However, the problem of population explosion can be solved by improving the quality of citizens and immigrating to Oceania and the west coast of America.
But this does not mean that the Ming Dynasty's domestic economic operation system will not be affected by this population problem. After all, agricultural production does not require so many people.
The concentration of social wealth, the intensification of the polarization between rich and poor, the desire of remaining wealth for land annexation, and various ancillary problems caused by long-term reproduction will not be naturally suppressed. These new problems that have never been seen in other ancient dynasties will all require
Zhu Hetan went exploring in the darkness to find an unprecedented solution.
Thirty years after the Concorde, the problems of unemployment and overstaffing in the Ming Dynasty have begun to become increasingly serious.
Therefore, when faced with the pressure of population and employment, Zhu Hetan finally thought of the first of the two last words his grandfather Zhu Shuren gave him when he died more than ten years ago.
"If in the future, although the national wealth can still support so many people, there is a hidden danger that many people will have nothing to do due to the merger of the means of production due to unemployment, then we should find a way to appropriately carry out construction projects and guide the private sector's pursuit of profit to find an outlet."
Zhu Hetan thought about it and realized that the Holy Ancestor was referring to the locomotive and steam engine ship that he invented only a few years before his death.
So Zhu Hetan finally launched the Ming Dynasty Railway construction wave in the 30th year of Concord, which was coordinated by the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs but allowed private investment. Earlier, he launched the steam shipbuilding movement and the canal reconstruction movement.
Anyway, the rich in society have too much spare money. Instead of leaving them with nowhere to invest and then go back to annex land and open textile factories, it is better to find an outlet for them to vent their money in heavy industry.
In the 30th year of Concordia, technology and publicity were in place, and the minds of knowledgeable and wealthy people were open enough. The imperial court proposed to build the railway and allow shareholders to receive dividends after the repair, which also greatly attracted the public.
Go to social wealth.
The Ming Dynasty finally diverted the labor and resources that could not be absorbed by agriculture and light industry into infrastructure and heavy industry.
However, everything is difficult at the beginning. Previously, from the 15th to the 30th year of Concorde, the railway was only piloted on a small scale in mining areas such as Ma'anshan Iron Mine and Changxing Coal Mine. This time, in the 30th year of Concorde, it was the first
Build long-distance transportation railways across cities and even provinces.
Countless surveying, bridge erection, land leveling, foundation pouring and other engineering skills all had to be accumulated bit by bit from scratch.
To this end, Nanjing University, Susong University, Zhejiang University and the Ming Academy of Sciences have set up a number of research institutes to specialize in new railway majors, conducting research and summarizing while developing. Even talents must be cultivated.
In the end, it took a full seven years, and tens of thousands of workers were killed or injured. During the construction process, the roadbed in the soft geological area collapsed hundreds of times, and the bridges erected across the river also collapsed dozens of times, and several times...
The experimental train ran onto the bridge before it collapsed.
After paying a huge price, the first main railway line in Ming Dynasty was finally built, connecting Nanjing to Suzhou, Songjiang, and then to Hangzhou in a roundabout way south.
This railway can be regarded as connecting the capital of the Ming Dynasty with the most prosperous areas at that time, and the total mileage is not long, a total of 700 miles. It is still a plain area. There is no need to climb mountains to dig holes, and there is no need to cross large rivers to build bridges. It only needs to be built in some areas.
Just build bridges over small rivers and canals.
It took seven years to build 700 miles, which is basically only 100 miles per year. The hardship of pioneering can be seen clearly.
There were also many opponents in the DPRK and China. Many people said that the emperor's construction of the Nanjing-Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway resulted in tens of thousands of casualties, which was no less than that of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty when he built the Grand Canal. However, because there were too many unemployed people, it was indeed necessary to resolve these objections.
Was pressed down with force.
After the first seven years of arduous exploration, the strength of Ming Dynasty's engineering research institutes and institutions has greatly increased, cultivating the earliest railway infrastructure talents in mankind, and coordinating the technical integration of other industrial sectors.
As a result, the overall industrial strength of Ming Dynasty increased greatly.
After that, it became a little easier. Anyway, society had too much leftover money from the siltation of the dams in the first thirty years, so they were guided to continue repairing them.
From the 38th to the 42nd year of a moderately prosperous society, the railways from Yangzhou to Huai'an, and from Huai'an to Linqing in Shandong Province were all built in the Jiangsu and Henan plains, without having to cross rivers or climb mountains. From the 40th year of a moderately prosperous life to the fourth
Thirteen years later, the railway from Tianjin to Linqing, Shandong, which was started in parallel, was also completed.
In this way, Zhu Hetan was able to initially reconnect the Grand Canal route left by Emperor Sui Yang with railways, greatly strengthening the integration of the north and the south. Even if he did not move the capital back to Beijing, he would not have to worry about instability in the north in the future.
Because with the railway, even a million-strong army can march across the north and south within ten days.
The only regret is that the railway construction at that time still did not have the ability to build a bridge across the Huanghuai River, let alone the Yangtze River. Therefore, this railway, which imitated the route of the Grand Canal, was actually divided into four sections. When the train arrived at the Yangtze River and the Yellow River
, passengers and cargo still have to be unloaded, taken across the river by boat, and then reboarded.
After the main line connecting the northern and southern capitals was opened, the Ming Dynasty Railway plan forty-five years after Concorde was more respectful of the market and the needs of the social economy itself, and the court did not interfere excessively.
Finally, from the 45th to the 60th year of the Concorde Period, the Ming Dynasty gathered private power to build bridges from Beijing to Weihui (Weihui is located on the opposite bank of Kaifeng, on the north bank of the Yellow River, because the railway cannot build a bridge across the Yellow River), from Kaifeng to Fancheng, and to Xiangyang
To Hankou, the second main line from Hankou to Changsha.
This road is roughly equivalent to the Pinghan Road and Yuehan Road in later generations, except that the part from the south of Changsha to Guangzhou is missing.
Because the Ming Dynasty’s infrastructure at that time was really unable to go further south from Changsha and cross Hengshan, Wuling and other mountains to Lingnan.
In addition, because it is impossible to build a bridge across the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Han River, the railway is divided into two more sections than the Ping-Han-Guangdong-Han River, with a total of four sections. From Weihui to Kaifeng, Xiangyang to Fancheng, and Hankou to Wuchang, you have to get off the train and take a boat to cross the river.
The reason why Weihui was chosen as the ferry point instead of Huaiqing Mansion on the other side of Kaifeng was because the ministers of the DPRK and Central Government considered the Zhu Hetan lineage, which was originally inherited from the lineage of Zhu Changxi and Prince Lu's Palace. The fiefdom of Prince Lu's Palace was in
Wei Hui, the minister wanted to flatter the emperor's nominal ancestor, so he made slight adjustments when planning the route.
In addition, the partial branch line from Xi'an via Luoyang to Xuzhou eastward via Kaifeng, and its own local area network loop around Chengdu, Sichuan, were also built within the same period with the support of local gentry and private wealth.
Later, Xi'an's railway was extended further west to Lanzhou, ensuring rapid military dispatch to the northwest.
The Beijing railway also goes further along the Liaoxi Corridor to Shenyang, and bifurcates halfway at the flat place of Xunyan Mountain in Jinzhou, and goes due northeast to connect Jilin and Heilongjiang. It can be regarded as completely integrating the hometown of the Manchus in the Northeast with the Central Plains.
With the ability of railways to quickly transport troops to the front line in both the northeast and northwest, the Ming Dynasty's border troubles have been completely alleviated, and peace can be guaranteed for at least a hundred years.
By Zhu Hetan's later years, the country had a total of five sets of large-scale railway trunk lines and loop/branch lines, and a short-distance railway was built around Nanjing connecting Anhui and Jiangxi.
While land transportation was booming, water transportation steamships were also booming. The Ming Dynasty began to trial-produce steamships in the 20th year of Concordia, from the experimental period in the first ten years to the large-scale mass production period after 30th year of Concordia.
The earliest steam engine ships could sail in the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, with a tonnage of only two hundred tons. Later, it gradually developed to thousands of tons in the next thirty years, and the materials also evolved from wooden hull ships to iron ships. Together with the railway, they further promoted the steel smelting of the Ming Dynasty.
The industry boomed, with steel production increasing more than tenfold in just a few decades.
We have also learned how to build modern ship locks on the canal, and use steam power and hydraulic pressure to drive and open the locks, basically reaching the level of the West in parallel time and space around 1850.
As a result, the old Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal no longer needs to be loaded and unloaded by dock workers in sections to solve the problem of water level differences in various sections of the canal. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has officially realized one-time loading and unloading. After loading from the departure point,
It can be unloaded directly at the destination.
In the middle, the population of dock loading and unloading cities such as Linqing and Huai'an also shrank further, once again squeezing out hundreds of thousands of dock workers. Fortunately, railway construction was also in full swing at that time, so the "millions of dock workers" were directly transformed into railway
Worker.
Although Linqing and Huai'an are no longer major canal towns, they have transformed into major railway towns. Railway cargo still needs to be loaded and unloaded across the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Huaihe River.
However, due to excessively advanced railway construction, government-led pushback, waste and abuse of private capital, and unfair cost allocation in the process of technical verification, Ming Dynasty has also accumulated many social problems in its decades of rapid development.
.
In the process of large-scale railway construction across the country, at least hundreds of thousands of railway workers died, and sometimes as many as 20,000 to 30,000 died a year.
Obviously, there were many discrepancies in the railway profitability initially estimated by the court. After many railways were built, the supporting industrial environment did not develop. In the beginning, the significance of national defense was greater than that of private economic significance.
Many private investors who have invested a lot of money have seen the railway being built, but there is no hope of recovering the cost, collecting tolls and rent, and they can't help but complain.
The imperial court also proposed at the beginning that "those who built the railways could obtain a certain width of land along the railway lines for industrial and commercial development." However, the initial value of these lands was obviously doubtful.
Finally, there was too much uneven distribution during the construction of the railway, the people who handled it were greedy, and there was a bubble in the planning that made it difficult to recover the money. Especially the northwest and northeast railways had little economic value at the time, mainly due to their national defense value. It was equivalent to using the money of wealthy businessmen to build the railway.
National defense has filled holes... The grievances accumulated over more than 30 years have made people's calls for capital reforms become louder and louder.
Although Zhu Hetan made the country rich and the people strong, the problem of unfair distribution still impacted the Ming Dynasty.
Later, when he himself felt that the situation was a bit critical, he finally remembered another last word his grandfather had given him when he was dying.
"If the railway is overhauled in the future, it will definitely arouse opposition from all sides. There are conservatives, those who hate oil and water, and those who hate investment bubbles. Everything in the court depends on the planning of the rulers. If there is a big problem, the hatred will eventually fall on the emperor.
.
If you really get to that point, you can think about the fact that the British country has a false king and the experience of using prime ministers to calm the anger of the people. Our Ming Dynasty has been in the world for three to four hundred years. As long as the emperor humbly retires, he will not be opposed to that point."
Zhu Hetan thought about it again and again, and decided to slowly lay out the plan according to his grandfather's will.
He himself is not afraid. After all, he has been the emperor for sixty years and has accumulated so much authority that no one dares to question him.
But because he lived too long, his eldest sons did not live as long as him, so he had to find his youngest son to succeed him. He was estimated to be at least forty when he succeeded. He was afraid that his youngest son would not be able to control him in the future.
So, when Zhu Hetan was eighty years old and before he formally abdicated the throne and became the Supreme Emperor, he ordered a thorough investigation of the railway affairs that had occurred over the past decades.
In the end, it was discovered that several ministers of the Ministry of Household Affairs and the general manager of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were involved in tens of millions of taels or more, all of which were railway and canal construction and operating funds.
These guys who were caught were of course liquidated and a lot of hatred was sucked away from them.
Zhu Hetan learned from the pain and finally decided that the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty would only have military and diplomatic power and be responsible for defending the country and representing the country to the outside world.
The cabinet is responsible for other civil and internal affairs, industry, commerce, construction, finance and taxation. The constitution is clear, and the emperor will not care about these in the future.
However, the cabinet must pay the emperor the full national military expenditure, military rations, and military supplies. The military pay and expenses of the national armed forces are still paid in the name of the emperor, and they are only loyal to the emperor.
This can be regarded as being forced by a series of railways to embark on a path of partial constitutional monarchy similar to that of Prussia and the German Hohenzollern Empire, or a "dual monarchy". The degree of transfer of power to the Ming Emperor was still
Far lighter than the monarch of England.
But this is in line with the original trend of history, because after all, China has a long-term autocratic inertia. If the emperor surrenders even military power, he will not be able to live long, and the world will only be in chaos.
It is the limit of the Ming Dynasty to completely ignore civil affairs and industrial and commercial construction and let the cabinet select talents to govern. If there is conclusive evidence that the cabinet is very corrupt and cannot do good things, then the emperor can also use the cabinet to quell public anger.
The Ming Dynasty's power structure finally relied on this move to stabilize it for a long time.
After the Ming Dynasty dominated the industrial revolution in advance, with the overflow of technology, Western imitators will learn more or less, and accelerate the global historical process.
In Zhu Hetan's later years, which was around the 1750s and 1760s, historically the West should have been fighting the Seven Years' War at this time, but in fact the West had already completed a new round of reshuffle.
At this time, even the United States had already established itself as a country, possessing the thirteen British states in North America.
On the contrary, France did not wait until Louis XVI came to power. His grandfather Louis XV did not survive the wave of industrial revolution and was directly forced to submit to soft reforms. It was just not as bloody as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars in history.
The entire world, led by the Ming Dynasty, the locomotive of industrial life, was running wildly and fighting for each other.
At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, there was no unclaimed land on the earth, and all the colonies were basically divided up by the great powers. Of course, the Ming Dynasty itself was the largest power among them, or it could be said that among the "one superpower, many powers"
That "one super".
Countless European and American students from generation to generation, in order to enrich the country and strengthen the military, and to prevent falling behind and being beaten, have traveled across the ocean to study in Ming Dynasty.
It's best if you can get into Nanjing University, but it's okay if you can't get into Zhejiang University and Peking University. Many of these people go back to build the motherland after completing their studies, but at least half of them directly betray the motherland and stay in Ming Dynasty to find promising jobs and live a good life.
(season finale)
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The new book "Brother Zhuge Liang" is welcome to collect. Please vote for updates and increase the number of active fans. Thank you.
There is an Easter egg chapter at the back that gives the final map of the Ming Dynasty. If you can't get it, you can also read the chapter comments in this paragraph. I will post it again in the comments.