The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 608 This moment has finally arrived

The envoys from Britain, France and other countries had all left, and the envoys from the Holy Roman Empire, Portugal and other countries who came just for show had also left, but Dashkova of the Russian Empire did not leave.

She was not qualified to continue to stay with Mo Zibu, so she continued to engage in lady diplomacy.

This is a very talented and emotionally intelligent woman. If she really lowers her pride to lick you, her energy is very powerful.

After the Chengde Conference, the eunuchs of the Imperial City reported that this woman organized polo matches, mahjong competitions and six poetry and prose appreciation conferences, not including other small gatherings.

The effect is very obvious. With such a person around, mother Chen's personality has become much more cheerful, she smiles more often, and she is not so dissatisfied with herself.

Queen Zheng Shishi, who had been somewhat depressed because of her childlessness, also regained some of her former carefree self.

This made Mo Zibu very satisfied. Although it is often said that emperors have no personal feelings, it is impossible for them to have no feelings at all for their mother and first wife.

Therefore, Mo Zibu did not impose any restrictions on what this woman did in the harem. He just asked the Imperial City Commander to strictly record her every move.

"Arsen, I heard you sent away the two maids Dashkova gave you?"

Mo Zibu looked at Asen with a smile. Although he was made the crown prince, the staff team of the Eastern Palace, namely the Left and Right Spring Offices, had not yet been established.

Well, it’s not that there is no construction at all. The top left and right concubines and left and right chancellors are basically in place, but the lower ones have not been recruited at all.

As for the Ten Commanders of the Eastern Palace, there was no plan to set them up. Asen's protection, like the emperor's, was provided by the golden-armored guards of the Jinyiwei Palace Front Division and the inner guards of the Imperial City Division.

The reason for this arrangement is that Asen is still young, and he has to slowly discover and cultivate his most trusted people by himself, and then he can officially establish his own household when he turns sixteen.

"My brother insisted on giving it to me, saying that I should have children in Lelang in the future. These Rus women are naturally cold-resistant, and the sons they give birth to should be more adaptable to the climate of Outer Northeast. When the time comes, they will all be given fiefs to rule there."

Before Asen could answer, his younger brother, Prince of Lelang, Asu, answered loudly. The boy had just turned ten years old and was confused about some things.

Mo Zibu couldn't help but burst out laughing, while Asen blushed.

"You are such a good brother and uncle. Ah Xu's sons will definitely thank you in the future."

Boy, you are reluctant to give up the good places, but you are willing to give up Outer Northeast Blagoveshchensk, Temple Street, and Yaksa, right?

It’s so icy and snowy that your unborn nephews must have been frozen into idiots!
Um.?

hiss.!

It's not impossible. If I really have a son who can endure hardships, it would not be a bad idea to send one to Alaska in the future. Mo Zibu thinks it's not a bad idea.

"Are those Ross girls pretty?" Mo Zibu winked mischievously at his ignorant second son.

"She's quite pretty, just like the beauties of Kucha and Loulan described in ancient books."

Ah Xu knew that his father was laughing at him, but he still told the truth, because these Ross girls were just beautiful.

"They are very good at serving others and are very well-behaved." Ah Xu continued to comment. Of course, when he said they were good at serving others, he didn't mean in terms of gender.

Matters between men and women were strictly supervised by the old Thai nanny sent by Queen Zheng Shishi of the Dayu Dynasty.

No matter which prince it is, even if he is the crown prince, he is not allowed to have sex before the age of sixteen.

So what Ah Xu meant by being able to serve others was that she really was very attentive and considerate, just like the maids in Silla during the Tang Dynasty.

Well, in this era, it had only been a few decades since the Russians stopped being bullied, and it had only been sixty years since Peter the Great passed away.

The upper class is relatively more confident, but the lower class is still very inferior. The memory of being plundered and enslaved for hundreds of years is still ingrained in their genes and culture.

Therefore, the Russians at this time, especially the Russian women, were really suitable to be maids.

Well, or we can say that until later generations, Russian women were very outstanding in these aspects. Big-haired girls, second-haired girls, and third-haired girls all had this characteristic.

As for the self-confidence, tough mentality and temperament shown by some Russian women in later generations, it was actually the Soviet Union and the communist women's liberation that shaped them, and they are no longer visible now.

The special character formed by this experience can be regarded as the basic character of the Russians.

Why are the Tsar's gray beasts so hardy? Because they have never eaten sugar.

You think his life is as hard as that of an animal, but he thinks it is normal because his ancestors have lived this way for generations.

If you don’t feel it’s bitter, then naturally it won’t be bitter either.

In later generations, from Tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union and then to the Russian Federation, that kind of proactive attack must have been a mess, but the defensive counterattack became more and more energetic, which was also related to this spirit.

Because the Russians at the bottom are really able to endure hardships and persevere!

Their ability to endure hardship and suffering, coupled with the vast territory and weather factors, is enough to defeat any enemy that reaches Moscow.

To make an inappropriate analogy, your soldiers have to consume 100 yuan of supplies a day to barely survive, while the gray beasts only need 20 yuan to survive and maintain a certain combat effectiveness. How can you play this game?

"Father, I'm worried that these Russian girls are spies trained by them. I'm the crown prince and have many secrets around me. I can't let them steal them." After seeing Ah Xu being teased, Asen told the truth.

In the past three months, this woman named Dashkova has sent out more than sixty Russian girls in Beijing, and all officials and nobles with a little status have received gifts.

This situation made Asen, the crown prince with a strong sense of ownership, very worried.

"Hahaha, you did a good job." Mo Zibu walked forward and touched Asen's head.

"But you should be more confident. First of all, you have to believe that if your father agrees to send someone to your Eastern Palace, it means he has already reviewed it and there is no problem.

Secondly, my son, you must believe in our country and believe in your own methods.

What kind of country is Russia? It is a country where the Tsar only eats bread and stew for every meal and has just escaped from slavery.

As the Crown Prince of China, with your status and position, and with China's wealth, can't you win the hearts of these two young ladies?"

After listening to this, Asen nodded seriously and then said to Mo Zibu, "Father, the steam engine project you asked me to supervise has made significant progress."

Mo Zibu's eyes lit up deliberately. Although the Jinyiwei Northern Pacification Division had already sent a report, he still pretended to know it for the first time.

"Did my son really invent the steam engine? If so, it would be a great event for the revival of China.

Let's verify it again. If it's true, then we father and son will go to Guangzhou to see it with our own eyes!"

Asen was indeed very happy. Thinking of the letter Wang Zhenyi wrote to him to report the situation, he couldn't help but report everything to his father in a way that took credit for it.

"It should be done. Sister Wang wrote to say that all aspects of the high-pressure steam engine have been designed. When they were testing it in Halong Harbor, they were able to carry 40 tons of cargo and travel 120 miles without stopping."

It can carry 40 tons and travel 60 kilometers, and the data is okay.

However, there was no calculation of the size of the steam engine, the amount of coal required, the maximum continuous operation time, and the horsepower of this high-pressure steam engine.

While thinking about this, Mo Zibu smiled brightly, "Sister Wang, you call me that so smoothly."

Arsen's face turned red again, visibly. People at that time were much more mature in these aspects than people in later generations. There were many boys getting married at the age of fourteen or fifteen.

Even if Asen didn't understand it when he was in Guangnan, he came to understand it after he came back and experienced separation.

"I've had the Imperial Guard investigate this woman. She comes from a family of scholars, is intelligent, talented, and kind-hearted. If you like her in the future, she could be a consort, no problem. However, your empress can only be from the Hakka Ye clan of Meizhou. This is the agreement between your mother and your adopted mother, and it also concerns the stability of the country."

In the future, you will definitely have concubines from the Southern Fujian and Jiangnan factions, as well as from the Central Plains, Sichuan, and Shaanxi entering the palace. Be mentally prepared."

Asen nodded, but as he was still in his innocent teenage years, he looked at Mo Zibu with some difficulty.

"Is it necessary to be like this? Can't the relationship between the emperor and the empress be like that of an ordinary couple?"

"What else?" Mo Zibu turned and walked back to his seat, "Should we follow the example of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty, who had only one son, Emperor Wuzong, and without any children, he couldn't even maintain his throne.

In the past, if Wuzong had a brother like Liezong, or had a nephew adopted, things would not have deteriorated to that extent.

He didn't need to use such drastic measures for some of them, and his subordinates wouldn't be so bold and presumptuous as to harm him openly, seeing that Wuzong was doomed to die without an heir and there would be no descendants to avenge him.

As for Emperor Xiaozong himself, since he had no outside family to rely on, he should have taken in many concubines, firstly to continue his lineage, and secondly to attract talented people to serve him.

The corruption of the Ming Dynasty and the irreversible dominance of the civil officials were caused by him."

When Mo Zibu was reading history, he thought that Emperor Xiaozong was very wise. When he was an emperor, he upheld monogamy, accepted advice humbly, and reduced taxes and levies.

Now that I sit in this position, I realize that it is not the case at all. An Emperor Xiaozong would be worse than a Chongzhen.

"My son, the labors of an emperor are first on paperwork and second on the bed. The latter is even more important than the former. You should ponder this carefully."

These words shocked Arsen greatly. He really couldn't understand why the emperor's role in bed was so important.

"Your Majesty, the Portuguese Governor of Macau, Francisco Castro, has applied to resign. He is old and wants to return to Portugal to spend his remaining years in peace.

The Portuguese government has sent us two candidates, Bernardo Faria and Antonio Pinto, and we ask Your Majesty to choose one and grant him the golden seal to administer the Portuguese in Macau.

The eunuch Chang Chunyuan brought the letter from the Portuguese government to the imperial envoy. At that time, or until February 23, Macau was not actually a colony.

This is equivalent to a chartered wharf, a small port where the Chinese emperor graciously allowed the Portuguese to land, live and trade. The Governor of Macau sent by Portugal was officially called the Portuguese Governor.

In other words, he could only manage the Portuguese in Macau, while the Chinese in Macau were managed by the magistrate of Xiangshan.

Even during the Ming Dynasty, if Portuguese people in Macau committed a crime, the magistrate of Xiangshan would ride in a sedan chair to Macau and deal with the Portuguese criminals according to Ming Dynasty law.

During the Qing Dynasty, although his authority was reduced, the magistrate of Xiangshan no longer went to Macau to manage the Portuguese.

But that had nothing to do with governance and sovereignty. Rather, it was that under the Qing system, the magistrate of Xiangshan had no sense of ownership. The Portuguese in Macau bribed him with 200 taels of silver, and he gave up all his jurisdiction over the Portuguese.

The world belongs to you, the bannermen. Why should I care so much? I might as well just collect the money and put it in my pocket.

After Mo Zibu regained control of the country, Macau could have been easily taken back, but he did not do so because he wanted to take advantage of Portugal, which still had some naval strength and overseas colonies.

Not only did they not drive out the Portuguese from Macau, but they gave certain preferential treatment to the native Portuguese in Macau, increasing Macau's trade volume.

Today, Macau’s trade revenue is the second largest source of income for the Kingdom of Portugal after Brazil. It is much more important than Goa and other places. The Portuguese government simply cannot afford the consequences of losing Macau.

Therefore, the Portuguese government was not only Mo Zibu's second secret channel for obtaining European intelligence besides his third brother Mo Zirong, but they would also communicate in advance about the replacement of the Portuguese Governor of Macau and select two or more candidates for Mo Zibu to choose from.

"Asen, what do you think we should do if we want to teach Maria, this ignorant girl, a lesson without ruining our relationship?"

"How despicable that Queen Maria I dared to refuse our fleet a visit to Goa!" An angry look appeared on Asen's face. After thinking for a moment, he said:
"Our original agreement mentioned more than two candidates, not two. How about this, Father? Let the Portuguese submit four candidates."

"Yes, in this case, the transportation alone will be delayed for at least nine months. Without the Governor to communicate everywhere, their trade volume this year will drop by at least half.

But it’s not cruel enough.”

Mo Zibu smiled with satisfaction, but immediately turned around and ordered, "Send an order, tell the Honglu Temple to reply to the Portuguese. This time, I want all four candidates to come to Nanjing to pay homage. If one is missing, they can forget about staying in Macau."

The imperial envoy hurried down to pass on the order. Some people just needed to be beaten so that he could know who was the son and who was the father.

After the imperial envoy left the city, Watt and Matthew Bolton, who did not follow the English envoy William Pitt the Younger, came to meet the emperor again.

After the two men performed the ritual of three kneelings and nine kowtows to Mo Zibu according to Chinese customs, Watt looked at Mo Zibu with his eyes almost shining.

This is like a beggar. Before he has tasted the delicacies from land and sea, he will not have much obsession with these things.

But once he really tastes it once, he will never forget the taste for the rest of his life.

That's how Watt was. He never thought he had the chance to become a nobleman, and he didn't care at all.

But when you get really close, you'll feel itchy inside, as if a hundred cats are scratching you.

Mo Zibu accurately grasped his mentality and immediately told Watt and Matthew Bolton that as long as they could further improve the steam engine and agree to license the patent, he would consider ennobling them as nobles.

"Your Majesty, please look at this. This is the parallelogram linkage that Matthew and I just invented. It can complete a complete set of parallel movements, thus ensuring that the air intake of the two-way cylinders is mechanically and rationally transported.

This is a centrifugal governor, which can make the speed of the steam engine more stable and reliable, and can be calculated using mathematical formulas.

By calculating, we can know where the design is redundant, and we can remove a lot of redundant parts in the next step, which is expected to make the steam engine smaller and run more smoothly."

Watt's greatest contribution to the steam engine was actually the invention of the bidirectional cylinder. This technology greatly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the steam engine.

However, the bidirectional cylinder at that time was still unstable and could not meet the standards for entering the steam age.

So historically, at the end of this year, Watt went on to invent the parallel four-bar linkage, and then three years later in 1778, he invented the centrifugal governor, which finally brought about earth-shaking changes in the steam engine.

Subsequently, around 1800, Trevesque in England and Evans in the United States invented real high-pressure steam engines.

The combination of a stable and efficient bidirectional cylinder and a small-volume high-pressure steam engine finally made it possible for steam engines that could be installed on steam locomotives and sailboats to appear, ushering in the steam age for mankind.

Although Mo Zibu didn't know about this process, he immediately realized that this was exactly what was missing after combining the design drawings and models of the high-pressure steam engine reported by Wang Zhenyi's team to the Jinyiwei.

At that moment, Mo Zibu wanted to jump up and roar. The steam engine that he had been waiting for ten years and could truly change the world had finally appeared.

But Mo Zibu forced himself to hold back because he still had to do the final verification and it was a bit early to open the champagne.

Moreover, he understood that Watt was really talented in steam engines.

Then you can remain calm and squeeze him a little more before giving him the title, applying extreme pressure to make him squeeze out more inventions from his mind.

"Watt, Matthew." Mo Zibu called them by their names affectionately, "I've thought about it, and the symbolic significance of Seris's title is still a little small for Europeans.

So I decided to write to Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, and ask him to grant a knighthood to the improver of the steam engine, and if possible, to place the fief directly in the Lower Netherlands.

This was really a coincidence. Mo Zibu certainly didn't know that William Pitt the Younger was planning to send his third brother Mo Zirong to the Lower Netherlands (Belgium) to serve as a firewall, but he realized at the first moment that the title of the Lower Netherlands was a very good choice.

With a thud, Watt and Matthew Bolton's knees went weak and they knelt down again.

If the title of Seris was equivalent to nobility in their minds, then the title of the Holy Roman Empire was a true aristocratic title that could allow one to return home in glory and be envied by everyone.

This may be the only chance in my life to become a noble. Watt and Matthew Bolton's eyes turned red with excitement, and they suddenly became full of energy.

(End of this chapter)