Bringing the Railway to Daming

This was also the first time that Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and others encountered such a problem. After all, many places in China had already been developed by the Ming Dynasty, and there was no opportunity for "large-scale forest fires."

Even if there were, Chinese dynasties would never do it, because before the value of fuels such as coal and gas was sufficiently developed, firewood has always been one of the essential resources for people's lives.

Who wouldn’t feel sad when such a large forest was burned down?

The video also talks about the many disadvantages of using fires to clear roads and slash-and-burn agriculture.

"The out-of-control fire not only caused air pollution, but also reduced the swamp forest to a scorched earth, depriving plants of their ability to retain water and transpiration. The swamp forest, which used to be flooded to two meters during the rainy season, is now experiencing drought!"

"The Indonesian government, realizing the magnitude of its actions, finally halted its frantic 'super rice project,' but it was too late because the peat swamp forest ecosystem was very fragile and would take hundreds of years to recover."

"Another negative consequence of unscientific development is that it spreads from top to bottom. Following the imperial court's erroneous actions, the relocated farmers followed suit and resorted to primitive slash-and-burn farming to save time..."

Through the video, everyone learned that Indonesia practices slash-and-burn agriculture in the forests of these islands to be developed. In addition to causing serious problems such as soil erosion, it also frequently causes forest fires, bringing smog to the surrounding areas.

After the Indonesian government terminated the immigration development plan, it chose to honestly invest funds and use water conservancy, machinery, fertilizers, and seeds to increase crop yields, which allowed it to barely achieve food self-sufficiency.

But Indonesia's population has continued to grow rapidly, so the food crisis has always hung over the heads of Indonesians.

The video concludes: "In summary, Indonesia's land resources have a high agricultural ceiling, but clearing the rainforest is costly even in modern times and will permanently destroy the rainforest."

“Compared to the ancient Balinese farmers, modern humans undoubtedly possess extremely advanced technology, but the resulting power and arrogance can easily lead decision-makers to ignore the basic laws of nature, resulting in even greater disasters.”

"It can be seen that the growth of a developing country is not only a process of technological application, but also a process of scientific concepts penetrating into social consciousness."

After the video ended, Lao Zhu and others pondered silently for a while.

Zhu Yuanzhang then spoke, sighing, "Through this video, we can see that even after possessing extremely advanced technology, the new dynasty of later generations still respected heaven and earth. This is truly rare."

"In contrast, the later Indonesian imperial court set a negative example. They set fire to the forest for a momentary pleasure, but not only did they fail to cultivate farmland, they also caused damage for hundreds of years."

Even Empress Ma couldn't help but exclaim, "The Indonesian court is really rushing things. It's such a vast forest. How much wood, herbs, firewood, and other useful things are there? And they just burned it all."

Zhu Biao said, "Laozi's Tao Te Ching says: 'Governing a large country is like cooking a small fish.' This is indeed true. In the court of a large country, every move is of great importance. A single misstep can lead to serious consequences."

Zhu Zhen then spoke up, "When I was sent to Luzon on a mission by my father, I had a question: the South Sea islands are all jungles. Logically, the land should be very fertile. Why haven't they been developed much over the years?"

"Now that I've watched this video and combined it with the court's experience in reclaiming wasteland and farming in the two major military regions of Luzon and Hailong over the past few years, I've realized that not all islands in the South China Sea are good places for farming."

"In most places, it's not difficult to reclaim land on a small scale, but it's difficult to reclaim land and support people on a large scale."

Many people nodded slightly after hearing this.

Afterwards, the Zhu family discussed for a while before Zhu Yuanzhang signaled Liu Kuan to play the third video.

After Liu Kuan pulled up the video, he said, "Your Majesty, the next two videos are from the Great Ming Dynasty series that I edited."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Since you think it should be played, then play it."

As soon as Liu Kuan heard it, he knew that Zhu Yuanzhang was hinting to him not to reveal anything related to the "Jingnan Campaign" in the video - but he had to at least watch these videos in advance, and even if there was any information that revealed the Jingnan Campaign, he would edit it out.

Everyone saw the title before the video played.

"There are thousands of doctors in the world, but there is no Li Shizhen anymore—the Shennong of the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese Medicine Saint!"

Shennong? The Medicine Saint?
When they saw these two words, Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and others were slightly stunned.

Although they had thought before that during the two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, there must have been many famous doctors, they had never expected that there would be a figure known as Shennong or the Saint of Medicine.

"In 2007, the World Health Organization issued the International Standard Terminology of Traditional Medicine. This is similar to the Compendium of Materia Medica written by Li Shizhen, the medicine sage of the Ming Dynasty, more than years ago. Both are attempts to standardize traditional Chinese medicine."

"However, the difficulty of writing about a large international organization and an isolated individual is completely different."

"So how did Li Shizhen accomplish this monumental project? What was the significance of revising the Compendium of Materia Medica? Let's delve into the legendary life of the Medicine Saint, Li Shizhen."

The video begins by explaining why Li Shizhen is called the Saint of Medicine, which is because he compiled the "Compendium of Materia Medica".

Although Lao Zhu and others know the difficulty of writing a book, it is difficult to understand it from just these few opening sentences. However, the video then gives a more detailed and in-depth account of Li Shizhen's life.

"Li Shizhen was born in Qi County, Hubei Province, in 1518, during the th year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty. His grandfather was a street doctor, and his father, Li Yanwen, was a renowned local physician who served as a clerk in the Imperial Hospital."

"The Li family's backyard was filled with herbs collected from all over the place. Li Shizhen, who had been with his father since childhood, enthusiastically watered the herbs and cultivated the soil..."

According to the introduction in the video, Li Shizhen can be said to have come from a "medical family". However, it was because his grandfather and father were both doctors that he felt deeply about the low status of doctors. Therefore, when Li Shizhen was a little older, he was allowed to embark on the path of imperial examinations.

Li Shizhen passed the imperial examination when he was young but failed in the exams many times. So when he was in his twenties, he gave up the imperial examination and chose the path of curing diseases and saving lives which was his interest.

He was smart and studious. In just a few years, he inherited his father's medical skills and became a famous doctor in the area.

Because his reputation of curing the illness of Prince Fushun's son spread to Huguang, he was hired by the Prince of Chu into the palace. A few years later, he was recommended by the Prince of Chu to work in the Imperial Hospital.

During this period, Li Shizhen took the opportunity to read a large number of medical books and pharmacopoeias collected by the royal palace and the royal family. He even saw many medicinal specimens that were difficult to find among the people. This broadened his horizons and enriched his knowledge.

But precisely because of this, Li Shizhen discovered that many ancient and modern medical books and pharmacopoeias had different names and descriptions of the same medicine, and many of them were even wrong, which caused trouble for practitioners and could even cause patients to lose their lives.

In addition, Emperor Jiajing at that time favored alchemists and Taoists and was obsessed with refining elixirs. Li Shizhen could not stand it and deeply felt the feeling of serving the emperor like serving a tiger, so he resigned from his official position and returned to his hometown, where he cured diseases and saved lives while compiling the "Compendium of Materia Medica".

"In order to clarify the difficult questions in various medical books and pharmacopoeias, Li Shizhen often went out to search for and taste herbs."

"He once tasted datura in an attempt to identify medicinal herbs, becoming paralyzed and unconscious. He also hunted poisonous scorpions in the fields to test whether mercury could truly prolong life. He visited a hunter's home in the forest to learn about tiger bones, and entered a mine to find a way to prevent mining poisoning."

"In this way, Li Shizhen wore straw sandals and carried a medicine basket on his back, crossing mountains and rivers, visiting doctors and collecting herbs, and his footprints covered Hubei, Hunan, Henan, Hebei, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Anhui and other vast areas..."

In the video, Li Shizhen, played by Huang Haibing, went from a middle-aged man with black hair to an old man with silver hair. It took him 27 years, another 10 years to revise the manuscript, and three times to finally compile the Chinese pharmaceutical masterpiece "Compendium of Materia Medica"!
At the end of the video, it talks about the influence of Li Shizhen and Compendium of Materia Medica on later generations, as well as the various chronologies of him by later generations, and finally gives an objective and fair evaluation.

"Because Compendium of Materia Medica collects a wide range of information, from ancient books and medicinal classics to legends and folk remedies, everything relevant is included. Therefore, some of the content in the book is inevitably inconsistent with modern knowledge and even has a superstitious tone."

"But it was precisely because of Li Shizhen's adherence to the principle of 'nothing used by humans should be lost' that some lost ancient medical books and herbal remedies were preserved through the Compendium of Materia Medica, becoming valuable resources for pharmaceutical research for later generations."

"From this perspective, Li Shizhen is well-deserved to be called the Saint of Medicine!"

After the video was played, the Zhu family was silent for a while, and then Zhu Biao spoke first.

"Including revisions, it took a total of 37 years. It was truly not easy to compile a pharmaceutical masterpiece that will be passed down through the ages with my humble efforts."

"As the video says at the end, even though the Compendium of Materia Medica contains some errors, Li Shizhen is well-deserved of the title of Medicine Saint."

Zhu Yuanzhang asked thoughtfully, "Biao'er, you were in charge of the medical school and hospital before. Have you ever wondered whether today's medical books and pharmacopoeias contain as many contradictions and errors as Li Shizhen discovered?"

Zhu Biao said, "I haven't paid much attention to this, but I think there must be some - even Confucian classics have had some errors after hundreds and thousands of years, let alone medical books and pharmacopoeias that are not as respected as them."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Since this is the case, our Ming Dynasty should organize manpower and material resources to compile a pharmacopoeia similar to the Compendium of Materia Medica to correct the errors in previous medical books and pharmacopoeias."

"It would surely be much easier for the imperial court to do this than for an individual to do it, and it would also be better, right?"

Liu Kuan and Zhu Biao had actually forgotten about this matter when they were handling the affairs of the medical school and hospital.

Upon hearing Zhu Yuanzhang's words, Liu Kuan couldn't help but bow and say, "Your Majesty is wise. The court has compiled this medical and pharmacological classic. It will not only benefit contemporary doctors and patients, but also provide medical research materials for future generations. It can be said that it will benefit the present and benefit future generations!"

"Hahaha," Zhu Yuanzhang laughed happily, "You are becoming more and more proficient at flattering others."

"Biao'er, please make a note of this matter. After the Lantern Festival at the latest, issue an imperial decree to organize personnel to handle it."

At this moment, the King of Zhou, Zhu Su, who had been relatively silent in the crowd, suddenly spoke up: "Father, your Majesty, I have become quite interested in medicine in recent years. I am willing to take your orders and supervise this matter."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang glanced at Zhu Su and hesitated for a moment.

It's not that he thinks Zhu Su is incapable of handling this matter, but Zhu Su is too capable, and supervising this matter makes him feel like he is wasting his talent.

At this time, Liu Kuan spoke again. (End of this chapter)