Weng Tonghe was still a little vain at heart. He was indeed very concerned about Emperor Tongzhi's education, and he also boasted that he had made great contributions to education. Hearing the praise from Master Baojun and other adults, he became a little arrogant.
"Ouch... This isn't very good! I'll wait for my ministers to come up with a plan and let His Majesty judge whether it works or not..."
"Oh, my Lord Weng, it's not like you don't know His Majesty's temper. Now that you are in high spirits, won't you have to be crowned king by His Majesty's decree?"
"At this juncture, if you, a teacher, don't try to persuade me, why should I leave it up to your majesty? Your majesty will still listen to you!"
A group of people deceived one person. Weng Tonghe was a little impulsive when he continued to study and cultivate his character. "Well, in that case, I will go there..."
Weng Tonghe handed over a sign at Yangxin Gate asking to see His Majesty. Of course, Zai Chun did not keep the emperor's master waiting for too long. Soon the eunuch led Weng Tonghe into Xinuang Pavilion to see Emperor Tongzhi.
As soon as he entered Xinan Pavilion, he saw Zai Chun lying in front of a brand new huge map. He kept using a magnifying glass to look at the geographical graphics of mountains and rivers. There was a piece of paper beside him with dense numbers on it. It seemed that he was calculating something.
"Master Weng is here? Please give me a seat... No need to kowtow. This is not a big court meeting!"
Weng Tonghe stood by the table with a sticky beard and looked at the map. After looking at it for a while, he suddenly realized that he had never seen this map before. "Your Majesty! Where is this map? Why is it different from our Qing Dynasty map? This is the province. Map?"
"Yes, this is the map that the Chinese Embassy's special envoy Cai Bixia just sent to the palace! The Chinese surveying and mapping personnel spent four years and risked their lives to survey and map the Western Regions!"
"Master Weng, look at it. Many places are not detailed. Those were the territories where Agubai originally occupied. There are also marginal areas in northern Xinjiang, but they are already very detailed..."
"In larger villages and towns, rivers and paths are well documented! It would have been much easier if Zuo Jigao had had such a map to carry with him into the war!"
"Your Majesty! I would like to advise you... The mountains and terrain of the Qing Dynasty cannot be allowed to be explored so unscrupulously by the Chinese. If things continue like this, what secrets do we have in the Qing Dynasty?"
Zai Chun smiled bitterly after hearing this, "Of course I know this truth, but it's not possible. We are not very capable and cannot produce such an accurate map, but it still needs to be used for military purposes. What can I do..."
"Let's just talk about the Beijing-Tianjin Railway. Why is it being built so fast... It's not because the Chinese have already mapped out where to take the route and where to build bridges several years in advance..."
"Which places are low-lying, which places are too high...even the earthwork that needs to be excavated and paved has been calculated on the engineering drawings!"
"We don't have to bother at all and just follow the diagram to achieve such efficiency... People have to bow their heads under low eaves!"
Weng Tonghe sighed, "I know this too, but what about the safety of the country? We have to think about it..."
"I still don't know the safety of the country? But this Chinese surveying and mapping is not a matter of a day and a half. If we could have stopped it, we would have stopped it long ago!"
"They had already started surveying and mapping before I took charge. Master Weng...did you stop them at that time? You could stop them openly, but could you stop them secretly?"
Weng Tonghe, who was speechless, was speechless. He suddenly remembered the letter written to him by a disciple who was a local official a few years ago.
There is one thing mentioned there. In Xiangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou and other places, there are often wealthy people in the world who secretly contact bandits or ethnic minority villages in the mountains.
Use some muskets, ammunition, machine-forged knives, lanterns, foreign oil, foreign goods... these rare Chinese industrial products as gifts to build relationships.
After these powerful people build good relationships, they will protect a group of very strange Chinese teams, with five or six people in each team, and more than ten people, who will enter the mountains with strange equipment.
This disciple of Weng Tonghe had stayed in Shanghai and had some experience. He knew that these were surveying and mapping teams, which came to measure the height of the mountains and the depth of the water. When these data were gathered together, it was unclear what the Chinese were doing.
What can be done? It means drawing, which means drawing the most precise military maps. There are even geological talents in these teams, and prospecting is also one of their jobs.
Xiao Letian had already begun to secretly touch upon the family wealth of the Qing Dynasty a long time ago. Of course, in Xiao Letian's heart, what he was touching was the vast family wealth of China.
Emperor Tongzhi saw that the master was a little silent, and felt that what he had just said was a bit harsh. He put down the magnifying glass in his hand and said with a smile, "Master Weng didn't come to see me to read a map, right? What do you want to say?"
"Oh! Oh...that's it. The Military Aircraft Department has been discussing Zuo Jigao's knighthood and the reward for the 100,000 troops. After talking for a long time, there is no result..."
"I came to see Your Majesty because I want to ask Your Majesty to clarify how you will reward this army that conquers the west."
Zai Chun's expression became serious, "Yes! How to reward is really a problem. There is an army of one hundred thousand. Even if one person is rewarded with one hundred taels of silver, that's ten million! It's not a small amount of money..."
"That's right! The empire's finances are tight. It's really hard to come up with ten million. Your Majesty, let's see if it can be a little less."
Zai Chun shook his head firmly, "Absolutely not less! The army conquered such a large area of the Western Region. How much money does this land cost? Well...have you calculated how much money it is worth?"
"Don't talk about 10 million, even if you reward them with 30 million, it is only right!"
"Those battalions stationed in the beautiful mountains and rivers of the Central Plains will cost the court tens of millions of taels of silver if they don't fight all year round, not to mention these heroes!"
Weng Tonghe immediately gritted his teeth and said, "Oh... but where does this money come from? Although Your Majesty has money in your private treasury, you still need money to build factories, and the national treasury is really out of money!"
Zai Chun looked at the map and said coldly, "We have to give money, but we can give it in batches. The reward money will be allocated in three to five years!"
"But we have other things that can be rewarded! That is the land of the Western Regions..."
"The border guards must be cultivated. In the past, the land cultivated belonged to the imperial court. Now let's change the rules... As long as the soldiers are guarding the border, we will first reward each of them with a hundred acres of land!"
"I don't care whether I can grow it or not, but at least give the land deed to others! The Western Region is vast and sparsely populated, and it has just experienced war, so there is a lot of barren land!"
"Take back all the ownerless land and give it to our soldiers who are stationed and guarding the border!"
"People have put their roots down somewhere, so they can't not even give them a little bit of property!"
"Ah... one person has one hundred acres of land? So much..." Weng Tonghe's mind was still a little rigid, so he compared the land in the Western Regions with the Central Plains.
"Haha...Master Weng! Take a good look at this picture. The Western Region is so big and different from the Central Plains. What this land lacks is people! Not land..."
"Here, even if one person is given two hundred acres, it's no problem. I'm afraid he won't be able to plant more if he is given too much!"
