In a manor in the Spanish Empire, several young nobles gathered together and talked about everything.
"Alfred, tell everyone what the Ming Empire is like."
Villa looked at his friend in front of him. Alfred was one of the students sent by Spain to study in the Ming Empire. He had just returned from the Ming Empire not long ago.
At present, it has also received the attention of the Spanish Emperor Charles V, and the future is bright.
"Yes, I heard that the cities of the Ming Empire are extremely prosperous and lively. I really want to go to the Ming Empire for a walk, but I can't speak the Ming dialect."
Yin Geer on the side was also full of curiosity.
They have heard too much about the Ming Empire, and they have seen too many products from the Ming Empire. They have also been lucky enough to attend some dinners and cocktail parties where people from the Ming Dynasty attended.
No matter from which aspect, the Ming Empire seems to far surpass the Spanish Empire.
Alfred took a sip of tea and said, "The tea from the Ming Dynasty is better. It's hard to buy really good tea in Europe."
He gently put down the tea cup. The young Alfred was similar to the Ming Dynasty. He had short hair and a clean shaven beard. The clothes he wore were also the Ming style. They were very simple and not popular in Europe.
The aristocratic costumes are not only unsightly, but also very inconvenient.
"How should I put it? There are too many things in the Ming Empire that our Spanish Empire should learn from. I don't know which aspect to talk about."
"Then tell me about the emperor of the Ming Empire."
Villa thought for a while and said.
"The emperors of the Ming Empire are very different from those here in Spain."
"The Ming Dynasty attaches great importance to inheritance, especially the inheritance of its own surname. It is impossible for the Ming Empire's throne to be passed on to people with other surnames like we do here in Europe."
Alfred said.
"But what if you don't have a son?"
Yin Geer said quickly when he heard this.
"It can be passed on to the descendants of brothers, but it is absolutely impossible to pass it on to grandsons, because grandsons have the same surname. Therefore, the emperors in the Ming Empire definitely have the same surname. It is impossible to pass it on to grandsons like we do in Europe.
matter."
"In addition, the Ming Empire attaches great importance to offspring. The emperors and nobles of the Ming Empire often have many women. If there are enough women, they will naturally have enough offspring."
"Just like the current crown prince of the Ming Empire, he has more than 200 sons and more than 200 daughters."
Alfred replied.
"Oh God, more than 200 sons, more than 200 daughters?"
When Yingor and Villa heard this, they were dumbfounded. There were more than 400 descendants in total, which was too huge.
"That's too many. How many women does he have?"
Yin Geer was dumbfounded. This is so fertile. The key point is that even if it is fertile, it can still be fed. This is the key point.
Some monarchs in Europe are also very fertile, but there are not many offspring that can be raised to adulthood. Marriage is common among European nobles, often between cousins. Various aristocratic diseases are very common. One of the characteristics is
Descendants are few and far between. Some noble titles are passed down, but no one can inherit them and there are no descendants.
"The Prince of Ming Dynasty had many women, maybe hundreds or even thousands. This is also the reason why he has many descendants."
"The Ming Dynasty is different from us in Europe. They don't pay attention to blood. Many of the descendants of the Prince of the Ming Dynasty are mixed. Among them are mixed descendants of various tribes in the Ming Dynasty, and even mixed descendants of Eastern European Slavs.
The two daughters of the Grand Duke of Ryazan in Eastern Europe gave birth to six or seven children for the Ming Prince."
"People in the Ming Dynasty believed that if close relatives got married, the offspring would be born with many diseases and defects. Therefore, the royal family and nobles of the Ming Dynasty rarely married cousins. This is why their nobles and royal families rarely have the same relationship as our European counterparts.
Due to some genetic diseases common among nobles and royal families.”
Alfred introduced in detail the royal system and aristocratic marriages in the Ming Dynasty.
"But if this is the case, wouldn't it lead to the blood of common people flowing into the upper class?"
Yin Ge thought for a while and said.
"Yes, now the mother of the emperor of the Ming Empire is an ordinary person, and the people of the Ming Dynasty don't care about it."
"What they pay more attention to is the surname, which is the most important thing."
Alfred nodded and said.
"It's really hard to understand them. How can the blood of nobles be mixed with the blood of ordinary civilians."
Libya also shook his head and said.
For the European aristocrats of this period, bloodline was extremely important, and bloodline must be pure, so many cousins married into each other.
"But this is also one of the reasons why the Ming Empire is so powerful. Because they do not pay attention to bloodline, but pay more attention to surnames and inheritance, so their surnames can be preserved forever. They have many ancient surnames, and the inheritance is the same as in ancient times. It can even be said that
Every surname is a heritage with a long history."
"As for us in Europe, many surnames are passed down, but then they disappear."
"Because of the emphasis on surnames and inheritance, the Ming people are more united than us Europeans. They attach great importance to the inheritance of culture, so they have always been a unified empire. Even if there are occasional periods of division, they will soon
We can be unified again."
"Looking at us in Europe, unity is only short-term, and division is long-term."
"A small Europe is about the same size as the Ming Empire itself, but how many countries do we have?"
"England, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Holy Roman Empire, even within each country, are still fragmented, with large and small states, very scattered."
"This is why we in the West are always not as good as the East. We are divided and unable to gather our strength to do big things, so our progress is naturally slow."
"In terms of simple railway construction, there is still no railway in Europe yet, but what about the Ming Empire?"
"do you know?"
"The railways of the Ming Empire have criss-crossed and extended in all directions. They even built railways directly from Houzhao City on the Baltic Sea across the long Eurasian continent to their easternmost Beijing-Tianjin region."
"They built railways from the cold Siberian plains all the way south, to the tropical Southeast Asia, to Jiaozhi and the Elephant Forest."
"They even spent more than one billion taels of silver just to build a railway to the southwest, so that areas with the worst traffic conditions can be connected to trains and have convenient transportation."
"The construction of the railway made the Ming Empire become more powerful than ever before. They could easily transport the grain produced in the black soil provinces of Eastern Europe to the mainland thousands of miles away."
"They can also transport a large number of cars and motorcycles produced in the Beijing-Tianjin region to Europe for sale, and cattle and sheep from the northern grassland can be transported to the south on a large scale for sale."
"In winter, tropical fruits and vegetables from their Nanyang region can be transported to the cold Beijing-Tianjin region by rail. Even in winter, they can eat fresh vegetables and fruits."
"Look at our Europe, which is divided into pieces. It is difficult for us to even raise the funds to build a railway. We still rely on primitive horse-drawn carriages to travel between places, and the speed is very slow."
"Even now we don't have a few decent cement roads."
"What should we compare with the Ming Empire?"
"They have millions of troops all over the world. They have their own fleets in Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, West Africa, and the Red Sea. They can even assemble anywhere in the huge empire in just a few days.
An army of hundreds of thousands."
"Their fleet is so huge that any fleet can sweep across any fleet in Europe."
"Do you know how much the Ming Empire's annual fiscal revenue is?"
"They can receive a huge tax of more than 1.5 billion taels of silver a year. This is such a huge income, and most of the tax is used for the construction of the entire empire."
"The Ming Dynasty built a large number of railways, roads, ports, reservoirs, dams, canals, etc. They also invested a lot of money in education and built a large number of schools. Almost every child can go to school."
"This is the Ming Empire, an existence so powerful that it makes people despair, a unified and powerful empire!"
After Alfred finished speaking, he also let out a long sigh.
Only by truly understanding the Ming Empire can you know how powerful it was. This definitely does not mean just having a vast land and a powerful army, but that it was powerful in all aspects.
The more you know about the Ming Empire, the more despair you will feel. The huge gap makes it impossible for people to see any hope compared with the Ming Empire.
Alfred also wrote a very long letter to Charles V specifically for this purpose, and put forward many suggestions similar to those of the Ming Empire.
He believed that if the Spanish Empire wanted to become stronger, it must learn from the Ming Empire and establish a powerful centralized dynasty, a truly unified empire, and use the advantages of unity to gradually carry out reforms and become stronger.
This point was deeply in line with the ideals and ambitions of the young Charles V, and was also deeply valued by Charles V.
After listening to Alfred's words, Yingor and Villa were also shocked and speechless. Although they knew that the Ming Empire was very strong, from all aspects, they did not know that the Ming Empire was very strong.
The empire is truly strong in those places.
Now after listening to Alfred's words, they finally understood where the strength of the Ming Empire lies.
"If our Spanish Empire wants to be as powerful as the Ming Empire, we must learn from the Ming Empire!"