Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 273: Is the Ming Dynasty inferior to the Qing Dynasty? Historical Cycles [Subscription Request]

"Your Majesty, in later history, although the Ming Dynasty destroyed the Northern Yuan Dynasty in the 20th year of the Hongwu reign, it did not bring all the nomadic tribes on the grasslands under its rule, so the Northern Yuan Dynasty still existed."

"During the Jianwen reign, a non-Yuan Dynasty descendant usurped the throne, and the Northern Yuan Dynasty split into two major tribes, the Tatars and the Oirat, who fought endlessly against each other."

"Due to internal problems, the Ming Dynasty not only failed to seize this opportunity to further weaken or control the grasslands, but instead allowed the two tribes to grow stronger."

"Although the Ming Dynasty launched several campaigns against the Tatars and the Oirat during the Yongle reign, it was never able to completely drive them out of the steppes, let alone force them to submit."

"Later, due to the Ming Dynasty's strategic contraction and the long period of peace, it could only rely on the Great Wall to take a defensive stance against the Tatars and the Oirat."

"The Jianzhou Jurchens rose to prominence in northeastern China during the late Ming Dynasty. They first unified the various Jurchen tribes, then expanded their influence to the grasslands, forcing the then-more divided grassland tribes to submit or surrender one after another."

"When the Ming Dynasty fell and the Manchus entered the Central Plains, arguably half of the various tribes on the grasslands submitted to the Qing and formed the Eight Banners of Mongolia, a key component of the Qing army that entered the Central Plains and occupied it."

"Before the decline of the Qing Empire, it was constantly confronted by the nomadic tribes of the northern steppes and the Western Regions. It took two or three generations of emperors to launch several major campaigns against the remaining Oirat tribes before the steppes and the Western Regions were completely incorporated into the Qing Empire."

"Of course, not many of these territories were actually directly governed by the Qing court. Most were still managed by local tribal leaders and the Mongolian princes and nobles who had originally submitted to the Qin State, similar to chieftains."

"By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty was weakened, and Russia, in collusion with other Western powers, used means such as encroachment and threats to continuously seize Qing territory in the north, western regions, and even northeastern China."

"Later, when the Qing Dynasty fell and China changed dynasties, the Russians even instigated the Mongols to split off and establish their own country. This is the Mongolian country in the video."

After hearing what Liu Kuan said, Zhu Yuanzhang frowned and looked unhappy.

He turned his head and looked behind him, as if he was looking for someone.

Although others were not clear, Liu Kuan and Zhu Biao knew who Zhu Di wanted to find - of course, it was Emperor Yongle Zhu Di, who personally led five expeditions to Mongolia.

If Zhu Di were here, even if he was not scolded in public by Zhu Di, he would definitely be glared at by Zhu Di.

Just think about it, Zhu Di personally led five expeditions to Mongolia, and there were countless battles that he did not personally lead. Even so, he still failed to eliminate the Tatars and Oirat, who were split from Mongolia.

Even if you cannot establish rule on the prairie like the Tang Dynasty, you should at least drive the most threatening nomadic peoples to Central and West Asia and even Europe like the Han Dynasty, right?
After Emperor Wu of Han, during the two dynasties of the Former and Later Han, although a part of the Xiongnu remained in the grasslands, they never dared to challenge the Han Dynasty again.

Not to mention the Tang Dynasty. During its heyday, almost the entire prairie was used by the Tang Dynasty to recruit soldiers and graze horses!

To the west, they occupied nearly half of Central Asia! The Turkic people were destroyed by the Tang army three times!
It was not until the decline of the Tang Dynasty after Emperor Xuanzong that nomadic tribes broke away from the control of the Tang Dynasty and gradually rose up and became independent.

In the grasslands and the Western Regions, even with the changes in climate and soil, the Ming Dynasty was indeed a bit behind the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.

Moreover, the demise of the Ming Dynasty was also related to the border threats in the northern border (the Jurchens were also part of the border threats in the northern border of the Ming Dynasty).

Zhu Yuanzhang rose from a commoner, drove out the Tartars, and established the Ming Dynasty. He was very proud of himself and thought that he was only slightly inferior to Emperor Taizong of Tang, and even comparable to Emperor Gaozu of Han and Emperor Wu of Han.

But now we know that the Ming Dynasty he founded seemed to be even worse than the later Qing Dynasty in dealing with issues concerning the grasslands and the Western Regions.

Thinking of this, it would be strange if he was happy.

He then remembered that the Ming Dynasty was now very different from the trajectory of "later history", and that he would also establish an empire that would far surpass the Han and Tang dynasties, and he felt a little better.

"Okay, play the video and see what happened to the Mongolian environment in the future."

"Yes."

Liu Kuan responded and touched the screen to play the video.

The video begins with a terrifying scene of a sandstorm covering the sky in the desert, and three big yellow words appear at the same time - sandstorm!

"In March 2021, a massive sandstorm began in the Gobi Desert in central Mongolia, spreading all the way to its capital, Ulaanbaatar, and headed straight for northern my country. From the foot of the Yanshan Mountains to the Hexi Corridor, everything was shrouded in a gray-yellow haze!"

"These kinds of sandstorms always make headlines in my country, but they're commonplace in Mongolia. There are at least five or six sandstorms a year across Mongolia, and sometimes more than 30..."

"Sandstorms destroy grasslands and expand deserts. The vast grasslands that were once teeming with cattle and sheep have first degraded into barren land, then degenerated into sandy areas, continuing to encroach on the next grassland."

"It's actually become a 'sustainable vicious cycle'! Even its capital has been identified several times by the World Health Organization as the city with the worst air pollution."

The video introduces the hazards of sandstorms in Mongolia and its impact on his country and neighboring countries through the man's commentary.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and others had never been to the prairie, they were still surprised to see the scene in the video of the prairie transforming into sand.

Although there are now large areas of sand and even small deserts in the middle of the prairie, it is very different from the lush grasslands during the Han and Tang Dynasties.

But the scene in the video of large areas of grassland degenerating into sand is still too shocking.

In this situation, how can the Mongols continue to live a pastoral life?
Just as Lao Zhu, Zhu Biao and others were thinking this, the video began to analyze the reasons for the deterioration of Mongolia's environment.

"Who should be blamed for such a huge problem? First, we can blame it on natural disasters, the dry and hot land of the Mongolian Plateau, and global warming."

"Mongolia is located in inland Asia. Although it is only separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Northeast, the East Asian monsoon stops at the Greater Khingan Mountains, Yanshan Mountains, and Yinshan Mountains. Mongolia can only sigh in despair..."

After describing the natural factors that led to the deterioration of Mongolia's environment, the video began to discuss the man-made causes.

"Poor natural conditions can only be partially to blame. In reality, Mongolia's environment has only gradually begun to collapse over the past four decades."

"Along with this, there has been the depletion of agriculture and animal husbandry, the booming mining industry, the extravagant lifestyle of the powerful, and the disorderly expansion of illegal sexual transactions."

"This is a society with serious lack of governance capacity. After mastering modern tools, it is a typical case of everyone from rich to poor plundering all the land!" Seeing this, Lao Zhu and Zhu Biao have some understanding of the reasons for the collapse of Mongolia's environment, but they are still confused about some things.

It is understandable that the environmental collapse is related to overgrazing and mining, but why is it also linked to the "disorderly expansion of sexual trade"?

At this time, the video uses a film and television frame scene to pull the timeline back to forty years ago, and explains in detail why Mongolia has undergone such changes.

Only then did they realize that all this was related to the decline and disintegration of the northern superpower.

Mongolia was originally the pasture of the northern superpower. Seeing that things were not going well, it took the lead in reforming and transforming, and from then on everything was about money.

As a result, people all considered their own interests without considering the overall situation. The country began to lose control and the grassland environment began to collapse.

"With the global popularity of cashmere, selling goat wool is clearly more profitable than selling goat milk or mutton. As a result, the proportion of goats in Mongolia has soared from 18% to 40%. It's profitable, so it's not a bad thing."

"In fact, the so-called 'destroy first, then govern' is almost unavoidable in the economic development of all countries."

"The Ganges River, which we talked about earlier, has also been drained dry by Indians. But we have to admit that the tolerance and resilience of the natural environment to continued exploitation vary from country to country. Monsoon climate zones are more resilient than temperate continental climate zones..."

The video first talks about the damage to the environment caused by overgrazing in Mongolia, and then begins to talk about the damage to the environment caused by the mining industry.

He also used Australia as a comparison, pointing out that the out-of-control and deformed mining industry in Mongolia was due to the implementation of comprador ideas.

After seeing this clip, Zhu Biao was reminded of the video about Egypt’s out-of-control population that he had seen before.

He remembered that it seemed that Egypt's subsequent population crisis was caused by its practice of compradorism in agricultural production and its over-reliance on imports.

The same is true of Mongolia's mining industry today. It seems that the comprador idea is like opium to the country. Although it can bring temporary comfort, it will form dependence and even addiction, and damage the foundation of the country, and eventually cause the country to sink and be doomed.

Zhu Yuanzhang paid different attention to this video.

"How could there be so many copper, gold, silver, and other mineral deposits underground in Mongolia? And what about rare earths, and one-tenth of the world's coal?"

"I used to think this prairie was just grass and sand, and that it was useless to occupy it. I never thought it was such a treasure trove!"

Zhu Yuanzhang originally planned to bring the prairie under his rule to eliminate the threat to the northern border of the Ming Dynasty.

Now this determination has become even stronger.

After talking about the harm that mining industry has done to Mongolia's environment, the video came to an end.

"In short, Mongolia's environment is extremely fragile. The approach of first destroying it and then cleaning it up is likely to lead to irreversible environmental collapse."

"Class antagonism and the polarization between the rich and the poor have exacerbated the mutual harm between society and the environment, as well as within society itself."

"From the grasslands to the Gobi Desert, from the provinces to the capital, from the common people to the powerful, no one was spared."

"Perhaps the only good news is that Mongolia's extremely low population density gives this land some breathing space..."

After the video ended, Zhu Biao and others were still pondering the environmental collapse of the Mongolian Empire in the future, when Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't wait to ask, "Liu Kuan, are the many mineral deposits mentioned in this video easy to mine?"

Liu Kuan pondered and said, "I'm not sure about this either. The ones that are easy to mine are probably only a small part. The majority of them probably require a certain level of industrial capacity to mine."

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said, "It's okay to mine a small part of it. That way, when the Ming Dynasty takes over the grassland, the people there won't have to rely on grazing for a living."

Zhu Biao couldn't help but remind him, "Father, if the Ming Dynasty manages the grasslands, we must also pay attention to some environmental issues and avoid developing into a dire situation like that of later generations."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded, "Of course."

At this time, the narrator Zhu Chong glanced at Liu Kuan and wanted to ask what the "disorderly expansion of surname transactions" was all about. Why didn't the video mention it? But he was worried about getting scolded by Old Zhu, so he suppressed this question in his heart.

By the way, over the past year or so, he, Deng and Guanyinnu have been behaving much better, and perhaps he is not far from regaining his prince status, but he does not want to fail because of a momentary curiosity.

Zhu Yuanzhang discussed with Zhu Biao and others for a few more words, and then said, "Put down a video."

"Yes."

As soon as Lao Zhu spoke, Liu Kuan immediately called up the third video.

When the tablet was put away, Zhu Yuanzhang also saw the video title.

"How did Emperor Wu of Han fire the first shot against the cyclical laws of history?"

Before the video started playing, Zhu Yuanzhang asked, "What does this historical cycle mean?"

This video is actually the focus of Liu Kuan's broadcast today, so he was well prepared for some of the questions that Lao Zhu might mention.

Hearing this, he said, "Your Majesty, the full name of this term is 'Chinese Historical Cycles', which refers to the cyclical phenomenon of dynasties in Chinese history experiencing rise and fall, order and chaos, and repetition."

After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes flashed, and he thought: Could this video involve the strategy of maintaining the country forever?

　Second update.

　　Good night~
　　[Sorry] If there are any obvious incoherence or missing paragraphs, it is likely that they have been censored. Please forgive me.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)