February of the fourth year of the Era, Beijing, Forbidden City.
This place has now become the temporary power center of the Ming Dynasty!
Although the first capital of the new Ming Dynasty was Nanjing, Beijing, like Guangzhou, was only a companion capital. But since Zhu Heji regained Beijing, he never returned to Nanjing.
Moreover, after Zhu Heji returned triumphantly from Japan and returned to Beijing, he moved all the yamen of the Nanjing court to Beijing, and only set up a stay-at-home department in Nanjing to let the emperor stay there to look after the family.
The reason why Emperor Zhu Da wanted to temporarily move the court to Beijing was not because he had the idea of making Beijing his capital. It was in order to digest the newly recovered northern provinces as soon as possible, and at the same time, it was also convenient to completely conquer the Mongolian tribes in Monan and Mobei and the Ming Eight Banners in the northeast.
Such a huge undertaking is a headache to look at, and it is even more difficult to handle.
Now the six northern provinces of Huaibei, Shandong, Henan, North Zhili, Shaanxi, and Shanxi have been recovered. The Liaodong Peninsula and the Liaoxi Corridor have been combined to form Liaoning Province (including Liaoyang but not Shenyang), so Zhu Heji is needed The imperial court organized a total of seven provinces.
The situation of these seven provinces is very different from the southeastern provinces that the new Ming Dynasty captured earlier. First of all, the finances of these seven provinces are relatively difficult... If they are as rich as Jiangnan, then there is no Ming Dynasty. The end of the chaos.
Although these seven provinces have financial difficulties, they cannot spend less money. Therefore, the entire Ming Dynasty moved to Beijing and kept an eye on the officials of the seven provinces, which can always make them budget more carefully.
The second difference is that there are a large number of "unowned properties" in these seven provinces... This is a huge wealth! Of course, Zhu Heji's court could not allow this wealth to be lost. After all, they had already advanced this wealth by issuing "Pingliao Bonds".
Therefore, the Ming court must encircle and divide the land originally owned by the Qing Eight Banners, the traitorous dog officials, and the Qing demon imperial merchants and official merchants certified by the Jinyiwei, as well as the land that no one has reclaimed for various reasons, but has the value of reclamation, into one Each farm was then appraised and finally selected by the big creditor from the south... There was a lot of intrigue in this matter. If the Ming Dynasty did not pay closer attention, it would suffer a loss.
Moreover, the Ming court did not want those "big creditors" to get the land and then throw it there, so they had to create conditions to help those "big creditors" develop it. . This is another delicate job that requires a lot of energy, so the Ming court cannot be too far away.
The third difference is that Confucianism is very powerful in the remaining six provinces, excluding Liaoning Province! Confucianism and rural sages have long been closely integrated. The rural elites in these six provinces have made profits by joining Confucianism and then becoming rural sages or working for rural sages.
Moreover, these six provinces have always been the most violent places for the White Lotus Sect. Many local tyrants who have been engaged in the White Lotus Sect for generations have also sneaked into Confucianism, which makes Confucianism very stubborn.
Although faced with the invincible Heavenly Soldiers, this group of Xiaoxiao did not dare to openly resist, and they were more cooperative with Qingtian Juntian, and all the Confucianists who showed their face were in disarray. But Confucianism still has a secret hall...and the Confucian secret hall was not established in a hurry before the arrival of the Ming Dynasty, but has always existed!
Moreover, Confucianism and Xiangxian have successfully monopolized education in rural areas of northern provinces in the past few years. This is a matter of course. If a Confucian who has studied "anti-Classicism" and a rural sage with a knife on his wrist hold hands, they will be completely immune to the literary inquisition.
In addition, powerful people who can become rural sages often have a huge clan behind them. Although the large families in the north are generally smaller in size due to frequent wars, famines, natural disasters, etc., there are more small families in the northern villages.
However, the ability of a small family to resist annexation is far inferior to that of a small clan facing a large clan...
So now the power of Confucianism and Xiangxian no longer exists on the surface, but privately they are still spread across the villages of the six northern provinces.
If Zhu Heji wanted to minimize the influence of Confucianism (it would be difficult to eradicate it completely), he would have to build an education and promotion system in the six northern provinces that Confucianism could control - said To put it simply, it is to establish a compulsory education system in the six northern provinces, and at the same time open a large number of primary schools (there are also elementary schools below primary school), middle schools, and universities, so that the intellectual elites in the six northern provinces can have a route for upgrading through examinations.
This is another slow and detailed job, and quite expensive.
While reorganizing the seven northern provinces (including Liaoning), we cannot leave aside the matter of completely conquering the Mongolian tribes in Monan and Mobei and the Ming Eight Banners in the northeast.
And the task of conquering the Mongolian tribes in Monan and Mobei and the Ming Eight Banners in the northeast cannot be done in one stroke... The matter of plowing the courtyard and sweeping holes is very satisfying to write on paper. But it doesn't have much effect when actually implemented.
Because the territory of Northeast China and Mongolia is so huge!
Just "sweeping" can never clean it all, it must be "cured"!
Zhu Heji's method of governing Northeast China and Mongolia was actually a copy of the Qing Dynasty's alliance flag system. Instead of calling it "League Flag", it changed the name to "Ministry Flag". That is to say, the Mongolians on the grasslands and the various ethnic groups outside the boundaries of Liaoning Province in the northeast will imitate the organizational model of the Eight Banners to form many banners that can be cultivated, fought and herded, and then the individual banners will be organized into units.
Moreover, the grazing and farming areas of each ministry and each banner are stipulated, and farming or grazing across the boundary is strictly prohibited.
Each ministry has a general commander, and each banner has a banner master or commander... Not all banners have banner masters, and some banners will be commanded by Emperor Zhu himself, so the leader who is directly in charge of the affairs below is called All unified.
In addition, the Ming court also had the power to transfer various ministries and banners - that is, to move them from their original territory to other places.
Not long ago, Zhu Heji moved one of the Eight Ming Banners to Nagoya and Ezo Island, and moved the other two banners to the newly built Aihui City on the edge of the Heilongjiang River and the Yako captured from the Rakshasa people. In Sacheng, a flag was also placed in Jilin City, where General Ningguta was originally stationed, and they were also planning to move a flag to Vladivostok.
Of course, Zhu Heji did not have such control over the Chahar tribe under Burni, the Mongolian Khalkha tribe, and the Junggar tribe under Ge Erdan. Although Burni followed the instructions of the Ming Dynasty and established a flag system, it was only a formality.
As for Junggar and Oto, who maintained their own restraint, no changes were made.
However, the immediate priority of Zhu Heji and his Ming Dynasty court is not to transform the powerful Junggar tribe, or even to march into Gansu or Sichuan to complete the unification of Han Dynasty, but... to open up a sugar road connecting the East and the West. the road!
Yes, it is the Sugar Road, not the Silk Road.
Now sugar is the number one strategic commodity in the world!
However, Zhu Heji was never able to control a channel to send sugar to the west... Although the Nanyang Trading Company achieved considerable success in the Nanyang and Eastern Seas, it was still difficult for them to enter the west of the Strait of Malacca.
So Zhu Heji controlled 100% of the sugar, but it was difficult (not completely impossible) to send the sugar to the hands of the Ottoman Empire...
Not long ago, a Portuguese merchant ship from the Indian Ocean brought two members of Huang Zhisheng's mission and an Ottoman mission disguised as a business mission. According to a report sent to Beijing on an expedited journey of 600 miles from Guangzhou, the Sultan and Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire were very interested in Ming Dynasty's "sweet gunpowder" and hoped to purchase it in large quantities.
Of course there is plenty of sugar, but the question is how to send it to the Ottoman Empire in large quantities? After all, countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and England that control the Indian Ocean routes do not want the Ottoman Empire to dismantle the Holy Roman Empire with the sweet gunpowder supported by the Ming Dynasty.
Just when Zhu Heji felt a little bit in trouble, his confidante Anukedun came to Beijing after a long journey, and also brought him a "sugar road" along the way.
