Daming: Brother, there is no future for monks, let's rebel

Chapter 217 Huge Silver Tax
On the contrary, Yang Wudi's army was unwilling to spend precious gunpowder and arrows on these rubbish cannon fodder.

When thousands of Tianzhu cannon fodder were killed and injured, the Delhi Sultanate drove another group of Tianzhu cannon fodder soldiers onto the battlefield.

Yang Wudi knew that if the fight continued like this, the main force of the Delhi Sultanate would not have exerted its strength, and his own army would have insufficient stamina.

Timur's Tianfangjiao mercenaries are also eyeing, making it impossible for Yang Wudi to make a surprise attack.

In desperation.

After Yang Wudi led his soldiers to kill and wound nearly [-] native Tianzhu soldiers, they had no choice but to take the initiative to retreat back to New Dali City.

Almost all strongholds and territories on the outskirts of the city were successively occupied by the troops of the Delhi Sultanate.

Hundreds of thousands of indigenous people have become consumables for the Delhi Sultanate.

Duan Power led the army under his command to defend the New Dali City. Except for the waterway connecting the sea, all the passages on land have been cut off.

. . . . . .

As the capital of the Ming Dynasty, Yingtian City has now become a first-class and prosperous city in the world.

The city not only has prosperous commerce and trade, but also has a unique industrial atmosphere in today's world.

There are a large number of newly built factories in the south of Yingtianfu. These factories produce the latest steel, glass cloth, gunpowder porcelain, etc., which are supplied to the provinces and even the entire sea trade market.

In the south center of Yingtianfu, there is a large-scale factory called Yingtian Iron Works.

In Yingtian Iron Works, there is a tall and majestic building.

In this building, there are five institutions: the Coin Minting Bureau, the Machine Manufacturing Bureau, the Ordnance Bureau, the Process Supervision Bureau, and the Smelting Science and Technology Bureau.

Yingtian Iron Works belongs to the Ming Qihai Company, and the ostensible owner of the Qihai Company is Li Zhen, Marquis of Huai'an, but the real major shareholders behind it are the Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Han, as well as a large number of civil and military exploits.

At this time, the craftsmen of Yingtian Iron Works were working overtime to build the factory.

Due to the rapid development of all walks of life in Tianfu City, there is a serious shortage of large numbers of craftsmen.

Therefore, in order to build Yingtian Iron Works, most of the craftsmen were recruited from all over the country.

A large number of craftsmen and technical backbones are building in Yingtian Ironworks according to the engineering drawings. The spacious and flat streets criss-cross each other, making the already magnificent Yingtian Ironworks even more luxurious and splendid.

In traditional people's impression, the iron factory is a silly and dark iron factory, but in Zhu Han's construction plan, it has a huge and spacious factory building, and the windows installed on the factory building are all made of transparent glass.

Although transparent glass has been produced on a large scale, it is still affordable for many rich people to use as windows. In the eyes of ordinary people, this Yingtian Iron Works is a luxury and splendor.

Zhang Wuliu is a farmer in Huaixi. When the Red Scarf Army rebelled, he was too scared to go out in the mountains. Later, when the Mongols were driven away by the Ming Dynasty and a peaceful and prosperous age was established, Zhang Wuliu came out to make a living.

But at this time, Zhang Wuliu discovered that the world had undergone tremendous changes.

Many of Zhang Wuliu's fellow villagers and neighbors have owned their own land because of joining the army, but he himself has nothing and can only continue to be a tenant.

The prosperity of relatives and friends gave Zhang Wuliu the determination to make a breakthrough.

However, he lacked guts and lacked skills. After he came to Yingtian Mansion, he could only rely on his strength to apply for employment in Yingtian Iron Works as a laborer.

Zhang Wuliu is 29 years old this year. He is a typical northern man with rough appearance, straightforward personality and bad temper.

However, he is very strong, and every time he carries a mud bag, it is like carrying a sack.

On this day, Zhang Wuliu had already carried more than a dozen loads of cement bags weighing several thousand catties. His face was covered with sweat, and he was so tired that he was about to collapse. As he walked, his steps slipped and he almost fell to the ground.

At this time, a carriage slowly drove into the courtyard of Yingtian Iron Works and stopped beside Zhang Wuliu.

The driver opened the curtain, and a tall man in his 30s jumped out of the car, helped Zhang Wuliu up, and asked with concern, "Brother, are you alright?"

This person was Zhu Yuanzhang, Emperor Ming who was visiting in micro-service.

Before leaving Yingtian, Zhu Han specially told his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang to focus on the progress of Yingtian Iron Works.

Because Zhu Han told him that as long as this large iron factory is completed, then Daming will completely become the only super powerful empire in the whole world.

This iron factory uses the latest blast furnace to smelt steel, which can provide a high-temperature furnace of [-] to [-] degrees.

Such a powerful iron factory is enough to make Daming's weapons cheap and easy to use.

In order to prevent the officials and craftsmen below from fooling the court, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty led his personal guards to inspect the iron factory in disguise.

Zhang Wuliu waved his hands, panting and said: "It's okay, I'm just exhausted, just take a rest."

Seeing that Zhu Yuanzhang was wearing decent clothes, Zhang Wuliu guessed that he must be an official in the iron factory, or a military household guarding the iron factory.

Therefore, Zhang Wuliu was very polite to Zhu Yuanzhang, lest he would lose his job as a mechanical worker in the iron factory.

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said: "Brother, you should take a rest first."

Zhang Wuliu said gratefully, "Thank you big brother."

As he said that, Zhang Wuliu was supported by the guards and sat next to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Yuanzhang asked Zhang Wuliu many questions, most of which were questions in the iron factory, and Zhang Wuliu answered them clearly and logically.

Afterwards, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly changed the subject and asked, "Brother, how do you think the people of Ming Dynasty are living now?"

After Zhang Wuliu was silent for a while, he replied: "I don't know what to say."

Zhu Yuanzhang laughed: "Let's tell the truth! Let's just chatter."

Zhang Wuliu thought for a while and said, "Under His Majesty the Emperor of Ming Dynasty, the people live and work in peace and contentment, and their lives are extremely comfortable. I am also happy for the people of Daming."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded: "Well, continue."

Zhang Wuliu continued: "However, the price of grain is getting lower every year, and the grain produced is worthless. There are fewer and fewer people farming, will they be hungry again in the future?"

Zhang Wuliu's words made Zhu Yuanzhang laugh out loud.

Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile, "Haha, what did I think? It turned out to be like this! Don't worry, brother, no people will go hungry after Ming Dynasty. To tell you the truth, look at this iron factory. As long as this iron factory continues to produce steel in the future, it is entirely possible for the people of Ming Dynasty to eat meat, not to mention starving."

Zhang Wuliu was just an ordinary farmer who came to the capital city with the new atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty and became a worker. He still had some experience, so he naturally didn't understand what Zhu Yuanzhang said, why the iron and steel factories could make the people not hungry abdomen?

As the emperor of Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally knew the importance of steel to a country.

Whether it is agricultural tools or other tools, all are inseparable from steel.

And once Yingtian Iron and Steel Works starts production, the cost of steel in Daming will drop by half!
Farmers will be able to afford better iron farm tools and produce more food.

Craftsmen can also have more and better tools, invent and produce more amazing items.

More importantly, Ming's army will also have more sophisticated weapons, whether it is swords, spears, armor, armor, or muskets, they will all be sharper.

With such a strong national power, even if there is a severe natural disaster, it is impossible for the people of Ming Dynasty to starve to death.

As the saying goes, when neighbors gather food, I keep guns. As long as the weapons are in hand, the neighbors can only starve to death, not Daming.

Zhu Yuanzhang inspected a circle of iron factories and was quite satisfied with the performance of officials and craftsmen.

Although it was a microservice visit, many key places in the ironworks could not be inspected.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang was able to see the construction of many peripheral workshops of the iron factory by virtue of his fraudulent identity of Jinyiwei.

Whether it is quality or quality, there are officials and craftsmen, large and small, to check at every level.

In particular, the cement shipped from Huainan has doubled the speed of various constructions in the iron factory.

Cement has a wide range of uses and low cost, and the production process is just a layer of window paper. After Zhu Han broke him, Daming's simple cement has a broad market among the people.

The construction of iron works naturally requires these strong and easy-to-use cements.

Zhang Wuliu's laborers mainly do the work of moving cement, sand and stone.

Zhu Yuanzhang was very satisfied with today's market. After returning to the palace, he immediately ordered the corresponding officials and craftsmen of Tiantie Factory to reward them.

Even Zhang Wuliu, the lowest-ranking laborer, was rewarded with three days of extra meals.

The fragrant fatty meat and fried fish made Zhang Wuliu and other iron factory workers grateful to the Ming court.

"Da Ming is really good, what the brother said that day seems to have some truth, this iron factory can really let us eat meat!" Zhang Wuliu was thinking in his heart, while chewing the sliced ​​pork belly in the bowl.

The pork belly in these workers' bowls is more than half a catty.

The sizzling pork belly rolled in Zhang Wuliu's mouth, making Zhang Wuliu hum happily.

Zhang Wuliu thought in his heart that maybe this iron factory in Daming could really allow all the common people to eat meat every day in the future.

. . . . . .

In order to enable Daming to develop industry as soon as possible, Zhu Han also built other supporting cement and quarries in order to build a Yingtian Iron Works.

In addition to these emerging industries, the original papermaking ceramics, textiles and other industries have also received a lot of technical guidance from Zhu Han.

The silk output of the entire Jiangnan region exceeded the sum of the previous three years in the five years of Hongwu.

The biggest credit for this naturally belongs to Zhu Han. The more advanced aseptic silkworm rearing and standardized feeding and cultivation have more than doubled the silk production in Jiangnan.

All these projects have achieved rapid progress, making Zhu Han's reputation in the Jiangnan business community unprecedentedly high.

At the same time, due to the huge impact of technology on industry, various firms in the south of the Yangtze River attach great importance to technology.

They even spontaneously set up technology research workshops belonging to various firms in Jiangnan to develop new technologies for the industry.

Daming's huge output also brought about a huge increase in exports.

Only Hongwu's five-year and one-year sea trade share allowed several coastal shipping companies to extract nearly 500 million taels of silver in taxes.

Zhu Han led the Ming Fleet to purchase a group of strong slaves before leaving Malacca. These slaves were mainly used as oarsmen for galleys.

These slaves who served as oarsmen were all trafficked by Persian merchants, mainly from countries and regions along the Mediterranean Sea.

The Mediterranean region in the Middle Ages was in chaos, and various countries and religious forces were constantly at odds with each other. A large number of captives were often sold as slaves.

Even in the distant Southeast Asia, there are no shortage of these white slaves from Europe.

Zhu Han's Ming fleet traveled north along the coastline, and soon arrived in the southern part of Burma, which is the east coast of the Indian Ocean. Apart from the hot rainforest, there are no valuable specialties.

Zhu Han commanded the Ming fleet to replenish some fresh water here, and like the local aborigines, he bought some livestock and slaughtered them to make bacon.

Zhu Han led his men around the place again, and found that there was no sign of civilization other than the local aborigines.

These backward aborigines simply do not have the ability to purchase goods from the Ming Dynasty, and the only items they can produce are some gems that are not of good quality.

Except for hard currencies such as gold and silver, Zhu Han is not interested in luxury goods such as gems and jade.

He has his own considerations about the business model.

These things have the disadvantage of corrupting and degrading the people.

All luxury goods are useful weapons only when harvesting foreigners.

Zhu Han felt that the extravagant and hedonistic style of the Ming Dynasty must be controlled artificially.

It is not far from the Tianzhu Road, and after about ten days of sailing, you will be able to reach the new Dali City where Duan Gong is located.

However, when Zhu Han was about to set sail and leave, some reef collision accidents occurred, causing the two galleys to suffer considerable losses.

These two galleys are necessary ships for the Ming army to operate in the coastal waters. They have shallow draft, fast speed, and can not be affected by the wind direction. Without these two galleys, the Ming army will suffer a lot in offshore reconnaissance and landing. Impact.

So Zhu Han immediately ordered the craftsmen on board to find a way to repair the two ships as soon as possible.

Unfortunately.

The craftsman who was good at repairing sailboats had suffered from plague and dysentery before, and his body was too weak. He stayed in Malacca and did not follow him.

The current craftsmen are not skilled enough, and the progress is far behind Zhu Han's requirements.

At this moment, a slave oarsman in charge of paddling stood up and asked for help from the Ming army to repair the warship.

This slave is a Catholic slave with curly black hair. After being introduced by his translator, Zhu Han agreed to the slave's request and decided to give him a chance. As long as he can repair the warship, he will be given a free sailor. identity of.

In Ming Dynasty's ocean-going fleet, hierarchical order is the most important.

In order to maintain the hierarchical order, it is necessary to ensure a tight and solid relationship between superiors and subordinates.

If you want to change your identity on the ship, you must use real credit to change your identity level.

From the captain of the battleship to the ordinary oarsman on the ship, every position requires sweat and blood to get what you want.

The slave oarsman did not disappoint. With his help, the warship of the Ming army was quickly repaired. In order to reward the slave, Zhu Han announced in front of all the sailors on board that the slave was restored to the status of a free man.

After Zhu Han understood his repair process, he was surprised to find that this slave was not illiterate.

He drew many figures on paper and wrote many Latin characters.

Although Zhu Han couldn't understand which language these Latin characters belonged to, he could clearly know that this slave was definitely not an ordinary person.

(End of this chapter)