Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 226: Big Project! Weird Things in Ming Dynasty!

After the autumn harvest, the busy farming season is over.

It is not the same as many people’s modern fantasies.

Although the life of ancient farmers was hard and tiring, the hours they worked were not as long as the working hours of modern cattle and horses.

There are two reasons for this.

The first is that the farmers of this era work from sunrise to sunset.

For lower-class farmers, working overtime at night is impossible.

Because lighting is expensive.

Without light, you can’t work overtime even if you want to.

You must sleep and rest at night.

Summer is not bad because the daylight hours are long.

In winter, the days are short and the nights are long, so there is plenty of time to rest and sleep.

Secondly, unlike industrial society where production takes place 365 days a year, farm work is seasonal.

That is, the months from sowing crops to harvesting them are the production season.

Especially during the sowing and harvesting seasons, we are so busy that we are so tired that we just want to lie down.

But after the harvest season, you can immediately relax.

It's simple, because there is no work to do even if you want to.

There are no crops growing in the fields anymore, what do you do?
There is nothing you can do even if you want to!

Because of this, although the life of ancient farmers was hard, their actual working hours were far less than that of the 996 or even 007 working hours of cattle and horses in later generations.

However, knowing that farmers have nothing to do during the slack season, the imperial court has to find ways to take care of them.

Recruit a large number of farmers to perform labor service and continue working!

Corvée labor had two functions.

One is that the state carries out engineering construction, such as building roads, palaces, city walls, dams, canals, etc.

The most labor-intensive part was building palaces and city walls.

For example, the Great Wall was not only built during the Qin Dynasty.

It has been repaired in successive dynasties in later generations.

Its scale is not inferior to the Great Wall of Qin, but the construction period was not as tight as during the Qin Dynasty, and it took longer.

Not to mention the palace.

But it's not just the palace.

There are also many royal gardens and palaces.

New ones are often built.

Of course, the construction of the huge palace complex required countless laborers.

In contrast, contrary to what later generations imagine, road construction was usually not a big project in ancient times.

As for building dams and canals, that depends on the year.

One year the Yellow River burst its dike, and rebuilding the dike naturally became a major project that year.

But in normal years, the river bank only needs minor repairs and the workload is not large.

Or even not repair it at all.

The same is true for the canal.

In normal years, repairs and maintenance are just minor matters. It is only when major repairs or re-excavation are required that a large amount of manpower and material resources are invested.

Generally speaking, the scale of a construction project can be compared from the amount of money invested. The court always invested the most money in building city walls, followed by building palaces.

Nothing else compares.

From the perspective of governance, building city walls is to prevent foreign invasion or internal enemies (cities within the territory) and to consolidate governance.

The purpose of building palaces is to allow the rulers to enjoy themselves.

These two items are absolutely necessary.

In comparison, the people's livelihood needs have to give way to these two basic needs.

It can't be that building a house that can shelter the common people from wind and rain is more important than building a palace for yourself, right?
For the rulers, there is no such thing in the world!
The second purpose of conscripting the people to perform corvée labor was to prevent farmers from having complete idleness during the slack season.

A large group of people have nothing to do all day long, so they will think about all sorts of things, pondering this and that. Maybe they will come up with some bad things and then rebel for fun?
If they are not allowed to relax, they will have no time to think too much, let alone chat, form cliques, or organize people...

The risk of their rebellion will be greatly reduced and their rule will be stable.

Based on these two points, the effect of making the people perform corvee labor is enormous.

However, today is different from previous years.

This year the imperial court did not recruit any civilian workers to repair the palace.

Although parts of the palace are indeed being rebuilt and renovated.

After Zhu Yuanzhang left, all the windows in the palace were replaced with glass windows under the order of Zhu Yunhuan.

The floors of many rooms were also re-paved with cement to make them moisture-proof, and then covered with tiles specially used for the imperial palace.

The palaces in Jinling City were originally built by filling in the lake and were located in a low-lying area.

When it rains, the ground becomes extremely wet.

This problem is so serious that it must be solved.

However, the renovation of the palace was done by Zhu Yunhuan who allocated money and hired civilian workers instead of conscripting them for labor service.

When Zhu Yuanzhang had just ascended the throne, he missed his hometown very much and ordered the construction of Fengyang Zhongdu in preparation for moving the capital to Fengyang in the future.

Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers were conscripted for this purpose.

As a result, the laborers and craftsmen who built the palace resented their unpaid service.

He actually buried talismans, clay figures, wooden figures and other items in the palace to curse the residents of the palace.

This is the so-called art of defeating evil.

Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and threatened to execute all the hundreds of thousands of workers who were building Fengyang Zhongdu.

Later, after repeated persuasion from the Minister of Works Xue Xiang, the craftsmen were released, but more than a thousand people were still executed.

This incident also prompted Zhu Yuanzhang to finally abandon his plan to move the capital to Fengyang.

Of course, there are more reasons for giving up moving the capital to Fengyang. This incident was just the last straw that broke the camel's back.

In any case, this is a lesson for us.

Although Zhu Yunhuan did not believe in any art of exorcism.

But if someone really does this secretly, it is inevitable to feel disgusted psychologically.

After all, this is the place where you will live in the future, so you might as well pay the craftsmen wages, treat them well, let them work happily and not cause any trouble.

What's more, the money invested in the renovation of the palace is not much.

For the Ming Dynasty court, which is now financially abundant, it is just a drop in the bucket.

As for the construction of the city wall, Zhu Yunhuan had already issued an order that the grassland had been conquered by the Ming Dynasty and the Great Wall would never be built again in later generations.

No city walls are allowed to be rebuilt in any place.

Times have changed.

There is no point in building more city walls; instead, it will seriously block traffic.

As for pure viewing, there are really too many city walls in the Ming Dynasty.

This year, there are three main projects with the largest investment and construction scale.

First of all, road construction will definitely continue.

This is an extremely critical infrastructure project.

Under the publicity of the "Da Ming Daily", people from all over the country were very enthusiastic about building cement roads in their hometowns.

This is good for all of them, so the people are naturally happy about it.

The second is the construction of embankments and reservoirs.

Throughout the dynasties, people have attached great importance to the construction of river embankments.

Normally, the riverbank is repaired every winter.

In contrast, the construction of reservoirs is rarely carried out.

Historically, large-scale reservoir construction only occurred after the founding of New China.

In the thousands of years of ancient history, very few reservoirs were built.

Unlike dams that must be built on both sides of rivers, in many places there is no reason to build reservoirs, and sometimes they can even hinder the discharge of flood water.

There are considerable risks in building a reservoir. If one is not careful, the reservoir may leak and cause a dam breach, which will not benefit the people but will harm them.

However, everything in the world has its pros and cons.

As long as the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, you can do it.

Now that we have cement, the Ming Manufacturing Bureau's iron and steelmaking technology has also made great progress. The scale of smelting has expanded dozens of times, and the cost has dropped significantly. The time is ripe for building a large number of reservoirs.

During this year's winter repairs, reservoir construction has become a focus.

The third major project was the plan to build 3,000 large granaries, which was personally formulated by Zhu Yunhuan.

To this end, he worked with the workers of the Ming Manufacturing Bureau and researchers from the Academy of Sciences to draw up standard granary construction drawings and develop detailed construction standards and plans.

Local governments were required to quickly build granaries according to the plan.

Officials at all levels signed a military order, and those who failed to complete the work within the deadline would be executed!
Those who fail to meet the acceptance quality standards will also be executed!

The construction is in full swing and is spreading rapidly across the country.

East Palace, courtyard.

Zhu Yunhuan was sitting in the newly built pavilion, leisurely eating snacks while talking about common sense and principles of economics, as well as his views on the Ming Dynasty's economy and current situation.

At the desk next to him, a man in his twenties was listening attentively and taking notes from time to time.

His name is Yang Rong. Not long ago, Xia Yuanji was invited back to the Imperial College to give lectures. After the lecture, he asked the students to write articles to express their opinions. He took a liking to the article written by Yang Rong at first sight and thought that although this person was young, he was quite knowledgeable.

Just as the imperial court was recruiting people, Xia Yuanji recommended him to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Zhu Yunhuan looked through this person's resume and found that he was most likely one of the famous "Three Yangs" in later history, Yang Rong, who was as famous as Yang Shiqi.

So he took him with him and trained him.

Previously, Yang Rong had written letters to Zhu Yunhuan. After all, Zhu Yunhuan's calligraphy was too poor, and Zhu Yunhuan would recognize his handwriting at a glance.

Since Zhu Yuanzhang did not issue orders in the name of the emperor, but submitted articles to the Science journal as an ordinary person, Zhu Yunhuan naturally communicated with him as an "editor".

Old Zhu is still angry. If I write a letter in the name of my grandson, he will definitely not reply.

Because of ghostwriting, Yang Rong was exposed to economics for the first time.

Suddenly I felt like a door to a new world had opened.

I have never seen any record of this in previous books.

But listening to what His Royal Highness the Crown Prince said, it makes a lot of sense and will be of great benefit to governing the country.

With the beginning, Zhu Yunhuan began to teach Yang Rong various economic knowledge when he had free time.

It was not simply for the purpose of training him, but Zhu Yunhuan was not a professional economics major in his previous life. In that era, information was well developed, and he had a wide range of interests, so he used the Internet to listen to some online courses and learned some economics knowledge.

It is not professional enough, so it is not systematic.

This is a good time to tell stories to recall past memories and sort out thoughts.

This is also the famous "Feynman learning method" in later generations, which is very effective.

After the records are organized, you can also communicate with others to fill in the gaps and improve your previous knowledge.

With Yang Rong's records, I can save the trouble of writing it myself.

After talking for a while, Zhu Yunhuan stretched and said, "Let's stop here for today."

"When you have time, please summarize and organize what I have said."

Yang Rong quickly stood up, bowed and said, "Yes!"

Zhu Yunhuan waved his hand and Yang Rong retreated.

At the age of seventeen, he was selected to study in the provincial school, and now he is only twenty years old.

Originally, there was no chance for me to study at the Imperial College so soon.

Last winter, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince gave a science lecture at the Imperial College, which caused a sensation throughout the world. Since then, the spirit of science has swept through all levels of prefectural, state and county schools.

A series of reforms that took place later prompted many students to leave the Imperial College.

At the same time, because the imperial treasury was full and education funding was sufficient, the number of students enrolled in the Imperial College continued to increase.

If we want to recruit more students, we will naturally supplement them from below.

In this way, Yang Rong was able to enter the Imperial College a few years earlier.

A speck of dust from the times is like a mountain pressing on ordinary people.

But on the other hand, when the strong wind of the times blows, it will also send many people into the sky.

This fundamentally changed the trajectory of their destiny.

A lecture by Zhu Yunhuan brought a new wind to the Ming Dynasty, pushing the wheel of the times forward.

I don’t know how many people have stood on the cusp of the trend and risen to the sky with it.

I don’t know how many people have been ruthlessly left behind by the times.

What Yang Rong didn't expect was that he would be appreciated by Xia Yuanji not long after entering the Imperial College.

I never expected that after being recommended, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would actually keep me by his side.

What Yang Rong heard and learned from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince completely overturned the knowledge he had acquired since childhood.

I had read about the deeds of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince in the Ming Daily before. Although I had some respect and admiration for such a talented person, I also felt that what the newspaper said could not be fully trusted.

Yang Rong was well aware that it was worse to have no books than to believe in them blindly, and he was well aware that much of what was written in the daily newspapers was embellished.

Now that I'm actually serving His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, I realize that I was completely wrong, extremely wrong.

The propaganda of "Da Ming Daily" cannot be fully trusted.

Because the newspaper only provided an observation perspective, although it exaggerated His Royal Highness the Crown Prince in some aspects, it did not go into detail.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's breadth of knowledge and far-sightedness are far beyond what can be fully expressed in mere newspaper records.

Although I have been studying since I was young, I am like an ignorant child in front of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Therefore, Yang Rong no longer expressed any opinions easily, but kept everything that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince said firmly in his heart, pondered it over and over again, and absorbed knowledge frantically.

……

Zhu Yunhuan looked at Yang Rong's distant back and nodded slightly.

He is worthy of being a figure who can reach the position of assistant minister in history. He is several years younger than Yang Shiqi, but it is rare for a young man who is only twenty years old to have such a calm temperament.

More importantly, people are very smart.

His explanations of economics were actually incomplete, and some of the knowledge was even specious.

If it were an ordinary person, he would probably be confused or even have no idea what was being said.

But Yang Rong was able to draw inferences about other situations and derive a lot of useful knowledge from every one of his words.

Some errors can also be corrected by oneself by connecting previous and subsequent knowledge.

This is true genius!
Zhu Yunhuan thought about it in his mind, and quickly regained his composure. He picked up the "Daily Brief" on the table and looked at it again, and his eyes narrowed slightly.

The construction of granaries in various places is progressing in an orderly manner.

The fastest progress is of course in Jinling City. After all, the manufacturing bureau is located here.

Other prosperous places such as Suzhou, Yangzhou, Jiaxing, Songjiang, etc. are also not slow in construction.

These places happen to be the most important grain producing areas of the Ming Dynasty.

The granary has been built, and now it’s time to start the main event of harvesting grain from all over the world.

……

"The Ming Food Bureau has been officially established. From now on, all granaries across the country will be directly managed by the Food Bureau."

In a teahouse in Jinling City, a man in a blue shirt was drinking tea while flipping through the "Da Ming Daily".

At this time, the teahouse was bustling with people and business was booming.

"What do you think the court's establishment of the Ming Food Agency means?" the man in green asked the person next to him.

"Didn't you read what was said in the newspaper? The imperial court wants to reduce the workload of local government offices. From now on, the task of storing grain will be directly managed by the Grain Agency."

"Just like the Ming Dynasty Bank, the warehouse clerks of each granary are directly appointed by the Grain Bureau and have nothing to do with the local government offices."

Someone slammed the table and said, "Okay, let the Food Agency be in charge directly."

"In the past, those local officials, under the name of 'sparrow and rat consumption', made a lot of money from it."

"Now, they can't make any money anymore."

Although Zhu Yuanzhang had an iron-fisted anti-corruption campaign and had killed many corrupt officials, he never achieved the results he wanted.

This is because for many things, when it comes to execution, a lot of power space has to be left.

For example, the "sparrow and rat" in the granary is one of them.

It was difficult for the imperial court to accurately calculate the actual losses caused by "sparrow and rat losses", which left room for the officials in charge of the granaries to maneuver.

The larger this space is, the more officials can take advantage of it to take advantage of loopholes and gain benefits.

Conversely, the smaller the power space, the less likely officials will be able to make money.

But many things will become rigid and cannot be handled flexibly.

This is just like a spear and a shield, there are pros and cons.

Communication conditions dictate that many things in this era cannot be reported to superiors for decision-making and handling, and lower-level officials must be given the power to handle the matter on their own.

And this "power space" is also a space for corruption and rent-seeking.

Corruption has always been serious in feudal dynasties, and this is also one of the most critical reasons.

Communication conditions constrain the country's management.

Even though communications have developed in later generations and a phone call can get through directly, the situation of "county magistrate is not as good as county manager" is still common.

But for this era, "the emperor is far away and the sky is high" is a very realistic thing.

Of course, there are still many issues in system construction.

"That's not necessarily true. Aren't the officials in the Food Bureau greedy?" someone objected.

"This is really different." Someone explained, "We heard that the Food Bureau is temporarily managed by Lord Yang Shiqi, who was previously in charge of the Ming Bank. He was personally promoted by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and is extremely capable."

"Since the establishment of the Ming Bank, have you ever heard of corruption as frequent as that among local officials?"

"As far as I know, the Ming Bank has special inspectors who conduct constant inspections. All accounts are audited repeatedly, and the inspections are very strict."

“If you try to get something out of it, it will be discovered by the audit very soon, and then you’re done for.”

“I expect the same will be true for the WFP.”

"Without the constraints of local government offices, audits and internal processing will be very strict, and there will be no constraints. Corruption will naturally be greatly reduced."

Another person nearby added: "Not only that, the imperial court is currently building a large number of new granaries."

"These new granaries are not the original earthen granaries. They are all made of cement. It is said that many places are reinforced with steel bars."

"It is moisture-proof and waterproof, ventilated and dry, and has extremely strict protection. Rats can't get in at all."

"It is said that there will be no more 'sparrows and rats' in the granary from now on."

"No matter how much food you put in, don't put any less."

"Those grain officials, if they want to make money, have nowhere to go."

Everyone was discussing the matter enthusiastically.

"I have also heard about this. One of my brothers even personally participated in the construction of the new granary."

"Compared with the old granary, the new granary is really huge."

"Moreover, this time the imperial court is going to build 3,000 new granaries across the country."

"Together, the amount of food that can be stored is dozens of times more than before."

“Even if all the grain under the sun were put into these new granaries, it would still not fill all the granaries.”

Someone immediately asked curiously: "Why did the court build so many new granaries?"

Just as he finished speaking, someone came in from outside the teahouse. He was also a regular customer of the teahouse and was acquainted with many people who often drank tea there.

As soon as the man came in, he smiled and said, "Everyone is here. Have you heard about it? There is something strange happening in our Daming. Today, the Daming Food Bureau is officially established. It is said that the Food Bureau has also set up a 'Food Bank'. In the future, everyone can not only deposit money in the bank, but also deposit food in the Food Bureau. Do you think this is strange?"

……

PS: The two chapters are posted together. I have been a bit busy recently, so the updates are sometimes more and sometimes less, but things are almost finished. In the next two days, I should be able to update 10,000 words every day (this description is for free words).

(End of this chapter)