On May 16, the 25th year of Chengshun, Hukou Railway Station in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province.
The train station, which was completed just over a month ago, looks a little out of place with other buildings in the surrounding area.
Because this is a building made of cement masonry and a large number of steel beam structures, from a contemporary perspective, it is full of modern technology.
Many of the other surrounding buildings are traditional brick and wood buildings.
Hukou Railway Station, like other railway stations in the Dachu Empire, uses cement masonry as the main material. The overall architectural design is more inclined to modern technology, and is the product of two completely different systems from traditional architecture.
In particular, the waiting hall on the first floor of the main building is not only very wide, but also very high. You can tell at a glance that it cannot be built with traditional construction techniques.
In fact, this kind of building has only begun to appear one after another in the past three to five years, and it has appeared on a large scale across the country. With the use of this model of building in railway stations in various places, it is still very popular among the people. rare.
The newly opened Hukou Railway Station is also the last railway station on the Jiangnan Main Line Railway to be completed and opened to traffic. Prior to this, the Ningbo Railway Station had been put into use in April.
Today, as a train enters Hukou Railway Station, it is also announced that Hukou Railway Station is officially put into use.
It also announced that the entire Jiangnan Main Line Railway is open to traffic!
The Jiangnan Main Line Railway, which starts from Ningbo in the east and ends at Hukou in the west, has a total length of 1,108 kilometers. Construction began in the 21st year of Chengshun. After five years of construction, the entire line was finally opened to traffic.
For the Chu Empire, this is good news worthy of national celebration!
However, the impact of this good news within the empire is not as sensational as the prince's upcoming wedding!
Ordinary people actually don't pay much attention to seemingly important strategic plans such as railway construction. On the contrary, they are more concerned about some news about the royal family.
Especially the prince’s marriage!
At the end of last year, the candidate for the crown concubine of the emperor's second son and eldest son, the crown prince of the Chu Empire, Luo Jian, had been decided and the traditional marriage process had begun.
The Crown Princess was not the one expected by the outside world. She was a legitimate daughter from a powerful family. Although the Queen initially wanted to find a Crown Princess from a powerful family, she went back and forth but could not find a suitable candidate. , and after finally expanding the scope, several more suitable candidates were selected, and the daughter of the Suzhou Li family was selected as the crown princess.
The Suzhou Li family is not one of those powerful families in the empire, but a traditional scholarly and prestigious family!
In the past few hundred years, there were people who became officials. Although they were not high-ranking officials, they were not the same as ordinary people. If I must say it, they were probably from poor families.
The daughter of the Li family is very happy herself. She probably wants to become a crown princess, or even a queen in the future... As a girl, she has had this kind of dream, and now she hopes that her dream will come true.
But her father, her grandfather and the Li family are not happy!
It sounds good at first for a daughter to marry into the royal family, but in fact, for most scholarly families, especially some famous families, this is not a good marriage!
All the famous families in the Dachu Empire rejected marriage with the royal family... No matter whether it was marrying a princess or a daughter, they were all unhappy. This was not directed at the Luo dynasty of Dachu. They were also like this in the Ming Dynasty. .
Because relatives will be greatly restricted in their career!
Although the head of the Li family is only a fourth-rank official and is not even a senior official in the imperial officialdom... But he is still not happy!
The Li family is neither short of money nor poor in social status. They are a prestigious family with hundreds of members, and their contacts are all from well-known families.
This famous family is not talking about the newly rising powerful people in the empire, but the traditional famous families like them... As for the newly rising powerful people in the empire, to put it bluntly, traditional scholarly families like the Li family are fighting against each other. In my heart, I look down on the so-called powerful people who have recently risen in the empire.
As for the royal family...it doesn't matter if you are the royal family. People treat you respectfully on the surface, but they might say 'the queen of the bandits' behind your back.
】
And they themselves are even more disdainful and unwilling to become relatives.
Not only are the official career restrictions for becoming a foreign relative extremely severe, but also becoming a relative of the emperor is equivalent to being involved in the vortex of the struggle among the top officials of the empire. If something happens to this, I am afraid that the Li family will become history.
What did you say?
Ahem... That's the royal family. It has been the place where power struggles have been fiercest since ancient times. Whether the emperor or the prince, they are all high-risk professions.
Someone in later generations made a particularly boring statistic. The abnormal mortality rate of emperors in the past dynasties was as high as 44%. This shows that the emperor's profession is extremely risky.
The profession of a prince is also dangerous, not counting premature death, and only counting the princes appointed by the emperor. Among the more than 100 princes who have received the official title of prince in history, the abnormal mortality rate reached 36.6%!
Probably... one of the three princes was killed or disappeared or died abnormally!
Regardless of whether you are an emperor or a prince in Chinese history, these two professions are extremely risky!
And the other members of the royal family surrounding the emperor and the prince, whether they are other princes or members of the harem, are actually very dangerous.
The royal relatives and relatives behind the harem and concubines are also high-risk personnel.
Hundreds of famous families in the Li family are living well. There is no need to get involved in the royal family and put their family that has lasted for hundreds of years in extreme danger.
So after the royal family expressed their intention to marry, they politely refused...
This makes the royal family very depressed!
For this reason, Queen Wang even complained to Luo Zhixue... She said that it was because these famous families were unwilling to marry the royal family, and it was difficult to arrange the marriages of dozens of children in the royal family.
What's more, the Luo family was a scholarly family before the incident. Luo's father, who has passed away and was posthumously named emperor, was a scholar. Luo Zhixue's eldest brother, who also died on the way to escape, was also famous. For several generations, although there were no Jinshi or Juren, there were as many as seven or eight scholars.
Heirloom of serious farming and reading of the Eight Classics, a scholarly family!
Why do those sour literati look down on their Luo family and her son?
In addition, Prince Luo Zhi really fell in love with the daughter of the Li family. He felt that a lady from such a traditional and famous family was more rare and much better than the legitimate daughter trained by a wealthy and powerful family... This was true in Luo Zhixue seems to be a bitch!
If you really want to play, with your status as a prince, no woman can't play with you, even the legitimate daughter of a famous family can play with you... You must marry her home!
In fact, Luo Zhixue also asked his son Luo Jian, saying that after all, marrying a wife is a matter of mutual consent, and there is no need to force someone if they don't like it.
If you like the idea of a lady from a scholarly family, I will order you later to collect dozens of daughters from famous families. As long as you don't marry them, you can play with them as you like...
But Luo Li also has a temper: I just like to see them not liking it, but still wanting to marry their daughter off to an orphan...
Gu, I just want to marry her back in a serious manner and give her to Gu to play with as I please. Isn’t Gu still not interested in her?
Then Luo Zhixue ignored his son... This second son was somewhat mentally abnormal.
Those famous families are even more shameless. They can send their legitimate daughters to the East Palace for the prince to play with as he pleases. Even if you ask, they can even send your wife or even my mother to your bed... But the prince wants a serious one. They were not happy to marry their legitimate daughter home as a princess!
Because the former is just offering a daughter for honor...but the latter is tantamount to binding his family and the prince together, and will also become a greatly restricted concubine!
It's okay to do it secretly, but it's not okay to marry openly.
For Luo Zhixue, he is also very unhappy with these so-called famous families... My mother, Xipi, and my wife have given me many of them to play with. How can I pretend to be a scholar and be arrogant!
So a little pressure was applied.
And for people from a scholarly family like the Li family, their bones are harder than anyone else's when nothing happens. If you put a knife on their necks, their knees will be softer than anyone else's!
Therefore, even if there is ten thousand unwillingness in my heart, I have to hold my nose and accept the marriage with the royal family!
Finally, the candidate for the crown princess was finalized, the daughter of the Li family from a prominent family in Suzhou.
Several other unsuccessful candidates will not leave directly. Instead, after the prince's wedding, they will also enter the prince's east palace and be named Liangdi, Liangyuan, etc.
After finalizing the candidates, various procedures began. After several months of going through the procedures, everything was ready, so the prince's wedding ceremony was officially held in June.
This wedding was much larger than the previous wedding of Luo Zhixue's eldest son, Luo Xuan, and the procedures were more strict.
Although Luo Zhixue actually loves Luo Xie, the eldest son of the emperor, who has been frail and sick since childhood, in the final analysis, Luo Xue is just a prince, not a prince, and weddings must follow the etiquette. A prince's wedding is a Standard, the prince's wedding is another standard.
Luo Zhixue had already finalized the system of direct heirs. On such a big political issue, he would not let Luo Xie become the crown prince just because he loved Luo Xie more personally.
Besides, with Luo Huan's body, he can't be an emperor... He has always been a medicine pot since he was a child, and now he is bedridden for most of the year.
The Imperial Hospital is also helpless about the condition of the Emperor's eldest son... Today, with limited medical technology, the Imperial Hospital cannot even find out what disease the Emperor's eldest son has!
Luo Zhixue was helpless about this...
Even to put it harshly, in fact, he had long been mentally prepared for his eldest son to die young. Under such circumstances, he would naturally not consider making his eldest son the prince.
This was also an important reason why Luo Zhixue finally finalized the eldest son inheritance system... Speaking of which, if the eldest son's health had been better, Luo Zhixue might have considered making this eldest son the prince.
After all... people are somewhat selfish. He has so many children, but the one he loves most is his eldest son.
pity……
————
The scale of the prince's wedding was very large, and the level of etiquette was also very high. In addition to following the traditions, the royal family of the Dachu Empire also held a grand fireworks feast on the night of the wedding for the people in the city to enjoy. !
This kind of fireworks, which is a fusion of modern industrial technology, is larger and more brilliant than traditional fireworks, so that night, both the officials and the people of Jinling City enjoyed it very much!
And this massive fireworks also means that the Chu Empire has entered a new era to some extent!
A prosperous era!
In the early years of the empire, although the Chu Empire developed very well, the main theme of the first ten years was still war!
From the war of unification, to the war of annihilation of the Eastern Captions, to a series of battles to pacify the southwest and the Qingkang region, it was basically not until ten years after Chengshun that the Chu Empire ended its major large-scale wars.
During this period, although the industrial development of the Chu Empire continued to rise, the people's living standards were actually still in a relatively difficult period. After all, in the early days, people's livelihood and economy were mainly recovering.
This period of time was not only a period of China's comprehensive unification war, but also a period of cultivation and rest in many places in the pass.
After ten years of Chengshun, strictly speaking, people's living standards have improved significantly, but there are still limitations.
Trivia: More than a hundred years after the Industrial Revolution in Britain, the living standards of ordinary people are still very low...
A strong country does not mean that the people are wealthy. In that era, child labor was common!
It was not until the mid-19th century, especially after high-pressure steam engines entered all walks of life, that productivity further developed, and the living standards of ordinary people in the UK began to improve significantly.
This is similar in the Dachu Empire. After all, the natural conditions of the Dachu Empire are not that good. In the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, especially during the hydrodynamic period, the improvement in productivity was still very limited.
Although national defense has become stronger, it does not mean that per capita food production can also increase significantly, and people's lives can also increase significantly.
It was not until steam engines began to be put into use and the steam age entered that the living standards of ordinary people in the Chu Empire began to improve.
After the successful development of high-pressure steam engines and the large-scale use of trains and ships in recent years, the empire not only experienced a rapid increase in the development of its industrial and commercial economy, but also allowed the people's living standards to begin to comprehensively surpass those of traditional agricultural societies.
In other words, strictly speaking, the living standards of ordinary people in the Chu Empire did not improve significantly until the 21st year of Chengshun. By the 23rd year of Chengshun, the per capita grain reached 300 kilograms. level.
And last year it increased again, reaching a level of 305 kilograms per capita.
Although it is only an increase of ten kilograms, this increase is actually very amazing!
These increases mainly come from the increase in grain production brought about by the increase in domestic productivity in the Chu Empire.
Especially after the large-scale put into use of railways and ships, the transportation of people and materials has become more convenient, the cost of agricultural production has become lower, and the per capita grain output has increased.
Coupled with the continued large-scale external expansion, especially the expansion in Southeast Asia, which brought a large number of additional food sources.
All this ultimately allowed the people of Da Chu to have more food on their tables!
Only with more food per capita can we say that living standards have improved.
The current 25th year of Chengshun is an important turning point due to the rapid increase in per capita food and the rapid improvement of people's living standards.
According to the forecast of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the per capita food level of the Chu Empire is expected to reach 320 kilograms this year!
This will be a data that creates history!
