At the end of November in the third year of Zhangwu's reign, it snowed heavily in Luoyang.
The rustling snowflakes covered the entire palace in white, Mang Mountain was covered with ice for thousands of miles, and snow drifted for thousands of miles.
In Yuntai Hall, which has been used as the office of the cabinet, Liu Bei and several cabinet ministers were warming themselves by the fire in cotton-padded clothes, reviewing memorials sent from all over the world.
In the palace, there are Xun Yu, Xun You, and Jia Xu, the first-class ministers of record, as well as the third-class counselor doctors who help organize official documents, Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Pang Tong, Xu Shu, Chen Qun, Yang Xiu, etc.
Liu Bei is 43 years old this year, but as an emperor on horseback, he is very energetic. On the contrary, Jia Xu, who is 56 years old this year, can't stand it anymore. He keeps rubbing his temples and his eyes are a little blurry.
Seeing that he seemed a little lack of energy, Liu Bei smiled and said to him: "If your Majesty is tired, please take a rest first."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
Jia Xu cupped his hands and sat aside.
Liu Bei looked at the snow falling outside and murmured to himself: "It's almost the New Year."
Several courtiers looked at each other, and Xun Yu said with a smile: "Yes, Your Majesty, before you know it, the New Year will be in one month."
"Um."
Liu Bei nodded and said nothing.
Xun You said: "Your Majesty is thinking of the two generals and the prime minister."
"well."
Liu Bei sighed and said with a wry smile: "What's the use of thinking? Both the second brother and the third brother have military affairs, and the fourth brother is still in Jiangdong."
Jia Xu advised: "Your Majesty, the Prime Minister's idea is still very grand. If a canal can be dug from Youzhou to Yangzhou, it will be a great event that will benefit the whole world."
Liu Bei frowned and said, "I'm afraid of wasting people and money. When Qin Shihuang built the Great Wall and Li Palace, countless people were killed or injured. Although this canal sounds wonderful, the world is still uncertain. Will it be done too hastily?"
Jia Xu smiled and said: "I don't have a close relationship with the Prime Minister, but I know that he is a person who will never make decisions without authorization. Your Majesty has been dating the Prime Minister for twenty years. Don't you still know what he is like?"
Liu Bei thought about it and laughed: "What Shangshu Ling said is reasonable. Fourth brother never fights an unprepared battle. Maybe he has already considered it."
Xun Yu thought for a while and said: "I remember Zigui said this before. It seems that the original river channel is used for communication and connection. Each county only needs to dig a small channel and divide the work and cooperate. This can greatly reduce the possibility of wasting people and damaging money.
"
"Division of labor? Let each county be responsible for its own section of the waterway?"
Liu Bei thought about it and said: "This method is not bad. I remember that when we were transporting grain, my fourth brother asked each county to send out corvees step by step to reduce losses."
Xun Yu said with a smile: "The central government is responsible for allocating funds for food, and the local governments are responsible for providing people and efforts. If the north-south shipping can be built in the future, the tax revenue from commercial trade can also subsidize the local areas and promote local development. This is a good thing that kills two birds with one stone."
"It's indeed a good thing."
Liu Bei smiled and said: "According to the fourth brother, this is called work-for-relief, using large projects to promote people's livelihood economy, right?"
After being together with Chen Mu for a long time, they also learned a lot of new vocabulary.
The Qin and Han Dynasties were originally an era of ideological collision and progress. Various new vocabulary were often created, as well as a large number of idioms, poems, poems, etc.
It can be said that the late Han, Wei and Jin periods were a new period of literary creation, laying the foundation for the flourishing of Tang poetry four hundred years later.
Now economics no longer remains in the unknown stage, but has officially become a discipline.
Qingzhou Taishan Academy has officially established the School of Economics.
Chen Mu's experience, thoughts, and arguments about his economics were all written into articles and became teaching materials, and he trained a group of economists in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
It's not that he wrote books for himself, but when he used to teach in the academy, the textbooks he compiled during each class, and some economic knowledge, theories and short stories he wrote were recorded by the students and compiled into volumes for printing.
.
Guan Zhong, the originator of economics, and his story of how he used the floor heating effect to save countless lives were important topics that Chen Mu often used in lectures to his students.
In addition to economics, the courses he teaches include astronomy and geography, people's livelihood and criminal law, military strategy, spring and Autumn literature, mathematics, physics and chemistry.
It can be said that apart from singing and dancing, as long as he knows the knowledge, he can basically teach it.
Over the past twenty years, all the teaching materials he had written had been compiled into a book by the people of the academy, with hundreds of thousands of words, collectively known as "Chen Zi Jing", which was regarded as a guideline by all the teachers and students of the academy.
Moreover, "Chen Zi Jing" is not a whole, but a collection of his thoughts, and the contents in it can be separated out separately.
For example, the economics part was re-copied and printed into a book, which is called "Chen Zi Shang Shu".
There are also books on agriculture, military science, literary thought, mathematics, physics, and chemistry, etc., which are called "Chen Zi's Agricultural Science", "Chen Zi's Art of War", "Chen Zi's Theory", "Chen Ma Neo-Confucianism" and "Chen Wei Chemistry"
"Chen Liu Shu Shu" and so on.
These books were compiled into volumes by the students and teachers of the academy, printed and used as teaching materials. They were not only distributed in Qingzhou, but also all the major families in the Han Dynasty rushed to buy them, and they were widely circulated.
In addition, he studied physics with the great inventor Ma Jun; he studied chemistry with the alchemist Wei Ao; he studied mathematics and calendar with the Eastern Han Dynasty mathematician, astronomer and calculator Liu Hong, and deduced the formula for calculating the length of the periapsis month for Liu Hong.
The formula made a huge contribution.
Except for medical treatment, there is nothing he dare not teach.
After all, the current level of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry in the Eastern Han Dynasty is still in its infancy. Just pick up some junior high school physics, chemistry and mathematics knowledge and it will be enough to cope with the situation.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg in "Chen Zijing". Many dragon-slaying techniques written by Chen Mu himself in private have not been spread, such as the planning steps of the Han Dynasty in the next three hundred years, the concept of class struggle, Capital, the development of great powers, etc.
Except for his brother-in-law Zhuge Liang, he has never shown it to friends such as Jushou Tianfeng, Xunyu, and Xunyou who have known each other for many years. It can be said to be a treasure passed down from generation to generation, a family heirloom collection.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! It can be said that the current knowledge of economics, mathematics, physics and chemistry is basically in the junior high school stage of later generations and is moving towards high school.
This is already a remarkable achievement.
Emperors, generals and ministers like Liu Bei and Xun Yu also began to notice the role of economy, agriculture, mathematics and physics in people's lives, and they began to pay attention to it. They understood what national macro-control is, and what a buyer's market and a seller's market are.
In fact, these things are not profound knowledge. They are taught in middle school and high school politics. They involve national-level strategic policies, market economy, finance, taxation, savings, trade, etc.
The superficial political theories of later generations are now considered advanced knowledge. It is not a bad thing to follow Chen Mu and let Liu Bei and others understand some such knowledge.
Everyone chatted for a while about things, such as the war situation in the northwest and the current people's livelihood management issues in Henan and Huainan.
After about half an hour, Liu Bei went to the toilet.
Wang Zhi hurried in, looked around, and when he saw that the emperor was not there, he raised his hands and said to the cabinet ministers: "Mr. Ge, urgent news from Qingzhou."
The cabinet has replaced the chancellery and holds the power of the world, so it is naturally qualified to watch and review.
Xun You took it over and glanced at it, his eyes beaming with joy.
It happened that Liu Bei came back.
He quickly reported to Liu Bei: "Your Majesty, the Navigation Department has come to report that the fleet heading to the outer sea is coming back soon. A few years ago, I heard that they had gone to very far away places and found crops with a yield of thousands of kilograms per mu. According to their information, the Prime Minister
Description, named corn, sweet potato, potato, now being transported back."
Exploring overseas is a big project for Chen Mu. Hainan Airlines has been operating for more than ten years, with dozens of large and small strongholds along the way, and fleets sailing along the way.
Every year, countless people in Qingzhou want to follow their footsteps, and new fleets continue to go north to replenish the young and strong labor force.
The most advanced fleet arrived in North America a few years ago and found corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes. However, they had not yet understood their habits at that time, so they established a base in North America to conduct in-depth research, learn from the locals how to farm, and understand their habits.
This took some time, and at the same time the fleet continued to explore south to South America, establishing bases in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and other places.
After staying in these places for a year, communicating with the locals and learning about local specialties, Xue Zhou and Pei Qian officially returned, bringing back a large amount of crops, spices, rubber trees and various local specialties.
It can be said that although these things were discovered a few years ago, it was this time that they really started to be transported to Dahan.
Because before they could come back, they had to understand the uses of these things, find valuable things, communicate with local people, and become familiar with their cultivation.
Now, more than ten years of hard work has finally paid off.
Fortunately, in his early years, Chen Mu boiled sea salt to benefit Qingzhou, opened up Japan, and frantically mined the island country's gold and silver minerals to fill the domestic deficit. Otherwise, he might not have been able to persist for so long.
Hearing Xun You's words, Liu Bei said happily: "This is good news. Back then, my fourth brother had spent a lot of effort to establish the Navigation Department. I was also very puzzled about this. Why did I spend a huge amount of money to explore overseas? Later I heard
Only when I received a reply saying that I had found these things did I understand why he did this."
"We admire the Prime Minister's long-term vision."
Even Xun Yu, who had a profound strategic vision, had to admire: "We are only seizing the day, but the Prime Minister has already seen the plan for a hundred or even a thousand years. The great man will live forever, and I am afraid that this is the merit of the Prime Minister today."
Liu Bei smiled and said: "I didn't expect Wen Ruo to also take photos of the fourth brother's horses, but this is true. The fourth brother has always been thinking about the return of the fleet, hoping to promote high-yielding crops in the Han Dynasty. Now that the fleet is about to return, let them arrive
After Qingzhou, most of them will be promoted in Qingzhou first, and the rest will be sent to Luoyang for trial planting for me to see."
"clear."
After Xun You approved the official document according to Liu Bei's wishes, he asked Xu Shu who was standing by him to take it to the Shangshu table and send it to Qingzhou.
The official documents from Qingzhou to Luoyang were slow, but the trip from Luoyang to Qingzhou was very fast.
Floating all the way down the Yellow River, it took two or three days to arrive.
At this time, Qingzhou is holding a welcome ceremony for the returning fleet. The latest news is that they have arrived in North Korea and are sailing to Liaocheng port.
Five or six days later, Xue Zhou and others finally returned to Qingzhou after more than ten years of drifting on the sea.
Liaocheng Port is a natural haven. It is bounded by the Yellow River to the north and a large, concave U-shaped harbor to the south. It was built by Chen Mu as one of the three major ports in Qingzhou.
The mountain and river geography of the Han Dynasty was not much different from that of later generations, but the location of the Yellow River was completely different, and the sea level was also different. The location of Liaocheng Port was above the entire urban area of Dongying City in later generations.
This means that Dongying City was later submerged in the sea.
And it’s not just Dongying, including Kenli District and Hekou District of Dongying City, Zhanhua District of Binzhou City and half of Lijin County. The water is now bubbling.
It made people in Binzhou furious and people in Dongying shed tears.
After the fleet arrived at Liaocheng Port, twenty or thirty ocean-going ships rumbled into the harbor. Qingzhou Mu Zhongyao led officials of all sizes to greet them. The standard of the reception was high.
You must know that the top officials of the fleet, Xue Zhou and Pei Qian, are only at the sixth rank, while Qingzhou Mu is at the third rank, and there are a lot of senior officials from the third to the fifth rank.
From this we can know how much the imperial court, or rather Chen Mu, valued the ocean-going fleet that had been exploring overseas for nearly twenty years.
The last time Xue Zhou and Pei Qian set foot on the land of Qingzhou was nine years ago. After exploring the Chukotka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, the weather there was too cold. In order to continue to explore Alaska, the fleet had to be seriously replenished.
Not enough, so we had to return to replenish our supplies.
By the time supplies were over, they had already arrived in North America after they had pioneered Alaska seven or eight years ago. Since then, except for occasional messages from the imperial court from supply depots along the way, they had never returned.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! After nine years of wandering at sea, they were finally able to get off the ship. The two of them, along with the other officials and countless sailors on the ship, could not restrain their excitement and stood on the side of the ship to look out.
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I saw a sea of people outside the port, and the family members who came to greet me kept waving their arms and cheering loudly at the port.
"Welcome home the ocean fleet!"
"Two dogs, two dogs!"
"Da Lang, where are you? I'm here to pick you up."
"Daddy!"
Although some are happy and some are sad, many lives have been sacrificed for the voyage.
But more people are still full of excitement.
When their family members come back, they have earned enough money to spend for the rest of their lives. This is enough for them.
The Qingzhou government prepared a banner for the fleet, with the words "Welcome the ocean-going fleet home" written on a long white cloth, signed by Zhong Yao and written by a great calligrapher himself.
Soon the pilot boat docked, followed by the ships, one after another, all docked at the port.
Xue Zhou and Pei Qian finally set foot on their hometown.
Both of them had tears in their eyes.
Zhong Yao walked over, raised his hands and said, "Welcome home, hero."
"This is Zhou Mu Zhong Shijun."
Someone nearby whispered to them which officials they were.
Xue Zhou was once a pirate, but now he has become a hero of the Han Dynasty. His face was filled with red light, and he cried and said excitedly: "Thank you so much, Commander Zhong."
Zhong Yao smiled and said: "It's good to come back. You will live up to His Majesty's grace and live up to the people. You are very brave and wise!"
Pei Qian said with a solemn expression: "I have a heavy responsibility and have to cross the ocean. I dare not slack off for a day."
"good!"
Zhong Yao nodded and said: "You are very homesick, so I won't waste your time. I will reunite with my relatives for one day, and then go west to Luoyang the next day. Your Majesty will summon you."
Upon hearing the emperor's summons, both Xuezhou and Pei Qian's blood surged, and they said with great excitement: "I will bow down to express my gratitude to Heaven."
Zhong Yao was about to give instructions to let the sailors go ashore to rest and reunite with their families. At the same time, he asked the strongmen on the shore to unload all the cargo on board, leaving only a small amount to be shipped to Luoyang for the emperor to see.
Suddenly I saw sailors coming off the ship not far away, holding strange long poles in their mouths and puffing away smoke. I couldn't help but be very puzzled and asked: "What is that?"
Pei Qian explained: "Back to the envoy, it is a medicine used by American people to treat diseases. It is a kind of herbal medicine that is burned and inhaled. The life of the fleet at sea is very boring, and the sailors often inhale this substance to relieve sleepiness.
It can invigorate the spirit and relieve fatigue.”
"Well, yes, it seems that America is indeed a beautiful and fertile land. It not only has high-yielding crops, but also such magical medicines. Except for a few of the crops on the ship, which are sent to agricultural colleges and medical schools, most of them should be cultivated well.
.”
Zhong Yao nodded approvingly.
The fleet spent more than ten years exploring north and reaching the American continent.
Everywhere you go, you must record the local climate, environment and human geography conditions, and send them back to Qingzhou through strongholds along the way.
The Qingzhou Government Affairs Desk was then sent to Chen Mu. After Chen Mu read it, he would give names to those places.
For example, the Far East of Russia was named Hanzhou, Sakhalin was named Southern Hanzhou, Kamchatka Peninsula was named Dahanzhou, and Chukotka Peninsula was named Northern Hanzhou.
Because these places are so cold, usually 30 to 40 degrees below zero, with polar bears running all over the ground, manatees crawling around, and seals, sea otters, fur seals and other wild animals inhabiting them. In winter, the lowest temperature can even reach
It reaches minus forty or fifty degrees.
The American continent was described by Pei Qian who wrote the report as a beautiful and fertile land, so Chen Mu named it America. Canada is North America, the United States is America, and places such as Colombia and Brazil are naturally South America.
As the fleet sailed slowly, Chen Mu naturally sketched out a map of the world in his mind, and secretly drew it for his private collection based on his past memories.
After receiving the order, Xue Zhou and Pei Qian began to direct the transportation work, and the entire harbor terminal suddenly became more lively.
Countless boxes of crop seeds, boxes of spices, gold, silver, and small cultivated rubber trees were carried down, all igniting cheers from the people.
North and South America are extremely rich in products. Gold and silver were basically used by the Mayans as decorations. A bag of flour can be exchanged for a large amount of gold. All of a sudden, the people exclaimed and asked about their sailors who went to sea.
As a result, the news that there was gold everywhere overseas quickly spread throughout Qingzhou, causing a wave of waves. Countless people flocked to the registration point of the Navigation Department to inquire about the next time to go to sea.
Although the ocean-going fleet is back, it does not mean that they will not continue to go to sea.
The reason why Chen Mu established a stronghold was not to make a one-time deal, but to make a long-term plan.
The current population of the Han Dynasty is still too small. After using high-yielding crops to increase the population, at least in the next hundred years, the waterway to the Americas will be extremely busy, and the American continent will be quickly built.
In addition, in order to prevent the Americas from seeking independence in the future, steamships must be developed rapidly to strengthen control over the Americas.
But this is all in the future, at least it is not within the scope of current planning.