Bringing the Railway to Daming

Liu Kuan said, "Sending royal children to university would be better, but that would mean their security wouldn't be as good as it is at the Grand Hall. Also, with so many people at the university, it would be difficult to supervise the royal children."

Upon hearing these words, Zhu Yuanzhang frowned, his gray eyebrows furrowing, and fell into deep thought, remaining silent for a moment.

At this point, Liu Kuan added, "In fact, instead of sending the royal children to university with commoners, His Majesty would be better off expanding the Grand Academy, that is, building a real royal school within the capital city."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "If we were to imitate a real school, I'm afraid the number of students would be too small."

Liu Kuandao said, "We can expand the enrollment scope—in addition to the sons of nobles, we can also allow the direct descendants of civil officials of the third rank or above to enroll."

"In addition, the number of royal family members and noble children of three or four generations will inevitably increase significantly, so it should be possible to gather a few hundred people."

"By the way, we can also select dozens of outstanding children from ordinary families in the capital to enroll. This will not only increase the number of students in the royal school, but also allow the royal children to come into contact with children from ordinary families."

Zhu Yuanzhang pondered for a moment, then said, "Your idea sounds good, but I still think it would be better if the royal children could hide their identities and attend regular universities."

"Indeed, each has its advantages and disadvantages; it remains to be seen how His Majesty the Emperor and His Majesty will choose." Having already explained the method, Liu Kuan offered no further advice.

Zhu Yuanzhang changed the subject, saying, "In a few days it will be the third day of the eighth month again, but I wonder if the strange fog will appear this time."

Liu Kuan said, "We'll only know for sure on that day."

Speaking of which, ever since Zhu Yuanzhang decided to wait for the strange fog at the cross-river bridge with Liu Kuan on the third day of the eighth lunar month every year, they had never encountered the strange fog again, except for the first year.

Therefore, although Zhu Yuanzhang still insists on accompanying Liu Kuan across the bridge every year, he is quite depressed, feeling that Heaven is not giving him face.

At the same time, they were losing confidence in encountering the strange fog again.

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Before we knew it, it was the third day of the eighth month of the sixth year of Wenlong (1401).

After having breakfast, Liu Kuan met up with Lao Zhu, and they boarded the cross-river bridge at 7:15.

After having his attendants set out the tables and chairs, Liu Kuan took out his laptop and mobile phone and placed them on the table before chatting with Lao Zhu over tea and snacks.

Zhu Yuanzhang glanced at the wrinkles around Liu Kuan's eyes and his slightly plump figure, and said, "Liu Kuan, if I count on my fingers, you've been in the Ming Dynasty for twenty years, haven't you?"

Liu Kuan said, "I came to the Ming Dynasty on the third day of the eighth month of the fourteenth year of Hongwu (1381), and it has been exactly twenty years now."

Zhu Yuanzhang exclaimed, "In just twenty years, you have brought about earth-shaking changes to the Ming Dynasty!"

Liu Kuan: "Without the support of the Emperor Emeritus and the Emperor, even if I knew what would happen in the future, I would never have been able to do so many things that changed the Ming Dynasty."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Even with our support, it is inconceivable that the Ming Dynasty could undergo such a great change in twenty years."

Today, the Ming Dynasty has built many railways.

From the capital, one can take a train to Beiping, and further north, one can go to Shenyang and Yunzhong (Helin), the capital of the Mobei Province.

The railway from Beiping westward has also connected Datong, Taiyuan, Xi'an, Lanzhou, and Jiayuguan.

In the Central Plains region, there was another railway running south from Beiping, passing through Anyang, Zhengzhou, Yiyang, and then to Wuchang in Huguang.

In addition, several provincial railways were also built in the Jiangnan region of Zhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Sichuan.

Currently, the Daming Railway Bureau is dedicated to building a railway in southern Hubei and Hunan and connecting it with the railway in Guangdong, so as to fully connect the north and south via the Daming Railway.

The next step was to connect the railway in the Sichuan Basin with the outside world—a much greater challenge for the railway engineers and sappers of the Ming Dynasty, and it was hard to say when it would be completed.

As for the construction of cement roads, there was even more.

Although the Ming Dynasty still prohibits private production of cement and does not export cement, there is at least one large government-run cement factory in each province, and the cement produced is distributed by the provincial government.

Even some major cities, such as Yingtian, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Beiping, and Chengdu, had their own government-run cement plants, and the government had a considerable amount of cement at its disposal.

Therefore, there are quite a few cement roads in various provinces today—they certainly can't compare to the cement roads of later generations, but they are definitely not uncommon.

With the development of infrastructure such as railways, official roads, and waterways, transportation in the Ming Dynasty became increasingly convenient. Furthermore, the Ming court no longer suppressed trade and even introduced many policies to encourage it, resulting in a flourishing of commerce. Considering the changes in education, science and technology, and propaganda, Zhu Yuanzhang believed that without Liu Kuan, even if the Ming Dynasty had been given twenty years, or even sixty years, it might not have achieved such significant progress.

Zhu Yuanzhang was lost in thought about these things and didn't realize how much time had passed.

Until I heard a gasp.

"It's getting foggy!"

He quickly looked around and, sure enough, discovered that a thin mist had appeared on the bridge spanning the river.

Beside him, Liu Kuan had already picked up his phone and excitedly exclaimed, "There's a signal! It's the strange fog!"

After saying that, Liu Kuan did not forget to turn on the laptop that had been dormant for a while—as for opening Bilibili later, Zhu Yuanzhang knew how, so he didn't need to worry about it.

Several years had passed since Liu Kuan last encountered the strange fog, so he immediately tried to contact his elder brother via WeChat.

He didn't have high hopes; he was just trying it out casually—unfortunately, no miracle occurred, and his message still couldn't be sent.

Then he started looking at his older brother's WeChat Moments.

After scrolling down quickly for a while, he suddenly froze, his gaze fixed on a post his older brother had made on WeChat Moments five months ago.

This post on WeChat Moments only contains text, as follows:

"On the third anniversary of my father's passing, I brought my family back to my hometown to pay our respects, hoping he rests in peace."

Liu Kuan stared at the post for half a minute before he finally snapped out of it and instinctively continued scrolling down. Unfortunately, his older brother's WeChat only showed posts from the last six months, so he soon couldn't see any more.

He's 47 this year. If his father passed away three years ago, he would have been 81 then...
"Ah~"

Liu Kuan felt very upset, but he couldn't cry or even shed a tear, which made him feel even more suffocated.

He sighed, forced himself to distract himself, and went online on his phone, intending to download some data before the strange fog dissipated.

Following his memory, Zhu Yuanzhang entered Bilibili, and then he was stunned.

He discovered that the layout and appearance of Bilibili's homepage were very different from what they used to be.

Fortunately, although he was old, he was still quite quick to learn and reacted. He quickly recovered and used the video titles and captions to find the video he wanted to watch.

"In several states across the United States, including New York and California, clashes between protesters and police have repeatedly erupted. Numerous robot stores have been vandalized, and even many cleaning robots in the city have been damaged..."

"Musk once again personally participated in the experiment, uploading a backup of his consciousness to the network, and stated that in the near future, humans may be able to achieve immortality in the virtual world by uploading their consciousness..."

"my country has made another breakthrough in nuclear fusion experiments, and it is expected that the world's first practical nuclear fusion power plant will be built between 2050 and 2060..."

"A 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck Kobe, Japan. This is the second major earthquake of magnitude 6 or higher to hit Japan this year, validating geologists' predictions that Japan is entering a period of frequent earthquakes..."

Just by looking at the titles, Zhu Yuanzhang felt he wanted to watch many of the videos.

But he knew he didn't have much time, so he could only download selectively.

When he opened one of the videos, he accidentally clicked on something and was shocked to find that the video image had become very strange—the people and objects in it were distorted, the light was blurry, and it was impossible to watch.

Zhu Yuanzhang hurriedly asked, "Liu Kuan, what's going on here?"

Liu Kuan leaned over for a look and said, "The viewing mode is wrong—nowadays, videos and movies have two modes: VR and nostalgia mode."

"It is estimated that VR displays will be very common by now and in the future, so videos and movies will default to VR viewing mode. If you want to watch in retro mode, you will need to do something special."

After saying that, Liu Kuan selected "nostalgia mode" for Old Zhu, and the video on the laptop immediately returned to normal. (End of Chapter)