In the 60th year of Xuanping, Prince Li Hao passed away, which brought some disturbances to the Tang Empire, which was developing steadily and rapidly.
But it was just a disturbance. Although the Holy Emperor was old now, he still firmly controlled the affairs of the court. No matter whether it was the vassal king, the powerful ministers or the natives, they all did not dare to have any thoughts of causing trouble.
Therefore, when the twenty-five feudal lords returned to the capital, there were no disturbances!
The sixty years since the empire was declared peaceful have passed so smoothly.
What is different from the past is that the young emperor grandson Li Hongxu has begun to appear frequently in official media such as the Tang Dynasty Daily.
Although he is young now, he has been appointed by the Holy Emperor to act as the imperial study, just like the previous princes. He has received strict royal education since childhood, and has been actually involved in government affairs in the past few years. He is responsible for the development of electrification in detail. He also quickly demonstrated his ability to coordinate the overall situation.
In many meetings in the imperial study room, the emperor's grandson Li Hongchuo showed his composure, calmness and sophisticated skills, handling many affairs properly.
The performance of the emperor's grandson Li Hongxu also caught the attention of the Holy Emperor Li Xuan!
This made Li Xuan feel at ease a lot. He was previously worried that the emperor's grandson was too young and would have difficulty controlling the court situation. He did not expect to be able to handle the matter so properly.
It doesn't seem to be anything eye-catching, but it's better than being stable.
At this time, nothing is more important than stability.
After the death of Prince Li Hao, the empire is no longer suitable for anything too sensational or intense. The empire now needs to be stable!
In the past six months, the series of political measures shown by the emperor's grandson Li Hongzhuo also made Li Xuan feel relieved!
This eldest grandson's character is naturally suitable for being a ruler, to some extent, he is more suitable than Li Xuan himself!
He seems peaceful, but he is ruthless and there is no ambiguity about what he should do.
The only thing he lacks is that his methods are too simple and a little reckless, which often exposes his own intentions and makes him embarrassed, but this is a matter of experience.
And experience can be accumulated!
If Li Xuan can escort the emperor's grandson for a few years, it will be enough for the emperor's grandson to grow up quickly, and finally realize the smooth transfer of the imperial throne, avoiding the turmoil of the early Ming Dynasty, and even more, the turmoil of the late Qin Dynasty.
It's just that Li Xuan himself is getting older and his body is not as good as before. Even though he has been taking good care of himself over the years, he still doesn't know how long he can survive. To be honest, even he himself doesn't know.
Now all he has to do is let himself live a few more years.
As long as he is alive!
That would be enough to provide the greatest help to the emperor's grandson.
As long as he is alive, there will be no chaos in the world, and the Emperor Taisun will have enough time to accumulate experience!
At the same time, Li Xuan also began to consider the layout of the court!
This layout does not mean arranging some ministers who care about life. The emperor's grandson Li Hongchuo is not a kid. Although he is young, he is already twenty-five years old, and he has already started to get involved in government affairs many years ago. What he lacks is just Some experience and prestige.
No need for a nanny-like minister!
What is Li Xuan’s layout?
The first priority is to create opportunities for the emperor's grandson, so that he can accumulate huge prestige, let him win the trust of the people in the world, and make the people of the world think that he will be a good emperor from the bottom of their hearts, not just a good emperor. He is the eldest grandson of the direct emperor Li Xuan.
This is the same as what Li Xuan has done for the prince in the past few years. To be honest, the talent of the late prince Li Hao is very average, but relying on the prestige accumulated over the years, it is still enough to convince the world. People generally believe that the prince will be the king after he ascends the throne. The emperor and empress can continue to lead the empire to glory.
Now, Li Xuan wants the emperor's grandson to do the same!
Therefore, Li Xuan asked the emperor's grandson Li Hongxu to focus his main energy on the development of agricultural and industrial economies, the most important of which was the continued implementation of electrification.
Electrification was originally a gift package prepared by Li Xuan for the crown prince Li Hao. Now, this gift package will fall on the grandson of the emperor Li Hongxu.
As long as the emperor's grandson Li Hongzhu completes electrification and brings a new wave of great development to the empire, it will be enough to accumulate enough prestige for the emperor's grandson to be sincerely supported by the subjects of the world.
Li Xuan has always firmly believed that if you want to secure the throne and have the people of the world sincerely support you, there is only one way, and that is to bring tangible benefits to the people of the world!
Why is Li Xuan's prestige so high?
Unifying the world? Industrialization or other messy things?
These all count, but in the end these things are all for the same thing: to make the lives of people in the Tang Dynasty better!
The reason why Li Xuan's prestige is so high is very simple, that is, he made the lives of people in the Tang Dynasty better.
If the emperor's grandson wants to gain the support of his subjects, no matter what he does in the whole process, in the end he still has to come down to one point: make the lives of his subjects better!
Good day!
This is what everyone expects!
Looking at the development of the empire over the past few decades, as of today, the Tang Empire has basically completed the first level of industrial development brought about by the steam engine.
At this time, the development speed of many fields has slowed down, or even experienced negative growth.
Why?
Because the productivity improvement brought by the steam engine has almost been utilized, if we want to continue to develop rapidly in the future, we must further improve productivity.
How to improve productivity?
The memory of his previous life gave Li Xuan the best path, which is to comprehensively promote electrification and promote the comprehensive development of internal combustion engines.
The increase in productivity brought about by the steam engine is called the first industrial revolution, while the increase in productivity brought about by electrification and the internal combustion engine is called the second industrial revolution.
Now, it was time for the Tang Empire to comprehensively promote the Second Industrial Revolution on a large scale.
In fact, many things in the second industrial revolution had already appeared in many fields in the Tang Empire. For example, the information revolution brought about by telegraphy was a typical feature of electrification applications.
In addition, the Navy of the Tang Empire had played with electric turrets very early. Although that thing appeared too early and was abandoned because it was impractical, and switched to hydraulic turrets, this was already an early attempt by the Tang Empire in the electric field.
Then there is the internal combustion engine. The internal combustion engine in the Tang Empire has been around for a long time. Cars have been around for many years. Cars, especially trucks, bring convenience to short-distance transportation. This is also an improvement in productivity, but more importantly, The development of various construction machinery and large agricultural machinery powered by internal combustion engines has also led to the improvement of productivity.
In many areas, the empire has adopted large-scale farms, using large tractors and other agricultural machinery powered by gasoline engines for farming.
However, in Li Xuan's view, the current scale and speed of development are still not enough, and the productivity improvements brought by sporadic development are still too small to significantly improve the productivity of the entire empire.
Electrification and the further application of internal combustion engines will allow them to enter every corner of society. This is what the empire needs to do in the future. In this process, it will definitely bring about a substantial increase in productivity, which will in turn change the lives of the people of the Tang Dynasty.
Get better!
Now, Li Xuan has handed over the task of comprehensively promoting the second industrial revolution to the emperor's grandson!
In September of the 61st year of Xuanping, Li Xuan summoned the emperor's grandson alone. This summons was different from previous summons.
After the emperor's grandson came in, Li Xuanping stepped back, then pointed to a large stack of documents on the table and said: "This is the report just sent over from the Polytechnic Institute, take a look!"
After a year of experience in acting as the imperial study room, the emperor's grandson was much calmer than last year. After bowing, he came over and picked up the hundreds of pages of documents and started reading.
This is a report sent by the Economics Department of the Royal Institute of Technology. The report is very long, but it actually says very little!
The whole article only talks about one thing, and that is to demonstrate the various impacts brought about by the adoption of electric motors to replace steam engines as the main power source in industry.
Before Emperor Taisun took charge of the imperial study, he had already been responsible for the construction of infrastructure areas under the Ministry of Industry, including the construction of hydropower stations, and he also took over electrification in other fields.
Although the acting imperial study has been very busy in the past year, due to the actual needs of the development of the contemporary empire, a lot of work is actually related to electricity.
More importantly, he has stronger political sensitivity than the prince!
As soon as he saw this report, he knew that it was a great weapon to improve productivity and stabilize rule!
Li Xuan did not let the emperor's grandson guess anything, but instead popularized the concept and importance of the second industrial revolution to him!
"The productivity improvement brought by the steam engine has almost been consumed. If we want to further improve productivity and stabilize social conflicts, we need new productivity growth points, and the application of electricity and internal combustion engines are the two most important points in the future!"
"And the productivity improvements brought about by these new technologies can completely trigger the second great industrial development!"
"Originally, your father should have done this, but now the situation is different. You must shoulder the heavy responsibility of promoting the development of the second industry!"
Li Xuan talked a lot during this day. It seemed that he was talking about things like industrial development, but his words were frequently mixed with several words: contradiction.
The emperor's political understanding has always been very good, and he was able to grasp the key points from Li Xuan's long speech: the second industrial development is to solve social conflicts.
Li Xuan told the emperor's grandson Li Hongchuo why he wanted to engage in the second industrial development!
It is not for the development of industrial and commercial economy, or other crazy things, but to improve productivity and alleviate social conflicts, so as to make the imperial society more stable and harmonious, and then continue its stable rule.
And if you extend these further, the emperor's grandson can easily understand the key point of everything Li Xuan said today: everything is for rule!
Whether it is the second industrial development, whether it is building a huge national defense, whether it is global expansion, whether it is cracking down on corrupt officials, everything that an emperor does has only one purpose and can only have one purpose.
That is to maintain your own rule!
This is what Li Xuan wants to tell the emperor's grandson Li Hongxu today!
No matter what you do, everything should be based on maintaining rule!
To put it bluntly, Li Xuan just told Li Hongchuo what an emperor should do.
Maintain your rule!
This is the emperor's only mission and the only starting point for any policy measures.
The second great industrial development is also based on such a starting point!
In the past, Li Xuan rarely said these things so frankly when facing the prince, because it was too explicit and too realistic, and the prince's temperament might not accept it.
The emperor's grandson was different at that time, and Li Xuan knew that he could accept this given his character.
This conversation was also the most in-depth conversation Li Xuan had with others in the past few years. He hoped that this conversation would help the emperor's grandson grow up as quickly as possible.
Of course, if we put aside these deeper things and only talk about the superficial second great industrial development, it will also have a significant impact.
Li Xuan took a clear stand and asked the Emperor Taisun to carry out the second great industrial development!
And this is very important!
It didn't take long before the speech of the emperor's grandson Li Hongzhuo when he inspected the Dangtu Industrial Zone appeared in the newspapers of the Tang Dynasty.
The Tang Dynasty Daily published the full text of Emperor Taisun's important speech on "Comprehensively Promoting the Second Great Industrial Development." Of course, the speech quoted a large number of public remarks made by Emperor Sheng, such as development is the last word and efforts should be made to achieve the goal for all people.
Wealth, etc., these are necessary procedures for official speeches.
At the same time, the speech emphasized the importance of the development and application of electric power and the development and application of internal combustion engines.
This kind of official speech actually talks about general principles, and there is nothing too practical. This speech cannot be the emperor's grandson opening his mouth when delivering a speech. In fact, this speech
, it was drafted by the Secretariat of the Emperor Taisun, reviewed and revised by the Secretariat of the Hanlin Academy, and circulated in the Imperial Study Room duty meeting.
Because this thing is not an ordinary speech, but indicates the development direction of the empire for many years to come.
This is the tone for future development set by the highest levels of the empire!
Its importance is self-evident!
This kind of speech that expresses the attitude of the upper echelons of the empire has an enormous impact!
After the speech was published, ministers and other ministers from various departments including the Ministry of Commerce frequently mentioned several words at the meeting, such as "the second great industrial development" and "electrification".
The high-level officials of the empire have already started to push forward, and the middle-level officials of the empire are also following up in time!
Eastern Electric Power, a subsidiary of the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, announced that Eastern Electric Power will invest heavily in setting up electrical research laboratories in Songjiang and Beijing to research more advanced generators, electric motors, etc.
The Royal Institute of Technology and Zhaoqing Electric Company jointly announced that the service life of the carbon filament lamp developed by the electric lamp laboratory jointly established by the two parties has exceeded one thousand hours, which can meet the long-term use of the lamp. Currently, technical research is ongoing to
It is necessary to further extend the service life of electric lamps and reduce costs for mass production.
This news is nothing. What really set off the market was the official announcement by the Palace Affairs Department before the arrival of the New Year that the Palace Affairs Department has set up an electric lighting station and the power facilities have been installed and debugged. Starting from the 28th of the twelfth lunar month, the palace will officially light up.
Electric light!
Electric lights were also set up outside the palace walls for the people to watch!