Zhu Houzhao was about to escape from Hu Zongxian and Zhang Juzheng's questioning, but at this time, he saw many people running outside Yongding Gate, shouting that the steam locomotive began to run outside Yongding Gate.

Zhu Houzhao didn't expect that the appearance of the steam locomotive would make these people so excited, so she couldn't help but smile and followed her. He knew that the steam locomotive was a new thing for the Ming Dynasty.

After all, before that, steam locomotives only appeared in newspapers.

When Zhu Houzhao arrived, he saw that the cement main road outside Yongding Gate was crowded with people, and there were even some officials and gentlemen with great crowns and belts. Between these Han family landscape walls made of silk clothes and long hair, a black steam locomotive came with white mist. The locomotive was huge, like a locomotive, but it was obviously simpler than the locomotive.

The soft morning light spread on the roof of Yongding Gate, shining on the word "Da Ming" on the top of the motorcycle. The metallic luster looked even more dazzling on the steam motorcycle. In this way, the smiles on the faces of the Han scholars on both sides of the road were as bright as the faces.

Bang!

The huge steam power was transmitted from the cylinder, directly driving the rotating shaft, causing the locomotive tire to suddenly change its static state, and suddenly it started to move forward like a tall black horse galloping.

At this time, the Han scholars and citizens were already shouting excitedly: "It's moving! It's moving!"

These people all opened their mouths happily and called their friends to see them. Some schoolchildren used their shallow mechanical knowledge to explain the principles to their families.

At this time, the officials of the Ministry of Works, who were still standing on the locomotive, were aware of it. When the steam locomotive started, they suddenly leaned back and realized that the steam locomotive had moved. They couldn't help but get excited. They didn't care about holding up the black hat that was shaking on their heads, and grinned regardless of their identity: "Move! Move!"

In this era, the Ming Dynasty at this time did not have a closed and conservative national policy or an invasion of foreign races. The people of the empire who had broken away from the shackles of Confucian Neo-Confucianism were no longer worried about food and clothing. They were rich and had knowledge and education, and even had enough opportunities to come into contact with new things.

The technology of the empire was not delayed by the short-sightedness of the alien race, the solemnity of Confucianism, and the conservativeness of the small peasant economy. Now the new steam industry has officially begun to intervene in the field of transportation.

The leaves beside the road swept through the tough shell of the steam locomotive under the breeze.

The four tires made of natural rubber are also very huge. They are moving on the road that has just been wet after the early summer rain. The rotating moving rods are constantly rising and falling, and the hearts of the Han scholars are also activated. After all, the visual impact of the metal monster in front of them is too great!

Even the old scholar Tang Jingyi, who was about to leave Beijing, couldn't help but widen his eyes. Seeing the four rubber iron wheels carrying heavy motorcycles on the ground, he couldn't help but sigh: "Incredible! Incredible! The car does not need a horse, and it can carry more than ten people. Can the skills of hundreds of crafts change the times?!"

"As a matter of fact, corrupt scholars cannot save the country. Only by being rude and tricks can we build a country. With this motorcycle, the world will no longer need to raise horses. People in the capital, Shandong and other places who are burdened by the imperial court's horse-raising silver can solve the problem!"

Zhang Juzheng said at this time that although he was only fifteen years old, he had already begun to care about the people.

Tang Jingyi turned around and glared at Zhang Juzheng, wanting to say something, but he couldn't say anything.

Zhu Hou felt even more happy when he saw that Tang Jingyi, an old scholar, was so angry that he was so angry that he was said by Zhang Juzheng. For the people, the appearance of steam locomotives might just make them feel fresh, but for the Ming Dynasty, it would indeed change the social ecology of the empire.

Before the emergence of mechanical power, horses have always been the most important means of transportation. Whoever masters the horse's resources will have the most advantageous military and transportation power. Horses have always been an important strategic resource. In fact, horses have always been the main product of nomadic peoples. Because of this, the Ming Dynasty was often restricted by horse resources.

Of course, the Ming Dynasty also had its own horse farm, but the price of this horse farm was at the expense of the interests of farmers. After all, using the cultivated land in the pass as a ranch is a waste, and it is difficult to breed high-quality horses.

Now that steam locomotives are beginning to appear, it means that the status of strategic resources such as horses will gradually decline, mechanical power will become the main source of power for transportation, and transportation will no longer rely on animal power, which will undoubtedly begin to decline the advantages of nomadic peoples.

More importantly, as Zhang Juzheng said, once a steam locomotive replaces horses, the people can no longer bear heavy burdens for supplying horses to the court.

Of course, it is just a vision at the moment. After all, the speed of steam locomotives is obviously not as fast as horses, and the manufacturing cost is actually higher than the cost of buying horses, but the load capacity is obviously far exceeding the load capacity of horses.

Zhu Houzhao did not stay outside Yongding Gate for a long time. After seeing the steam locomotive running successfully, he quietly returned to the Royal West Garden. However, as soon as he returned to the Royal West Garden, Zhu Houzhao received the news that the Southern Front Corps occupied the Qinghua City of Jiaozhi.

"Once Qinghua City is occupied, it means that our southern line corps has a landing point in Jiaozhi. The cabinet immediately began to prepare an internal plan to rule Jiaozhi and develop Jiaozhi, and issued policies to encourage the people of the Ming Dynasty to move to Jiaozhi. According to the pre-strategic plan, Jiaozhi implemented the military farming plan and appointed Yan Song as the governor of Jiaozhi and the left assistant minister of the Grain Industry Bureau. He first stayed in Qinghua and immediately started this matter."

Although Jiaozhi has not been completely recovered and the Southern Front Corps has not completely destroyed the Ruan tribe and has only occupied a Qinghua City, Zhu Houzhao can't wait to get enough food resources from Jiaozhi immediately, so he directly asked Yan Song to go to Qinghua to become the Governor of Jiaozhi immediately.

There is nothing to do about this. Zhu Houzhao had to admit that there were many disasters in the Ming Dynasty, and droughts and floods were always continuous. In addition, the climate phenomenon of the small glaciers became more and more obvious, and the arable areas in the north gradually shrank, and the demand for agricultural products increased sharply after the development of industry. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty must speed up the development of Jiaozhi and obtain sufficient agricultural products.

Yan Song went to Jiaozhi, and as soon as he arrived in Qinghua, Yan Song was granted a group of prisoners of war, the so-called monkeys, local natives.

These natives were already scared by the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty. At this time, they were afraid of it in front of Ming officials Yan Song and others. They all sat in temporary cement wall prison cells as prisoners.

These indigenous people were already assigned by the Guards when they became prisoners. Therefore, these prisoners had no names at this time. When they were placed in front of Yan Song's copy, they only made simple gender statistics and physical statistics, as well as the distinction between old age, middle age and young age.

Basically, all the landlord class, landlord class affiliated personnel and soldiers who did not engage in agricultural production were turned into serfs and could only engage in agricultural production every day.

Influenced by the law of fugitives, most of these new serfs in Jiaozhi began to get used to their new identities and began to be a serf with peace of mind, engaged in land farming.

However, the original self-cultivated farmers and tenant farmers among the Jiaozhi natives were still as usual, and they still planted their own land, but they had to pay summer tax and autumn grain every year.

In general, in the area of ​​Qinghua, Jiaozhi, which had been occupied by the Ming Dynasty, the original landlord class was all eliminated and basically became a simpler small peasant economy and society. In addition to the necessary towns, most of them were natural villages, with old villages and new villages. However, each village had a certain number of policemen, and the village heads of each village were all Han people.

Because of this, even in the early stages of the war, after the Ming Dynasty only occupied the Qinghua City area, nearly one million stones of grain had been transported back to the Ming Dynasty one after another.

Most of these foods are from the original landlord-class families in Jiaozhi, and there are also summer taxes that have just passed.

In any case, this allowed the Ming Dynasty to obtain more raw materials, so naturally there was no need to care whether the acquisition of these raw materials was crude or relatively civilized.

certainly.

Although the land in Jiaozhi was forcibly confiscated and became public ownership, and the serfs in Jiaozhi only had the right to use, even if they had the right to use, they would inevitably own private property. If there was private property, there would be transactions, there would be business, there would be business, there would be a private economy, and the existence of a private economy means exploitation, the landlord class or bourgeoisie who exploited workers.

Yan Song was basically suppressing this phenomenon.

Therefore, the local officials recommended by him when he proposed to the Ministry of Personnel were basically Confucian officials. They believed in the idea of ​​valuing agriculture and suppressing commerce, and advocated the Confucian concept of governing the country. They used taxes in business, which basically restricted the exchange of goods of serfs back to the level of bartering.

This basically limits Jiaozhi's commercial development. After all, as serfs, there is basically no demand for agricultural products except for the demand for money, because they can produce them themselves.

Once these serfs inevitably produce too many agricultural products and have to conduct commercial trade, they will be taken away by the government through taxation.

In short, Yan Song tried his best to kill the possibility of Jiaozhi's commodity economy development in Jiaozhi.

The Confucian ministers who were transferred to Jiaozhi also worked hard to carry out these measures, so that the serfs in Jiaozhi could basically only maintain a state of not starving to death.

But the landlord class is still inevitable. After all, the landlord class is an inevitable product of the small peasant class.

first.

The Ming officials and police soldiers who came to Jiaozhi became the first group of landlords.

Because they have now become the rulers of Jiaozhi, they are the easiest to own more wealth, and they are the first-class people of the Ming Dynasty and are allowed to own land, so they can purchase their own land through the Ming Dynasty government in Jiaozhi or reclaim their own land.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty also encouraged the first-class people in the mainland, namely the Han scholars, to move to Jiaozhi. Since it was encouraged, there were naturally preferential policies. For example, going to Jiaozhi would not only have the right to use the land, but also have the right to keep second-class people as slaves, but also exempt them from the levy within three years and even have privileged legal treatment.

For example, Yan Song immediately promulgated the customary laws of the Han people in line with the outline of the imperial constitution. The core idea of ​​its content is basically to give legal protection to the Han people with higher status than local indigenous people.

To be honest, over the years, affected by the development of capitalism, and the Ming Dynasty Emperor Zhu Houzhao was a lord who pursued equality within the nation. He protected the personal rights and interests of the Han people as much as possible in the system, which made the domestic vested interests very unfree. If it weren't for the increasing income of his income as the empire's external plunder and expansion, he would have long wanted to rebel against the Ming Dynasty.

Nowadays, when migrating to Jiaozhi, you can have land use rights and be exempted for three years. The key is that you can keep slaves and be the best. At least you won’t bear criminal responsibility for beating one person to death, and you can also enjoy the feeling of being more powerful and happy after the improvement of your wealth and status.

Therefore, both the landlord class and the bourgeoisie began to migrate to Jiaozhi.

Especially the gentry, they began to escape from the Ming Dynasty, where even the vassal kings and nobles could not do anything wrong. They like Jiaozhi very much, just as they like Goa.

After all, when you go to these places, the nobles are like nobles.

Only poor families who came from the bottom of the empire really liked the environment within the Ming Dynasty, and only common people within the empire really liked the current Ming Dynasty in their hearts, so that the number of members of the Zhongjun Society quickly expanded between major schools and grassroots levels, which also made Zhu Houzhao's prestige among the people higher and higher.

But what is funny is that once these people from the bottom become middle class or above through education or other means, they begin to get bored and disgusted with the policies within the empire, and begin to feel that they were brainwashed by official education, and began to hope that they could have more special treatment, so that once these people from the bottom became rich, they began to migrate to Jiaozhi and Goa.

However, in order to make the Ming Empire prosper for a long time, as the Ming emperor and the senior imperial leaders could only continue to take care of the interests of the lower class, continue to maintain balance, and continue to emphasize the civil rights of the first-class people of the Ming Dynasty, because with the development of industry and the popularization of education, a large number of Han workers and farmers needed these.

Jiaozhi now undoubtedly once again became the second place where the second vested interests of the Ming Dynasty, the gentry group, migrated.

The first thing the gentry did when they arrived in Jiaozhi was to buy people and land, and the rhythm of landlord class life was repeated on this land.

The land of Jiaozhi is originally limited, and even if it is reclaimed, it is impossible to reclaim enough land for these indigenous people who have become serfs in a short period of time. Naturally, many indigenous people will still be used for sale.

After these Confucian scholars came to Jiaozhi, they would buy a large number of these serfs as their own slaves.

Ren Han, a famous scholar who had been a Hanlin Academy, also moved to Jiaozhi. He was born in a bureaucratic family and could not accept the concept of citizenship brought about by the influence of equality in the mainland of Ming Dynasty, which made him unable to become a gentry who could kill slaves and maids at will with clan lynching and executing tribes.

This made him feel very depressed.

Moreover, Ren Hanyi thought that when he saw a long-time worker carrying manure into the front yard and was dirty, he happened to be caught by himself. He called him a humiliating and ordered the long-time worker hired to enter and exit through the back door, he actually attracted many literary criticisms, saying that he was discriminating against ordinary people, Ren Han felt even more depressed and uncomfortable.

But he could not tolerate the students' behavior of not taking care of the face of a famous scholar teacher, nor could he accept the idea that the lower class people who only know how to go to the kilns and talk dirty and do hard work are equal to him in their status.

However, he also knew that he could not refute it, because the sages did not say that as Confucian scholars, they should regard civilians as grass.

Because of this, Ren Han also migrated to Jiaozhi, where he could establish a strict hierarchy, raise slaves, and be a patriarch and parent who could control his tribe and family. Even if he beat his son to death, it would not be illegal. He felt that Jiaozhi was obviously much freer than in the mainland of the Ming Dynasty.

Even Yan Song himself was a little happy. Now he could enjoy the female slave he bought, but he was lustful and unlucky to take advantage of his wife Ouyang's power and dare not step beyond the line. However, his son Yan Shifan is now indulging in Jiaozhi, and there are no less than three or four female slaves every day.

The idea of ​​equality for all is the most beneficial and necessary for the common people, but it is obviously unacceptable for the ruling class, even if they have to accept it on the surface.

And now, this is precisely because of this that this phenomenon has occurred.

The rich and powerful began to migrate to Jiaozhi, while the civilians remained in the country, but these civilians began to migrate to Jiaozhi as soon as they accumulate wealth.

Zhu Houzhao actually had a little yearning for the life of his own people in the colonies.

Because now he found that he had also dug a hole for himself. His liberation of thought, openness of trade and investment in education made it difficult for him, the emperor to be able to execute a person at will as he had before. Sometimes, Zhu Houzhao also wanted to raise a few female slaves and do something exciting.

But Zhu Houzhao finally restrained his animalistic side, but he could also think that perhaps even if the social economy is highly developed in the future, he could only achieve local equality. Perhaps those who enjoy equality and freedom would not think that they are actually exploiters, but they just did not pass through their own hands, so they felt how noble they were.

For example, the civilians from the mainland in the Ming Dynasty today would not realize that they could have high welfare benefits because the court kept distributing the benefits from the exploitation of colonies and other ethnic groups to them, so that they could grow up happily while drinking the blood of other ethnic groups without worrying about the survival crisis.

"Bai doesn't understand why the court has to divide it into two levels. Since it can give citizens of the Ming Dynasty, why can't it be granted to the indigenous people of Jiaozhi? Since everyone is equal, why can't we respect these indigenous people! Why are they so cruel! Respect their culture and respect their beliefs!"

Bai Ruoyi said this in newspapers and even aroused enthusiastic response from some so-called emerging intellectuals.

Zhu Houzhao was both happy and scared when she saw it. What she was delighted was that the theories of these Virgin Mary must have appeared because the Ming Dynasty had indeed become rich and the people had indeed lived a wealthy life, otherwise they would not have been noble enough to love all human beings.

What I am afraid of is that this concept of Virgin Mary will increase with the increase of the number of wealthy people, and more and more people ignore the essence of the laws of nature, the laws of the jungle.

"The story of the farmer and the snake cannot be forgotten! Today, people who have no worries about food and clothing want to love people from other clans, but they do not know that they can have no worries about food and clothing because they rely on the sacrifices of people from other clans. If they want people from other clans to be equal and rich, they must be willing to be slaves!"

Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but sigh.
Chapter completed!