The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 418: Beibu Gulf Plan and the Ming Dynasty Elegant Language Issue
Considering the situation in South China, Zhu Jianxuan asked the clerk in the office to bring various maps of the surrounding areas.

We are starting to consider making some targeted adjustments to the subsequent industrial construction plans.

Under the leadership of Zhu Jianxuan and with the strong push of the official power of the Ming Dynasty court, the key industrial foundation of the Ming Dynasty has been laid.

An early industrial zone was formed in the Bohai Rim region, both sides of the Yangtze River, Zhejiang region, and the Pearl River Delta region.

On both sides of the Grand Canal water replenishment route, at the junction of the northern part of Nanzhili and Shandong and Henan, a new industrial zone is rapidly taking shape.

By the time of the Second Industrial Revolution and before, the industrial sectors were basically complete.

There are also more and more private industries in the private sector, providing a variety of more diversified products based on the industrial base.

However, the court's official industrial construction activities will not be relaxed or stagnant because of this.

National forces must still maintain and develop core industrial pillars and be responsible for the continued research and development of key frontier technologies.

It is also necessary to undertake the tasks of overall industrial layout planning and dynamic balance adjustment of regional industrial development.

These holistic and cutting-edge functions are important tasks for the court in the future.

Because industrial and commercial development has a clustering effect.

If the imperial court does not interfere, the existing industrial and commercial center areas will become extremely attractive.

Private funds and technical personnel will continue to gather in such places.

For example, the place where the entire Ming Dynasty's industry is most concentrated is the Pearl River Delta region, which basically all belongs to Guangzhou Prefecture.

If the imperial court did not take action to adjust the local situation, the size of Guangzhou city would continue to expand.

The expansion speed may be faster than Suzhou, Songjiang and Hangzhou.

Because whether it is the Bohai Rim region or the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, the overall area is large enough.

The Bohai Rim region was directly influenced by the imperial court, and the layout arranged by Zhu Jianxuan was generally relatively balanced.

The Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions have sufficient capital accumulation, the highest literacy rate and urbanization level in the world, and the most balanced overall development.

In the Lingnan region, there is only one good place, Guangzhou Prefecture in the Pearl River Delta, whose natural conditions far exceed those of the surrounding areas.

People from as far away as Qiongzhou, Jiaozhi, Nanning and Fujian would consider going to Guangzhou to make a living, either with capital to do business or simply to work as a worker.

Because the industrial base is concentrated there, it is more convenient to find a job, investment direction, or supporting manufacturers.

Only national power has the ability to find another place and build a complete industrial system from scratch.

In order to share the administrative and population pressures of the Pearl River Delta and provide a new destination for the population in remote areas of Lingnan, the key is to strengthen the court's control over the Lingnan region.

Zhu Jianxuan is planning to look for another place in the Lingnan region to carry out key industrial construction. The place currently selected is the area around the Beibu Gulf.

This will be able to absorb the excess population in southern Guangxi, Leizhou and Qiongzhou, as well as the Red River Delta.

The key is to absorb the population of the Cantonese-speaking area in western Guangdong, so that the Pearl River Delta is no longer the only core industrial area in the Cantonese-speaking area.

The subsequent development and construction of the Pearl River Delta will need to absorb more population from Jiangxi and Hunan, as well as Mandarin-speaking areas such as Guilin and Liuzhou in inland Guangxi.

Dilute the influence of the traditional local forces of Guangzhou on the policies of local government offices.

If you want to carry out industrial construction in Guangxi, there is one difficulty that you can never avoid: Guangxi’s own port is not within its own territory.

Because the Pearl River flows eastward to Guangzhou, it does not flow directly south into the sea within Guangxi.

Between the coastal areas such as Qinzhou in the south of Guangxi and the Nanning area in the central part, there are mountains such as Luoyang Mountain and Tongyu Mountain, which are the remnants of the Ten Thousand Mountains in a broad sense.

Although the overall altitude of these mountains is not high, they have become the watershed between the Pearl River and the Qin River along the coast.

Therefore, if industrial construction is to be carried out in this area, the best option is to disperse the construction around the Beibu Gulf coastline and use inland seas and near-shore routes as carriers for internal material exchange.

However, in order to increase the hinterland of the industrial zone, it is better to build railways, roads and canals connecting to the inland.

Zhu Jianxuan’s previous life’s Pinglu Canal plan can also be used as a reference.

In fact, if we look at the natural conditions alone, the middle and lower reaches of the Dulong River (Irrawaddy River) and the Lancang River (Mekong River) are also suitable for the concentrated construction of large cities and industrial areas.

This is mainly because the Dulong River and Lancang River have a larger drainage area, and the annual runoff of the two rivers is one-third higher than that of the Pearl River.

There are also large areas of plains in the basin. After more than a hundred years of continuous development, a very mature agricultural area has been formed with a relatively large population.

As long as appropriate water conservancy projects are built and the flow distribution is adjusted throughout the year, both rivers can form good waterways.

It’s just that the lower reaches of these two rivers are tropical and too remote.

The Red River Delta still has relatively cool seasons, but the lower reaches of the Lancang-Mekong River are truly like summer all year round, with the average high temperature being above 30 degrees Celsius throughout the year.

The distance from Tianjin to the Mekong Delta is as far as going around the Korean Peninsula to Kamchatka.

The key point is that Zhu Jianxuan doesn’t attach much importance to that place psychologically.

Zhu Jianxuan stared at the map for a long time, reflected and considered for a long time, and finally called the Grand Secretary Shen Fu on duty and asked him to draft an imperial edict.

The four prefectures of Gaozhou, Leizhou, Qiongzhou and Lianzhou in Guangdong were assigned to Guangxi.

However, at the same time, the Guangnan Provincial Governor was established with its headquarters in Lianzhou, in charge of the government affairs in southern Guangxi and organizing industrial construction around the Beibu Gulf.

Similar to the current situation in Southern Zhili, local government affairs were under the charge of the Guangnan Provincial Governor.

However, provincial judicial, supervisory, and military affairs are all directly governed by the corresponding overall agencies in Guangxi Province.

Among local affairs, administrative affairs are the most complicated. If the population and size of a province are too large, the administrative agencies will definitely not be able to handle it first.

However, there is usually no problem with judicial, supervisory and military positions; just add a few more people and the job will be fine.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty had a tradition of separation of provinces and four-department institutions, which was able to adapt to various specific local conditions.

However, this kind of semi-independent provincial governor cannot be used casually. In fact, it is half a provincial government office. Having too many of them will have the same consequence as having too many provinces.

Zhu Jianxuan did not let his sons get involved in the upgraded administrative divisions of Guangdong and Guangxi.

In addition, orders were given to the Ministry of Construction to plan and build the main railway and highway around the Beibu Gulf, and to explore and plan the site for the construction of the Pinglu Canal.

Then the heads of the Royal Industrial Company were called over and arranged to set up a special Lancang River Development Company.

Explore the Lancang-Mekong River Basin, formulate an overall development plan for the entire basin, and build reservoirs, power stations and industrial industries.

The development company was granted independent operating authority and could manage military and civilian affairs in the region without the involvement of court agencies.

If the royal company is responsible for the development, there will be no need to increase the pressure on the court agencies, and it will also provide local people with an additional option besides government-run and private manufacturers.

After reading his sons' reports and arranging new reforms, Zhu Jianxuan devoted his energy to scientific research. The projects that Zhu Jianxuan is most concerned about now are radioactive elements and atomic weapons, semiconductor integrated circuits, and finally the Internet and mobile communications.

The semiconductor industry is the foundation of the scientific and technological revolution, and it cannot be overemphasized.

After the semiconductor industry matures, supercomputers will naturally mature at the same time, and the development of other industrial industries will also be greatly accelerated.

When Zhu Jianxuan is free now, he will personally participate in relevant discussions and try his best to provide ideas to the corresponding scientific research project teams.

Lead the craftsmen to explore the basic circuit manufacturing process, and explore the design of lithography technology and mobile communication technology.

The earliest integrated circuits were hand-made by craftsmen using conventional chemical etching methods. The production efficiency was very low and the cost was very high, making them unsuitable for civilian use.

Only with the advent of mature lithography machines did integrated circuits change from valuable works of art to industrial products, and only then did personal computers come into being.

Zhu Jianxuan spent time in the Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Sciences, working with students to study how to purify silicon crystals and, by the way, planning the future network structure system of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Jianxuan's twelve oldest sons are conducting their grassroots research in Guangdong.

The princes had not been active in Guangzhou for long, and before they had time to go outside the city to investigate the situation, they had already encountered very troublesome problems.

The language difference is so great that they cannot understand anything when ordinary people speak.

Even those merchants, clerks, and managers who thought they could speak "elegant language" had very unstandardized elegant language and heavy accents, making them equally difficult to discern.

"Yayan" is a general term for official language, which is conceptually equivalent to Mandarin in classical times, but is far less standardized than modern Mandarin.

In the classical era, there was no unified phonetic teaching, nor was there any radio, television, video or other means to correct pronunciation. People could only rely on books and word of mouth.

The dialects of Yunnan, Sichuan, Shanxi, Shandong, Gansu, and Huaihai regions are certainly not considered Mandarin in modern times, but they were all considered Official Language in ancient times.

The earliest official language of the Ming Dynasty was based on Jianghuai Mandarin and was the accent of the founding emperor and major contributors of the Ming Dynasty.

However, after Yongle moved the capital to Shuntian Prefecture, it was soon influenced by the northern accent and the immigrants who moved from Shanxi to enrich the population of Shuntian Prefecture.

Gradually, a new mixed elegant accent was formed, which is somewhat different from modern Mandarin, but both sides can understand each other.

For modern people, listening to the Ming Dynasty elegant language is equivalent to listening to a northern dialect with a strange accent. They can understand it but cannot tell where the dialect comes from.

For northerners, all northern dialects are the same and can be understood; all southern dialects are the same and can be understood.

In the early period of Chongzhen in this world, the central court of the Ming Dynasty moved south, and a large number of northern nobles and people moved south. The Ming Dynasty's elegant language once again influenced the Jianghuai Mandarin and Wu dialect.

The fusion of accents from the northernmost and southernmost directions of the Central Plains has allowed Mandarin and elegant language to develop in a direction of compromise in accents and words.

Words with too strong local characteristics will gradually be marginalized and even abandoned during the integration process.

When a word is spoken by oneself, most of the companions may not understand it, and it may even have a strange meaning in other places, so the person concerned will gradually avoid it.

Even though it is difficult to drastically change the accent you spoke in childhood, it is very easy to give up the most rustic words.

In addition, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions have the most developed industry and commerce, the highest urban population and literacy rates in the country, and the most frequent internal and external exchanges.

This environment is suitable for the promotion of Mandarin, and the influence of the new elegant language of the Ming Dynasty continues to expand and deepen.

The common people in Jiangnan cities can basically speak a dialect similar to the elegant language. Most of the private merchants, managers and shop assistants can speak the elegant language of the Ming Dynasty relatively clearly.

During the development and construction of the Wu State, Zhu Jianxuan's Northern Expedition to destroy the Qing Dynasty, and even the re-unification of the world.

A large number of people from Jianghuai, Zhejiang, Hubei, Sichuan, and Shandong gathered in Zhu Jianxuan's fiefdom of the Wu Kingdom in the form of immigrants or disaster victims.

The joining of the vassal states of the Duke of Min brought with them a group of Fujian military officers.

Many of them seized the once-in-a-lifetime historical opportunity and joined the new Ming ruling group formed around Zhu Jianxuan.

In the courts of Australia and Shuntian Prefecture, as well as on battlefields around the world, the Mandarin with these local accents once again influenced each other, and accents and word usage became more eclectic.

For the princes who grew up in Shuntian Prefecture, language issues were not a problem they needed to worry about during their training in the northern and southern regions.

Even if the accent of the people in remote areas is very difficult to understand, it is easy to find people who can assist in translation.

But the situation in Guangzhou was completely different. Not to mention the people in rural areas, even ordinary people in the city could hardly speak elegant language.

Not many of the city's merchants, managers, and clerks can speak the elegant language of the Ming Dynasty, and they habitually speak the local Cantonese.

Even those who claimed that they could speak elegant Chinese, and the clerks in the yamen who should be able to speak elegant Chinese, mostly had very strong accents, which required careful listening in order to be understood.

If you want a truly useful translation, you have to look for it in the local branches and factories of state-owned manufacturers.

This was the result of the Ming Dynasty's radio and recording equipment, when government offices and state-owned factories often used the radio to speak elegant language, which had a certain influence.

Many times, speaking directly to the person involved requires the speaker to repeat himself over and over again, and the listener to try hard to distinguish and understand the meaning. This is not as efficient as having a written conversation.

The princes soon discovered that although Guangzhou’s urban area was huge and its population was among the largest in the country, there were almost no real outsiders.

Almost all residents in and around Guangzhou are locals, and most new residents come from prefectures and counties surrounding Guangzhou.

They all speak Cantonese out of habit in their daily lives, which may have a slightly different accent from the native Cantonese people, but they can all understand each other.

The princes from the north could not understand anything and could only listen to the translation by the accompanying officials and clerks.

According to the introduction of local officials, there were of course immigrants from distant areas in Cantonese, including people from Leizhou, Qiongzhou, Jiaozhi, Chaoshan, Fujian, Guangxi, Jiangxi, and Hunan.

However, most of them are concentrated in Bao'an County, where natives and Hakkas live together or even mainly in the Hakka population. A small number are in Dongguan County.

Since the local Cantonese population base is too large and the surrounding potential population with the same culture and language is equally large, it is difficult for outsiders to dilute the population composition of Guangzhou city.

Officials of Guangzhou Prefecture also intended to manage Cantonese people, Hakka people and new outsiders separately, and took the initiative to guide new immigrants to Bao'an and Dongguan counties.

The education of the princes involved the civil conflicts in the southern region, and they had a certain understanding of the conflicts between the natives and the Hakkas in Guangdong, but they had no practical experience of it before.

In fact, the conflict between the natives and the immigrants in the Ming Dynasty in this world is indeed not as serious as it was in the middle and late Qing Dynasty in history.

Although the population density of the Ming Dynasty was higher than that of the Qing Dynasty.

Not only did the Ming Dynasty not relocate borders or ban sea trade, but the court, local governors, and the public all worked together to open up wasteland in the Indochina Peninsula and the South Pacific Islands.

Instead of fighting among themselves, it would be better for them to fight the indigenous people of Southeast Asia together.

Therefore, most of the time, the native and Hakka residents in Guangdong rarely fight with each other over land and water issues.

During the Tiangong Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty opened up wasteland and established farmland all over the world, and the new industrialized industries absorbed a large number of people, which once again reduced the basic contradictions between the two sides.

However, due to differences in language and living habits, the settlements of Hakka and Native Americans are still mostly clearly separated.

Local officials were worried about conflicts between the two sides and were also willing to divide and rule.

(End of this chapter)