In the second half of the seventh year of Zhang Wu's reign, Zhang Fei and the Xiahou family held a grand evening ceremony amid the blessings of all the ministers of the court, officially getting rid of their single status.
Although Zhang Fei is about twenty-one years older than Xiahou, his status, fame and status are enough to make up for the gap.
The Xiahou family needed Zhang Fei's status to change his family's status as a general, and Zhang Fei also needed to start a family. What's more, he was married to a matchmaker and accepted Xiahou as his wife, so the two parties naturally hit it off.
It just so happened that Liu Bei also needed a marriage alliance to stabilize these surrendered princes. Although it would be easier to kill them all in one fell swoop, personal reputation was still needed.
So there is nothing wrong with this kind of marriage.
In fact, it is not only Liu Bei who needs marriage, marriage is now a common practice in the entire court.
For example, Guan Ping's wife is Yuan Tan's daughter. After Yuan Tan surrendered, he was entrusted with an important task by Liu Bei as Sili Cheng, equivalent to the deputy mayor of the capital. It may not be because Guan Ping married his daughter.
In addition, the three princes and nine ministers also often became in-laws for their children, continuing the custom of marriage between aristocratic families in the late Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties, and forming a huge network of relationships.
This custom cannot be changed overnight. Even by the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the imperial examination system had almost broken the monopoly of aristocratic families, but it still could not completely change this situation.
So we can only do it step by step.
By the beginning of the eighth year of Zhang Wu's reign, the national strength of the Han Empire had already flourished and reached a pretty good level.
Because high-yielding crops have been promoted for more than three years and have been introduced to the entire country.
The Lianghuai region, Jiangdong region, and Lianghu basin in the south have all begun to plant double-cropping rice on a large scale. For a time, granaries across the country were abundant and the people were prosperous. In a short period of time, they returned to the prosperous times of Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty.
This is the agricultural achievement of the Han Dynasty today. Even during the Song Dynasty, even if they relied on Champa rice and local rice to form a double-crop rice, they could still feed tens of millions and nearly 100 million people with half of the country. How much more so now?
Economically, Chen Mu implemented the silver standard system and created Dahan silver dollars, Dahan copper treasures and a small amount of gold bricks. Silver dollars and copper treasures gradually became mainstream trading currencies.
During the Han Dynasty, gold and silver could not actually be counted as money, but could only be regarded as valuable items that could be used in exchange for things.
Including the original silk and silk and the so-called platinum leather coins, they are not considered money, but belong to the type of barter. The real currency is five baht coins. The mining speed of the Han Dynasty was not high, so it adopted the copper standard.
But the copper standard can only be regarded as the economic system in the early feudal dynasty, and it is suitable for dynasties with underdeveloped economies. The Ming and Qing Dynasties were all on the silver standard, and the West was also on the silver standard in later generations.
When a large amount of silver flows in and its value is higher than that of copper, it is obvious that the silver standard is more convenient and easier for the development of the commodity economy.
What's more important is that it can replace banknotes in a short period of time and carry a certain amount of credit currency.
For example, the silver content of a silver dollar is 23.852 grams, the copper content is 2.68 grams, and the tin content is 0.268 grams. Then its total value was less than one tael of silver during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Because at that time, one pound was sixteen taels, and one tael was 37.3 grams.
However, after being turned into silver dollars, its purchasing power and value are almost the same as one tael of silver.
Just like banknotes are worthless without state backing.
The silver dollar itself is worth less than the normal one tael of silver, but it can be used as one tael of silver.
The value of the extra 10 grams of silver belongs to the country's reputation.
Moreover, it has the advantages of being difficult to be counterfeited, easy to carry, high value, suitable for bulk transactions, and is favored by the general public.
Therefore, at this point, establishing the silver standard and promoting silver coins and copper treasures are very conducive to economic circulation.
As a talented person with a background in economics, it is naturally impossible for Chen Mu not to be unaware of this point.
Therefore, after some operations, it was determined that Dahan's current good monetary system was in place, paving the way for explosive economic growth.
In terms of education, Chen Mu continued to implement the free policy and established township schools, county schools, and state schools.
Among them, the township school is enlightenment education, the county school is basic education, and the state school is in-depth education, which is equivalent to primary school, junior high school and high school.
At present, there are only two universities in the entire Han Dynasty, one is Taishan Academy and the other is Taixue.
Within the next ten years, the two universities will be turned into five, and within a hundred years, universities will be spread throughout the country.
Although in a short period of time, the coverage rate including rural schools was not high, it was only implemented in Qingzhou and around Luoyang.
But this is a long-term policy. It is said that it takes ten years to grow trees and a hundred years to cultivate people. Education policy is a long-term solution, and laying the foundation is far more important than doing nothing.
In addition, science and technology, medicine, mathematics, physics, chemistry and even sports are all developing in an all-round way.
With the emergence of rubber, table tennis, basketball, football and other sports have gradually become popular. Although they are only present in Luoyang at present, when rubber appears on a large scale in the future, such sports will gradually be promoted to the whole country.
The excavation work of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has been going on for two years. The lines have been carefully selected. At the same time, geography has been used to improve the river network. The work is now nearly halfway progressed.
The terrain characteristics of our country are high in the west and low in the east, high in the north and low in the south. After Chen Mu studied it, he dug diagonally from Luoyang all the way to Beijing. This is the Yongji Canal.
Then it is dug diagonally from the Yangtze River in Wuhan to the Huaihe River, and then from the Huaihe River to Qingzhou. Along the way, it passes through the Donghai Kingdom and Langya Kingdom in Xuzhou, and finally flows into Laizhou Bay from the Beihai Kingdom.
There is also the construction of Tongji Canal. This line is divided into two bifurcations. The first bifurcation is the bifurcation line between Surabaya and Shushui.
After the canal goes from Guangling to Xiapi, it goes north along the Shu River to Qingzhou. The route is established on the basis of the original Surabaya, Shu River, and Weishui, connecting Qingzhou and Jiangdong areas.
The second bifurcation is between Sishui and Bianqu, which was called Binshui at that time, and leads directly to Luoyang in the northwest direction.
The original Surabaya River merged into Onezawa in Shanyang County, and then went north to dig through the Yellow River.
In this way, there are three routes going north from the Jiangdong area. The first is to Qingzhou, and Xuzhou goes directly to Laizhou Bay. If merchant ships are shipping, they can also go north across the Yellow River to Youzhou.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! The second one is to go directly to Zhuoxian County, by digging through the upper reaches of Sishui River and Onezawa, then entering the Yellow River through the tributaries of the Yellow River, and heading north directly to Zhuoxian County.
The third option is to go to Luoyang through the Bian Canal, and also follow the Yellow River west to Chang'an.
It can be said that except for the shipping route from Chang'an to Chengdu, which is almost impossible to realize, Guanzhong, Guandong, Jiangdong and the north are almost connected together.
And when the route between Jingzhou and Luoyang is connected, the commerce and trade in the Sichuan Basin will also develop rapidly, and will be closely connected with the Guandong and Jiangdong regions through rivers such as the Yangtze and Hanjiang rivers.
The only flaw is that Chang'an is obviously very close to Chengdu, but if you want to use shipping, you have to go half a circle around the map of Dahan, first take a boat from Bajun to Jingzhou, then go north from Jingzhou to Luoyang, and finally go west from Luoyang to Chang'an.
very inconvenient.
But there is nothing we can do about it. Sichuan is like this. The terrain is high and there are many mountains. It is almost impossible to dig out the shipping from Guanzhong to Sichuan.
But at least for now, the construction of the entire Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is going very smoothly.
The whole country is in full swing.
Si Li Luoyang.
On the first day of March in the eighth year of Zhang Wu, the Cold Food Festival will be held in a few days, and the city of Luoyang is extremely prosperous.
Now Dahan has added two new statutory holidays.
Not to mention the Spring Festival, Cold Food Festival, and Double Ninth Festival, the three major holidays of the Han Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated on August 15th, and the National Day is celebrated in early October.
The Mid-Autumn Festival has actually been popularized in the Han Dynasty, but its status is not as high as the three major festivals. It is regarded as the fourth major festival.
After this decision is made, it can be regarded as a rectification of the name of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
As for the National Day.
It’s not that Chen Mu insisted on aligning the National Day of the Han Dynasty with the National Day of later generations.
It was because Shi Xie surrendered in the autumn of September, the sixth year of Zhangwu, and the letter of surrender was sent to Guiyang County.
After the army that defeated Jiaozhou received the surrender letter, they immediately arranged for it to be sent to Luoyang for instructions. Due to the long distance, Liu Bei did not learn the news until the end of September.
Therefore, based on the time when Shixie surrendered at that time, the National Day should be at the beginning of September, but based on Liu Bei's receipt of the news, the National Day should be at the end of September.
There was no tradition of National Day in the Han Dynasty, so Chen Mu proposed this idea to commemorate the complete unification of the Han Dynasty, which received support from everyone.
Since September already has the Double Ninth Festival on September 9th, the imperial court finally set the National Day on the first day of October.
The national flag, national emblem, and national anthem were also formulated.
Popularize patriotic education, strengthen patriotic concepts, promote Central Plains Chinese throughout the country, conform to punctuation, pinyin, unify the script, simplify Chinese characters, and promote the development of vernacular.
The resistance is definitely not small, because Zhongyuan Chinese is not Mandarin, but a simplified version of Zhongyuan Yayu.
In the past, Zhongyuan Yayu was like speaking from heaven. Chen Mu combined the rough and practical Youyan dialect with later Mandarin to simplify the complex Zhongyuan Yayu as much as possible to make it easy to understand.
But even so, it is not easy to get the public to change their past language habits. Therefore, the promotion is not smooth. We can only start education from childhood and popularize Central Plains Chinese among children. One day, the entire Han people will be able to speak unimpeded
communicate.
At least now Central Plains Chinese is gradually becoming popular in the capital, Luoyang. The weather today is very good. It is late spring, the sun is shining brightly, the streets and alleys are crowded, there are countless merchants traveling from south to north, and there are even many faces from the Western Regions.
Liu Bei, Chen Mu, and Dian Wei, Xu Chu, took Dian Wei and Xu Chu to the streets for a private visit today. In addition to the two bodyguards, there were dozens of escorts pretending to be passers-by to protect their safety.
Dian Wei and Xu Chu intentionally or unintentionally stood in front of the two of them. As they shuttled through the crowd, they saw pedestrians like clouds and vendors like rain, making it very lively.
"Hu Cake, freshly baked Hu Cake, eat it while it's hot."
"The Cold Food Festival is coming soon, please buy some cold food. The cold food in our store is unique. They are all pickled and taste very delicious. They contain mannitol produced in Qingzhou, which is guaranteed to be delicious."
"The dried walnuts and raisins produced in the Western Regions, as well as the dried persimmons and dried almonds made by us big men, are all the best cold fruits for the cold food festival. Let's get a few boxes."
"Delicious wontons, delicious wontons. There are also steamed buns, steamed cakes, noodles, crescent wontons, and sesame cakes."
The sound of hawking in the streets and alleys is endless.
And this is just the snacks on the street. Various shops are lined up in rows. There are no less than thirty or forty commercial streets like this in the East and West markets, with a dazzling array of products, ranging from needlework to horses.
The streets are crowded with people and the flow never stops.
Liu Bei looked around, his eyes stopped at a noodle stall not far away, and said to Chen Mu, "Fourth brother, are you hungry?"
"Not very hungry."
Chen Mu replied.
"No, you are hungry."
Liu Bei pulled him and walked over there.
Chen Mu rolled his eyes.
You just ate Chaos, and now you want to eat noodles?
The four of them came to the stall and sat down.
The waiter came over and asked with a smile: "Four guests, what would you like?"
"I'll serve four bowls of noodles, and I want the meat sauce."
Liu Bei said.
"okay."
The waiter was happy when he saw a big customer and hurriedly went to the stall to prepare.
Eating meat now is not as easy as it was in later generations.
Due to the underdeveloped animal husbandry, pork was an expensive meat in the Han Dynasty, second only to beef, mutton and chicken, and slightly higher than dog meat.
Common people did not necessarily have meat to eat in the past year. That is to say, in recent years, a large amount of gold, silver and copper have flowed into the Han Dynasty. The state has dug canals and large sums of money have flowed into the private sector, promoting business prosperity and allowing the people to occasionally eat meat.
But even so, prices in the meat market remain high because supply exceeds demand.
According to Chen Mu's estimation, this situation will change slightly within five years, and will change significantly after ten to fifteen years.
Because the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal should have been opened by that time, live cattle and sheep from the northern grasslands could be transported to the south by steamships, solving the meat circulation problem.
But that was many years later, and meat is still very expensive now.
Therefore, the price of these four bowls of lean meat noodles was much more expensive than a bowl of beef noodles in later generations. No wonder the waiter felt that these four people were big patrons.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Fourth brother, the prosperity of Luoyang is even more prosperous than it was back then."
After waiting for a while, Liu Bei sighed: "Now the people live and work in peace and contentment, everyone has something to do, everyone can survive, and there are almost no homeless people on the streets. Wouldn't the country be prosperous?"
Chen Mu smiled and said: "Brother is often out patrolling. Not only if he encounters homeless people, but even if the roads are full of potholes and it is impossible to travel, he still has to send someone to notify the Luoyang City Hall to come forward to solve the problem. Luoyang City naturally has the best security."
"What a pity. I can only manage Luoyang City. If all the officials in the world were like this, how could we see groups of beggars asking rich people for money like last time?"
Liu Bei sighed.
Chen Mu said: "This matter is also simple. Just add it to the schedule planning of each county magistrate, county magistrate, and state pastor. This is a political task. Let them go to places, cities, and villages for research. As a local politician,
, how can we not solve the problem?”
Liu Bei shook his head: "So are these lazy people. Before, the world was in chaos, and the people had no clothes to cover their bodies and no food to eat. Now that they have food and clothing, and the country is prosperous, why are there some lazy people doing nothing all day long?"
"that is."
Xu Chu echoed: "Last time when we were patrolling the city, we thought there was some kind of disaster when we saw those beggars. After checking the details, we found that they were all unruly scoundrels who didn't want to work. They came to beg for money when they saw the prosperity of the city. Why?
Is there such a person?"
Chen Mu said: "The world is so big, there are all kinds of wonders. The country now has money and provides jobs for a large number of people, but there are always some people who are too lazy to endure the hardship, which is normal."
Nowadays, the productivity of Han Dynasty has improved by leaps and bounds, agricultural production has actually become saturated, and food prices are falling almost every day.
Originally, a family of three might have to cultivate thirty acres of land to feed themselves, but with the advent of double-cropping rice, corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, the entire Han Dynasty currently has more than enough land to feed 100 million people.
Even this is just the beginning of productivity improvements.
If the land utilization rate during the Ming and Qing Dynasties could be achieved, there would be no problem in feeding four to five billion people.
And what about the current Han population?
Even during the post-war baby boom, when the country encouraged childbirth, the total population was just over 40 million.
According to the official records of the Han Dynasty, the total population during the period of Emperor He was about 50 million. If the concealed population is included, it may be less than 60 million.
In contrast, it has not yet returned to the peak population period of the Han Dynasty.
Therefore, when productivity has reached a leap, feeding the current population of more than 40 million is not a problem at all.
As a result, when food production increased, a large number of jobs appeared, and people began to become wealthy.
Instead, there were more beggars.
I have to say, this is a very strange thing.
However, there are countless people who have hands and feet and are idle every day. They have happened in all dynasties, so it is not surprising.
But Liu Bei was still very sad, shook his head and said: "It is extremely disgusting."
Chen Mu thought for a while and said with a smile: "Actually, the problem is not unsolvable."
"oh?"
Liu Bei hurriedly asked: "Fourth brother, do you have any idea?"
Chen Mu said: "It is enough to establish correct moral concepts and values. The Han Dynasty ruled the world with filial piety, and filial piety is a moral concept. If the country advocates self-reliance, being ashamed of being idle and indolent, and being proud of working hard and sleeping hard, this kind of behavior will be formed in the countryside of the world.
With ideas, many lazy people can be cured."
"Um."
Liu Bei nodded repeatedly: "That's true. This can be used as a slogan."
Chen Mu added: "Then just do a few more things, such as being proud of being filial to your parents, being ashamed of being disobedient, being proud of loving the motherland, being ashamed of harming the motherland, etc. We must establish correct values and ideas for the people.
Moral concepts are cultivated from an early age.”
"And etiquette."
Liu Bei was a disciple of Confucianism and attached great importance to etiquette. He said seriously: "Etiquette cannot be abolished."
"It's natural."
Chen Mu nodded and said: "Then we will improve the etiquette and formulate a new "Etiquette", but the red tape must be eliminated."
"Let's talk about it when we get back."
Liu Bei noticed that the waiter had brought soup noodles and signaled to be silent.
"Guest, here are the noodles."
The waiter came over with a smile and brought four bowls of noodles.
As a big foodie country, the pasta culture has been spread for thousands of years, including noodles, noodles, and steamed buns, which actually have thousands of years of history.
Many people think that steamed buns were invented by Zhuge Liang. In fact, they had already appeared during the Warring States Period, including dumplings, which were almost introduced during the Warring States Period, but their current name is Crescent Moon Chaos.
Several people walked and ate together, firstly to see the new face of Luoyang, and secondly to taste the delicious food.
Currently eating.
The street ahead suddenly became noisy and chaotic, and I didn't know what was going on.
The waiter muttered: "The fight started again."
"Um?"
Liu Bei heard this, put down the chopsticks in his hands, wiped his mouth, and said to the waiter: "Staff, come here."
"Guest, what's wrong?"
The waiter came over with his head bowed.
Liu Bei noticed that the Cao soldiers at the corner of the street had rushed towards the scene of the incident, and asked, "What's going on over there?"
"Harmful."
The waiter said: "In the past two years, haven't we, the Han Dynasty, become prosperous? Many businessmen from the Western Regions have come to Luoyang to do business, including Parthians, Kushan people, Khwarazm people, Kangju people, Dawan people, and Khorasan people.
There are also Wusun, Qiuci, Dayuan, Kangju, Daxia, and Dayuezhi. Anyway, those people from the Western Regions have enemies with each other. They will pinch each other when they meet, and fight them every three days. They are all used to it."
Liu Bei frowned and said, "Does the government not care?"
"Whatever."
The waiter said: "The Prime Minister has issued an order. All foreign businessmen who come to our Han Dynasty to do business must abide by the Han law. Anyone who breaks the law will be dealt with according to the Han law. Expelling the Han Dynasty will result in a ban on entry. If you are not allowed to enter, it will be a serious crime. They
No one was killed, and there won't be much punishment for fighting. He came out in ten and a half months, and he was beaten again after he came out. Anyway, we just treated it as a show of excitement."
Liu Bei glanced at Chen Mu, who had a clear conscience.
In the past, the law was very flexible, and trials often depended on the mood of the county magistrate or those in power.
If a person in power is in a bad mood, he can be sentenced to death for stealing dozens of pennies or even getting into a fight.
Now that the law has been clarified, trials must be carried out in accordance with the law, and there are three parties such as the court, the procuratorate, and the administrative court to supervise. As the law enforcer, it is difficult for the Weiyuan to bend the law for personal gain.
Chen Mu thought for a while and said, "Why don't you talk about Shanshan people?"
Xiao Er said happily: "The Shanshan people are closest to us big men, and there are border troops stationed in Liangzhou. They rely on the support of us big men, and no one dares to bully them, so they often see other people from the Western Regions fighting for fun."
Chen Mu said thoughtfully: "So that's it."
After the waiter left, Liu Bei asked: "Fourth brother, what do you think?"
"There must be a problem over there in the Western Region."
Chen Mu said.
Liu Bei asked: "What's the problem?"
Chen Mu said: "It is not uncommon for businessmen to seek wealth. If they meet on the road, they will occasionally be robbed. But in our Luoyang city, they still dare to do this, which shows that their countries may already be in the flames of war, so the businessmen
They also started to hate each other."
"oh?"
Liu Bei thought for a while and said: "The Western Region is thousands of miles away from us, and it seems to be none of our business."
Chen Mu shook his head and said: "The Western Region is full of yellow sand and it is difficult to survive, but it is an important bridge connecting the Western Continent by land. Our silk, porcelain and tea are all sold to Da Qin. Countries in the Western Region often rely on this as an intermediate bridge to survive.
, In the future, I want to include the Western Region and peek into the Western Sea, this is none of our business."
"Are you taking the Western Region into your pocket?"
Liu Bei was surprised and said: "In the past, the Han Dynasty only sent a small number of people to station and unified them to establish the Governor's Palace of the Western Regions. If it were brought under the rule, it would be thousands of miles away."
Chen Mu smiled and said: "I'm also talking about the future. This is a century-old plan. I don't know if it will be completed after I die. But before that, the Western Region must be stable. One is related to the trade between the two empires of the East and the West, and the other is
This is the most important cotton production area in Han Dynasty, so it cannot fall into the hands of outsiders."
"What does fourth brother mean?"
Liu Bei asked.
Chen Mu thought for a while and said, "Let's send someone to the Western Region to inquire about the situation first. It is indeed too far away. I'm afraid it will take a year or two for news to come back. It will be really troublesome."
"Um."
Liu Bei nodded: "Then do as your fourth brother wishes."