Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 198: Taizu’s Favor is as Heavy as a Mountain

Chapter 198: Taizu’s Favor is as Heavy as a Mountain
In the afternoon, Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He took several senior officials of the Chongzhen Dynasty to visit the street.

Then I went to the textile mill, steel mill, cement factory and shipyard.

The city of Nanjing today is no longer as desolate as it was when Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He first arrived.

At that time, the war had only ended for ten years, and the population of Nanjing had not recovered. Prosperity and bustle had nothing to do with this city.

There are only a few relatively popular streets, and there are only a handful of people setting up stalls and shopping on the streets.

The reason is that most of the Nanjing population are soldiers from the Beijing camp, court officials and their families. The real Nanjing locals were basically exiled by Zhu Yuanzhang, and the local population did not exceed 10,000.

Thirteen years after Hongwu, Crown Prince Zhu Biao launched a series of policies, including attracting population, encouraging the development of handicrafts and commerce, building docks, opening up canals, and so on.

In addition, Zhu Biao reclaimed wasteland outside the city, gave the land to the people who reclaimed the land, and vigorously carried out infrastructure construction, so that more and more people came to settle in the city.

By this year, the seventh year of Nanjing's development, the total population of Nanjing has increased from 200,000 in the 12th year of Hongwu to over 800,000 today, not including more than 100,000 soldiers from the Beijing camp.

Among them, Shangyuan County has more than 200,000 people, and Jiangning County has more than 500,000 people. The urban population is growing rapidly.

As the population grew, towns were built outside the city in large numbers. Zhu Biao in the city was demolished and rebuilt. Electric lights were used in every household and industry was also carried out simultaneously.

Every year, the imperial court would transport large quantities of furs from the north through the canal, and then encouraged the planting of mulberry trees and silkworm breeding. The textile industry took the lead in booming, and there were as many as eight textile factories in the city, all equipped with spinning machines and sewing machines.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that there are not many spinning mills, there are only eight.

But each factory has hundreds or thousands of machines, all of which were created by Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He with great effort. This is already a considerable industrial progress.

These machines, in turn, provided employment for tens of thousands of female workers in textile factories. It can be said that these textile factories alone provided employment for tens of thousands of families, greatly promoting the development and prosperity of the city of Nanjing.

In addition, there are heavy physical labor factories such as steel mills, cement plants, and brick factories. These factories have more than 100,000 young and middle-aged workers engaged in the construction industry, which also creates countless jobs.

With the increase of construction materials, Zhu Biao also started large-scale construction of Nanjing City. It is estimated that the population of Nanjing City will exceed one million by next year, and this number will continue to grow.

You have to know that Nanjing had only about 200,000 people a few years ago, but now it has increased fourfold. This shows how fast the Ming Dynasty developed.

Led by Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He, several officials were overwhelmed and shocked again and again.

Although the construction of the Ming Dynasty was still relatively slow at the moment, it looked a bit like the old photos of Wuhan, Changsha and other places during the Republic of China period, with streets and docks as the prosperous points, which was very different from Shanghai in later generations.

However, for officials from the late Ming Dynasty, it was already a completely new world, completely different from the world they knew.

It’s a bit like opening your eyes to the world in the late Qing Dynasty.

"It's really scary that such a big iron ship can float on the water."

"And those cannons, they're so powerful."

“Maybe this is how the world will change in the future. It’s really exciting.”

On the bank of the Caoxie Gorge, in the Nanjing Shipyard, many officials from the late Ming Dynasty could not help but exclaim in admiration when they saw this unfinished ironclad ship still in a closed lake.

It was the end of December, and the city of Nanjing was covered with white snow during the Hongwu period. It was the end of the year, and the workers in the factory began to take their annual leave.

There was complete silence all around. The pale snow and the silver-black steel of the surrounding factories together formed a world full of metallic texture.

At present, only the soldiers stationed here to guard the post are still standing guard diligently. Everyone was planning to take a break, but then His Royal Highness the Prince of Wu came over, and they had to line up in the snow again.

At this moment, everyone on the shore was looking at the large ship at the dock of the inner lake in the shipyard.

This newly built ironclad ship is expected to be completed in February next year. The entire ship has been built, and it is a large ship with a displacement of 1,200 tons.

In the future, this displacement would be incomparable to even cruise ships, let alone large ships.

The Titanic, which was launched in 1911, weighed more than 4 tons, comparable to an aircraft carrier. The ironclad ship with a displacement of 1200 tons built by the Ming Dynasty was no different from a small sailing boat.

But in the 14th century, or even in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was considered a massacre.

Because the Nanjing Shipyard continuously produced ironclad ships, except for the first few which used the ship engines brought by Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He and were powered by fuel, the rest were steam engines.

Now Daming is able to produce oil. In Yan'an, Shaanxi, it uses oil refining equipment purchased from Shandong, which can refine crude oil into diesel and gasoline.

This is the horror of all industrial countries.

Any industrial equipment and manufacturing machinery can be obtained by you.

Moreover, it is already 2031, and my country has even developed 5-nanometer lithography machines and is now moving towards an artificial sun.

Almost every so-called crown jewel of industry has been conquered.

my country has what foreign countries have, and even more than foreign countries do. Even the Americans cannot master the rare earth refining technology and machinery. China is able to refine and extract all kinds of rare earths.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty has now used the principle of "take what is needed" to the extreme. As long as various machines can be transported, they will find ways to ask Zhu Yunfeng to get them.

Fortunately, Zhu Yunfeng saw the opportunity early and built a large enterprise that involved various industrial layouts and was involved in all walks of life. He had enough reasons to purchase these machines, otherwise it would be a bit troublesome.

However, it is not possible to build things up so quickly simply by adopting other people’s ideas.

The New Era took a lot of things from big brother Russia, but once Russia turned against us, we had to rely on ourselves to build a new industrial system.

Therefore, at present, we mainly adopt the approach of taking what is available and then build up basic education.

With the 21st century education system, it is expected that in the next few decades, Ming Dynasty will cultivate a large number of relevant talents and establish a brand new industrial system. It is only a matter of time before it no longer needs to import machines from modern times.

Although they are all made by machines, there is no problem in fooling these officials.

Ji He was filming with a high-definition mobile phone next to him. Chen Shiqi couldn't help but ask Zhu Yunfeng, "Your Highness, King Wu, I have a question to ask."

"You said."

"I was wondering why the Ming Dynasty during the Hongwu period had undergone such a big change, and why it had not affected the Ming Dynasty in our world?"

“That’s a very good question.”

Zhu Yunfeng knew the limitations of the ancients' thinking, so he laughed and pointed to the Yangtze River not far away and asked, "Has the river water changed?"

Chen Shiqi shook his head: "The river is flowing, nothing has changed."

"What would happen if I scooped a ladle of river water?"

"There will be one less bucket of river water."

"More than that." Zhu Yunfeng continued, "You only saw that there was one less bucket of river water, but you ignored that without this bucket of river water, this bucket of river water might have hit a river bank and washed down a stone, but now that this bucket of river water is gone, the stone won't fall. I pour this bucket of river water next to a dying grass, and this dying grass might be saved by this bucket of river water. The same is true for the Ming Dynasty. People make decisions all the time. Maybe I was thinking about this thing in the last second, and wanted to do something else in the next second. Whatever path I choose will lead to what outcome. In this way, the original trajectory is broken, and people have to make countless decisions in their lives, which means that there will be infinite changes in life. If this is the case for people, what about dynasties?"

"Forehead"

Chen Shiqi, Liu Zhibo and others looked at each other in bewilderment. These things about multi-dimensional space, quantum mechanics, parallel universes, time paradox and the like were really difficult for them to understand.

"To put it simply, different decisions lead to different outcomes. But if there is an outcome, then things done before the long river of history will only lead to another outcome and cannot affect the outcome that has already appeared."

Zhu Yunfeng was unfathomable, and he spoke eloquently: "For example, Taizu and his family traveled through time and changed the Hongwu world. Then your Chongzhen side will be separated from the current Hongwu world. Otherwise, you will disappear. Such a huge cause and effect cannot be changed by Taizu becoming an immortal, so to some extent, Chongzhen's side is already the real world in history. And Hongwu's side is already real history, and it has nothing to do with you. There will only be a completely new situation in the future development, for example, it is not Zhu Di's descendants who inherit the throne, but Zhu Biao's descendants. Do you understand now?"

"Forehead"

Several people kept their expressions of thirst for knowledge, staring with their big eyes, full of small doubts. Although they didn't understand what he was saying, they felt that he seemed very powerful.

"Oh, you are so stupid."

Zhu Yunfeng was speechless and said, "For example, I take a pot of water and pour it down. What flows out from the top is Hongwu, and what flows out from the bottom is Chongzhen. I cut off the Hongwu section at the top, but a new section of water will continue to fall down to replace the cut-off Hongwu section. In this way, the new water is the Hongwu you are familiar with. Taizu added something to the cut-off Hongwu Dynasty, put it into a new pot and poured it down, and it became another pot of water. Do you understand now?"

"understood."

Everyone then suddenly realized what was going on and understood the situation through this simple example.

It should be that Taizu used his great magical powers to erase the Hongwu Dynasty from the long river of history, but for the sake of historical integrity, a new Hongwu Dynasty appeared in the subsequent history, still following the original historical trajectory.

It's just that this period can't be changed, so it will only be the history they are familiar with. In this way, any changes in the erased Hongwu Dynasty will not affect the later Chongzhen Dynasty.

“That’s pretty much the situation right now.”

Zhu Yunfeng bowed in the direction of the Nanjing Imperial Palace and said, "The old man Taizu used his supreme magic power to intercept his Hongwu Dynasty in history. He was such a tyrannical existence. But unfortunately, this was too against the will of heaven. Not only did he travel through time and space, but he also intercepted and changed the history of the Hongwu Dynasty. Now he is interfering with the history of your Chongzhen. As a result, his magic power is running out. He can hardly maintain immortality. I am afraid he is no different from ordinary people, and will also grow old, get sick and die. The old man Taizu did all this for you."

Everyone was in awe.

Du Yinxi was so moved that he burst into tears. He wiped his eyes and cried, "I never thought that the old man Taizu would pay such a huge price. I even questioned Taizu's identity before. I really deserve to die."

"Ugh."

The others also felt uncomfortable after hearing this.

Ma Qian patted him on the shoulder and said, "The old man Taizu has already sacrificed too much for the Hongwu Ming Dynasty and the Chongzhen Ming Dynasty. He even gave up immortality. We must not let Taizu down. We must help Taizu to restore order and save the Ming Dynasty from disaster."

"Yes, we were ignorant before, but now that we have truly seen this great world, we should cheer up and shed our last drop of blood for the Ming Dynasty, so as not to let down His Majesty Taizu's kindness."

"I have decided that after I return this time, I will spend all my wealth. Whether it is recruiting soldiers or protecting the people and the country, even if my ability is far from being able to assist His Majesty Taizu in pacifying the end of this dynasty, I must at least let the people in the area live and work in peace and contentment."

"Well, Brother Gongfu is right. I will do the same. Although I am not greedy or possessive in the officialdom, I rely on my family's thousands of acres of mansions and fertile fields. After I return this time, I will sell all of them immediately and organize the clan to work together to help His Majesty Taizu accomplish this great cause."

Everyone spoke up, with mixed feelings in their hearts, and were full of admiration for Zhu Yuanzhang.

Little did they know that Lao Zhu didn't pay anything and even got a lot of things for free.

What they know now is that Zhu Yuanzhang has almost given up all his cultivation, defied fate and changed his destiny, and was willing to become a mortal again for the sake of the Ming Dynasty.

Such courage and greatness have left them with nothing but gratitude in their hearts. Just like the soldiers of the Hongwu Dynasty, Your Majesty's kindness has been deeply imprinted in their minds. It is as heavy as a mountain and can never be repaid.

soon.

In the afternoon, Zhu Yunfeng and his companions returned to the palace after strolling around the city.

Lao Zhu arranged a banquet.

This time, Zhu Yuanzhang came back to celebrate the New Year and had no plans to return to Chongzhen.

But these officials are not qualified to stay here any longer. Basically, they just take a look and confirm Lao Zhu's identity and then have to go back immediately.

Qin Liangyu was received by Empress Ma. They had a very pleasant conversation and talked about many things. Empress Ma even gave her a lot of gifts.

In the evening, the banquet ended and at the entrance of the Qianqing Palace, everyone prepared to return to the Chongzhen court.

Old Zhu personally took them to the underground palace and saw them off one by one.

Chen Shiqi wiped his tears, knelt down in front of Zhu Yuanzhang and said, "Your Majesty, I will remember your grace from now on. I don't think your Majesty should give up immortality for us, but since your Majesty has done so, I have no way to repay you, so I am willing to die in service of your kindness."

"I have no way to repay you, so I am willing to die for you."

Liu Zhibo and others also knelt down.

How would Old Zhu know what Zhu Yunfeng said to them?
Seeing them like this, I felt a little puzzled.

But of course he didn't ask, he just nodded his chin and said, "You know? That's fine, for me, nothing is more important than accompanying my family and the future of my Ming Dynasty, I will just work hard for the country in the future."

"The ministers obey the order."

Everyone kowtowed again.

"Let's go, it's time to go. Don't worry, I've recorded everything for you. It's an honor to be able to come to Hongwu."

Zhu Yunfeng stepped forward with a black scarf and blindfolded them as usual.

Ji He turned off his cell phone.

Then Zhu Yunfeng took them through time and space to the Chongzhen Dynasty.

Lao Zhu saw the phone in Ji He's hand and asked in confusion: "What are you doing?"

"Record a video."

"What are you recording the video for?"

"Fengzi said it would be too troublesome to lead everyone one by one in the future."

Ji He said, "Why not film their experiences during the Hongwu Dynasty and show them a movie when the time comes?"

"Oh?"