"It makes no sense to say this anymore. Those poor people who don't cooperate with us are hateful, but we can't kill them now!"
"Because, according to the content of the surrender agreement signed by our representatives with the Ming army, we lost our right to rule from the moment the Ming army entered Switzerland. If we continue to kill people, we will bear the crime of massacre of civilians. "
Senard said: "So, we have to disband the major league anti-rape team and stop hunting down those poor people who don't cooperate with us."
The other Swiss nobles could only reluctantly agree.
Therefore, Switzerland then disbanded the anti-rape team.
However, in the Swiss cantons, due to the delay in administrative orders, the pursuit of poor people who are unwilling to cooperate has not completely stopped.
"Ottalon, do you want this box of gold bars?"
A poor worker from Geneva named Ottaron who was arrested was being interrogated by a gang of aristocratic anti-rape gang members.
Ottalan spat at this bitch and replied: "No, I don't accept wealth that is not obtained by my own labor. In addition, I need to declare that I also have the right to refuse labor."
"Another one who doesn't cooperate, then you are seeking death!"
The bastard therefore took out his gun and shot Ottalen to death.
"You bastards!"
Ottalon's neighbor, Mulder, who was a poor worker like him, cursed angrily.
The bastard then turned back and asked Mulder: "Do you want this box of gold bars?"
Mulder looked up at the sky and ignored the bastard.
"Okay, you are really stubborn. You don't want gold bars even if you have them. You really deserve to be poor!"
The loser was about to shoot, but at this moment, a sharp gunshot was heard, and the loser fell to the ground on the spot.
When everyone looked back, they saw a large number of Eastern troops in woolen uniforms appearing, and one of them, an officer with brightly colored epaulettes, was pointing his gun at them.
The Swiss present naturally guessed that these Eastern troops were Ming troops without asking.
Among them, poor Swiss people like Mulder actually grinned when they saw the Ming army appear, their clenched fists gradually loosened, and they began to take the initiative to walk towards the Ming army.
These people actually started running as they walked, running towards the Ming army desperately, as if running towards the warm and genial sun.
The flaming red color formed by the Ming troops on Zhang Huangyan's side seems to have a charm that attracts civilians from different ethnic groups.
As for the scoundrels who slaughtered the poor for the Swiss nobles, they were at a loss for a while and stood motionless. They neither dared to shoot the poor people who refused gifts in front of them, nor dared to shoot at the Ming army.
"Savior from the East, we have been looking forward to your arrival."
Mulder even smiled and spoke his inner words to the Ming soldiers who appeared in front of him.
Zhang Huangyan has taught himself French and German, and these two languages are mainly spoken in Switzerland. Therefore, when Mulder spoke, he could understand clearly and said:
"You should already know that His Majesty the Ming Emperor has decreed that only the minimum assets owned by Swiss people should be used as the legal property that everyone in Switzerland can own, so you need to register your assets with us first."
"I am willing to cooperate! Apart from my life, the only assets I have now are the dirty clothes I am wearing and the long loaf of black bread left in the house."
Mulder said with a smile.
Zhang Huangyan nodded and asked someone to register him.
Then, Zhang Huangyan pointed at the bastards of the Swiss nobles in front: "Let them disarm, otherwise, we will kill them without mercy!"
After receiving the order, these scoundrels did not dare to disobey and surrender honestly.
As a result, the Ming army successfully entered the city of Geneva.
After that, Zhang Huangyan came to Mulder's wooden house and saw that there was really only one loaf of black bread in the house. He pinched his nose and asked, "You refused the gift from the nobles?"
"Yes, we are unwilling to join their ranks and betray our integrity for money."
Mulder replied.
"Very good, you are the people that His Majesty, the Ming Emperor, is very willing to see and respect."
As Zhang Huangyan spoke, he saw boxes of opened boxes containing gold bars that were still outside, and therefore ordered his subordinate officers: "Protect Mr. Mulder and all civilians in Geneva." Safety! In addition, confiscate these gold bars and let people from the logistics department collect them."
"clear!"
Because poor people like Mulder who were unwilling to cooperate with the Swiss nobles were not violently eliminated by the Swiss nobles after the arrival of the Ming army, Zhang Huangyan then used sufficient reasons to sell all the gold, silver, jewelry and land in Switzerland, including other industries, to Except for the clothes he was wearing, the cabin he lived in and a loaf of bread, everything was confiscated.
This is not the result of the Ming army's crazy looting, but the choice of many people in Switzerland.
Perhaps in many cases, when the ruler would rather be with his friends than with his domestic slaves, the ruled would also be willing to give wealth to the enemy rather than resist the ruler.
The Swiss nobles naturally did not dare to violate it.
After all, they only lost their property now. If they resisted, they would lose their lives.
In addition, Zhang Huangyan also mobilized local civilians like Mudel who wanted to turn their country's nobles into poor people to form pickets to picket nobles who did not hand over their property truthfully.
So much so that the Swiss nobles had to hand over almost all their wealth in Switzerland.
And Ming Dynasty naturally gained a huge fortune.
The trains responsible for transporting this wealth made many trips.
After all, this is the wealth that the nobles of European countries have plundered all over the world and have stored here for hundreds of years.
The gold alone is worth hundreds of millions!
Coupled with the wealth obtained when the Ming Dynasty annexed other European countries.
All of this, taken together, is naturally a huge number.
Almost all the movable property and technology accumulation in Europe were moved to the Ming Dynasty.
Things that could not be moved, such as farmland, were given to local civilians.
Therefore, the European commodity market did not shrink due to the local expansion of the Ming Dynasty. Instead, it expanded because the Ming serfs were rescued and had higher incomes.
As for the movable wealth, almost all of it was moved to the Ming Dynasty. The question before the Ming Emperor Zhu Youxiao and his court was how to use this considerable wealth.
"Science and technology must continue to be a key area of investment. We can use large-scale projects to improve technology. For example, we have to build a railway in Uszang, which has just implemented military garrison and stationed the Ming Dynasty Minister in Tibet. It is officially ruled by the Ming Central Court. , but many places there are covered with frozen soil all year round, the altitude is high, the temperature difference between day and night is large, and there are higher requirements for railway tracks and buildings, which can be used to promote the improvement of the smelting industry and construction industry."
"In addition, it is about spacecraft, optics and communications. Aircraft have to fly higher and farther. The camera developed by the Academy of Sciences can continue to be improved. Try to make the people in the photos taken by the camera move in the future. There are also communications, I hope that radio technology can be further developed until we can really see people and scenery thousands of miles away like gods."
"There is also the need to vigorously develop electricity. The Ministry of Industry, the Governor of Rivers, and the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering will discuss whether we can try to build several large power stations, especially hydropower stations, to see if we can have electric lights in every household in the Ming Dynasty. This power station has a lot of skills that need to be improved from power generation to power transmission to electrical appliances in thousands of households.”
"Don't be afraid of not getting results, and don't worry about how much it will cost. In short, as long as there is a revolutionary improvement in a technology, the money will be well spent!"
"There is also basic research. This must not be underestimated. Most of the investment in science and technology must be spent on this first. The cabinet will discuss with the academic departments, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Engineering whether to build a number of royal-level laboratories;
The so-called royal level does not mean that it is my laboratory, but it shows its scale and level of responsibility in the Ming Dynasty's scientific and technological progress. The main tasks of the royal level laboratory are all kinds of major basic research breakthroughs. For example, the academic community is currently actively discussing whether light is a wave or a particle. In addition, through high-power microscopes, we can see what cells will look like if they are further divided, etc. "
When Zhu Youxiao was discussing with his ministers in the political hall how to turn the gold and silver that Ming Dynasty obtained from all over the world into a booster for Ming Dynasty's development, he also mentioned how to increase investment in science and technology.
After all, if things like gold and silver are stored, they are just a pile of heavy metals. If they are spent directly, they will only become luxury works of art such as gold keys, gold hairpins, and gold hairpins, which have little significance for the progress of Chinese civilization and even the entire human race.
If the emperor Zhu Youxiao had not successfully foreseen the emergence of some scientific and technological achievements many times before, the assistant ministers Wen Tiren present listened to what Zhu Youxiao said about allowing Uzang to be connected to the railway, and people could see thousands of miles away. After seeing the people and scenery, and having electricity in every household, they would think this is a fantasy, but now they don't dare to question it too much, and they even look forward to what kind of world it will be if this really comes true.
“What your Majesty said is that, in my opinion, we need to put more thought into education, especially vocational education. Nowadays, major factories are in short supply of craftsmen, especially skilled craftsmen;
The students trained by various universities still focus on cultivating students' mastery of knowledge rather than on the cultivation of skills, so that although students who do not learn well in theoretical knowledge do not have many skills, although this school Enrollment has been expanded again and again, but the admissions examination currently excludes most students. Therefore, these scholars who failed to become civil servants are still the majority of the scholars in the Ming Dynasty. Most of them can only farm or do some simple jobs. ;
But our Ming Dynasty’s major factories are now crazily expanding around the world, and with the expansion of the global market, a large number of foreign nobles’ own factories have closed down, and new factories have sprung up, so there is a great need for enough craftsmen. To engage in relevant technical jobs, so in my opinion, we should immediately recruit some people who specialize in training people who cannot learn theoretical knowledge to accept professional jobs. "
Du Yinxi made a visionary speech to Zhu Youxiao at this time.
After hearing this, Zhu Youxiao agreed very much: "The court cannot give up on every citizen. It wants every citizen to become a useful person, and there are enough skilled craftsmen. This will be the basis for our Ming Dynasty Central Court to continue to dominate the world. You The cabinet and the Ministry of Education will discuss how to vigorously launch vocational education!"
"According to the order!"
"Do you have any other suggestions?"
Zhu Youxiao continued to ask.
"have!"
Zhang Tongchang stood up and replied, "I believe that the currency system should be further reformed. Since our Ming Dynasty has so much gold, it is fully qualified to issue banknotes, and we can change silver coins to banknotes!"
After Zhu Youxiao came to the throne, he asked social science institutions such as the Hanlin Academy and the Zizheng Yuan to study the reasons why the banknotes issued in the early Ming Dynasty were abandoned. He also asked Bi Ziyan, a professional money law expert, to carefully study the future of banknotes. Is it necessary to reintroduce it?
Up to now, due to the increasing number of large-scale transactions in the Ming Dynasty, printing technology has also improved a lot. In addition, financial theoretical knowledge is also improving with each passing day. More and more financial professionals have begun to realize the benefits of banknotes to the country and the people. .
Therefore, whether from the private sector or the court, there began to be calls for the replacement of silver coins with banknotes issued by the court based on economic conditions.
Now that Zhang Tongchang proposed this, it was no exception.
Moreover, Zhang Tongchang also said: "In addition, I believe that we should also find a way to set the issued banknotes as a global currency. The trade between the vassals around the world and the central court, as well as between vassals and vassals, that is, International trade should be conducted using banknotes issued by the central court of the Ming Dynasty, so that the central court can control the global economy and then control vassal states around the world through the control of banknotes."
"This is a good idea. Oil will undoubtedly become the largest transaction in the future. After the world gradually unifies, it will naturally be necessary to link our Ming Dynasty's currency to global oil transactions!"
Zhu Youxiao nodded and said to himself: "Sure enough, once these officials of the Ming Dynasty mastered enough economic knowledge of later generations, they would also use various economic methods. Originally, they did not seem to have much wisdom in history. Maybe they were really limited by The theoretical and scientific development level of the era has not developed or it has gone astray. After all, the use of economic means to manage the country has been around since the Guan Zhong period, but later the financial system became worse and worse, so that the emperor himself suffered greatly from it. , the Engel coefficient continues to rise, and the price of eggs has increased to twenty taels.”
Next, the central government office of the Ming Dynasty began to spend the large amount of wealth obtained from Europe as agreed by Zhu Youxiao and his ministers.
The difference between the Ming Dynasty and some countries is that the external expansion of the Ming Dynasty was led by the state from the beginning, rather than the civil society forces, that is, big merchants. As a result, the wealth obtained from the external expansion was mainly concentrated in national funds, and these external expansions The power to distribute the wealth gained was also controlled by the court.
Of course, there was a period in the Ming Dynasty when a large amount of profits earned from the world mainly flowed into the private sector. However, because it was private forces, and mainly the coastal areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian and Guangdong enjoyed the global profits, the right to distribute the wealth obtained from the world was lost. It is in the hands of these local forces.
The result is a serious phenomenon of richness in the south and poverty in the north.
Now, thanks to Zhu Youxiao's use of his imperial power and the industrialization and global expansion brought about by government-owned industries and steam engines, the distribution of global wealth has been vested in the hands of the imperial court.
Therefore, even today in the Ming Dynasty, the court still has great control over the economy.
Private merchants, even if they were of royal family background and extremely wealthy, could not confront the imperial court, let alone threaten the imperial power.
The advantage of this is naturally to avoid the excessive gap between the rich and the poor after the global wealth was concentrated in the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, this also requires the emperor to govern the country well.
If the emperor engages in crazy extravagant consumption and lavishly awards the wealth to nobles and ministers, the gap between the rich and the poor will still be too wide.
For example, the Spanish Empire that rose in the early colonial era was because its royal family and nobles quickly declined after acquiring a large amount of wealth, instead of using the wealth to develop national science and technology and enrich the people, which led to its rapid decline later on.
As a time traveler, Zhu Youxiao knew very well the stories of why the great powers in the West rose and then declined in history. Naturally, he also understood what he, as the Ming emperor, should do to avoid abnormal economic prosperity, that is, the entire country seemed to be prosperous, but it was just... It is a deformed prosperity mainly caused by the extravagant consumption of nobles, rather than a commercial prosperity mainly caused by the daily consumption of industrial products by citizens, especially producers.
Therefore, Zhu Youxiao did not spread money around to reward nobles and ministers, nor did he allow himself to drink and drink.
However, Zhu Youxiao did not use the money only for finance, that is, to lend money to the private sector to promote the rise of private businessmen, thereby creating more big businessmen in the Ming Dynasty.
Because he knew that the rise of the Netherlands in history and its subsequent decline was due to over-indulgence in the financial industry. The wealth earned from the world was used to speculate in stocks, which led to the prosperity of the financial industry, but there was no major development in science and technology, so that the private economy Although it was prosperous, it was only a false prosperity stimulated by finance, and it did not usher in the industrial revolution.
Zhu Youxiao and his ministers just continued to spend money on scientific research and development and infrastructure that could maximize national interests.
He would rather spend money on major projects such as building large hydropower stations and building railways to plateau areas, rather than directly lending money to wealthy private businessmen. Instead, he would wait for wealthy private businessmen to share the global profits with him.
Because of this, although the merchant class in the Ming Dynasty was already a very large class, there were no particularly powerful giant merchants.
After all, the main wealth did not flow to them.
However, technology and infrastructure projects are advancing by leaps and bounds.
In terms of science and technology, airplanes, cameras, radios, and telephones appeared much shorter than in the original history. This makes the technological level of the American countries that have not yet been wiped out and the vassal states that have been enfeoffed by the Ming Dynasty different from that of the Ming Dynasty. The gap is getting bigger and bigger.
This is only in terms of scientific and technological research results.
The theoretical gap is no longer such that it can take just a few generations to catch up.
Although they are on the same earth, they tend to be one dimension apart from each other.
In terms of infrastructure, railway mileage and highway mileage are increasing significantly every month.
Especially in the southwest, places that used to rely on bird passages and waterways for transportation, the number of additional bridges built to build railways and highways was several times more than the total number of stone bridges in the southwest in history.
And the good thing is that none of these expenses are paid by domestic people, and there is no need to collect more wealth from rich places like Jiangnan to fund the improvement of transportation conditions in these places that were still wild in the Ming Dynasty.
Because these expenses come from global plunder.
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty improved poor areas without sacrificing wealthy areas, thus preventing many people in Jiangnan from converting mulberry fields into farmland due to excessive commercial taxes, interrupting the development of industry and commerce in the area, and even causing them to return to the previous farming production model.
As a result, Suzhou has completely become a metropolis with what later generations would call modern functions.
That is to say, it has the most intensive technological industries and the largest number of technological talents, and can attract resources and talents from the surrounding and even the world to come here for processing and further study, and become a vanguard in the development of productivity.
Of course, it is also related to the fact that Suzhou is no longer suffering from war.
Historically, from the middle to late Ming Dynasty, Suzhou gradually began to function as a modern city. The raw materials for silk fabrics from surrounding towns such as Nanxun and Zhujiajiao were transported to the Changmen area of Suzhou and sold to merchants in Suzhou. They were processed into finished products in Suzhou before they could be marketed across the country. Even the whole world.
Because Suzhou had the largest number of skilled workers in the country at that time.
Of course, Suzhou's continued transformation was interrupted by the Manchu Qing's occupation of the Central Plains. Later, because the West was leading in technology and production technology, Shanghai, which was more convenient for foreign trade and foreign-invested factories, caught up from behind and started from a small town. The county town has become a metropolis with strong manufacturing and financial industries and radiates to several surrounding provinces.
Historically, Suzhou's ability to gradually acquire modern city functions and become a technology industry center during the Ming and Qing Dynasties was also related to the fact that domestic demand accounted for the main demand during this period.
During this period, the main demand for military expenditures was the military expenditure in the north and the consumption of the royal family, nobles and bureaucrats in the capital.
As the Suzhou-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Suzhou plays a very important role in the center of Jiangnan. Silk from Huzhou and cotton from Songjiang, all kinds of raw materials from the prosperous areas are concentrated here, processed and transported to the capital to satisfy the high officials. The needs of nobles and armies.
Therefore, Suzhou has gathered a large number of skilled workers and craftsmen.
In this generation, Suzhou did not experience the troubled times in history, and the industrial revolution began in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, Suzhou, which had a developed handicraft industry and rich heritage, continued to become the technology and industrial center of the Ming Dynasty.
First of all, the skilled workers here were the first to become the first batch of workers in the new textile industry in the Ming Dynasty and even later in the steam engine industry.
In addition, here is a gathering of humanities, a high literacy rate, and a high level of affluence. New education has also developed rapidly here, and a large number of technical talents have been cultivated.
Therefore, Suzhou can successfully transform into a modern industrial and commercial metropolis, and even Shanghai is still just an auxiliary to Suzhou.
Who made the breakthrough point of science and technology in this world mainly within the Ming Dynasty, first in Suzhou where the most outstanding technical talents were applied into industries, and then gradually spread to the whole country and the world?
The main function of Shanghai in this life was just trade.
The manufacturing center is still in Suzhou.
Of course, Suzhou is just a light industrial manufacturing center.
Because the skilled workers here in Suzhou have been light industry workers engaged in the textile industry from the beginning.
As a result, the government-owned industries only moved the light industry here. There was no choice but to put the light industry here because there were the most skilled light industry workers here.
The center of heavy industry is still in the capital.
This is the result of the fact that the industrial development of the Ming Dynasty was not led by the private bourgeoisie from the beginning, but was led by the Ming court using state power.
At that time, if the emperor Zhu Youxiao had not forcibly registered hundreds of thousands of refugees in the capital area, trained them to become workers, and took the opportunity to develop the military industry, no one would have been willing to take care of these hundreds of thousands of refugees at the cost of offending the Jiangnan gentry. life and death, and trained them to become the first batch of skilled workers in heavy industry in the Ming Dynasty.
