The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 264 The Core of the Great Plains of North America
After Zhu Jianxuan finished his arrangements, the officials and nobles on the scene once again agreed in unison.

Zhu Jianxuan continued to ask:
"Do you have any other questions?"

This time everyone looked at each other, hesitating and considering for several seconds.

Finally, Liu Quanzhi stood up and asked:
"Your Highness, do you have any instructions regarding the site selection for the new capital of North America?"

Zhu Jianxuan immediately reacted and realized that he had told all North American officials and nobles that New York was only the temporary capital of the United States.

In the future, a new city will be built at another site. It will serve as the future official capital of the United States and as the true core city of the Ming Dynasty in North America.

The future goal of the Ming Dynasty and the United States is definitely to seize the entire North American Great Plains, and now it has become the entire North American continent.

So the general scope is in the middle area of ​​the Great Plains of North America, to find a place with suitable climate, environment and feng shui.

Zhu Jianxuan deliberately made this statement for two main purposes.

The first is to give North American officials and nobles an idea to prevent senior nobles and officials from quickly occupying a large amount of high-quality land suitable for reclamation by relying on their status and power advantages, thereby affecting the construction and development of New York itself.

Second, New York is surrounded by free states and dominions, and there are already a large number of European residents around it, so a separate city should be built mainly for immigrants from the Ming Dynasty.

So far, Zhu Jianxuan has achieved his first goal very well.

Officials and nobles in North America were indeed thinking about moving the capital, and coupled with Zhu Jianxuan's early planning and arrangements, the land distribution around New York was relatively fair.

There is no excessive concentration of land.

But looking at it from the other side, this potential risk and uncertainty not only makes senior nobles and officials very uneasy, but also businessmen.

They want to invest, but they are worried that Zhu Jianxuan will really move the capital in the future and all their current investments will be wasted.

This will also affect development and construction in New York.

But even so, New York has already received a lot of investment, and the nobility and officials have actually taken root in New York.

Most people no longer want to move the capital, especially middle and low-level officials.

So now that Zhu Jianxuan has finally come to North America in person, the officials and nobles are beginning to struggle with whether or not to discuss this issue.

He wanted to establish the current established facts, but was also worried that asking would formally initiate the capital relocation operation.

But this matter still needs to be asked. There is no way to pretend to be deaf and dumb forever.

So Liu Quanzhi spoke.

In fact, Zhu Jianxuan's intention to move the capital could be considered half true and half false.

It doesn't matter whether it is actually implemented or not.

However, given the current overall situation in North America, Zhu Jianxuan believes that this propaganda tone should continue.

New York has an excellent geographical location, especially after the completion of the canal connecting the five Great Lakes, it will become the most advantageous port city on the east coast of North America.

New York currently has a population of only 600,000, which is already a very large size among traditional cities in the Old World.

But New York's urban population potential is in the tens of millions.

Once New York's status as the capital is confirmed, officials and nobles will certainly begin to occupy land on a large scale, which will definitely affect its future development.

At the same time, compared with the entire Ming Dynasty North America, New York's location is indeed too remote.

Simply looking at its location on the entire map, it is similar to the location of Shuntian Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty before Chongzhen.

But to the south of Shuntian Prefecture is the entire Central Plains, and Shuntian Prefecture is located on the North China Plain.

However, the Appalachian Mountains separate New York from the Great Plains of North America.

In terms of the geographical layout of the North American continent, New York is actually not like Shuntian Prefecture, but rather a bit like Hangzhou.

Ming Dynasty and the United States do need to choose another place as the core city in the central part of the Great Plains of North America to control the Great Plains.

In the Cedar Bay (San Francisco Bay) area on the west coast, a core city on the west coast will be built. New York will only serve as the core city on the east coast in the future.

Zhu Jianxuan looked at the map of North America in front of him again.

The main streams of North America's major rivers are basically in the middle of the Great Plains. Building cities along the rivers makes it convenient to obtain water resources and utilize water transportation.

Therefore, the location for building a city is basically chosen along the main stream of the river.

But we also have to consider the special climate of North America.

The North American continent has the Rocky Mountains on the west side and the Appalachian Mountains and Labrador Plateau on the east side.

In the middle is a large plain that is completely open from north to south, with a lack of east-west mountains to intercept the air currents from north to south.

Therefore, whether it is the warm current in the Gulf of Mexico in the south or the cold current in the Arctic Ocean in the north, they can pass through the entire continent in one breath.

When air currents from the north and south meet in the middle of the Great Plains, not only will severe convective weather such as rain and snow occur, but also terrifying tornadoes may occur.

Tornadoes that occur each year in the United States and Canada account for eighty percent of the total number of tornadoes recorded worldwide.

The United States alone accounts for 75 percent of the global total, or three quarters.

So Zhu Jianxuan asked the university scholars and officials present:

"Among the five current military development areas, which one has the least large tornadoes? Tornadoes are also commonly known as dragons sucking water."

North American officials have lived here for several years and have known that there are strange tornadoes on the North American continent.

Tornadoes in North America can be considered natural disasters, and the officers and civil servants of the military farms would specifically record and report them.

There are almost no large tornadoes on the ground in the Ming Dynasty, and the tornadoes that can be seen basically appear at sea.

Tornadoes at sea seem to be sucking sea water, so they are commonly known as water-sucking dragons.

Liu Quanzhi immediately reported:

"Your Highness, Taipingwei has the least number of large tornadoes, averaging about once a year.

“Jing’anwei has the most, with an average of more than five times a year.

"The situation in the remaining three military garrisons is similar, averaging three times a year."

Zhu Jianxuan continued to ask:
"Have the craftsmen considered the reasons for the formation of tornadoes? Why are there so few Taiping Guards and so many Jing'an Guards?"

Liu Quanzhi continued to report:
"Your Highness, the Great Plains of North America are open from north to south, and when the south wind and the north wind meet and entangle, it is easy to form a tornado.

“The area where Taipingwei is located is blocked by low mountains within dozens of kilometers to the north, northwest, northeast, and east.

“Although the mountains are only about 200 meters high, they can slightly interfere with the airflow from north to south.

“So there are the fewest tornadoes around Taipingwei.

"The terrain around Jing'anwei is the most open, with almost no mountains to affect the wind, so Jing'anwei has the most tornadoes."

Zhu Jianxuan was quite satisfied with this answer. He pointed to the location of Taipingwei and then circled the area around Taipingwei on the map.

"Let's build the new capital near Taipingwei." The entire plain area east of the North American River, on both sides of the North American River, and in the middle of the surrounding mountains will be directly under the jurisdiction of the capital.

“But even if a new capital is chosen, New York is not simply abandoned.

“The Great Plains and the East Coast of North America can be considered two relatively independent regions, just like the Central Plains and Jiangnan of the Ming Dynasty.

"The new capital of the Taiping Guard is considered the central capital, the core of the Great Plains, and New York is considered the eastern capital, the core of the East Coast.

“In the future, I will choose a western capital on the west coast because the Rocky Mountain area and the west of the mountains are also a relatively independent region.”

(The location selected by Zhu Jianxuan is shown in the picture.)
The area selected by Zhu Jianxuan, the location of the Taipingwei Military Farm Development Zone, is in the northeast corner of the confluence of the North American Great River - the Mississippi River and the American River - the Ohio River.

In the past life, it was the westernmost tip of Kentucky and the southernmost tip of Illinois.

The western side of the city of Paducah in western Kentucky is roughly equidistant from Memphis and St. Louis.

If the Great Plains in the central United States are divided into two parts, east and west, then the Mississippi River, the great river of North America, will naturally be the dividing line.

If it is divided into two parts, north and south, the low east-west mountain range north of Taipingwei is exactly the dividing line.

This is almost the dividing line between North America's humid subtropical climate and continental climate.

The lowest area of ​​the Great Plains of North America is shaped like a gourd, with the upper part smaller and the lower part larger.

This place is the waist of the gourd, and it is the narrowest part.

Therefore, the middle and lower reaches of the largest river in North America, the main stream with the largest and longest river basin area, and the tributaries with the largest flow all converge here.

You can reach the sea directly by going downstream along the main stream of the lower reaches of North America's major rivers.

Through the upper reaches of the main stream and its tributaries, you can reach the Great Lakes at the northern end of the Great Plains of North America, the Appalachian Mountains at the northeast end, and the Rocky Mountains at the northwest end.

To the south, toward the lower Great Plains, the flattest part of the country, the river can go deep inland if it skirts the mountains behind it.

Zhu Jianxuan felt that this place was the center of the North American Great Plains.

I don’t know why, but the United States in its previous life did not build large cities here. Instead, there were large cities in St. Louis further upstream and Memphis downstream.

Could it be that there is some big problem that I don’t understand?

Zhu Jianxuan then added:
"Carefully survey the geography of the area I have circled.

“Make sure there are no major flaws here.

"Then we will choose a suitable place to build the Zhongdu government office and the city.

"After I finish dealing with things here, I will go and take a look myself."

Zhu Jianxuan's addition added some uncertainty to the location of this new capital.

The officials and nobles present at the scene all breathed a sigh of relief when they heard Zhu Jianxuan's arrangements for Zhongdu and Dongdu.

The two-city or even three-city system is the most suitable for the North American continent and is also an approach that everyone can accept.

By dispersing the status of the capital, everyone is unable to make a single bet and is forced to invest relatively evenly.

At the same time, the impact on existing asset investments in New York is relatively small.

Now is the ocean age. As the core of the East Coast, even if New York's political status is lower than that of Zhongdu, its economic status may be stronger than that of Zhongdu on the Great Plains.

This gives everyone a new investment direction.

The new Zhongdu has been roughly determined, so we can acquire land in the surrounding area to build factories.

Zhu Jianxuan's final reminder did not affect their thinking much.

When building a capital or a city, of course careful exploration is required to determine the local geographical pattern and the meteorological and climate data.

To put it in traditional terms, it is Feng Shui.

The issue of the new capital of North America came to a temporary end and the meeting continued.

North American officials and nobles began to include and discuss relatively unimportant matters.

For example, the "small" conflicts between Ming Dynasty immigrants and European immigrants, as well as the conflicts between some European immigrants and American aristocrats.

This time it was Peng Yuanrui who came forward to explain, and his explanation was rather tactful.

At this time, there were already three million Ming Dynasty immigrants in North America, a number that was almost comparable to that of European immigrants.

Although Ming Dynasty immigrants were mainly concentrated in the New York city area, military settlements along the major rivers of North America, military settlements in New York and New Jersey, and military settlements in the Great Lakes region.

The number of Ming Dynasty immigrants in these places exceeded two million.

But there are still hundreds of thousands of people who have begun to move around in other areas outside New York and started to mix and interact with local European immigrants.

Especially in recent years, many Ming Dynasty businessmen have begun to immigrate to the United States on their own.

The provinces and regions of the kingdom of the United States are almost all military settlements directly under the jurisdiction of the royal court, and there is almost no private business scope.

Therefore, in order to find business opportunities, Ming Dynasty merchants began to frequently travel to the Free State.

The cultural atmosphere in big cities, led by New York, is the most open. European immigrants in the cities are accustomed to imitating their nobles and learning the Ming people's lifestyle from them.

Therefore, the atmosphere in mixed residential areas of big cities is relatively harmonious.

Private merchants from the Ming Dynasty rarely had direct conflicts with local residents when doing business in places like New York.

But most European immigrants lived in rural areas and small towns. These farmers were not only uninterested in Ming culture, they even had an instinctive resistance to it.

Because the living atmosphere in the rural areas is very conservative and there are a large number of relatively devout Christian Puritans.

However, many small businessmen at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty had very limited credibility.

Especially when the upper-level laws favor the Ming people, many low-quality traveling merchants are actually no different from scammers.

They roamed around the countryside and small towns in the Free State, looking for opportunities to rip off a group of old European farmers before running away.

These small businessmen left a very bad impression on many European farmers who were not very smart.

The knowledge of ordinary farmers of this era, whether in the East or the West, was very limited, and the vast majority of Western farmers were relatively traditional Christians.

After being cheated by the Ming Dynasty merchants, they did not think that they were stupid, but instead thought that these Ming Dynasty merchants were Judas.

They did not think that these Ming merchants were unbelievers and pagans.

Because the Ming merchants who traveled around knew that most European immigrants were Christians, these merchants would take the initiative to establish relationships with them under the banner of believers.

They were very friendly with the old farmers and ordinary people in Europe, calling them "brother" and "sister" in a very affectionate manner.

But if you walk by the river often, you will get your feet wet. After this kind of businessman has caused trouble at the grassroots level many times, he may be discovered by smarter farmers or rural priests.

Sometimes the conflicts became so serious that the Free State police department and courts had to step in to deal with them.

(End of this chapter)