separated a guard from the native immigrants of the Ming Dynasty and sent them to Ceylon to actually control the situation.

Demand that the Dutch-Netherlands rulers give up their rule over Ceylon.

At the same time, the King of the Kingdom of Kandy was renamed the Commander of the Left Guard of Ceylon, turning the nominal outer vassal into an actual inner vassal.

The Commander of the Right Guard of Ceylon continued to manage the inland land of the island and all the indigenous people on the island, and the original indigenous people could live freely throughout the island.

The Dutch are also subjects of King Wu of the Ming Dynasty, so the Dutch on Ceylon will not be expelled and can continue to operate normally.

Zhu Jianxuan also appointed the former Governor of Ceylon of the Netherlands as the Commander of the Right Guard of Ceylon to manage the Dutch on the island.

The coastal areas originally ruled by the Dutch and all Ming people on the islands were governed by the Ming Wu Kingdom's Ceylon Commander-in-Chief.

The Ming Dynasty was similar to most central imperial courts in that the management of areas where different ethnic groups lived together was usually based on the number of people.

If the people involved in the matter are clansmen from the inner or outer vassal states, they will usually be managed by the monarchs of the inner or outer vassal states. If they are people from the Ming Dynasty, they will be managed by Ming Dynasty officials.

However, the highest-ranking local officials were still those appointed by the Ming court.

When the Ming officials needed it, they could directly ask these low-level inner vassal leaders to cooperate. When the Ming officials had ideas, they could directly observe the inner vassal affairs at any time.

This was the situation of the Portuguese in Macau before modern times.

Ceylon has an advantageous geographical location, especially as the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea routes are being restored. It is the midpoint and only way for the Indian Ocean route.

It is natural that the Ming Dynasty would continue to immigrate here.

It was natural to build a coaling station so that the ships passing by could dock here for supplies.

With the Ming presiding over the situation, conflicts between the natives and the Dutch were suppressed, while trade routes generally prospered.

This is good for everyone in the area.

Duan Yucai is now the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, the highest-ranking official in the Ming Dynasty court. Wherever he goes, high-ranking officials greet him.

When Duan Yucai's fleet docked in Ceylon, accompanied by several commanders on the island, he visited the local government offices and coal stations in Ceylon.

Duan Yucai roughly recorded things that might be useful in case the prince asked about them in the future.

After the fleet was replenished, it set sail again, crossed the Indian Ocean, entered the Gulf of Aden, reached the deepest part of the Red Sea, and arrived at the busy canal construction site.

The commander of Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula, the owner and chief engineer of the Canal Company also came out to welcome Duan Yucai.

The shopkeeper introduced the situation of the canal project to Duan Yucai.

At the beginning of the 41st year of Xianning, the Wu expeditionary force controlled the Isthmus of Suez and immediately built a temporary Suez Railway to connect the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

After the Wu expeditionary force occupied Egypt, they began a comprehensive canal construction project.

At that time, there was no modern engineering machinery, and the canal could only be dug with simple manual tools and fixed railways to transport materials.

However, compared with digging canals in the classical era, it already has huge advantages.

At least there is no limit on the number of steel tools. Everyone can get a shovel to dig the soil, and there is also a wheelbarrow which can be considered a magic weapon from the handicraft era.

The railways along the way were also able to transport sufficient supplies, including food and water.

As tools and materials are continuously delivered, the scale of the project and the scope of the construction site continue to expand during the construction and organization process.

There are now more than 300,000 workers on the entire canal construction site.

A large part of them are the original ruling classes in Egypt, Oman and other regions, and a part of them are North African residents who have participated in supporting pirates.

There was also a large number of black slaves captured by the Japanese puppet army in Africa.

These 300,000 workers did not start from the starting point of the canal, but worked together to dig slowly towards the end point.

Instead, they are evenly distributed along the project line of dozens of kilometers.

The main army and officers of the Ming Dynasty and the Japanese vassal army, accompanied by a translation team composed of local Arabs, inspected and supervised the railway exchanges and arranged tasks.

There is no labor protection now, and those working on construction sites are either slaves or criminals.

The State of Wu reclaimed wasteland and established farmland in East Africa and prepared enough food to keep the workers well fed so that they could work until they could no longer move.

With steel tools and a wheelbarrow, one person can dig four to five cubic meters of soil a day.

Along the Suez Canal, most places have an altitude of only two or three meters, and most of the route has an altitude below 10 meters. The only places with an altitude above 10 meters are only a few kilometers long.

The canal is expected to have a total length of 170 kilometers, a target water depth of at least 15 meters, an expected average excavation depth of 20 meters, and a target average width of 200 meters.

A rough estimate is that the total earthwork volume is about 7 million cubic meters.

With a total of 300,000 workers, even if only manual tools were used for digging, it would take less than two years to complete just based on the amount of earthwork.

It’s just that the preparation and organization of the project took a long time, and the labor force has only recently reached a size of 300,000.

In addition, the sunlight is very strong in the desert in summer, so even if the workers do not have human rights at this time, they cannot work with a lunch break all year round.

Therefore, the actual construction time required will be much longer than simply calculating the earthwork volume.

But it is not expected to take two and a half years.

Moreover, both the scale and speed of the canal far exceed the Suez Canal which had just been opened in history.

At that time, the width was only 60 meters and the water depth was only 8 meters. It took the French and Egyptians eleven years to complete it.

Zhu Jianxuan's canal engineering indicators are actually the historical standards after the comprehensive widening and deepening in 1956.

It can only be said that in terms of institutional construction and organizational capabilities for large projects, European countries are always far behind the Shenzhou Empire.

For the officials of the Shenzhou Empire, this project was not a particularly large one.

Even the local climate and environmental conditions in Egypt are not a big problem compared to the summer in Shenzhou.

At the Red Sea end of the Suez Canal, the maximum temperature in summer does not exceed 35 degrees, and on the Mediterranean coast it does not exceed 30 degrees. The minimum temperature in winter is above 10 degrees.

In the eyes of the officials of the Shenzhou Empire, this place can be worked continuously most of the year except for the hottest time from noon to afternoon in summer.

The canal company and the garrison worked for two years, and the original single-track temporary railway was transformed into a double-track formal railway.

The canal itself has been basically dug through. Now all we have to do is open the cofferdams at both ends so that the waters of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea can meet here.

However, the depth of the canal bottom in the last few dozen kilometers has not reached the predetermined 15 meters below sea level.

The 300,000 people on the construction site are still working to deepen the work.

Duan Yucai took a train across the Isthmus of Suez and listened to a brief introduction of the Canal Company:
"That means the canal will be completely connected by the end of the year at the latest?"

All laughed and said:
“What Mr. Duan said is that it will be completed by the end of the year at the latest, and by then, the route between Shenzhou and Europe will be officially opened.

“People and materials going to Europe and America no longer need to change trains here.

“At the same time, His Highness has already given instructions that after this canal is dug, a second canal will be dug on the other side of the railway to form a two-way channel with this canal so that people can travel back and forth at any time without affecting each other.

“The next day the canal must be at least 15 meters deep and 200 meters wide on average.

"But there's no need to rush the second canal. We can avoid the hottest days in summer and complete it within three years."

Since the labor team has been fully deployed, the subsequent excavation speed is basically stable.

For two canals of the same standard, the first one required three years to complete, which was very tight, while the second one required three years to complete, which was very loose.

Duan Yucai nodded slightly after hearing this:
“Your Highness has a far-sighted vision. Today’s largest seagoing vessels have already reached 10,000 tons, and their draft has exceeded nine meters. In the future, ships will only get bigger.

"Building it in advance according to the 15-meter standard can ensure that there is enough margin for future shipbuilding.

"Suez is located between two oceans and three continents, and is surrounded by fairly flat and low sandy land, with no mountains or ridges blocking the way.

"No one has built a canal here to connect the waters of the two oceans. These barbarians are really wasting natural resources..."

In fact, there was a canal in ancient Egypt that connected the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea through the Nile River, but the canal has disappeared and people at that time basically didn’t know about it.

As Duan Yucai said this, the craftsmen around him all nodded and echoed him from the bottom of their hearts.

"Mr. Duan is absolutely right. The Hu people are indeed squandering natural resources. They simply don't have the ability to do this."

“When I looked at the map before, I thought there were some mountains and boulders here, but it turned out to be just an ordinary desert.”

"The canal can be opened in just three years, and then we can sit here and collect tolls and take a cut."

"After the canal was completed, docks, post stations, and restaurants were built around it, all of which were businesses where people just sat and collected money."

"Shipbuilding, ship repair, and supplying fresh water and coal are also good businesses."

"In the future, this canal can be further widened, the lake along the way can be deepened, and enough docks can be built around it, so that all kinds of business can be done..."

Duan Yucai and the officials and craftsmen around him did not think there was anything wrong with continuing to deepen the canal, and they were unanimous in criticizing the waste by the local indigenous people.

I can easily list a lot of businesses that can be done here, and they are all businesses that can make money without any effort.

In order to bring out the advantages here, everyone has a lot of ideas.

At the same time, because the Suez Canal had not yet been opened, the fleet led by Nelson sent Duan Yucai ashore and then returned.

After Duan Yucai and the representatives going to the United States entered the Mediterranean, they were escorted by the Wu State's Mediterranean Fleet and continued to their destination, Spain.

Now the Ming Dynasty occupies both sides of the Red Sea, the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, and Egypt, and has reopened the most traditional East-West trade route.

All large-scale Arab and Ottoman pirate strongholds along the way have been suppressed and cleared out by the Ming Navy.

There are Wuguo coaling stations at important nodes along the way.

Although the canal has not yet been completed, the railway through the Isthmus of Suez has brought unprecedented vitality to this traditional trade route.

Now, for officials of the Ming Dynasty, it only takes one and a half months to sail from Tianjin to western Europe, and just over two months to reach the United States.

Ten years ago, it took at least half a year to reach Europe from Shenzhou by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope. Now the time has been shortened to a quarter of the original time.

The round trip used to take at least a full year, but now it only takes more than three months.

In fact, the most important change is that the routes are no longer restricted by monsoons. If the parties need it, they can set off directly at any time.

Once the Suez Canal is truly opened, the popularity of the entire route will reach a new level.

(End of this chapter)