The winter of 1795 came quietly.
The entire northern country was frozen at this time.
Under severe cold.
Immigration work in the Northeast also had to be suspended.
Fortunately, before winter comes.
The Ming Dynasty court had just transported a large amount of rice to various northern cities by sea.
And refugees from all over the country were organized to work on big projects - raising the dams of the Yellow River.
The Chinese have been doing this work for thousands of years.
Perhaps this has been done since the time of Dayu's flood control - so now the elevation of the Yellow River's bed is higher than all the buildings in the entire Luoyang city.
After the sediment of the Yellow River passes through the Loess Plateau and enters the Central Plains, it is deposited as the flow rate of the water slows down.
And in order to serve this old mother who has such a bad temper and loses her temper easily.
As long as China is in the era of great unification, it will inevitably organize the management of the Yellow River and raise and strengthen the dams.
Therefore, those refugees in the Central Plains who lost everything during the war do not have to worry about having nothing to do. They work hard on the Yellow River to collect wages and then buy rice to feed their families. In order to feed so many victims, the Ming Dynasty court issued an additional They raised 8 million yuan in national debt and employed more than 700,000 people to control the Yellow River in sections in Henan and Shandong provinces.
The practice of raising dikes only treats the symptoms but not the root cause.
But now there is no way for the Ming Dynasty to solve the root cause of the problem - let alone now, even for future generations, they dare not say that there is a permanent solution to the Yellow River problem.
Today, the Ming Dynasty employs more than 700,000 disaster victims to provide work for relief.
During this period, it was the only thing in newspapers that had space for the war with Russia.
Of course, the focus of the report also revolves around the fact that His Majesty the Emperor works diligently and loves the people. He can't sleep at night. He is concerned about the needs of the victims and thinks about the thoughts of the victims. He personally goes to borrow money from the wealthy people in the south. He borrows 8 million in one move. The Queen and the Several concubines in the harem also pawned their jewelry, and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, who was only four years old, also donated his New Year's money and so on - in short, the emperor and his family were very concerned about the victims of the northern disaster.
on newspaper.
The image of the Zhu family's royal family can almost be closer to that of a saint.
But it's different from the image in the newspaper.
In fact, Emperor Zhu didn't care much about the victims of the Central Plains at all - the Ming court could just pay, and now the Ming court implemented a system of "officials going to the countryside and talented people serving as officials".
This bureaucracy has been hacked from top to bottom.
Throw away a lot of money.
This new bureaucratic system, which is still functioning well, can complete the work of relieving the victims - corruption is of course inevitable, but for a bureaucratic system, corruption is difficult to avoid, but as long as the financial system does not collapse, this The bureaucracy can continue to rotate.
Not to mention the current Ming Dynasty.
In the past, there were many weird emperors who ignored government affairs at all. As long as they could still collect taxes from the local government, wouldn't the bureaucratic system be functioning well?
The fall of the former Ming Dynasty began with the complete collapse of the Ming Dynasty's financial system due to war in the north.
At this moment, the Emperor of Heaven, Zhu Daohua, was sitting in the Qinzheng Hall of the Old Summer Palace in the northern capital.
The other civil and military officials were divided into two rows and were also sitting on the sidelines. There were officials from the Emperor's Attendant's Room who were handing out documents one after another to the officials. Everyone was holding the documents and frowning at them.
The slightly older ones like Luo Fangbo and Gu Song still use reading glasses produced by Jiangning Optical Factory.
Although it was ice and snow outside the main hall.
But it was quite warm inside the hall.
There is a fire tunnel buried under the main hall, and there are copper pipes around the wall on the main hall, and hot water vapor comes out, which not only warms the entire hall, but also makes the air in the hall become a lot more humid—— Most of the emperor Zhu Daohua and his important ministers were from Guangdong and Hunan, so they were not very accustomed to the dry winter in the north.
In newspapers, there is a lot of content about the disaster in the north.
But in this hall.
The news everyone is reading is not about the disaster in the north.
It was news about the war against Russia and unexpected news from Japan.
The news of the great victory in the war against Russia has spread back to Beidu.
Fighting with a small number and attacking the cavalry with infantry, they suffered 407 casualties, killed 3976 enemies, and captured 2892 people. The wounded were not counted.
In addition, the Russian army fell behind and disappeared in the Gobi grassland during the escape.
The Russian army dispatched 20,000 troops in this battle, but only a little over 10,000 returned.
It can definitely be called an unprecedented victory.
But soon, the Russian army took the initiative to contact the top brass of the Ming army.
And Paul Petrovich, the crown prince of the Russian Empire, also wrote a letter to Emperor Zhu.
The letter was written in French.
Emperor Zhu was immediately shocked after seeing it.
In the letter, Tsar Petrovich, who was killed by his son in a coup in history, actually stated in the letter that he wanted to negotiate with the Ming Empire, and in the letter guaranteed the end of the Russian Empire's expansion in the east.
And he is just the crown prince of Tsarist Russia, can he make such a guarantee?
The other piece of news was quite sudden.
First, the New Spanish fleet, which had not appeared before, suddenly appeared in Ryukyu, and had a fierce battle with the Japanese Satsuma clan who occupied Ryukyu, and finally occupied Ryukyu Island.
Although the royal family of the Ryukyu Kingdom is now running up and down Zhongdu, hoping to become the Ming Dynasty again, and requesting the Ming Dynasty to come forward to expel the Japanese Satsuma Domain.
But the current Emperor Zhu does not value the false reputation of Zongfan.
Compared to maintaining good relations with Japan.
It is obviously not in the interests of the Ming Dynasty to go against a powerful Japanese vassal for Ryukyu. If the Ming Dynasty wants to open up North America, Japan's ports are the most important springboard.
Although the relationship between the Edo shogunate and local powerful lords was not very harmonious.
However, the eldest daughter of the former Satsuma feudal lord Shimazu Shigehao, Konoe Siko, married the contemporary head of the Tokugawa family, Tokugawa Ieqi, as his wife. Therefore, Shimazu Shigehao, the former Satsuma lord who is only fifty years old this year, has Great influence on the Edo shogunate.
Therefore, the Ryukyu royal family knelt down in front of Zhongdu Palace again and again, but they were kindly persuaded to return by Ming officials.
Japan is a very special country in the current Eastern international order.
on the one hand.
Japan did not surrender to the Ming Dynasty.
Theoretically, the head of the country is still called the "Emperor", the 119th Emperor and Emperor Nikokaku.
But the actual power of the country rests with the shogunate.
at the same time.
The Edo shogunate was deeply influenced and supported by the Ming Dynasty, and was almost regarded by many powerful feudal lords as "not a minister of the emperor, but an eagle dog of the Ming Dynasty!"
Even through Tokugawa Miki, Tokugawa's imperial concubine, the Ming court was able to recruit samurai from Japan for foreign campaigns.
Especially after completing the conquest of Borneo.
The Emperor of Heaven has decided to continue to expand the Japanese samurai army.
It has been expanded from the current 30,000 to 60,000.
The targets of the operations also began to move toward Java Island, Guinea Island, and even the Australian mainland further south.
after all.
For the great emperor of tomorrow.
The cost of using the regular Ming army is a bit high, and the cost is a bit high.
On the contrary, these Japanese samurai were more qualified cannon fodder for colonial development.
What's more, the great emperor Zhu Daohua still has some small thoughts in his heart to consume the lives of Japan's elite.
And now.
Spain's New Spanish Fleet suddenly appeared in Ryukyu after disappearing for almost a year.
This has caused some major changes in the already delicate trilateral relationship between Ming, Japan, and Ryukyu.
Did Emperor Zhu really have no ambitions for Ryukyu and allowed Satsuma to occupy Ryukyu?
(End of chapter)
