Diqin Designer

Chapter 161: Leading the Qin people to see the world with their own eyes
This large globe and world map were copied by Emperor Ying Zheng's order. The globe and map originally made by Li Nian were too small and not convenient for everyone to see together. Now they are much clearer.

Although Fusu and other princes had heard of globes and world maps, this was the first time they saw them and they looked at them with curiosity.

They saw that Daqin was only a small area on the map. There were many places outside Daqin that were far more vast than Daqin. They couldn't help but be surprised. Then they thought of an incident they had heard before, and that yesterday the emperor had appointed them as kings in various places. Could it be that the emperor really wanted to appoint them as kings overseas?

If this is true, it would be a good thing for them. If they stay in Daqin, only one of their brothers can ascend to the supreme position. But how could the others be willing to be inferior to others and live a life of obedience as a member of the royal family?
If they were really divided into overseas fiefdoms, they would all be kings. Even if they had to respect their brother in the Qin Dynasty as the emperor in name, they would be the actual supreme rulers in their own territories!
It is not difficult for these princes of Qin to make the decision whether they would rather be a member of the royal family under strict guard in Qin for the rest of their lives, or go overseas to be a local emperor.

The only question now is what are the overseas environmental conditions like?
If it's not too bad, it would be nice to be a king in the past!
Now I finally understood my father's thoughts. The purpose of enfeoffing them in various places was not only to let them guard the remote areas for the Qin Dynasty and select the crown prince based on their performance in local governance, but also to let them accumulate experience in local governance so as to prepare for being crowned kings overseas in the future.

When the ministers saw the blue ocean on the map, which was far larger than the land, they immediately understood Li Nian’s intention of establishing a separate navy and building a naval school.

The ocean is too large for the land, and some places are difficult to travel by land but very convenient to travel by sea. For example, a place called "Rongzhou" on the map is almost impossible to reach by land, and can only be reached by flying or going by sea.

Some ministers discovered that on the globe they looked at last time, this area was marked not as Rongzhou but as "Oceania", and now the name has been changed.

When seeing the word "Rongzhou", the ministers who were familiar with the Yin-Yang School's theory realized that this was the Great Nine Provinces theory of Yin-Yang School Zou Yan.

Looking at the map again, there were indeed the other eight continents mentioned in the Great Nine Provinces: Shenzhou, Yangzhou, Yizhou, Hezhou, Zhuzhou, Xuanzhou, Yingzhou, and Bozhou.

This was a change requested by Qin Shi Huang. What's the point of using the continents named by Westerners in later generations? The future of this world will surely be dominated by Chinese civilization, so of course the Chinese naming method must be used.

Li Nian bowed to Ying Zheng and said, "Your Majesty, please forgive me for my impoliteness!"

Ying Zheng knew what Li Nian was going to do, and nodded, "No problem, go ahead!"

Li Nian walked to the large world map, and a eunuch beside him immediately handed him a long, thin wooden stick.

Holding the stick in his hand, Li Nian pointed at the large ocean on the map and said, "Based on this map, I believe you have seen the importance of the navy. In our world, the ocean accounts for 70%, while the land accounts for only 30%."

"Whether we want to compete with foreign countries or expand our territory, we cannot avoid the ocean. We must ensure that we have sufficient power at sea, so a strong navy is essential."

"Some people may think that we should just guard our own place. Daqin is the Celestial Empire with abundant resources and a large population. Although other places are more vast than Daqin, they are all wild and barren lands with poor soil and scarce resources. They are not worth a glance..."

"Instead of going to great lengths to build a navy and gain benefits from these overseas lands, it is better to govern the Qin Empire. The Qin Empire can be self-sufficient, so why would it need barbaric lands? This kind of thinking is totally wrong. These overseas lands are not only not barren, but even better than the Qin Empire in some aspects."

When saying "absolutely wrong", Li Nian deliberately emphasized the tone!

We must not let the Chinese of this world have the idea that "we are the Celestial Empire and other places are barren and barren", otherwise we will just keep reincarnating on this land, and no matter how far we advance now, we will eventually be caught up by others. Isn't it more regrettable to be ahead for thousands of years only to be surpassed by others for hundreds of years?

Even if Daqin cannot rule the world with its current technology, it still has to sow the seeds for the future and let people know that the world outside is big and the land outside is no worse than Daqin. This will stimulate them to be pioneering and enterprising rather than stubbornly conservative.

Li Nian used a wooden stick to point to a place marked as "Yingzhou Islands" on the map. This was also the name given by Ying Zheng, which shows that Ying Zheng also has a deep obsession with this place.

In fact, Li Nian didn't really want to call the foot basin "Yingzhou", but when he thought that this place would most likely be incorporated into the territory of the Qin Dynasty in the future, he thought it was okay, after all, it would become his own territory.

"I'm sure you are all familiar with 'Yingzhou'. It is a fairy mountain in the East China Sea. It is one of the three legendary fairy islands along with Fangzhang and Penglai. But this Yingzhou is definitely not the legendary fairy island. There are no immortals or elixirs of immortality on it."

"The conditions here are not very good. There are typhoons every year. The typhoons are called 'Eight Winds'. There are also earthquakes occasionally. But there are silver mines on the ground. The mineable silver is 800,000 tons."

After hearing Li Nian's words, all the ministers were busy calculating in their minds: 800,000 catties of silver, how many taels is that?
Soon, the ministers calculated how much silver was equivalent to 12.8 million taels. Although the Qin Dynasty mainly used copper now, who would complain about having too much silver?

After calculating the result, all the ministers breathed faster. If there really was so much silver, and if it was used to make coins in the future, it would be a huge amount of money. They might not be able to see so much even if they lived for more than ten lifetimes.

All the ministers stared at the place where Li Nian's wooden stick pointed. If there was really so much silver in this place which was smaller than Daqin, Daqin must find a way to take it away.

Most of the important officials of the Qin Dynasty at that time had no intention of being kind to the barbarians or practicing benevolent governance. What they believed was that if there was really something good, the Qin Dynasty must get it.

Li Nian said: "In fact, the reserves of silver mines here are not ranked high in the world, but it is close to our Great Qin, and it is easy to mine and extract!"

Twelve million eight hundred thousand taels of silver were not even on the top of the list, and there were silver mines with even larger reserves. Many ministers were even more eager, including the princes of the Qin Dynasty, because this was money.

Li Nian moved the stick to another place on the map and revealed a shocking secret: "There is a silver mine here, and the silver that can be mined is 100 million kilograms of silver."

Now even Ying Zheng showed a look of surprise on his face. One hundred million kilograms of silver, could it be used to rebuild the entire Xianyang Palace with silver?
If so much silver could be transported back, wouldn't the entire Qin Dynasty immediately become extremely prosperous?

From now on, all the people of our Great Qin will have clothes to wear, food to eat, and live a prosperous life.

Ying Zheng and all the officials of the Qin Dynasty had this thought, but they immediately felt that something seemed wrong...

　The theory of the Great Nine Continents was also an idea proposed by a great person. I thought it could be adopted, so I used it: the corresponding ones are those found in Baidu search: Shenzhou (China), Rongzhou (most of Southeast Asia and Oceania), Yangzhou (Indian subcontinent), Yizhou (Central Asian Arab Islamic civilization), Hezhou (Africa), Zhuzhou (Europe), Xuanzhou (North America), Yingzhou (Central and South America), and Bozhou (Antarctica).

　
(End of this chapter)