Food is fundamental.
No matter how wealth changes, there must be enough food for people to survive.
If you can't even provide basic food, money will naturally have no meaning.
On this point, Zhu Ying has always been very clear in her heart.
Three high-yielding crops, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn, are constantly spreading. According to the current situation, basically all provinces across the country have a considerable area for cultivation.
On this basis, Zhu Ying has not stopped for the expansion of rice.
Among them, water conservancy facilities are constantly expanding, especially in water diversion.
Nowadays, the Ming Dynasty can be considered to have abundant soldiers. Criminals no longer have the option of being sent to the army. After being uniformly sent to prison for rehabilitation, they will serve their sentences.
The number of death row prisoners is also constantly decreasing. According to today's sentencing laws and regulations, most death sentences in the past were basically punished with a fixed period of fifty years of hard labor.
This made the entire prison system suddenly become more prosperous.
A large number of prison factories are constantly emerging. Skilled craftsmen from the Qunying Chamber of Commerce will provide basic teaching, and then they will open factories everywhere.
For example, the largest prison in Nanjing now has more than 30,000 prisoners.
These more than 30,000 people worked in prison breweries, garment factories, paper mills, printing factories, etc.
Apart from food and clothing, there are no other expenses.
And the cost is also reduced on a large scale.
For example, the Jingshi Di Newspaper, which was losing money before, is now not saying it has turned a loss into a profit, but there is not much of a loss-making price difference anymore.
The labor is so fast, it directly saves 50% of the cost.
All provinces are copying the methods of Nanjing Prison, setting up many factories under their banners, all for these prisoners to work.
When it came to growing food, Zhu Ying directly set strict targets for each prison.
A sufficient amount of rice fields must be cultivated before other factories can be opened to make money.
It has to be said that under current circumstances, the prison system has really begun to create a lot of income for the Ming Dynasty.
From another perspective, it seems that the prison itself has become a bigger landlord, but in fact this method of punishing people with labor is highly recognized by the people.
Because food and accommodation are included.
In an era when you can't even eat, you might as well go to prison to serve your sentence. If nothing else, at least you won't starve to death.
In today's Ming Dynasty, at least more than 80% of the people feel the feeling of starvation. The feeling of extreme hunger is that they really want to take a bite of everything they see.
Needless to say, in the current prison system, there are indeed many people who are trying to exploit prisons. Many of them deliberately commit crimes and want to stay in prison.
For such people, the prison basically accepts all comers.
In the final analysis, it is the high-yielding crops that give us the confidence.
Sweet potatoes are too filling.
It only requires a small amount of rice and a few pieces of sweet potato, and even the porridge is extremely sticky and can satisfy hunger.
In the current prison system, there are also two meat meals a year.
They were on the two days of Zhengdan and His Majesty's birthday respectively.
With such good conditions, some former wanted criminals simply surrendered, saving thirty years of detours.
On the capital side, a resolution was unanimously passed regarding the establishment of a grassland military base.
Even many ministers are very optimistic about this plan.
You must know that in the tribute trade, the Ming Dynasty spent a lot of money every year to appease the surrounding border troubles.
The nine sides of the Ming Dynasty are even more important.
With the grassland embargo imposed by Zhu Ying, the mutual trade at the border was equivalent to cancellation.
But the war horses on the grassland cannot be left alone.
It used to be a pack of tea cups and a war horse.
Now that trade is not allowed, the Ming Dynasty's income will be much less.
Now that the grassland military base is established, it can achieve the acquisition of grassland war horses to a large extent, and can also raise many cavalry.
It is absolutely feasible to use the cavalry from the grassland to conquer the grassland.
The main thing is to look at the specific operation.
However, with the backing of the border and the recent suppression and defeat of Bei Yuan, the initial stage should be very smooth.
With the advent of deep winter, the grasslands are basically covered with heavy snow, and there is no need to think about fighting.
The absorption of the grassland population is an important work direction of the Ming Dynasty Border Gate in the current winter.
Based on Jiubian, food from the inland side is constantly transported to the border, including a lot of clothing to keep out the cold and charcoal for heating.
To protect people's livelihood.
During the battle between Daming and Beiyuan.
The Timur Empire was not idle either.
It was this year, at the end of the twenty-sixth year of the Ming Dynasty, that news about Timur's empire finally reached the capital.
This year Timur conquered Persia.
At the same time, Timur has been in a winning streak in terms of the use of troops against the Golden Horde and Eastern Chagatai Khanates.
A large amount of land was continuously captured by Timur, and his momentum was extremely overwhelming.
The surrounding small countries were all trembling.
Unlike the Ming Dynasty, Timur's method of conquest was the Mongolian method, which was similar to Genghis Khan's.
Often after a city is broken, a massacre will be carried out.
This left a shadow of fear for the people of many countries. Often, some cities would surrender directly when encountering Timur's army.
Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't know much about Timur, just because it was a distant country that was the first to recognize the Ming Dynasty's orthodox status, and Timur treated Zhu Yuanzhang with the humble attitude of a courtier.
This point was written very clearly in the credentials submitted to Ming Dynasty.
So I have a good impression.
At present, Timur's territory has actually been integrated with the Western Regions.
It's just that the situation in the Western Region is complicated and there are many small countries, so when Timur conquered the Western Region, he stopped his march eastward and turned to the west.
Timur felt that he could not be at odds with Ming for the time being.
It's just that Zhu Ying has been in the Western Regions for a long time and has a large territory. In terms of Timur's intelligence, it is more accurate.
In the Huagai Palace, Zhu Yuanzhang summoned the Minister of Rites and asked, "Has Timur paid tribute this year?"
The Minister of Rites quickly replied: "Your Majesty, Timur has not paid tribute this year except Prince Pi'erma Heima."
Zhu Yuanzhang nodded slightly.
After seeing the current intelligence about Timur's empire, Zhu Yuanzhang felt threatened.
So he called Da Sun here again.
"Dasun, is the situation in Timur's empire really as reported in the intelligence? Today's Timur has a territory not much smaller than ours?"
Since ancient times, the feeling of being number one in the Central Plains has been deeply engraved in everyone's heart.
But now that Zhu Yuanzhang knows that Yuuszang, Tamerlane, which borders the Western Region, is about the same size as the Ming Dynasty, the situation is completely different.
Zhu Ying nodded and said, "It was much worse before, but this year Timur has captured Persia, and it is indeed much larger than our Ming Dynasty in terms of territory."
"The foundation where Timur is now located is the former Western Chagatai Khanate. Now Timur is not called a Khan because he is not a descendant of Genghis Khan, but his ambitions are extremely high."
"Over in the Western Region, businessmen who have been to Timur's territory all know that the person he admires the most is Genghis Khan Temujin. In addition, Timur is now so powerful that he has millions of cavalry under his command. The nations are swept away and invincible.”
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he thought for a moment and then said: "So, what is said in this intelligence is that there are many more domestic post stations than our Ming Dynasty, is it true?"
This is the position that Zhu Yuanzhang is most worried about.
Who else has a clearer understanding of the role and role of the post station than Zhu Yuanzhang.
"Earlier, didn't Pi'er Ma Heima bring the cement recipe to Timur? What's the feedback now?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked after thinking for a while.
According to what Da Sun said before, the cement formula will make Timur's internal conflicts more acute.
Zhu Ying nodded: "There is indeed news that Timur is now catching slaves and driving them to build new cement roads."
"I think a large number of cement roads have been built in Timur's territory."
"Now that Timur has gained Persia, his campaign in the Golden Horde and Eastern Chagatai Khanate has stopped, and a large number of soldiers have been transferred back. According to what his grandson has seen, he is accumulating strength and wants to We are going to attack Southern Tianzhu.”
"Southern Tianzhu is located in a rich area. Genghis Khan once almost conquered South Tianzhu."
"It seems that Timur wanted to complete Genghis Khan's unfinished journey and conquer Southern Tianzhu in one go."
"Timur has great ambitions, and his continuous victories lead him forward. His ambition is obvious. After he captures southern Tianzhu, he will most likely launch an eastern expedition and want to invade our country, the Ming Dynasty."
Zhu Yuanzhang nodded and said: "He will definitely have the intention to conquer the East in the future, so he must be on guard. The grassland military base established by Da Sun is the best way to stop him. We want to see if Timur is really there. The courage invades our Ming Dynasty."
"We want to send a team of envoys to Timur's side, and we just want to see what's going on there. What does Grand Sun think?"
Historically, the news that the Persian Empire was destroyed by Timur was only known to Zhu Yuanzhang two years later. It was at that time that Ming envoys were sent to find out the truth.
The final result was that the Ming Dynasty envoys were detained.
In the 30th year of Hongwu, the Ming envoys sent to Timur for the second time were detained again and suffered abuse.
Only then did Ming Dynasty know Timur's sinister intentions.
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang had already passed away and there was no news from Timur.
After being detained for five years, Timur launched the Eastern Expedition in the name of Zhu Di's unfair accession to the throne, and then died on the way to the Eastern Expedition.
"My grandson also thinks it is okay. Timur's territory is expanding more and more, and now it is constantly causing wars on the grasslands. My grandson heard that it is constantly expanding to the west, winning continuously all the way."
"When it becomes stronger, it will definitely target our Ming Dynasty. When it comes to wealth, our Ming Dynasty should be number one in the world."
"It must first devour small countries to strengthen itself, and then attack our Ming Dynasty."
Zhu Ying said very directly.
Zhu Yuanzhang once had a good impression of Timur. After all, Timur was extremely surrendered to the Ming Dynasty.
In fact, in Zhu Ying's view, the reason why Timur surrendered so much was mainly because of Meng Yuan.
The Mongolian Yuan Dynasty itself was once extremely arrogant on the grasslands, and Timur was also born during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty.
At that time, although the grassland was divided into several khanates, the influence of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty covered the entire grassland. For Timur, such a powerful Mongolian Yuan Dynasty was finally expelled by the Ming Dynasty.
According to the custom of worshiping the strong on the grassland, Timur was naturally the first to express his surrender.
And at least a distant military alliance can be formed, which will not be curbed by Ming Dynasty in many aspects.
The Uzang commander was connected to Timur.
Even if the Western Region is only nominally surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, at least on the surface, it will not directly provoke the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty's Uzangdu Command in the Western Regions seemed to only have so many people, but in fact it was able to drive the natives from all sides to submit to the Ming Dynasty in the name of unity.
As long as a partial benefit is given, or a discount is given during mutual trade, these indigenous tribes who usually have a hungry meal will not hesitate to raise their knives and wave them at the enemies of the Ming Dynasty.
The Delhi Sultanate near Timur was also influenced to a great extent by the command of Uzzandu.
If the two united, it would be an extremely troublesome thing for Timur. At least he would not be able to advance westward with all his strength, and would have to divide his troops to defend himself.
But if Timur surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, then it would not be possible to say that he was attacked in name.
It is impossible for the entire Western Region to integrate a large amount of force to fight against Timur. As long as Timur does not take the initiative to invade, then there is no need to worry too much here.
Even now, when Timur is mobilizing troops against the Golden Horde and the Eastern Chagatai Khanate at the same time, the Uszangdu Command will not take the initiative to attack Timur without receiving an order from the capital. A confrontation.
This is undoubtedly an excellent scene for Timur.
From this aspect, it can be seen that Timur was extremely thoughtful. In his credentials to the Ming Dynasty, he almost completely reflected a loyal minister and gave the Ming Dynasty a high face.
If Zhu Ying hadn't pointed out Timur's vast territory, extremely strong military strength, and continuous ambition to attack other countries, Zhu Yuanzhang would naturally not have said that he regarded Timur as an enemy.
It's just that the Ming Dynasty is different from other countries. Even the weaker Song Dynasty can resist the more powerful Genghis Khan's army for decades, let alone the Ming Dynasty, which is now at the peak of its military force.
Meng Ge died on the land of the Central Plains. Although Timur was very powerful, if he really wanted to fight against the Ming Dynasty, he had to consider the consequences clearly.
Will he be dragged to death by Ming Dynasty?
The strong cities and walls in various regions of the Ming Dynasty are not those of the small countries of Oparo. It is often more difficult to conquer a city than to conquer more than ten small countries of Oparo.
(End of chapter)
