Bringing the Railway to Daming

During the Ming Dynasty, Qufu was located in Yanzhou Prefecture, Shandong Province, just a dozen miles east of the city of Yanzhou, between the Sishui and Yishui Rivers, a fertile land.

When Zhu Yuanzhang, along with Liu Chang'an, Liu Ruoyue, and more than a hundred attendants, got off the train in Yanzhou, several specially made four-wheeled carriages (imperial carriages) had already been prepared.

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't even bother to stroll around Yanzhou City; he boarded a carriage and headed straight for Qufu.

In addition, he wanted to keep a low profile this time, with only three carriages, a hundred guards, twenty or thirty Imperial Guards, and a few eunuchs accompanying him.

As for the Imperial Guard, a small portion of them were indeed stationed in Qufu under the guise of local garrison troops, while the majority were located in the surrounding areas to ensure they could be deployed to provide support at any time.

In fact, the hundred guards around Zhu Yuanzhang alone were extremely powerful in combat – each of them was an elite soldier who had experienced battles, and could even be considered the king of soldiers in the Ming Dynasty.

Nowadays, everyone is equipped with a muzzle-loading rifled flintlock musket, two short flintlock pistols, a hundred-refined steel sword, and the finest soft armor currently available in the Ming Dynasty, which not only protects against arrows and swords, but also provides some protection against muskets.

According to Xu Da, Tang He, and others, Zhu Yuanzhang's guard of one hundred men could defeat local garrison troops of over a thousand, and even several thousand men would not be a problem if supplies were plentiful.

In fact, the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang had three carriages with him was because one of the carriages contained the ammunition supply for the guards, as well as five of the latest tiger crouching cannons!

Therefore, even if the local garrison commander wanted to rebel and was determined to kill Zhu Yuanzhang, he might not have succeeded.

The official road from Yanzhou city to Qufu has also been paved with cement, and the carriages travel at a steady pace.

Inside the car, Liu Chang'an asked, "Grandpa, why do so many people call Confucius the Sage? I heard my father say that Confucius lived nearly two thousand years ago, so why are his descendants still being granted titles of nobility?"

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said, "Chang'an, your first question is a bit big. I can only tell you that Confucius was honored as a sage because he founded Confucianism."

“Since the Han Dynasty, although the Central Plains dynasties have changed many times, the governance of the world—well, to be precise, the consolidation of the people’s hearts and the establishment of social order—has almost always relied on Confucianism.”

Even when the Mongol Yuan dynasty conquered the Central Plains and enslaved the Han people, they still used Confucianism to unite people's hearts and establish social order.

"Think about it, so many dynasties' rulers liked to use Confucianism, doesn't that prove that this school of thought is indeed very useful? Then, shouldn't Confucius, who created this school of thought, be called a 'sage'?"

Liu Chang'an frowned, seemingly understanding but not quite.

Liu Ruoyue, standing next to her, curled her lip and said, "What saint or not, it's just a title."

"Hahaha," Zhu Yuanzhang laughed heartily, "Little Ruoyue sees things clearly; sometimes it really is just a name."

Liu Chang'an stopped dwelling on it and instead asked, "And what about the second question?"

Zhu Yuanzhang countered, "Have you ever considered why our Ming Dynasty allowed the sons of nobles to inherit their ancestors' titles for three generations before gradually demoting them? Before this reform of titles, all titles in our Ming Dynasty were hereditary."

Liu Chang'an asked, "Is it because those people made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty?"

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "The first group of people to be granted titles made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty, which benefited their descendants. Another reason is that the court wanted to use these people as role models to encourage everyone in the country to make contributions to the Ming Dynasty."

"However, the imperial court's conferment of the title of Duke Yansheng on Confucius' descendants was only a side effect. The main purpose was to use the Confucius Mansion as a symbol to show all scholars, well, to be precise, those who study Confucianism, that the imperial court respects Confucianism and will make good use of Confucian scholars."

Liu Chang'an nodded as if he understood, but then couldn't help but say, "But in our school, Confucianism is just a course on par with mathematics and natural sciences."

"If the imperial court treats Confucianism this way, does that mean those who pioneered mathematics and natural sciences should also be considered sages?"

"Hahaha," Zhu Yuanzhang laughed again, "Young man from Chang'an, first of all, the importance that our Ming Dynasty attaches to mathematics and natural science is an influence brought by your father. Before that, all the scholars in the world only respected Confucianism."

"Although some Confucian scholars dabble in mathematics, they all regard it as a minor subject, and even if they learn it well, it is not worth mentioning. As for natural sciences, there was no such concept before."

Liu Chang'an and Liu Ruoyue were both quite surprised to hear this.

The two then looked at each other, and Liu Ruoyue couldn't help but say, "Father is so amazing!"

Zhu Yuanzhang said meaningfully, "Your father came from a later era, unlike other people in the Ming Dynasty, so he was naturally formidable."

After chatting for a while, Liu Chang'an and Liu Ruoyue got a little tired. Seeing that the scenery outside the carriage window wasn't anything special, they started to doze off inside the carriage.

Zhu Yuanzhang, however, was in high spirits and took out "his" binoculars to observe the scene in the fields outside.

After watching for a while, he frowned slightly.

It was wheat harvest season. Although some rice was grown in Yanzhou, wheat was the main crop. Many farmers were busy harvesting wheat in the fields, creating a joyous scene of a bountiful harvest.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang discovered that the wheat here was slightly inferior to what he had seen in Chuzhou and Fengyang.

In addition, the farmers working in the fields wore even more tattered clothes. Many of them were reluctant to wear shirts and worked shirtless, with their trousers patched upon patched.

Most importantly, he could tell at a glance that these farmers were far less energetic than those from Fengyang and Chuzhou; they were also much thinner, some even emaciated! 'Could it be that Yanzhou suffered a disaster last year or this spring? Are the people short of food?'

'I don't recall ever seeing that?'

Zhu Yuanzhang was puzzled.

Seeing that they were only four or five miles away from Qufu County, and a rather large village appeared not far from the official road, Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Stop the car, let's go down and take a look."

The convoy stopped, and Liu Chang'an and Liu Ruoyue instantly woke up and became energetic—the two children, who grew up in the city, still loved following Zhu Yuanzhang into the fields and villages.

The convoy stopped by a pavilion on the official road, and Zhu Yuanzhang, along with his two children, Li Gui, and several guards, walked into the fields. Of course, more plainclothes guards had already entered beforehand, pretending to be idlers scattered around.

Not far along, Zhu Yuanzhang saw an old farmer with white hair and beard leading three young men to harvest wheat in a field by the roadside. Perhaps because of the hot weather, the old farmer was exhausted and sat down on the edge of the field to drink water and rest.

Zhu Yuanzhang walked over and said in Mandarin (Nanjing Mandarin): "Fellow villager, your wheat harvest looks good. How many catties of wheat can you get from this acre?"

Upon hearing this, the old farmer stood up, glanced at Zhu Yuanzhang, and hurriedly bowed, saying, "This humble subject greets this sir."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "I am not an official, so I cannot be addressed as 'Master'. My surname is Huang, so you can just call me Master Huang."

"So it's Master Huang." The old farmer relaxed a bit when he saw that Zhu Yuanzhang was speaking kindly and had two children who looked like golden boys and jade girls with him. He said, "The harvests have been good in the past few years. This year, one mu of land can probably yield two or three hundred jin of wheat."

"It's a pity we can't grow sweet potatoes here, otherwise we could easily harvest nearly a thousand kilograms of sweet potatoes from this plot of land."

Zhu Yuanzhang asked in bewilderment, "Sweet potatoes are not picky about the land and can be grown anywhere. But wouldn't it be a waste to use this good land to grow sweet potatoes? No matter how good sweet potatoes are, they are not as delicious as noodles, are they?"

The old farmer smiled wryly, "Sweet potatoes aren't as tasty as noodles, but the harvest is high, so we won't go hungry."

Zhu Yuanzhang was even more puzzled and asked, "Brother, how many people are in your family? How many acres of land do you own? How can a bumper wheat harvest not be enough to feed you?"

The old farmer said, “I have a lot of family members. Besides my wife, I have four sons and two daughters. As for the land, I rent more than seven acres of land from the head of the clan.”

Zhu Yuanzhang: "Even if there are eight people, seven mu of land should be enough to feed them after paying the land tax, right?"

“We don’t have to pay land tax, only rent.” The old farmer shook his head, then added, “But the rent is higher than the land tax in other places. We pay seven and leave three, and we also have to repay the rent for oxen and farm tools. We have very little surplus grain, and it’s hard to have enough to eat.”

Upon hearing the old farmer's words, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly realized and asked, "Are you renting land belonging to the Kong family?"

The old farmer laughed, “Master Huang is an outsider and doesn’t know that, but within a ten-mile radius of Qufu, almost everyone is a tenant of a large clan, and my family is no exception.”

Zhu Yuanzhang: "Brother, you also have the surname Kong?"

"Yes, going back thousands of years, my family is also a direct descendant, we are all descendants of Confucius."

After listening, Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the old farmer's tanned upper body, where his ribs were clearly visible, his chrysanthemum-like face, and his three equally thin sons in the field. He then stood up and looked at the farmers sweating in the vast golden wheat fields around him, all of whom looked similarly thin. He fell silent for a moment.

Coming to his senses, Zhu Yuanzhang asked, "Brother, tell me honestly, do you think the Confucius family treats you tenants well?"

The old farmer thought for a moment and said, "It's alright. I remember decades ago when the Tartars were still around, people outside couldn't survive, but we still had land to cultivate and food to eat. Although the rent was high, we didn't starve to death."

"Later, the Tartars were driven away by Emperor Hongwu, and everyone's lives improved. The Kong family even reduced the rent from 80% to 70%. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have been able to support my four sons and two daughters."

The old farmer spoke optimistically, but Zhu Yuanzhang felt a little uncomfortable listening to him.

He said, "Even if the rent is reduced to 70%, it's still high. Are you really satisfied with that, brother?"

The old farmer said, "The village teacher said that people should be content and grateful. We used to live off the land rented from the clan elders, and we can't forget our roots just because life is better now."

In the past, Zhu Yuanzhang might have just thought the teacher's words were strange, but after gaining some knowledge from later generations through Liu Kuan, he clearly understood that the teacher was obviously giving the old farmer "ideological education".

There's nothing wrong with ideological education itself. For example, it's perfectly legitimate for him to send people to the army to educate the soldiers on loyalty to the emperor and patriotism.

However, the schoolteacher asked the old farmer to accept the unreasonable high rent set by the Confucius family, which clearly had ulterior motives.

Thinking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang added, “Brother, I’ve heard that there is a lot of wasteland in the west. The local government has been recruiting people to reclaim the wasteland. Once they go there, they can be allocated land. The government will also lend them seeds, farming tools, and even oxen for free.”

"In Jiangnan, many landlords reduced their land rent from 50% to 30% or 40% because tenant farmers went to work in the city and there was a shortage of people to farm."

"Whether you go west, south, or even north, farming is better than staying here. Why don't you take your family and move away, brother?" (End of Chapter)