Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 255: There is the Great Wall in the north and a thousand-mile fort in the south! [Please subscribe]

As Liu Kuan was adjusting the video, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but ask, "Will this last video be about advanced weapons from later generations?"

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "Your Majesty, this last video is not about something in the future, but about something in the Ming Dynasty."

Things about the Ming Dynasty?

The events of the Ming Dynasty were also made into a video by later generations?

Thinking of this, Zhu Biao and Zhu Di both hesitated to speak.

They were worried that Liu Kuan would play a video related to Ming history, which would make both of them uncomfortable.

While answering the question, Liu Kuan had already turned on the video and put away the tablet.

The video title also appears.

"Build Guizhou, settle the southwest! The epic of 600 years of Tunbu, how magnificent!"

Seeing this title, Zhu Biao and Zhu Di both felt relieved, thinking that it should not be about the history of the Ming Dynasty, at least not about "uncle and nephew killing each other".

Zhu Yuanzhang seemed to be thinking about something, and thought: Could it be that he is talking about sending troops to establish a military base in Guizhou?
At this time, the video begins, with mountains like forests, mist floating, the rising sun, and at the same time, long mountain songs sounded.

Then the camera turned to the mountains and forests, where people wearing strange masks and costumes were running and jumping in the woods, as if they were acting, or fighting with someone.

A young man from later generations walked among them with a bag on his back, looking out of place yet detached from the world.

Then a clean and powerful male voice was heard explaining.

"This is the kind of local opera you can only see in Guizhou, with its colorful masks, bold movements, and unrestrained singing."

"Amidst the sea of ​​songs and dances of many ethnic groups on the Guizhou Plateau, the high-pitched Dixi opera resonates through the karst mountains and forests like a war song that pierces the sky."

"And the secret of Guizhou, a province now famous all over China, lies in the place where these singing styles are heard."

The scene then switched to a garrison that was mostly built of stone. One of the people in costume took off his mask, revealing to be the young man from before.

The young man introduced it, "The text of the local opera hides the mission of the Tunbu people to come to Guizhou, to farm, fight and guard the border, to defend their homeland!"

"Who are they? Where do they come from? What are the so-called 'tunpu'? What is their connection to the birth of Guizhou?"

The video finally gets to the point.

Then, from the perspective of a video host, he visited and inquired about the famous Tunbu in Guizhou to learn about its history.

After seeing this, everyone realized that these Tunbu people were actually descendants of the Guizhou Garrison Army of the Ming Dynasty!

The Guizhou Tunbu that has been preserved to later generations are the garrisons at all levels that the Guizhou Dusi is currently building!

"Before the Ming Dynasty, there was no Guizhou Province in the world. At that time, it was sandwiched between Yunnan, Sichuan, and Huguang, and 92.5% of its area was covered by mountains and hills."

"Although Guizhou has rugged mountain roads and is sparsely populated, it is the most important passage in the southwest region. During wartime, it takes center stage as a strategic military location and a major rear base!"

"At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Mongol cavalry, unable to capture the city head-on, bypassed the natural barrier of the Yangtze River and advanced southward along the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. They captured Dali and penetrated directly into the Southern Song's weakly defended southwest rear, trapping Sichuan and Shu from both north and south."

"The Southern Song Dynasty, whose military strength was severely tied down, ultimately suffered a swift and tragic defeat."

"In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang did not want to repeat the fate of the Southern Song Dynasty, so he sent 300,000 troops to pacify Yunnan."

This was the first time Zhu Yuanzhang heard his own name in a party video. He couldn't help but become more excited and watched it more attentively.

The video uses a mixture of animation and stone reliefs to introduce the Mongol conquest of the Southern Song Dynasty and the war in which he sent a large army to pacify the southwest.

Countless soldiers shouting and fighting in the video are eventually transformed into ancient stone reliefs, which are shocking to watch and give people a sense of historical weight.

"After the war, the Ming Dynasty attached great importance to Guizhou, viewing it as the key to defending Yunnan and managing the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. They simply left 200,000 of their troops in Guizhou to establish a garrison!"

"They came from Nanzhili, Jiangxi, Huguang and other places, according to the Ming Dynasty's military system..."

As the video screen kept changing and the explanation continued, the magnificent scene of the early Ming Dynasty's garrison troops pacifying the southwest and establishing a garrison in Guizhou was presented to the Zhu family.

Although everyone knows that this is what Daming has been doing in recent years, they still can't help but feel proud when they see the video made by later generations.

The video then introduced the origin of Tunbu villages, and took "Baojiatun", a Tunbu village that existed during the Hongwu period, as an example, and gave a detailed introduction to its architectural layout and other aspects.

"...In the mountains and forests where chieftains abound, a military network belonging to the Central Dynasty was established."

"And so, by the 30th year of the Hongwu reign, a vast 'star chain' consisting of 24 guards, 69 post stations, and 28 stations slowly unfolded across the Guizhou Plateau, bringing in a large population and resources."

"After 32 years of operation, in 1413, the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission was established, marking Guizhou's official entry into history as China's thirteenth province. This was followed by a massive development of Guizhou that lasted for over a hundred years..."

This opening scene is obviously a bit discontinuous, because a small part was cut off by Liu Kuan.

That is the commentary "From Zhu Yuanzhang to Zhu Di" and the shots of the portraits of the three emperors Zhu, Jianwen and Zhu Di passing by in turn.

The video then details the evolution of the Tunbu people and local operas, and briefly mentions other Tunbu that have been preserved to later generations.

The Daming Tunbao in the video has been transformed into a tourist attraction, with beautiful scenery outside and ancient charm inside.

Finally, the author details the positive changes that the "Tunbu people" from the Central Plains have brought to Guizhou's agriculture, water conservancy, architecture, culture, and cuisine over the past 600 years. "Guizhou has transformed from a remote frontier land of slash-and-burn agriculture and a lack of culture and education into a small Jiangnan on the plateau."

"And those descendants of the Tunbu still live here. Their Jianghuai homeland has become a thing of the past, but they have never forgotten their mission!"

At this point in the video, a young man in a local opera costume took off his mask and said something.

"We are Tunbu people. We came to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau because of an imperial decree six hundred years ago, and we have remained here until today."

"The Tunbu people's inherent spirit of loyalty to the emperor, patriotism, and martial spirit has been passed down for over 600 years and remains unchanged to this day."

After hearing these words, all the adult men of the Zhu family, including Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao, and Zhu Di, as well as women and children, including Empress Ma, were deeply moved.

It's not just because of the content and meaning of this passage, but also because the man spoke in Jianghuai Mandarin!
Although it is slightly different from today's Jianghuai Mandarin, it is much more familiar to them than the later Mandarin that occupies most of the time and content of the video.

It feels like meeting a fellow countryman in a foreign land!
Later, the video introduces many ancestral temples and family trees of the Tunbu people. It can be seen that the ancestors of many big surnames can be traced back to the generals of the garrisons in the early Ming Dynasty.

This made the Zhu family feel that they were truly connected by blood with people of later generations.

The video changes the scene again, to a city among mountains, forests and rivers.

"When we arrived at the ancient city of Zhenyuan in southeastern Guizhou, it felt like we had entered another world. The Wuyang River divides the ancient city into two parts: one side is the prefectural city, once governed by the chieftain; the other side is the defensive city, once governed by the garrison."

"This is the famous Zhenyuanwei in Guizhou history, known as the 'key to Yunnan and Chu, and the gateway to eastern Guizhou.' Here, commerce flourished thanks to the military, and docks and guild halls abound..."

The video then uses more than three minutes to describe how Zhenyuanwei became the ancient city of Zhenyuan with prosperous commerce, and also describes other aspects of Zhenyuan.

"Zhenyuan wasn't the only place where a city was established and prospered because of a garrison. Qingyan, Longli, Huangping, and other places all became important commercial towns that flourished due to the presence of garrisons and merchants."

"Cities like Guiyang, Anshun, Kaili, Fuquan, and Bijie have a high degree of overlap with garrison towns built during the Ming Dynasty. It was the construction of these garrison towns that laid the foundation for the current urban landscape in Guizhou Province."

The pictures of the Tunbu villages in the video seem to be accelerated by time and are changing rapidly. For example, dense forests have been transformed into Tunbu villages, and then they have become more and more prosperous, and finally they have become modern cities with high-rise buildings and developed transportation!
"To the north lies the Great Wall, to the south lie the fortified cities. The southwest region, with Guizhou as its hub, has expanded the strategic depth of the Chinese nation..."

The video then tells the story of the rise of the Xin Dynasty and the connection between the Anti-Japanese War and Guizhou, and also talks about the earth-shaking changes in Guizhou in the more than 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

"New China's Third Front construction, the railway was laid across the Guizhou Plateau, and the iron and steel dragon witnessed Guizhou's industrial modernization."

"Today, 2.8 bridges span the two sides of the gorge, and mountainous Guizhou has truly become a 'high-speed plain'..."

"Wow!"

"Oh my God!"

“What a magnificent bridge!”

"Isn't this the Immortal Bridge?!"

Seeing this, many young princes, grandchildren and princesses forgot about Zhu Yuanzhang's existence for a moment and exclaimed in surprise.

Because the video shows the magnificent scene of many highway bridges in Guizhou connecting thousands of mountains.

Especially when the Beipanjiang Bridge appeared, even Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao, Zhu Di and others couldn't help but widen their eyes and exclaim in amazement.

Every time people see the Beipanjiang Bridge, they are amazed. How could Zhu Yuanzhang and others not be shocked by it?
Compared with the cross-river bridge that "fell" in the Ming Dynasty, the Beipanjiang Bridge in the video does have more of a "fairy bridge atmosphere".

Because they were so amazed by the performance of the Beipanjiang Bridge, the Zhu family didn't even pay attention to the last few paragraphs of the video praising the garrison.

When everyone came to their senses, they found that the video had ended.

On the contrary, in the final, rapidly switching scenes of various Guizhou landscapes, the huge "Eye in the Sky" made Lao Zhu and others stare in amazement.

Unfortunately, the camera changed too quickly and they didn't have time to take a closer look before it passed by.

After a few breaths, Zhu Yuanzhang sighed, "I never thought that in just 600 years, Guizhou would develop into what is shown in the video. It's incredible."

Liu Kuan said, "Didn't the video say that Guizhou's six hundred years of development and growth were largely due to the solid foundation laid by Your Majesty through the strategy of building garrisons?"

Hearing this, and recalling the video's praise for the strategy of stationing 200,000 Ming troops in Guizhou, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but look proud and pleased.

However, when he thought of the video's later demonstration of Guizhou's rapid development after the founding of the Xin Dynasty, he shook his head and sighed, "The Ming Dynasty certainly laid a good foundation for the development of Guizhou, but compared to the Xin Dynasty's development of Guizhou, it's far behind."

Liu Kuan laughed secretly after hearing this and thought to himself: Old Zhu, you insist on comparing your construction with the new dynasties of later generations. Aren’t you just asking for trouble?

But to be honest, Zhu Yuanzhang and the Ming Dynasty in history, with the technological level at the end of the 14th century, used thousands of miles of garrisons to guard the southwest, making Yunnan and Guizhou inseparable from the Central Plains. This was indeed a great move and a great contribution to the Chinese nation.

Thinking of this, Liu Kuan said, "Your Majesty, why should you be so self-deprecating? With the technological level of the Ming Dynasty in history, they were able to build the Great Wall in the north and the Thousand Miles of Garrisons in the south. Both have survived for six hundred years and are admired by future generations. This is truly a miracle."

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said, "That sounds nice, but we haven't built the Great Wall or the Thousand Miles of Garrisons yet."

"And you brought science and technology to the Ming Dynasty, as well as railways, trains, steam engines, cement, and other convenient transportation tools."

"If this development continues, the Ming Dynasty will be able to directly use the advantages of science and technology to rule the northern grasslands and southwestern mountains, without having to build the Great Wall in the north and the garrisons in the south."

"But after hearing your praise, I want to repair it again. What do you say I should do?"

　Second update.

　　Good night~
　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)