"Well, what to plant and what to eat?... Sir! I live in Gyeongsangnam-do, and my family has been working as a ship repairman for generations! I have never farmed, and the masters do not allow us to have land... As for the surrounding villages, Naturally, most of them are rice, but there are also millets... As long as there are no typhoons, floods or droughts, the villagers can still survive and eat rice several times a month..."
The sky gradually darkens, and the sunset glow fills the sky with golden red, echoing the gray snowfield. Thousands of miles away from home, shipwright Kim Sun-shu touched his nose and recalled life in his hometown in North Korea.
The villagers he spoke of were actually the last two classes of ordinary people, white men. As for untouchables who are not considered human beings, they cannot be contacted. He doesn't understand, and he doesn't want to understand. In the Korean countryside he saw, although the fourth class of people was completely solidified and the conflicts between various classes were sharp and abnormal, there was not so much famine, and it was far from the hellish poverty of the Korean countryside!
"Ah? Buddha witnessed it! Villagers in North Korea can actually eat rice every month?!"
Hearing this, Murakami Yimichi and Sukeichiro, who were born in Ezo, looked at each other in disbelief. Seeing the excited reactions of the two people, shipwright Jin Shanshu shrank his neck in fear, nodded and confirmed in a low voice,
"Yes, sir! There are many mountains in the north, and there may be less rice cultivation. I don't know the details... But in all the villages in Gyeongsang Province, outside the villages I saw with my own eyes, there are usually canals to irrigate the fields! Of course! Millet is also grown in the village, but the area planted with rice is much larger... The villagers are busy working in the paddy fields, because the masters let us cultivate paddy fields!..."
"Oh! Unbelievable, really unbelievable! The hometown of the gold boat builder is so rich!..."
"Isn't that right? Ordinary villagers can eat rice several times a month! Then how prosperous their Wu family must be!"
At the end of the 15th century, Lee's Korea was in a period of great prosperity, with a population of about 8 million. Of course, economic prosperity and reactionary rule are not contradictory. Among the 8 million people in the Li Dynasty, half were fourth-class people, and the remaining half were inhuman untouchables and hermits, that is, actual slaves! This proportion of slaves, which is close to half, even exceeds that of the Kingdom of the Lake in the classical military system...
As the most favored and loyal vassal of the Ming Dynasty, the Li family of Korea obtained almost all the farming and handicraft technologies of the Ming Dynasty. In the level of science and technology in the entire Asia, North Korea is second only to the Ming Dynasty, far surpassing the Heguo of this era. Whether it is Korean white porcelain, Korean silk, mining, iron and steel smelting, crop rotation, building canals, or even the shipbuilding technology packaged and obtained from the Ming Dynasty, the Republic of China is jealous and envious, and cannot ask for it. of!
Historically, the ash blowing method of silver mining was invented by the Chinese in the Tang Dynasty and introduced to North Korea in the Song Dynasty. The introduction of the gray blowing method to Heguo had to wait until 1530, and it was introduced from Korea. As for the Ming Dynasty's sea-going ship construction technology, it was strictly blocked by the Republic of China, but it was open to North Korea, and even allowed the North Korean royal family to obtain Guangzhou and small Fuzhou. For example, the construction technology of Gyeongsangnam-do's ocean-going ships was better than that of Han Dynasty's ships for at least one era, and it was also learned from the Ming Dynasty...
"Haha! Murakami-kun, Sukeichiro, you have never been to Korea. You don't know... there are no samurai families in Korea, and there are no decent samurai! They have military households, which are families that have been in the military for generations..."
"Eh?! Lord Watanabe, a family that has been in the military for generations? Isn't that the Samurai family?"
"Ha! How can the military households of North Korea be compared with the samurai families of our country? The samurai families of our country can decide everything in the territory! The military households of Korea are poor farmers who carry spearheads, similar to the ashigaru in the countryside. Even worse than…”
"Ah! Can such a military household also fight? Then the guards in North Korea are not afraid of being attacked by other guards? I heard that North Korea is still close to the evil Yuan Kou!..."
"Well...North Korea doesn't have the guardians of each country, there is only one king of the Li Dynasty. As for the evil Yuan Kou..."
Watanabe Masumi, a monk soldier, touched his bald head and looked at the shipwright Jin Shanshu.
"Jin Shipyard, what will happen if the evil Yuan Kou invades Korea?"
"Ah? The terrifying man-eating Yuan invaders invaded? What should I do?...How can a young shipwright know about the affairs of the gentlemen? However, I do remember an unforgettable old incident..."
"Huh? What old things?..."
“More than twenty years ago, the Ming Dynasty’s Great Fengzhou came across the sea twice to enthrone King Sohyo (Ruijong) and King Gonghyo (Seongjong). It also docked at the port of Gyeongsang Province and asked the shipwrights to help With simple repairs... Oops! That Fengzhou is a real big ship, as big as twenty ocean-covering ships, with an estimated four to five thousand materials. It is like an island floating on the sea! It is said that this kind of boat is called a 'big fortune ship', and It’s called a ‘treasure ship’!…It’s really an eye-opening ship, a huge ship!…”
"What? Twenty Ming Dynasty treasure ships as big as ocean-covering ships? Buddha bless you! Are there really such big ships?!"
"Yes! Yes! Guanyin in white bears witness!... I saw that ship with my own eyes, and I will never forget it in my life!..."
Shipwright Jin Shanshu talked about old things and recalled the treasure ship he saw twenty years ago, with deep unforgettable and longing on his face. As a shipwright, he knows what a good ship is, how difficult it is to build a good ship, and how difficult it is to build a huge good ship! The treasure ship he saw when he was young was almost the pinnacle of his imagination and haunted him repeatedly in his dreams. The awe of the Ming Dynasty was also deeply engraved in his memory along with the treasure ship that covered the sky and the sun!
However, he did not know that the canonization of the King of Korea more than 20 years ago was the last glory of Zheng He's treasure ship. During the Chenghua period more than ten years ago, in order to prevent Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty from returning to Nanyang and to prevent the resumption of official Nanyang trade, civil servants from the central and southeastern provinces of the DPRK rarely joined forces.
Liu Daxia, a charioteer in the Ministry of War, burned the archives of Zheng He's voyages to the West, destroyed the treasure ship atlas, and some said he hid them, but in any case, he erased all the records. The Nanjing Longjiang Bao Shipyard, which was affiliated to the Ministry of War and built treasure ships, was also ordered to be abandoned by Xiang Zhong, then Minister of War, and thousands of shipwrights of various types were immediately dispersed. At this time, outside Nanjing, only the Nanjing Longjiang Shipyard, which was affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and was responsible for building ordinary ships with a weight of less than 400 pieces, was left...
"The treasure ship...the great fortune ship!...is forty-four feet long and eighteen feet wide, has five thousand materials, can carry a thousand people, and has nine masts at the front and rear...it is a nine-masted ship! And such a huge ship is actually one An hour can travel thirty miles!…The Ming Dynasty’s treasure ship is truly the best ship that has ever existed!…”
Shipwright Jin Shanshu raised his head, puffed out his chest, and talked excitedly about the treasure ship for a while. Then, he looked at the shocked, doubtful and unbelievable expressions of the three people around him, and couldn't help but slowly lowered his head, hunched over and whispered back.
"Oh! When we were maintaining the treasure ship, the two gentlemen said, 'You must serve the Ming Dynasty's envoy well! No matter what the envoy orders, you must do it at any cost!'... When he said this , The two groups of great men who have always been high in the sky have never been more cautious and cautious than before, even more so than when talking about King Zhaoxiao..."
"The gentlemen also said that as long as the envoys of the Ming Dynasty are satisfied, no matter what they like, even the daughters of middle-class gentlemen, they will be sent there!...'The Ming Dynasty is the heaven and king of Korea! As long as it is the heaven and the king of Korea! To satisfy the Great Ming Dynasty, even if the sky of North Korea falls, the Great Kingdom will hold it up! Even if the Yuan invaders invade again, there will still be the heavenly soldiers of the Great Kingdom to help us fight back!'..."
"So, Guanyin in White testifies! Mr. Watanabe, you asked before what to do if the Yuan invaders invaded? Well, I think, maybe, probably, what you said is right... The heavenly soldiers of the Ming Dynasty have such big ships, You will definitely help us fight back Yuan Kou!..."
