[Comprehensive History] Clothes are all over the world

Bringing people back to enjoy the blessings, Hong Wudi is really not just talking.

Before the ship came back, Emperor Hongwu had ordered all the places along the coast to prepare for the reception. Houses and land were arranged, and the places with the best law and order, the most capable local villagers, and the most harmonious atmosphere among neighbors were selected.

Considering that the returnees might lose their labor force, he also specifically ordered the local government to distribute rice, grain and cloth subsidies every month at that time, and allocate a small part of it to hire local young and strong to help the elderly, so as to reduce the living burden of the elderly.

It can be said that under the policy, as long as the elderly do not suffer from serious illnesses, they will be able to live in peace and prosperity in this life.If you want to find your family, Emperor Hongwu also issued an order that the local officials must do their best to make up for the regrets of the old man.

This is actually the reason why Japan let people go so readily. If Daming wants to leave with a group of young adults, then even if the Japanese government is afraid of Daming, they will have to make a fuss.

It is precisely because these returnees are old people, although the Japanese side may feel a little shameless, but overall it is passable, and even said a few words during the government that it was Daming who solved their difficulties, and so on, which is not bad fig leaf.

As we all know, the physical strength and health of the elderly are placed there, which can create very limited social value, but still take up a lot of food and resources. It can be said to be a burden for the Japanese government today. Nowadays, many villages in deep mountains in Japan are There are cases where people in their 60s or 70s are carried up the mountain and left to fend for themselves.

Although from an official point of view, they will definitely not support it on the surface, but their true attitude can be known from the fact that the local government allows such a bad habit to develop into a customary "custom".

Therefore, they really couldn't understand why the Ming Dynasty brought back such a group of burdens.Just for the so-called face?That's probably not worth it.

Worth it or not is not for outsiders to say.

The crown prince studied ink, Hongwu Emperor himself wrote the copy, and the grandparents and grandsons wrote the names of the 73 people who returned home from thousands of miles away on the yellow book.

From then on, no matter where they were from before they left, they are now legitimate Daming people.

Zhu Yuanzhang solemnly handed over this separate household registration book to the Minister of the Household Department, and handed out the household registration certificates written by himself to the returnees with panic and bewilderment on their faces.

After hearing the modest words of these trembling old men, Zhu Yuanzhang said gently: "Don't feel troublesome to us. The current encounters of the gentlemen are all because of the poverty and weakness of the country. In the final analysis, this is because I am the emperor and they are court officials. , Because of the incompetence of the soldiers, you have suffered such a catastrophe."

"To put it bluntly, we should be asking for your forgiveness for this matter. It is our fault for not keeping the land and not being safe. We are ashamed to hear your thanks."

"No, that's not the reason." These old people who had been away from the Han land for many years and whose Chinese language was inevitably somewhat difficult waved their hands again and again, comforting Emperor Hongwu in their own way.

Mu Bai took a step behind and watched, his eyes gradually softened.

In Mu Bai's view, his grandfather is really a very strange person, he seems to have two faces, he looks like Shura to courtiers and enemies, but looks like Maitreya to the people and family.

During the year when Emperor Hongwu retreated behind the scenes, almost every time Mu Bai went to visit his old man, he found someone in his hometown.In Fengyang’s hometown, the surrounding farmers all know that Lao Zhu is a very loyal person, generous and friendly, and has many sons. If there is anything to ask him, he will help him. If he can’t do it, he can let his son The grandson lends his hand.

But it was such a simple and smiling farmer who made most of the people in the court daunted.

It is not that Mu Bai has never met an emperor, his little partner is also the overlord of one side, and along the way with his little friend, Mu Bai has also met many princes and kings, but those people are completely different from Zhu Yuanzhang.

He has never seen a person who is as insatiable as Zhu Yuanzhang, but his desires are hard to fill.

The dullness lies in the fact that apart from the safety of his family, he is not too attached to anything outside of himself, and the insatiable desire is that what he wants is something that no emperor has ever achieved.

He wants to have no corrupt officials, he wants the people to be happy, he wants to take care of the old and the young, and he wants to eliminate hunger.

In addition to being obsessed with the inheritance of the throne by the old Zhu family, most of his expectations coincide with the ideas of the Chinese political party more than 600 years later.

Uh, to some extent, the same is true for the high standards and strict requirements for civil servants.

However, at least most of the civil servants of the later generations lived a good life, and their wages were basically above the average salary line in the region, but the civil servants of Ming Dynasty...that was really miserable.

If they didn't extend their hands of evil, most of the ordinary civil servants in Ming Dynasty could barely support their own families, but if there were a little more people in the family, or there was a major or minor disaster, they would not be far from bankruptcy.

Moreover, all adjutants of civil servants have to be hired by themselves, which leads to the tight life of most officials.

If you stretch out that hand...it's fine if you don't get caught, if you find out, you'll be sent to prison immediately, and you and your family will be out of luck.

The empty seal case and the Guo Huai case that occurred successively during the Hongwu period caused most of the officials in the court to fall.

Mu Bai still remembers how serious the situation was at that time. In Yingtian Mansion, where the capital is located, there was a situation where officials were cut off. Before the replacement officials took office, the original officials had to wear more than 20 catties of shackles to continue working.

It can be said that social animals have been carried out to the end.

What's even more tragic is that these people were later sent to develop the Southwest. So far, many officials have stayed in Yunnan to work and have not been able to come back. It means that even the last trace of value has to be squeezed dry, alas, it is tragic.

But one good thing about Ming Dynasty is that even if officials commit crimes and are sent to the border for labor reform, they can still rely on military merits to get promoted back.

Therefore, most officials would rather go to the border than to go to some seemingly peaceful places. The former can still have a chance to turn around, while the latter will spend their entire lives there.

But even in this situation, from the point of view of Emperor Hongwu, he felt that he was good enough for officials.

Not to mention the salaries of officials, the reduction of taxes and labor alone can save a family a lot of expenses.

The old man believed in his heart that if an official had money, he would turn bad, so before he abdicated, he also stipulated the salary of the court officials, and made it a common practice together with not allowing the establishment of a prime minister.

As an excellent emperor who has been ranked first for 5000 years, Emperor Hongwu has nothing to say in all aspects, but he is indeed lacking in economics. Obviously when making this decision, he did not know that there was a Something called inflation.

Of course, as a fair emperor, in addition to managing officials, Emperor Hongwu also took back the large tracts of land at the hands of the meritorious officials, and changed it to hard wages.

In short, in the year when Emperor Hongwu abdicated, all the civil and military officials in the Manchu Dynasty dared not speak out. If it weren't for the hope that was in front of them, it is estimated that half of the people would have "retired and returned to their hometowns".

Fortunately, after Zhu Biao ascended the throne, although it was difficult to increase the salaries of officials explicitly due to his father's order, he received more red envelope subsidies for festivals and festivals.

There is ice consumption in summer and charcoal consumption in winter, and there are festivals almost every month throughout the year. Now the civil servants of Ming Dynasty have a much better life than in the past.

Of course, Zhu Biao did not do this out of kindness, but mainly because the current Ming court is really rich.

Uh, although it is quite hateful to say so, after the re-dredging of the Huanghuai River, the grain tax paid by the trouble-free Huanghuai River Basin is enough to make the surrounding provinces pay attention. Grain, Daming's grain storage has reached the point where officials from the Ministry of Households have to pester officials from the Ministry of Industry to build granaries.

In fact, after flattening the northern grasslands, Daming, which had not waged a major war for many years, had a considerable amount of food reserves. Thanks to these funds, Daming did not have the bad things of the previous dynasty when it dredged the river.

The conscripted servants are all paid labor, and the rice used for payment is piled up by the river every day, and they can be taken back directly after the work is done.For the convenience of carrying, an exchange service is also provided on site, where you can directly exchange the food you just distributed for a range of daily necessities such as fabric jewelry.

These things are expensive to buy back home, so it’s better to change them on the spot. It’s very face-saving to resell or give away when you go back.

And with such an exchange office, the servants feel full of hope. They open their eyes to work every day, and close their eyes to collect money for a better exchange. Instead, they don’t feel tired at all. The overall atmosphere is very harmonious. There is also some reluctance.

Even the officials from the Ministry of Industry who went to the site to supervise the work said that they had never seen such a large project with such a good atmosphere. This sentence immediately made the somewhat anxious Emperor Hong Wu happy.

However, too much food is not all a good thing.

The main grains of Ming Dynasty today are rice and wheat. Although these two crops have bran to protect the kernels inside, which are relatively durable, it is an indisputable fact that naturally stored grains will lose their flavor over time.

The taste of new rice and old rice is very different, and the difference in market price is nearly half. If it is not stored properly, it will be worse if it is spoiled or infested with insects.

As a result, under the urging of the Ministry of Households waving banknotes, the Ministry of Industry had to send people to study the transformation of the granary.

How to store, how to transfer, how to ensure first-in first-out, how to design the best moving line are all a science.But fortunately, the Ministry of Industry is no longer the same as before, where the father did not love the mother and did not love the family.

After the former East Palace Craftsmanship was merged, the selection mechanism was reset, the weight of the Ministry of Industry was readjusted, and management positions were handed over to technicians for the first time, the Ministry of Industry in Daming has become a paradise for technical nerds.

Today's Ministry of Industry, apart from occupying a house in the imperial palace like the other five departments, also has a piece of land in the small island in the middle of Xuanwu Lake and in the remote suburbs of Yingtianfu.

The small island in the center of Xuanwu Lake is surrounded by lake water on all sides, and there is also a dark net under the water. Anyone who wants to get close can only go by boat. excellent.

This kind of island in the lake has good secrecy and a pleasant environment, but it is extremely difficult to build, and the supplies of daily life are all transported from outside the island, so even in Yingtianfu, there are only two places.

One is used to store the yellow books of household registrations of the people across the country, and the other is used to store various secret formulas of the Ministry of Industry.

As for the suburbs, it is the experimental site of the Ministry of Industry, because they are all semi-finished products, so the protection is not so strict, but [-]% of those who approach without authorization are spies. place of fire.

Yes, in order to save the cost of repairing the house, the development and configuration of Ming gunpowder are also included here.

Except for some necessary administrative officials, most of the talents of the Ministry of Industry are recruited from the private sector.

As the status of craftsman status increases, fewer and fewer people are willing to eat public meals. After all, although public meals are stable, the degree of freedom is really indescribable.

In order to convince them, and also to coax all the bosses to join the workshop, the new Secretary of the Ministry of Industry specially arranged a few empty rooms for the placement of experimental equipment, and then he personally visited the door and invited people to come and visit.

Almost no craftsman can escape the temptation of this laboratory.

The glass windows that have now flown into the homes of ordinary people seem to have changed their appearance here, becoming large and small pipes and utensils.

Heat-resistant, cold-resistant and corrosion-resistant glassware are the most perfect experimental supplies, and their transparency is very high. Now that the workshop has developed transparent glass, it can show every observer the details of the changes in things.

Don't underestimate this small move, which has caused a huge difference in ideology and development process.

There is a saying on the Internet of later generations that the reason why the scientific development of the East is very different from that of the West and lags behind the West in modern times is really because of the lack of this small glass.

Although it is a bit biased to say this, it is true that without glass, even the best scholars would have difficulty obtaining accurate change data, and based on this, they can seize the timing of chemical substances to react, gain a deeper understanding of various components, and make use of them.Such a change may be compensated through a large number of experiments and genius computing power, but the loss in this is immeasurable.

In fact, thanks to these glass materials, in the process of researching how to obtain kerosene faster and more efficiently, the people in the craftsman discovered a transparent liquid that is more flammable than kerosene, but although this thing burns Powerful, but not very resistant to fire.

It is really not safe to use it as fuel, so the craftsmen put this thing aside, but was touched by Bingzhangju who wandered around looking for inspiration. The Bureau invented a firearm that uses a special bullet.

This is a real firearm, the kind that can cause a big fire on the opposite side once it is successfully fired.It's just that with today's technology, it is not easy to find a material that can wrap this liquid and make it explode after landing, so it is still in a state of injuring one thousand enemies and eight hundred.

But in any case, new inventions are a good thing.

Compared with the new invention next door, the new invention of the Ministry of Industry is much more harmonious.First of all, they found a kind of grease and cream-like items. After trying it, they found that this thing has a miraculous effect on the friction of metal machinery, which can effectively reduce wear and tear.

However, it has not attracted much attention.

It would be better if it could help the wood maintain waterproofing or something, but it is metal. In terms of today's productivity, there are not many places where Daming can really use it, so it was sent to various places to use ground drilling machines. The mining site is regarded as a gift that is better than nothing.

However, everyone soon discovered that with friction and precipitation, a wax product appeared.

The texture of this wax is somewhat like beeswax, but its color is much whiter than beeswax. After repeated experiments, everyone found that its characteristics are roughly the same as beeswax. It is also non-toxic and tasteless. It can be lit as a candle. The most important thing is Its hardness is much higher than that of beeswax, which is more convenient for transportation.

If ordinary beeswax candles are to be transported long distances, they must be separated with oiled paper, otherwise they will find that they have harvested a piece of candle lumps halfway, but this kind of candle is completely unnecessary. Although it is more brittle, its other The considerable hardness makes the craftsmen no longer need additional packaging.

And this color... such a clean white, is really suitable for a funeral ceremony.

Yes, paraffin candles first appeared in this world as tribute candles in Taimiao.At this time, the output of white candles is still very low, and they are precious and beautiful. Isn’t it suitable for making funeral ceremony?

"Is that all?" Holding the colorfully written report, Mu Bai shook it dissatisfied.

He is not a strict boss, but neither the glassware nor the oil burned during this period is a small amount. Judging from the results, the products produced this time are not practical.

Gasoline is a good thing, but it is far from being used now, and paraffin is also a good product, but it is not easy to satisfy Taimiao with the current manufacturing method, let alone supply it to the market.

Although he knows that scientific research will inevitably encounter losses, such losses are a bit too great. If these people are not given a little pressure, Mu Bai is afraid that they will go crazy and burn the foundation of the old Zhu family.

But what Mu Bai didn't expect was that after a little hesitation, Minister of the Ministry of Industry sent a navy blue stone slab.

"What is this?" Mu Bai took the board, looking at the tile-like shape with some puzzlement.

"Your Highness, this is the product of oil burning... Uh, these things will be left over every time they are burned. I think it's a waste, so I'm thinking about how to use it. It just so happens that a small official who was originally from Shu said it's a bit like Asphalt, so we tried it and found that it was almost the same.”

The asphalt mentioned by the Ministry of Industry actually refers to natural asphalt. This substance is actually the product of natural evaporation after oil penetrates into the surface. It has been recorded as early as the pre-Qin period.

As for how to use it... Ahem, it is usually tied to the arrow and ignited and then flew out, or burned a pot and poured it down when defending the city. The asphalt is sticky after heating, and once it sticks to the body, it cannot be easily washed off. Generally, the defenders will send an ignition service by the way, which is extremely harmful.

However, Daming does not need this kind of city defense service now. After all, although this thing is very lethal, it is also very difficult to clean up after the war. If it is not necessary, such "weapons" will not be used.

So what's the use of this thing?Mu Bai knocked on the asphalt slab in puzzlement, and heard the Minister of the Ministry of Industry say: "This thing has been catalyzed by all kinds of catalysis, and it is harder than asphalt. I have tried it, and it is flattened. deformation..."

While he was speaking, the asphalt slab held by the crown prince unexpectedly "clicked" and shattered, and then, as if playing in slow motion, it fell to the ground in a graceful and graceful manner.

Mu Bai: ...Ah.

Minister of the Ministry of Industry: Huh? ! !

The asphalt board bathed in everyone's eyes: Hey, it's not that we don't work hard, it's because the external force is too great!

The author has something to say: the two stones of the east and the west, the porcelain of the east and the glass of the west have created different civilizations because of their different materials.

Porcelain is heat-resistant, warm, and opaque, so the East has developed a rich food culture and tea-drinking culture. At the same time, the style and concept of people are the same as porcelain.

Westerners' glass has strong thermal conductivity and is transparent, so Westerners mostly eat raw, cold, and warm food. (The Hong Kong real salad is really unpalatable! BY the author in the exercise) The culture and behavior are also relatively straightforward , and sharp-edged, like blingbling things (now Chinese people's aesthetics are influenced by the West, most of the time before Chinese culture didn't like this kind of particularly transparent things)

At the same time, porcelain brought a lot of wealth to China, while glass helped Westerners see the world clearly.So this point is also very interesting. Two different pieces of mud can grow different cultures. If you are interested, you can use it as a thesis topic.