Bringing the Railway to Daming

Zhu Yunwen was thirty years old at this time, with a short mustache, and still gave people the feeling of a scholar-general.

He carefully supported Zhu Yuanzhang's arm as they walked slowly through the garden. The spring sunshine warmed both grandfather and grandson.

"How many warships are in your immigrant fleet?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked.

"Reporting to Your Majesty, there are only three warships in total. The flagship, Yu Du, is an ironclad warship with a capacity of five thousand men, powered by both sails and steam, and with a double deck."

"The remaining two are both sailing warships with a deck of over three thousand liang each. There are no countries with navies in the land where I established my fief. If it weren't for the safety considerations of the tens of thousands of miles of sea voyage, I wouldn't have even planned to have warships."

Zhu Yuanzhang understood the meaning of Zhu Yunwen's explanation and nodded with a smile: "The place where you established your fiefdom does not need a navy—even if there are disputes with anyone at sea in the future, it will probably be several decades later."

"What about other aspects? Have all the immigrants been recruited?"

Zhu Yunwen said, "Nowadays, the people of the Ming Dynasty still yearn to develop overseas. Therefore, although the place where I establish my fief is far away, I have still managed to recruit enough immigrants to number five thousand."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, “I’ve heard that the seasons in South America are the opposite of those in our Ming Dynasty. When you go there, you can visit your second uncle and ask him for advice on farming, or ask him to lend you a few experienced farmers who are familiar with the local seasons.”

'That's a good idea,' Zhu Yunwen thought to himself.

He was also a little surprised – he came purely to visit Zhu Yuanzhang, but he didn’t expect that Zhu Yuanzhang, who was so old, could still give him good advice.

This naturally made him admire him even more.

Unfortunately, this trip means he will probably never see his grandfather again.

Zhu Yunwen stayed with Zhu Yuanzhang in Fengyang for three days before leaving.

After returning to the capital, he met with Zhu Xiong Ying and Empress Lü, bid them farewell, and then took three warships to Shandong to join the immigrant fleet before setting sail for South America.

In fact, a few years ago, the Ming Dynasty's Pacific exploration fleet had already explored the South Pacific route, but because it had only made two or three trips, the safety of the route was not yet fully guaranteed, and the settlement and supply stations were not yet fully established. Therefore, Zhu Yunwen still chose to take the North Pacific route.

Although the voyage would take more than six months, there were numerous supply depots and Ming Dynasty garrisons along the way, so unless they were extremely unlucky, the fleet would be largely safe...
Also in the spring of March, after repeated questioning from Zhu Huilan and Su Caiwei, Liu Ruoxue finally explained the situation between her and Liang Qiushi. It turned out that the two were getting along quite well and were ready to take the next step.

So, Liu Ruoxue first brought Liang Qiushi to the Ningguo Duke's Mansion to meet Liu Kuan, Zhu Huilan, and Su Caiwei. Soon after, Liang Qiushi's parents also came to the capital to meet Liu Kuan and the others, and the two were engaged.

Then, the process followed the customs of the Ming Dynasty at that time—betrothal, asking the name, accepting auspicious gifts, presenting betrothal gifts, and setting the wedding date.

Liu Kuan didn't worry much about these matters; Zhu Huilan and Su Caiwei were responsible for discussing and negotiating with the Liang family.

However, Liu Kuan made one request: that the Liang family buy a house for Liang Qiushi in the capital, and that Liu Ruoxue and Liang Qiushi mainly live in the capital after their marriage, rather than in the Liang family's ancestral home in Hangzhou.

At this point, if the woman were to make such an "excessive" request, the man would naturally not agree—these days, who would live alone after marriage instead of with their parents? How could they be considered unfilial to their parents and in-laws?

Although society is much more open now, filial piety is still a virtue that is recognized and valued by the whole nation. Anyone who is labeled as unfilial will not have a good time in their work or life.

However, Liu Ruoxue was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Ningguo, and it was also a fact that both Liang Qiushi and Liu Ruoxue worked in the capital. In addition, Liang Qiushi's parents did not need their children to serve them, and Liang Qiushi also had brothers and sisters who stayed in Hangzhou to take care of their parents. Therefore, Liang Qiushi's parents agreed to the condition without hesitation.

Although housing prices in the capital are high now, Liang Qiushi's family can still afford it—in fact, Liang Qiushi's family already owns a villa in the capital.

However, considering that the house would serve as both their new home and their future residence, the Liang family spent several hundred thousand strings of cash to buy a large five-courtyard mansion in the inner city. The Liang family spent a considerable sum on their son's wedding, and Liu Kuan was even more generous with his eldest daughter's dowry, which ultimately totaled over three million strings of cash!

However, the total assets of the Ningguo Duke's Mansion had already exceeded 100 million guan, so giving Liu Ruoxue a dowry of more than 3 million guan was not much.

With everything prepared, on an auspicious day in May of the second year of the Yongle reign, Liu Kuan's eldest daughter, Liu Ruoxue, was married.

In the same year, his eldest son, Liu Ping'an, also successfully completed his postgraduate studies at the Academy of Natural Sciences and directly joined the Academy of Natural Sciences as an "ordinary" researcher.

Not long after, on an auspicious day in October, Liu Ping'an married his sweetheart, Tu Susu, a junior from his school.

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The seventh day of the fourth month in the third year of the Yongle reign (1408).

The capital city, Fengxian Hall.

Zhu Xiong Ying, who was thirty-five years old, had a rather thick short beard and sat on the dragon throne with an imposing presence.

Suddenly, he slammed a secret document on the table and roared, "How dare you! You are truly audacious!"

Crown Prince Zhu Wenyao, who was sitting at a table on one side of the hall reviewing memorials, was startled and asked, "What has caused Father to be so angry?"

Zhu Wenyao is now fourteen years old, fifteen by the traditional Chinese age reckoning—he completed his course at the Great Hall last June. Following Zhu Xiong Ying's educational path, his next step should have been to gain military experience.

However, Zhu Xiong Ying felt that Zhu Wen Yao was still too young, and it would be neither safe nor effective for him to gain experience in the army.

So they let Zhu Wenyao observe politics in the capital for two years, and then send him to the army for training when he turned sixteen.

Therefore, Zhu Wenyao now spends his days in the Fengxian Hall accompanying Zhu Xiong Ying in handling government affairs—Zhu Xiong Ying only allows him to view various memorials and ask questions, but does not allow him to approve them.

Zhu Xiong Ying said, "Isn't the Yellow River diversion project about to be completed? So we sent several groups of censors selected from the Censorate to conduct open and covert investigations to understand the progress and quality of the project."

"Who would have thought that after conducting an undercover investigation, one of the censorate groups discovered that there were many instances of abuse of power and private deals in the project, which might even have affected the quality of the project!"

"How can we not be furious that such a massive project as changing the course of the Yellow River has resulted in corruption?!"

Zhu Wenyao was also surprised to hear this, and then asked in confusion, "Father, with so many eyes in the court watching the Yellow River diversion project, how could anyone still abuse their power for personal gain and take the opportunity to be corrupt? How did they manage to do that?"

Zhu Xiong Ying pondered for a moment, then a cold glint flashed in his eyes. "With so many eyes watching, this still happened. That means there's something wrong with all those eyes."

At this moment, Zhu Xiong Ying was both angry and shocked.

He began assisting Zhu Biao in handling political affairs when he was a teenager, and he also received a lot of guidance from Zhu Yuanzhang. He knew that corruption was difficult to eradicate, and corrupt officials were like mud on a person's body, which could not be completely removed and would grow back with the wind.

However, the Yellow River diversion project was not only overseen by several censors, but also by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, yet this incident still occurred. This undoubtedly shows that even the Embroidered Uniform Guard was corrupt!
The fact that even the Embroidered Uniform Guard, which is specifically tasked with dealing with corrupt officials, has become corrupt suggests that there may be far more corruption and bribery in the Ming Dynasty than he knows!

How could Zhu Xiong Ying not be alarmed?
I'm even a little scared!
He was ambitious and wanted to take the Ming Dynasty to new heights, but after several years in power, corruption in the Ming Dynasty was getting out of control. How could he not be afraid?
If he had discovered this a few years later, there might have been even more corrupt officials in the government and the country, and they might have even banded together and become difficult to govern.

Thinking of this, Zhu Xiong Ying's expression grew even colder, and he immediately said, "Summon Mu Su, the Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard!" (End of this chapter)