When he met with Sun Changzhou, the emperor had already inspected Changping and had an idea in his mind.
The overall development of northern agriculture is good. Although the policy of low field tax has caused a certain loss of tax revenue for the court, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
"Hey Hugh——"
Sun Changzhou got off the carriage. The strong sunlight made him squint his eyes unconsciously. He raised his right hand habitually. What appeared in front of him was a mill.
There are several wooden houses with reeds as sheds, which are ventilated and bright.
Several donkeys were blindfolded and walked around habitually. As they walked, the tendons moved, and then they were squeezed continuously, and a large amount of juice was squeezed out.
Sun Changzhou glanced at the black wooden board, the juice flowing on it, and the sticky sediment under the stone pool.
He couldn't help but feel a little nauseous.
The emperor was dressed in regular clothes, and his long beard was neatly trimmed. It seemed that due to age, his cheeks had begun to gain weight, and his originally sharp eyes had become kind.
But how can a monarch who conquers the world single-handedly be easy to get along with?
"His Majesty--"
"You came!"
Zhu Yixi responded calmly, focusing all her energy on the squeeze.
Seemingly seeing Sun Changzhou's confusion, he explained: "This is sugar production."
"Sugar?" Sun Changzhou was stunned: "Can sugar cane be grown in the north?"
"No, this is beet."
Zhu Yixi chuckled: "Steam the beets, chop them into small pieces, and squeeze them to make sugar water."
"Then boil it in an iron pot, and that's sugar."
Sun Changzhou suddenly realized, his face suddenly changed and his eyes widened.
Can sugar be made from beets?
This is a huge benefit for the North.
"Did you notice it?"
Zhu Yixi showed some complacency: "Beets, the colder the place, the sweeter they are."
"Chahar, Suiyuan and the Northeast are all suitable for growing sugar beets."
"As long as it becomes popular, it will be a great good thing for the people."
Sun Changzhou was filled with emotion, and he directly bowed his hands and said, "Your Majesty is truly a first-class holy king."
"Sweet potatoes and corn are enough for food and clothing, and sugar beets make the people rich. This is something that has been done for thousands of generations, and it is all due to the contribution of His Majesty."
Zhu Yixi shook his head and said modestly: "Sweet potatoes are popular in Fujian, beets are popular in Gansu, and Shaanxi is slightly involved. I am just standing on the shoulders of my predecessors to help."
Even though he said this, he raised his head with a proud face.
If we look at their popularity in terms of time, it would have taken two to three hundred years for sugar beets to become popular throughout the north, while corn and sweet potatoes did not become popular throughout the country until the 18th and 19th centuries.
His gentle push was enough to save hundreds of years of effort. The credit was too great.
Food can only provide food and clothing, but cash crops are no less important than food.
In the late Ming Dynasty, tobacco was introduced to the Ming Dynasty, but it was always resisted by the officials and people were strictly prohibited from growing tobacco.
Because they are afraid that tobacco will take over farmland.
This was also the case with sugar beets in the north at the beginning, and the officials were very discriminatory.
This is because the population is growing and there is insufficient arable land, so food cannot keep up.
Nowadays, wasteland is being opened up in the Northeast, Annan has been transformed into the Qin Kingdom, and American crops such as corn and sweet potatoes have become popular, and food is abundant.
The income from one acre of sugar beets is several times that of grain, which not only helps the people accumulate wealth, but also increases their ability to resist disasters.
In Zhu Yixi's plan, tobacco leaves and sugar beets will be important agricultural crops in the north, along with soybeans, peanuts, etc.
Although sugar production is expensive, the oil production industry should not be underestimated.
If you eat more oil, you will eat less food, which is also conducive to social stability.
The army is like this, it is reluctant to give up fuel, otherwise the training will be unbearable.
The sun was a bit bright, so the emperor put on a straw hat and led a group of people to the river, enjoying the cool breeze.
The eldest girl who was doing laundry and her daughter-in-law noticed this group of people and were frightened into silence and left in a hurry.
"Your Majesty, Chahar now has small towns such as Chifeng, so it is divided into six counties. There are 400,000 Han people and 800,000 Mongolian people. The two live in harmony and there is no conflict."
Sun Changzhou stood bowed and reported on Chahar's situation.
In terms of governance, Chahar has reached its peak.
He used the Han people and the Mongolian people to check and balance each other, and at the same time, among the Mongolian people, he used sweat tents to suppress ordinary herdsmen.
Among the nobility, the Beihai County Prince and the Chahar County Prince check and balance each other, but most of the small and medium-sized nobles leave their land to the government for care and live by themselves with the iron sheep tax.
Finally, Sun Changzhou said with a smile: "Beihai County Prince, Chahar County Prince, their descendants, relatives and friends are all married to the imperial court. They have a close relationship, but I am supervising them unhurriedly."
"According to the investigation, there are only 3,000 tents left in the Beihai County Prince's tribe, and there are only 2,000 tents left in the Chahar County Prince. There are very few nobles who support him. He is no longer a threat to the court."
Speaking of this, his smile was particularly bright.
It took nearly ten years to tame the Chahar people, which was extremely hard, but Sun Changzhou did it.
One is to rely on powerful frontier troops, and the other is to rely on interests, which are constantly forced to surrender like slicing sausages.
In the end, the strength of the Mongolian nobles was less than 30% of Chahar's, and it was also extremely scattered.
"As long as the 100-household system is implemented for a long time, the great rule of Mongolia is not far away."
Finally, he concluded.
The emperor nodded slightly, expressing satisfaction.
Regarding grassland policies, the main one is the 100-household system.
By freeing the herdsmen from the hands of the nobles and establishing a unique grassland bureaucracy, the imperial court's rule over Chahar was stabilized.
The taming of Buddhism and the wooing of nobles are nothing more than auxiliary means.
Although Iron Sheep Money is the main method and seems to be going well, there are many stubborn nobles, which tests their skills.
Sun Changzhou accomplished all of this well.
From the Governor of Water Transport, to the Governor of Xuanda, the Governor of Chahar, and Sun Changzhou, they all lived up to his expectations.
In a sense, he is a top talent.
But who would have thought that he was a down-and-out member of the Royal Guards at the beginning, waiting to die in a hospital camp?
Zhu Yixi had some thoughts for a while.
"What are your plans next?"
Hearing the emperor's inquiry, Sun Changzhou was stunned. He had no plans as he had to listen to the emperor.
But he hesitated for a while and then said: "I want to retire and return to my hometown."
"You are only in your fifties and not yet sixty. It is too early to retire."
When the emperor heard this, he shook his head and directly rejected this opinion.
However, when he saw that Sun Changzhou's hair was all white, he couldn't bear it and said, "I can't leave the Qing family!"
Sun Changzhou sighed in his heart, he knew this was the case.
The emperor said quickly: "I have decided to abolish the post of Governor of Suiyuan and establish the Governor of Jinsui. The Qing family will be the first Governor of Jinsui."
He said earnestly: "The Mongols in Suiyuan still need the Qing family to manage them!"
Suiyuan is located in the Yinshan area north of Datong, Shanxi, and still occupies Dongtao of the Hetao. Most of the people in the territory are Mongolians.
Compared with Chahar, which is close to the capital and can be easily managed by the court, Suiyuan is a bit far away, making it difficult for the governor to manage it thoroughly.
At this time, the combination of Shanxi and Suiyuan into the Shanxi-Suiyuan region was not a whim of the emperor, but a long-planned plan.
The establishment of the Governor of Jinsui will not only facilitate grassland trade, but will also be able to borrow Jin soldiers to suppress rebellions.
It is also more convenient to immigrate to farm and other things.
In addition, the emperor decided to establish new governors of Yunnan and Guizhou and governors of Guangdong and Guangxi.
Needless to say, it's expensive. Both provinces are relatively poor, with barren mountains and rivers, so it's easy to suppress them together.
The governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi is not in Guangdong, but in Guangxi.
In Guangxi, there are many chieftains such as Yao and Dong. They have many people but little land, so governance is extremely difficult. There have been countless rebellions over the past thousands of years.
It is very appropriate to use Guangdong's money to pacify Guangxi.
Zhu Yixi thought of so many governors in the late Qing Dynasty, and had to say that the political wisdom among them was extremely high.
There are also the governors of Fujian and Zhejiang, one is poor and the other is rich, and they complement each other; the governors of Shaanxi and Gansu, one is less and the other is more.
The governor of Sichuan is specifically responsible for the southwest chieftains and the plateau area. It is also necessary to have a governor here to facilitate the mobilization of financial and material resources to send troops to the plateau.
Zhu Yixi is not interested in the Governor of Fujian and Zhejiang and the Governor of Sichuan for the time being.
Fujian has Taiwan releasing floods, Kang is in the southwest, and Wei and Tibet are fighting each other. It doesn't matter for the time being.
Wait, the governor of Shaanxi-Gansu is necessary, but he has to be added as the governor of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia.
Each of these three places has its own shortcomings and does need to be closely linked.
As for why we are not afraid of the governor separatist power?
That's because each province also has governors, envoys and other officials, and the official ranks are not much different. The governor is not their direct superior or subordinate.
The main responsibility of the governor is to manage the coordination of the army and suppress the rebellion in a timely manner.
Sun Changzhou brought the emperor back to Beijing, and there were only three days left before the trial began.
There will be three trials, each lasting three days.
The reform of the imperial examination that was continued in the early years of Shaowu had been implemented in the provincial examination a few years ago. Only the Tongzi examination still followed the old practice and only tested eight-part essay.
Under the new imperial examination, the general examination was still three days and three sessions, but the content of the examination had undergone earth-shaking changes.
For example, in the past, the examiner and the examiner had to read three test papers together, adding up to tens of thousands of copies and tens of millions of words, which can be said to be day and night.
But now, the chief examiner only invigilates the exam and fills in the gaps, while the co-examiners are divided into three groups and read the three exams respectively.
Likewise, the number of co-examiners increased to thirty, ten for each session.
At the same time, sealing, transcribing, proofreading, grading, filling out exams, etc. are all randomly selected from the eight books, so it is impossible to cheat.
The exam content has been extensively updated.
In the first round, there are three policy essays, one poem and one poem each, and they must use the eight-legged essay format, which is the same as in the old days.
In addition to the eight-part essay being standardized and fair, more importantly, the format of the eight-part essay is the official document of the Ming Dynasty.
The emperor's imperial edicts and local official documents were all written in eight-legged prose.
The biggest feature of the eight-part essay of the Shaowu Dynasty is the punctuation marks.
In the past, the examiner's review of the essay did not mean that he would directly judge whether it was accurate or not after reading it. He still had to read the sentence, which made the reading difficult.
With the addition of punctuation marks, marking eight-part essays has become even simpler, and the time has been shortened by more than half.
A new rule has been added to the grading rules: if there are two or more punctuation errors, students will be eliminated directly.
In the second session, the tests were on laws and scriptures, as well as history, common sense, etc.
It can be compared to the Ming Jing, which requires filling in the blanks and dictation, and it tests memory.
For example, what is the reign name of Emperor Taizu, the twenty-eight generals of Yuntai in the Eastern Han Dynasty, etc.
The third session is about application questions.
For example, judgment based on content, arithmetic problems, etc. are basically basic problems in officialdom.
At first, scholars were dissatisfied with such rules, and public opinion was in an uproar.
But faced with the temptation of officialdom, many people still expressed disdain for their moral integrity, and the bottom line came to a breakthrough.
As long as you can be an official and take the imperial examination, you can do whatever you want.
Just like in the Northern Song Dynasty, when Ouyang Xiu was the examiner, he directly dismissed the Taixue style (which was dangerous, strange, grotesque, slanderous, and vulgar), and hired Su Shi, Zeng Gong and others. The Taixue students directly caused trouble.
But two years later, Liu Ji, the leader of the Imperial College students who was criticized by Ouyang Xiu, changed his name and took the exam again. His writing style was completely different, and he was directly hired by Ouyang Xiu.
The bottom line for literati is lower than imagined.
Therefore, when Shaowu's New Deal was implemented, the candidates immediately made major changes, and then unanimously regarded the third game as the most important one, because it could not be memorized without reference to the answers.
Thousands of people arrived in Beijing, bringing huge consumption power, doubling the capital's paper supply, filling inns, and all kinds of cases kept coming, making the patrol headquarters very busy.
The vendors shouting on the streets all shut up. In the noisy restaurants and bars, people talked about examination matters such as examiners, examination questions, and examination provinces.
The policemen patrolling the streets all had serious faces, and everyone looked like thieves.
The emperor was traveling in plain clothes and noticed the tense atmosphere in the capital and couldn't help but feel amused.
Millions of people in the capital seemed to be breathing the same breath as this group of candidates.
Also, after becoming a Jinshi, this time I can become a county magistrate, Bailihou, and become a big shot with more than 10,000 people. Who is not nervous?
Zhu Yixi was not wandering on the street. If she were caught by the patrol police, it would be a big joke.
He went straight to a bookstore: Biquge.
Needless to say, this is the bad taste of time travellers.
The most conspicuous among them are the examination collections over the years. Other books such as the Four Books, Five Classics and Classics also sell well.
There are also previous communiqués, which are also selling well.
What makes Zhu Yixi happy is nothing more than the best-sellers of "Three Hundred Tang Poems" and "Three Hundred Song Ci Poems".
"Huh--"
He saw the title of the book and walked straight over: "Little Knowledge of Physics".
This book, this title is so amazing.
"Fang Yizhi?"
Zhu Yixi thought about it in her mind and felt familiar.
After a moment, he suddenly realized that he was the chief envoy of Shandong.
He was once one of the four young masters in the south of the Yangtze River. He was a concubine in the 13th year of Chongzhen and was extremely famous.
I never thought that as a dignified chief minister, I would actually publish a book.
After reading through it, I found that Zhu Yixi had some criticisms and some praises, but compared to folk legends, these common sense are pretty good.
"Sir, do you want this book? It only costs two cents."
The waiter hurried over and asked politely.
Zhu Yixi is a man of many talents, so he immediately knew that he was urging people and not allowing customers to read more.