The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 553: The favor of the King of the East is not over yet, the industrialization test has just begun (Please subscribe, please vote)
The first month of the sixth year of Tianli, Korea.

On the south bank of the Han River, on a piece of fertile land rarely seen on the Korean Peninsula, the bodies of five hundred top-level Yangban nobles were arranged one by one in the shape of a cross, with dry firewood piled underneath the bodies. Yang Xiuqing, in a python robe and jade belt, stood on a high platform opposite the array of corpses, with the "Genealogy of the Lee Family" under his feet. The yellowed pages were soaked with blood. The splendid country of the Joseon Dynasty, which had lasted for five hundred years, collapsed in an instant, and the rule of the Yangban nobles, which had been passed down for a longer time, also came to an end.

As the blazing fire began, Chen Chengrong, the Minister of the East Palace, waved his banner and blurted out a doggerel in Hakka: "The Heavenly Father whipped the Li Dynasty to pieces, and the heads of the Yangzi and Yangzi were used as fertilizer. The poor peasants laughed when the land was divided, and the holy fire forged a new Heavenly Dynasty!"

"It's time to divide the land," dozens of Korean child soldiers in red scarves and red clothes shouted in Korean, "The King of the East has not yet finished his favor!"

Three thousand barefoot tenant farmers wielded hoes and rushed towards the boundary stones, smashing the stone tablets that symbolized the old owners of the land one by one. Seventy-year-old farmer Jin Daji knelt on the ground, dug his ten fingers into the black soil, picked up a handful of mud and licked it, and then burst into tears: "Long live the King of the East! This soil, this soil is so sweet!"

There was a commotion on the east side of the mudflat. Three Korean women staggered over, dragging a headless corpse. They were the heads of some noble families. The widow Cui Fushun, who was in the lead, carried the head to the high platform where Yang Xiuqing was. The silver hairpin between her gray hair was engraved with "Gifted in the Chongzhen Period" - it was not given by the Ming Emperor, but forged by the nobles of Korea to show off their wealth.

"Please have a look, King Dong!" Cui Fushun held out a thick stack of land contracts. "Those are all the deeds to the land occupied by the Li family in Quanzhou!"

Yang Xiuqing naturally did not understand Korean, but he knew what the woman was saying, so he pointed to the blazing fire and said, "It's all burned, all burned."

Handfuls of land deeds and debt notes were taken by the revelry-filled poor Korean peasants and thrown into the raging fire. In the blink of an eye, they were reduced to ashes.

The gilded statue of Hong Xiuquan was held high.

Countless tenants roared in unison: "Long live the Heavenly King! Long live the Eastern King!"

The crowd suddenly split apart, and eight strong men carried the gilded statue and paraded around the fire where the corpse was burning - the face of the statue of the King of Heaven was clearly Yang Xiuqing!
Dongwang Palace in Seoul, formerly Changdeokgung Palace
Kusumoto Inako took off her bloodstained kimono, revealing the cross tattooed under her collarbone. The bronze mirror reflected the newly tattooed Taiping Heavenly Kingdom scripture on her back, and the words "God Concubine" in cinnabar were still oozing blood.

"The shogunate has sent Lord Katsu Kaishu." The maid brought up a lacquer box containing a secret letter from Ii Naosuke. Inako's fingertips traced over the words "Choshu rebels are rampant, colluding with Hong Daquan", and suddenly brought the secret letter close to the candlelight - the flame suddenly stopped half an inch away from the paper, and she laughed softly: "It's not time yet."

The palace door burst open. Yang Xiuqing strode in and said, "I heard that the dog of the Tokugawa family wants to see me?"

Daozi put on a plain white Wufu and bowed deeply to Yang Xiuqing: "The Tokugawa family is willing to offer 50,000 taels of gold and borrow 5,000 soldiers from Your Highness to wipe out the Choshu clan rebels!"

"Aren't the Tokugawa family the Shogun? Why did I have to send troops?" Yang Xiuqing squatted down and grabbed Inako's hair, "Hurry up and answer, don't bow for no reason!"

"Hai!" Inako's hair was pulled, but she remained in a kneeling position, with her slender neck tilted up. "The Choshu clan has someone behind them, and the shogunate is afraid of attracting interference from powerful enemies, so..."

"Fifty thousand taels are not enough, you must surrender!" Yang Xiuqing grabbed Daozi's neck and pressed her on the couch, tearing off half of her clothes. "Tokugawa Ieda must kneel down and submit the surrender!" The jade pendant on the East King's waist was engraved with "Sweep Away the Evil Spirits". It pressed on the unhealed tattoo on Daozi's back, oozing out a few blood beads.

Daozi panted and took out an envelope: "This is the general's sincerity." Inside the envelope was a list of more than a hundred Japanese craftsmen, all of whom were skilled craftsmen who had made "iron cannons" for the Edo Shogunate for generations, and several scholars who were proficient in Dutch studies. She suddenly turned over and hugged Dong Wang: "The general has given a lot of benefits, so why not accept it first and promise to cross the sea to support the general after the strong ship is built."

"Strong ships?" Yang Xiuqing pressed down the rice roughly. "How many shipbuilding masters did you invite from Japan this time?"

Daozi smiled and said, "I have lived up to the trust of the East King. I have invited the special envoys of Luosha Country, Orlov, Tupolev, Sukhoi, and Mikoyan, to come to the East at the invitation of Qing Yao."

"Where are the people?" Yang Xiuqing asked immediately.

"We have arrived in Seoul. Does the King of Dong want to see them right away?"

Yang Xiuqing tore open Daozi's white Wufu and said with a fierce smile: "Today I will subdue the demon and tomorrow I will go to see the Rakshasa ghost!"

The Russian envoy Peter Orlov unfolded a yellowed blast furnace blueprint. The "foreign lama" Tupolev, who came with him, spoke fluent Chinese and pointed at the blueprint with English words on it and boasted, "Your Majesty, this is a blueprint hidden in the St. Petersburg University of our country. It is a gift from His Majesty the Tsar of our country to you!"

"Winster!" Yang Xiuqing, who was sitting on a golden nanmu dragon chair, didn't even raise his eyelids. He just called out a foreign name, and then saw a foreign brother in a yellow robe and yellow crown striding out. It was Winster White - he was now the Minister of Works of the East Palace, and Yang Xiuqing's "industrialization" was actually in charge of him. "East King," This is a blueprint of a stirring furnace that produces 5 tons of pig iron per day. "Winster White certainly recognized the English on the blueprint, and also caught a glimpse of the East India Company emblem watermark in the corner of the blueprint - this blueprint was probably from a factory in Shanghai and had been passed through countless hands.

But here in North Korea, this drawing is still pretty good, at least it is simple and easy to use.

"5 tons? How much is that?" Yang Xiuqing asked with narrowed eyes.

"Ten thousand pounds." Winston White replied.

"10,000 catties per day?" Yang Xiuqing was surprised. "Doesn't that mean the annual output is more than 3 million catties?"

This is no small number! In the 19s, the annual pig iron production of the Qing Dynasty was only about 50 tons, and a stirring furnace could produce more than 2 tons a year. If a dozen stirring furnaces were built, North Korea's iron production would soon surpass that of the Qing Dynasty!
This is industrialization! Even with backward technology, it is not comparable to the handicrafts of traditional small peasant society.

"With this blueprint, can we build a blast furnace?" Yang Xiuqing asked.

"Yes!" Tupolev promised, "If Your Highness the Eastern King is willing to trust our Russian Empire, give me three months, and I promise to build the first churning furnace for you, and then build one every month!"

Yang Xiuqing nodded: "Anything else?"

"Yes!" Another Orthodox priest who came with Peter Orlov held out a stack of shipbuilding blueprints. "Your Highness, these are blueprints for the latest wooden-hulled steam-powered gunboats. As long as you are willing to hire our Russian craftsmen, we can build your first steam-powered gunboat within a year."

"What are the conditions?" Yang Xiuqing asked calmly.

Peter Orlov smiled and held out a draft of the "Yang Xiuqing-Muraviev Secret Agreement" that had been prepared long ago. He said to Yang Xiuqing in Russian: "Your Highness, as long as you sign this treaty and agree to allow ships flying the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom flag to provide food, arms, and Japanese mercenaries to the west coast of North America where Governor-General Muravyov is located, we will help you build blast furnaces and warships!"

Tupolev immediately translated this.

"Hahaha!" Yang Xiuqing laughed, "What a great plan to kill three birds with one stone! It not only instigated me and King Luo Wu, but also instigated Britain, France and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and also helped Muravyov!" His face suddenly darkened: "I'll give you two months. I want to see the first churning furnace built and then I will sign the contract!"

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Tianjing, spring of the sixth year of Tianli.

The morning mist on the Qinhuai River has not yet dissipated, but the city of Tianjing has welcomed a grand event not seen in many years - someone has come to take the exam!
Some carrying loads, some riding donkeys, some using crutches, more than ten thousand students from the south of the Yangtze River flocked to Taiping University like a tide.

An old scholar from Huizhou was walking while reading a book of "Example Problems in Middle School Mathematics" - he was old and his memory was not good, so he just remembered as many problems as possible! A young man from Hunan, in his prime, was walking over in a white gown and a scarf - this was the most popular men's clothing nowadays.

"Make way! Can you afford to miss the exam?" The son of a big businessman from the "Dongting Mountain Gang" waved a wooden ruler and pushed through the crowd. The rattan box in the carriage rolled down, and all the tutoring materials fell out. The owner of the rattan box was a long-haired woman with a graceful figure. She wore Western leather boots under her Hunan embroidered skirt. When she bent over to pick up the things, the outline of a flintlock rifle was faintly visible on her waist - this was Luo Yaoguo's second wife Zhou Xiuying. She worked hard in the past two years and finally caught up with the college entrance examination!

In front of the main entrance of the university hall, 118 dragon-shaped pillars stood majestically in the morning light. Under the 37th pillar, Chen Zhengguo, a student from Guangdong, was bowing to the pillar. There were a few dry and hard buns in his bag at his feet - this was the dry food he brought all the way from Guangzhou.

"Silence!" The bronze bell rang, and the battalion commander of the Wu Wangfu, Bao Chao, led the foreign rifle team to maintain order on the spot - anyone who dared to cheat would face serious consequences. Hundreds of classrooms were already full of examinees, and in front of each person's desk, there were four treasures of the study and three test papers. The invigilators in gray robes raised their pocket watches at the same time: "It's the hour of Si, open the test papers!"

At the University Hall dock, the Jianghai paddle steamer was belching thick smoke.

"Third brother, you are here to open up markets and recruit talents for our kingdom. You have made great contributions. Please accept my greetings." Luo Yaoguo bowed to Feng Yunshan, and he nodded to Rinzi and Wang Yan who were standing beside Feng Yunshan: I'm counting on you!

Maria, who was holding a fat mixed-race boy, also bowed and said, "Have a safe journey, Third Brother. If you encounter any trouble in Europe, feel free to look for my father and Ambassador Wang."

Feng Yunshan's gaze was cast towards the University Hall in the distance - in his opinion, the talents who could truly be used by China in the long run had to come from there!
(End of this chapter)