"There is no point in saying this, those poor people who do not cooperate with us are hateful, but now we can't kill them anymore!""
Because, according to the provisions of the surrender agreement signed with the Ming army by the representatives we sent to us, from the moment the Ming army entered Switzerland, we lost the right to rule, and if we continue to kill people, we will bear the punishment of slaughtering civilians."
Sennard said, "So, we have to disband the big league hoe and stop hunting down the poor who don't cooperate with us." ”The rest of the Swiss aristocracy had no choice but to agree.As a result, Switzerland then disbanded the hoe squad.However, at the local level in the Swiss cantons, because of the delay of the executive order, the hunt for the poor who are unwilling to cooperate has not completely stopped."
Ottalun, do you want this box of gold bars?"
A poor Geneva worker named Ottalen was being questioned by a noble hoe team.Wu Tailun spat the dog's leg and replied: "No, I do not accept wealth that is not obtained by my own labor, and besides, I need to state that I also have the right to refuse labor." ”"Another uncooperative, then you are looking for death!"
The dogleg took out the gun and shot Ottalen directly."
You bastards!"
Ottalen's neighbor, Muder, who was a poor worker like him, angrily cursed.The dogleg turned around and asked Mudel, "Do you want this box of gold bars?"
”Muder looked up at the sky, ignoring the dog's legs."
Okay, it's really stubborn, you don't want gold bars, you really deserve to be poor!"
The dogleg was about to shoot, but at this moment, a piercing gunshot came, and the dogleg fell to the ground on the spot.Everyone looked back, but a large number of Eastern troops in woolen military uniforms appeared, and one of them, an officer wearing a brightly colored epaulettes, was holding a gun to his side.The Swiss present naturally guessed that these Eastern armies were Ming armies without asking.Among them, poor Swiss people like Mulder, after seeing the appearance of the Ming army, grinned, gradually loosened their clenched fists, and began to take the initiative to walk towards the Ming army.These walked and ran, desperately towards the Ming army, as if running towards the warm and warm morning sun.The Ming army on Zhang Huangyan's side, the flaming red color that was formed, seemed to have the charm that civilians of different ethnic groups would be attracted to because of this.As for the dog-legged people who slaughtered the poor for the Swiss aristocracy, they were at a loss for a moment, and stood motionless, neither daring to shoot the poor people who refused to give gifts in front of them, nor daring to shoot at the Ming army."
Savior from the East, we have been looking forward to your arrival."
Muder even smiled and said his inner words to the Ming soldiers who appeared in front of him.Zhang Huangyan taught himself French and German, which are mainly spoken in Switzerland, so when Mulder spoke, he understood and said: "You should already know that His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty has decreed that only the minimum assets owned by the Swiss are the standard as the legal property that everyone in Switzerland can own, so you need to register your assets with us first." ”"I'm willing to cooperate!
All I have now is my life, the dirty clothes I wear, and the long strip of black bread left in the house. ”Mulder said with a smile.Zhang Huangyan nodded, and asked people to register him.Then, Zhang Huangyan pointed to the doglegs of the Swiss nobles in front of him: "Let them disarm, otherwise, they will be killed!"
”After receiving the order, these dog-legged people did not dare not cooperate, and honestly disarmed and surrendered.As a result, the Ming army successfully entered the city of Geneva.After this, Zhang Huangyan came to Muder's wooden house, and saw that there was really only a black loaf of bread in the house, and pinched his nose and asked, "You have refused the gifts of the nobles?"
”"Yes, we are not willing to go along with them and betray our integrity for money."
Mulder replied."
Very good, you are the people that His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty is very willing to see and respect."
As he spoke, Zhang Huangyan saw the open box of gold bars that was still placed outside, and therefore commanded his subordinates: "Protect the safety of this Mr.
Mulder and all the civilians in Geneva!"
In addition, confiscate these gold bars and let the people in the logistics department collect them. ”"Understood!"
Because Mudel, a poor man who refused to cooperate with the Swiss aristocracy, was not violently eliminated by the Swiss nobility after the arrival of the Ming army, Zhang Huangyan then confiscated all the gold, silver, jewelry, land, and other properties in Switzerland for good reasons, except for the clothes he was wearing, the cabin where he lived, and a loaf of bread.This was not the result of the Ming army's frenzied raids, but the choice of many Swiss people themselves.Perhaps, in many cases, when the ruler can do things that would rather be with friends than with domestic slaves, the ruled will also do things that would rather give wealth to the enemy than rebel against the ruler.Naturally, the Swiss aristocracy did not dare to disobey it.After all, they are only losing their property now, and if they resist, they will lose their lives.In addition, Zhang Huangyan also mobilized local commoners like Mulder who wanted to turn their country's nobles into poor people to form pickets to picket nobles who did not truthfully hand over their property.So much so that the Swiss aristocracy had to hand over almost all their wealth in Switzerland.And Daming naturally gained a lot of wealth because of this.The train that was responsible for transporting this wealth alone made many trips.After all, this is the wealth that the nobles of the European countries have plundered all over the world for hundreds of years.The gold alone is hundreds of millions of taels!
Add to that the wealth that the Ming Dynasty had gained when it annexed other European countries before.All this, taken together, is naturally a lot of money.Almost all of the movable property and technology accumulation in Europe moved to Daming.What could not be moved, such as arable land, was given to local civilians.Therefore, the commodity market in Europe did not shrink because of the Ming Dynasty's local expansion, but expanded because the Ming serfs were rescued and had higher incomes.As for the movable wealth, almost all of it was moved to the Ming Dynasty, and the question in front of the Ming Emperor Zhu Youxiao and his court was how to use this large amount of wealth."
Science and technology must continue to be a key investment place, you can use large-scale projects to improve science and technology, such as to just realize the garrison, stationed in my Ming Dynasty in Tibet, officially ruled by the Ming Central Court of Wusizang, to build a railway, but many places there are permafrost all year round, the altitude is high, the temperature difference between day and night is large, there are higher requirements for rails and buildings, just for this purpose to drive the smelting industry and construction industry to upgrade.""
In addition, it is spacecraft and optics and communications, airplanes should fly higher and farther, and the Academy of Sciences can continue to improve the camera, and try to make the people in the pictures taken by the camera move in the future, as well as communication, I hope that radio technology can be further developed, until it can really be like a fairy, you can see people and scenery thousands of miles away.""
There is also the need for vigorous development of electricity, the Ministry of Industry and the Governor of the River, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Engineering will discuss whether we can try to build a few large-scale power stations, especially hydropower stations, to see if we can realize that every household in my Ming Dynasty can use electric lights, and this power station has a lot of skills to improve from power generation to transmission and then to thousands of households.""
Don't be afraid that it won't work, and it doesn't matter how much it will cost, in short, as long as there is a revolutionary improvement in technology, the money is well spent!""
There is also basic research, this must not be taken lightly, most of the investment in science and technology has to be spent on it first, the cabinet and the department, the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Engineering, whether to build a number of royal-level laboratories; The so-called royal level is not to say that it is my laboratory, but to show its scale and the level of responsibility for the scientific and technological progress of the Ming Dynasty, and the task undertaken by the royal laboratory is mainly to make breakthroughs in all kinds of major basic research, such as whether light is a wave or a particle, and to see what the cell will be if it is divided through a high-powered microscope, etc. ”When Zhu Youxiao discussed with the ministers how to turn the gold and silver obtained from the world into a booster for the development of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youxiao also mentioned how to increase investment in science and technology.After all, if gold and silver are saved, they are just a bunch of heavy metals, and if they are directly spent, they will only become luxury works of art such as golden spoons, golden hairpins, and golden hairpins, which are of little significance to the progress of Chinese civilization and even the entire human race.If it weren't for Emperor Zhu Youxiao, who had successfully foreseen the emergence of some scientific and technological achievements many times before, the auxiliary ministers Wen Tiren who were present would feel that this was a fantasy after listening to what Zhu Youxiao said about making the Wusi-Tibetan railway, people can see people and scenery thousands of miles away, and every household has electricity, but now they don't dare to question too much, and even have some expectations of what kind of world it will be if all this is really realized."
What Your Majesty said is, in the opinion of the minister, the second thing is to pay more attention to education, especially vocational education, and now the major factories are very short of craftsmen, especially skilled craftsmen; However, the students cultivated by the various universities still focus on cultivating students' mastery of knowledge, rather than the cultivation of skills, so that although students who are not good at theoretical knowledge do not have many skills, and although the enrollment of schools in this dynasty has been repeatedly expanded, the entrance examination is currently excluding most of the students after all, so these scholars who have not become scholars are still the majority of the great Ming scholars, and most of them can only farm or engage in some simple work; But now the major factories in the Ming Dynasty are crazy to expand to the world, and with the expansion of the global market, and a large number of foreign nobles' own factories have closed down, and new factories have sprung up, so there is a great need for enough craftsmen to engage in related skilled work, so in the opinion of the ministers, we should immediately add some people who specialize in cultivating theoretical knowledge and cannot learn well to accept professional jobs. ”Gu </span> blocked Yinxi at this time, and said to Zhu Youxiao with foresight.After hearing this, Zhu Youxiao agreed: "The imperial court cannot give up every countryman, and every countryman must become a useful person, and there are enough skilled craftsmen, which will also be the basis for my Ming central court to continue to dominate the world. ”"Yes!""
Anything else?"
Zhu Youxiao continued to ask."
Yes!"
Zhang Tongchang got up at this time and replied, and said: "The minister thinks that when the monetary system is further reformed, since I have so much gold in the Ming Dynasty, I fully meet the conditions for issuing paper money, and I can change silver coins to paper money!"
”After Zhu Youxiao ascended the throne, he asked social science institutions such as the Hanlin Academy and the Information Administration Yuan to study the reasons why the treasure banknotes issued in the early Ming Dynasty were discarded and not used, and also asked Bi Ziyan, who was engaged in money law, to carefully study whether it was necessary for paper money to be re-introduced in the future.Up to now, because there are more and more large transactions in the Ming Dynasty, printing technology has also improved a lot, and the knowledge of financial theory is also improving with each passing day, and more and more financial professionals have begun to realize the benefits of paper money in the country and the people.Therefore, both the people and the court began to call for the change of silver coins to the paper money issued by the imperial court according to the economic situation.Now that Zhang Tongchang has brought it up, this is no exception.And Zhang Tongchang also said: "In addition, the minister believes that we should also find a way to set the issued banknotes as the global currency, and the trade between the global vassal states and the central court, as well as between the vassal states and the vassal states, that is, international trade, should be traded with the banknotes issued by the central court of the Ming Dynasty, so that the central court can control the global economy through the control of paper money, and then control the global vassal states." ”"This is a good idea, oil will undoubtedly become the largest transaction in the future, and after the gradual unification of the world, it will naturally be necessary to link my Ming currency to global oil transactions!"
Zhu Youxiao nodded, and said in his heart: "Sure enough, once these officials of the Ming Dynasty have mastered enough economic knowledge in later generations, they will also play various economic means, and they don't seem to have much wisdom in history, maybe they are really limited by the level of theoretical and scientific development of the times and have not developed or gone the wrong way, after all, the use of economic means to manage the country has been in place as early as the Guan Zhong period, but the financial system has become worse and worse, so that the emperor himself has suffered from it, and the Engel coefficient has continued to rise, and the price of eggs eaten has risen to twenty taels. ”Next, the central government of the Ming Dynasty began to spend the vast amount of wealth obtained from Europe, as agreed by Zhu Youxiao and his auxiliary ministers.The Ming Dynasty is different from some countries, because from the beginning of the external expansion is led by the state, rather than the private social forces, that is, the big merchants, so that the wealth obtained from the external expansion is mainly concentrated in the state treasury, and the distribution of the wealth obtained from the external expansion is also controlled by the imperial court.Of course, the Ming Dynasty also had a period of time, and a large amount of profits earned from the world mainly flowed into the people, but because it was a private force, and mainly the coastal areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian and Guangdong enjoyed the global profits, so the distribution of wealth from the world was in the hands of these local forces.As a result, there is a serious phenomenon of wealth in the south and poverty in the north.Now, thanks to Zhu Youxiao's use of his imperial power, the industrialization and global expansion brought about by the government-run industry and the steam engine, the distribution of global wealth is in the hands of the imperial court.Therefore, the Ming Dynasty still has great control over the economy of the imperial court.Private businessmen, even if they are from the royal family and extremely wealthy, cannot confront the imperial court, let alone threaten the imperial power.The advantage of this is naturally to avoid the concentration of global wealth in the Ming Dynasty because of the large gap between the rich and the poor.Of course, this also has to be done by the emperor to govern the country.If the emperor engages in frenzied extravagant consumption and rewards the nobles and ministers for the wealth he has obtained, it will still cause the gap between the rich and the poor to be too large.For example, the Spanish Empire, which rose in the early colonial era, was rapidly declining because its royal nobles quickly degenerated after gaining a lot of wealth, and did not use the wealth to develop national science and technology and enrich the people, so that it declined rapidly.As a traverser, Zhu Youxiao is well aware of the stories of why the great powers of the West in history rose and then declined, and naturally understood what he should do as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty to avoid the deformed economic prosperity, that is, the entire country seems to be prosperous, but it is only a deformed prosperity caused by the extravagant consumption of the aristocracy, rather than the commercial prosperity caused by the daily consumption of industrial products by the people, especially the producers.Therefore, Zhu Youxiao did not throw money everywhere to reward the noble ministers, nor did he let himself drink wine and meat.However, Zhu Youxiao did not use the money for finance only, that is, to lend money to the people, to promote the rise of private businessmen, and then make the Ming Dynasty have more big businessmen.Because he knows that the rise of the Netherlands in history and later declined because of excessive addiction to the financial industry, the wealth earned from the world was used to speculate in stocks, creating a prosperity in the financial industry, but there was no great development in science and technology, so that although the private economy was prosperous, it was only a false prosperity of financial stimulation, and did not usher in the industrial revolution.Zhu Youxiao and his assistants only continued to spend their money on scientific and technological research and development and infrastructure construction that could maximize the interests of the nation.He would rather smash it into the construction of a large hydropower station and a railway to the plateau area, rather than directly lend money to the private wealthy businessmen, and wait for the private rich businessmen to share the profits after they make global profits.Because of this, although the merchant class of the Ming Dynasty is already a very large class, there is no particularly powerful giant businessman.After all, the main wealth did not flow to them.However, technology and infrastructure projects are advancing by leaps and bounds.In terms of science and technology, airplanes, cameras, radios, and telephones appeared much shorter than in the original history, and the gap between the countries that had not yet been destroyed in the Americas and the feudal states that had been divided by the Ming Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty itself was getting wider and wider.And that's just the results of scientific and technological research.The theoretical gap is no longer to the extent that it will take a few generations to catch up.Although they are on the same earth, they tend to be one dimension different from each other.In terms of infrastructure, the mileage of railways and roads has increased significantly every month.In particular, in the southwest, which was originally navigated by birdways and waterways, the number of bridges built to build railways and highways is several times more than the total number of stone bridges in the southwest region in history.And the good thing is that these expenses are not paid by domestic people, and there is no need to collect more of the wealth of these rich places in the south of the Yangtze River to fund the improvement of transportation conditions in these places that are still wild in the Ming Dynasty.Because these costs come from global looting.Therefore, the price of improving the poor areas of the Ming Dynasty did not have to sacrifice the rich areas, so as to prevent many people in the south of the Yangtze River from reverting to mulberry fields as farmland because of excessive commercial taxes, interrupting the development of industry and commerce in the region, and even making them return to the previous agricultural production mode.As a result, Suzhou has completely become a metropolis with what later generations called modern functions.That is, it has the most intensive science and technology industry and the most scientific and technological talents, and can siphon resources and talents from the surrounding and even the world to process and further study here, and become the vanguard of the development of productive forces.Of course, it is also related to the fact that there is no longer any harm in Suzhou today.Historically, since the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Suzhou has gradually had a modern city function, and the silk fabric raw materials of the surrounding Nanxun and Zhujiajiao towns have to be transported to the area of Suzhou Changmen, sold to the merchants of Suzhou, and processed into finished products in Suzhou before they can be sold throughout the country and even the world.Because Suzhou had the largest number of skilled workers in the country at that time.Of course, because the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains and interrupted the process of Suzhou's continued transformation, and because the technology is leading in the West, and the production technology is also leading in the West, Shanghai, which is more convenient for foreign trade and foreign-funded factories, has come from a small county town to a metropolis with strong manufacturing and financial industries, and radiating several surrounding provinces.Historically, Suzhou gradually became a modern city and became the center of technology industry in the Ming and Qing dynasties, which was also related to the fact that domestic demand accounted for the main demand during this period.During this period, it was mainly the military demand for soldiers in the north and the consumption of the imperial family and nobles and bureaucrats in Beijing.As the Suzhou-Hangzhou Grand Canal in the center of the south of the Yangtze River, Suzhou also plays a very important role, Huzhou silk, Songjiang cotton, these all kinds of raw materials from the rich area should be concentrated here, processed and transported to Beijing, to meet the needs of dignitaries and the army.As a result, Suzhou has gathered a large number of skilled workers and craftsmen.In this life, Suzhou did not experience the turbulent times in history, and the industrial revolution began in the Ming Dynasty, so Suzhou, which was already developed and rich in handicrafts, continued to become the scientific and technological and industrial center of the Ming Dynasty.First of all, the skilled workers here were the first to become the first batch of workers in the new textile industry and even the steam engine industry in the Ming Dynasty.In addition, the humanities here, the literacy rate is high, the degree of affluence is high, and the new education has also been developed rapidly, and a large number of technical talents have been cultivated.Therefore, Suzhou has successfully transformed into a modern industrial and commercial metropolis, and even Shanghai is still only an auxiliary to Suzhou.Who made the flashpoint of science and technology in this world mainly within the Ming Dynasty, and first in Suzhou through the application of the most and best technical talents here as an industry, and gradually promoted to the whole country and the world?
And the main function of Shanghai in this life is only trade.The manufacturing center is still in Suzhou.Of course, Suzhou is only a light industry manufacturing center.Because the skilled workers here in Suzhou have been light industry workers in the textile industry from the very beginning.As a result, the official industry of the imperial court only moved the light industry here, and there was no way, there were the most skilled light industry workers here, so the light industry had to be placed here.The center of gravity of heavy industry is still in Beijing.This is the result of the industrial development of the Ming Dynasty not being led by the folk bourgeoisie, but by the Ming court with state power.At that time, if it weren't for Zhu Youxiao, the emperor, who forcibly organized hundreds of thousands of homeless people in the Jingshi area into households, trained them to become workers, and took the opportunity to develop the military industry, no one would have been willing to take care of the lives of these hundreds of thousands of homeless people at the cost of offending the Jiangnan gentry, and train them to become the first batch of skilled workers in heavy industry in the Ming Dynasty
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