When Zhu Yaofei saw this, he could already guess how the Ming Dynasty that he had rebuilt collapsed!
He was silent for a while, but chose to continue browsing. But the title of the next chapter was a bit beyond his expectation.
The name of the next chapter is actually: Together we can rule the prosperous times!
When the Guards became more and more dangerous, and when the rules of concubine women's rights were gradually destroyed, the glorious Ming Dynasty did not collapse immediately, but ushered in a prosperous era of co-governance that the Chinese people of later generations were fascinated by.
Co-governance was the reign name of the weak Zhu Zhongtong, and it was also the political foundation of this glorious era.
This co-governance, of course, first of all is the co-governance of the emperor and the empress. This is the highest power operation mode initiated in the Zhu Hexing era. In the era of Zhu Zhongtong and his queen Zheng Li, it was still maintained.
Although Zhu Zhongtong was graceful and weak, he was not a fool. He was also well-educated. He was a top student who graduated from Taixue University. He was already 28 years old when he came to the throne. He had previously served as a county magistrate, magistrate, governor, Yingtian Prefecture Yin, and also served as a minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. He is very familiar with the politics of the Ming Empire, and he is not a child who grew up in a palace and has never seen the world.
The more powerful Queen Zheng Li, although not selected by examination, is still very good and well-educated. She is also a graduate of Jinling Women's University. Before becoming a queen, she learned to govern the country and control the operations of the royal consortium under the guidance of Zhu Yiyan and Zhu Yiyan's Queen Lu. Moreover, she was extremely talented in business, keenly discovered the huge trend of the industrial revolution, and made bold and fruitful investments, which brought the strength of the Royal Consortium to a higher level...
Secondly, the "co-governance" during the co-governance period was the co-governance of Zhu Zhongtong and his wife, Empress Dowager Elizabeth Petrovna, and Siberian King Zhu Zhongzhen's mother and son.
This is a very strange political situation in Zhu Cixiang's opinion - the powerful female emperor Elizabeth Petrovna and the mother and son of the Queen of Siberia, who led the Guards in conquests in the east and west, and were invincible, actually had no attempt to seize the imperial power. Instead, he tried his best to help the weak and gentle Zhu Zhongtong.
It turns out that Elizabeth did not become the Russian Empress for too long. In 1746 of the Western calendar, her eldest son Constantine, who was born to Zhu Bolian, and Sophia Austria from the small German state of Anhalt-Zerbst. After Gust (later renamed Catherine) got married, he gave up the throne to his son Constantine I and returned to the Ming Dynasty to become the empress dowager.
Her other son, Zhu Zhongzhen, was awarded the title of King of Siberia after his father's death. However, he did not go to Siberia to join the country. Instead, he served in the Ming Army and fought for his brother Zhu Zhongtong in the north and south, and made great military exploits.
And the soft and weak Zhu Zhongtong did not attack his stepmother Elizabeth and his half-brother King Zhu Zhongzhen of Siberia... So at the core of the Ming Dynasty, there were four people united by the Queen Mother Elizabeth, Emperor Zhu Zhongtong, Queen Zheng Li, and Prince Zhu Zhongzhen. A situation of shared governance. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty performed quite stably during the years of joint rule.
When Zhu Yaofei saw this, he also smiled bitterly, and said to himself: "It seems that I still underestimated them! Come to think of it... Elizabeth is a white man, and Zhu Zhongzhen is a mixed race, and a close guard The army has been fighting bad wars for more than ten years. It has obtained all the benefits it deserves, and it should be satisfied for the time being.
And it is impossible for Zhu Zhongzhen, who has the wrong bloodline, to become the emperor. Of course, Zhu Zhongtong will not doubt him for no reason... Although this boy is weak, he is not stupid! "
After all, the Ming Dynasty was a feudal dynasty that paid attention to bloodline!
Moreover, outside the central government, there were a large number of vassals. There were also many royal princes who served as important ministers in the court, and there were also many princes and princes of the Zhu family in the army.
Therefore, it is impossible for Zhu Zhongzhen, who has impure blood, to seek power and usurp power... Rather than risking the disapproval of the world to usurp power, it is more in his interest to be a loyal general.
Although Zhu Zhongtong is gentle and weak, he is not harsh and is very generous to his stepmother and brothers. He also did not interfere in Elizabeth's private life. He also used the money from the royal consortium to fund Constantine, who was the tsar of Russia, so that he could bribe the nobility and the church, which made Elizabeth and her son very satisfied.
In addition, he was also extremely generous to the Guards who won the Russian throne for Elizabeth and her son... Although many Guards officers and soldiers preferred Zhu Zhongzhen, they were very satisfied with their treatment and loved Zhu Zhongtong.
Therefore, the seemingly dangerous situation did not cause the Ming Dynasty to collapse from within... Of course, the risk of the country's collapse is accumulating, but the empire left by Zhu Cixiang has a very solid foundation and is still on the rise. among.
However, just the cooperation of Elizabeth, Zhu Zhongtong, Zheng Li, and Zhu Zhongzhen cannot create a prosperous age.
What really brought prosperity to the Ming Empire was the Industrial Revolution!
The industrial revolution did not break out overnight, but was a gradual and slow process from quantitative change to qualitative change. As early as the era of the "Xingfu Reign", the handicraft industry in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty was already quite developed, and steam engines introduced from the United Kingdom began to be widely used in the mining industry.
Due to the use of steam engines in iron ore and coal mining, as well as the gradual maturity of coke ironmaking technology, Xuzhou, which has both large coal mines and medium-sized iron ores, began to grow into a heavy industry center!
What? Can Xuzhou become a heavy industry center?
Zhu Yaofei was also a little surprised when he saw the records in "General History of the Ming Dynasty".
Although he also knew that Xuzhou was a coal city, in his memory, if the imported iron ore was not considered, China's heavy industry center should be in the Northeast and North China where coal and iron resources are concentrated. How could it be in Xuzhou?
He continued browsing, and then he suddenly realized... It turns out that in the era of the first industrial revolution, the steel production of various countries was only a few hundred thousand tons to hundreds of thousands of tons. The first time a country's steel production exceeded 1 million tons was already in the 19th century, decades before the start of the Industrial Revolution (in the original history it was the 1840s, but in this dimension it was the 19th century At the beginning of this century, several decades ahead of schedule), the coal mines in Xuzhou are tens of millions of tons, and the iron ores are hundreds of thousands to millions of tons. It was more than enough to cope with the industrialization of the 18th century. Even in the 19th century, although the output of Xuzhou's iron ore was insufficient, the development of Ma'anshan's iron ore could still provide enough raw materials for Xuzhou's metallurgical industry - the distance from Ma'anshan to Xuzhou is not far, and there are also the Yangtze River waterway, It is supported by the transportation line formed by the Grand Canal and Xuhuai Railway.
In addition, huge coal reserves were discovered in Fengyang Mansion, close to Yingtian Mansion. In Wuhan Prefecture, there is also the Daye Iron Mine that has been mined for thousands of years.
These coal mines and iron mines are connected by the Yangtze River and the newly emerged railways, and can continuously provide high-quality and low-cost steel products to the industrial and commercial center in the southeast of Ming Dynasty.
With high-quality and low-cost steel, coal and iron, the machine industry and railways could continue to develop, and the industrialization of the southeastern part of the Ming Dynasty was able to embark on a fast track.
Therefore, during the 30-year co-ruling period and the later Xingdao period (Zhu Zhongtong's son Zhu Jianyan), the Ming Empire has been prospering for a long time. Therefore, the two eras of co-governance and prosperity are collectively called the "co-prosperity age". This period of prosperity lasted for more than 60 years, from the mid-18th century to the early 19th century.
During these more than 60 years of prosperity, all the hidden dangers and contradictions of the Ming Empire were covered up by the rapid economic growth. The self-confidence from top to bottom has also soared to the top.
The ideal of "mixing barbarians and Xia" pioneered by Zhu Bolian and Elizabeth Petrovna has also become more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people because of the progress brought about by this industrial revolution.
And it is technically possible to achieve it!
