Chapter 1013: So This Is Shifting the Crisis!

Ajige pouted, looking thoroughly aggrieved, and fell silent, but the discussion about the United States of the New Continent had only just begun.

"We can always find a way to deal with the silver, but who would be willing to cross the ocean to the New Continent?"

The one raising the question now was Noble Consort Zheng Chagu. Having heard and witnessed such things since childhood, she was well acquainted with the hardships of the sea and the perils of ocean voyages. Even going to the Southern Seas was fraught with extreme danger; shipwrecks and disease could cut down half of those who went abroad to make a living within just a few years!

Unless one was mad with greed or so poor there was no other choice, who would be willing to go to sea?

Zhu Cilang glanced at Chagu, sighed softly, and said, "Chagu, who do you think We are spending these thirty million taels of silver for?"

Zheng Chagu was a clever woman; she understood at once, and her delicate brows furrowed slightly. "Your Majesty means it is for Tuhao?"

Zhu Hehao was Zhu Cilang's eldest son, now already in his teens, and a top student at Laoshan Middle School — he was the classic "other people's child": excellent in both character and scholarship, ranking at the top of every examination, and with a good temperament that made him skilled at making friends. Unfortunately, he was only the eldest son of the emperor, not the emperor's eldest son by the empress, so he had no right to inherit the throne unless Zhu Hexing died young and Wu Sanmei proved unable to bear another son.

The problem was that most of Zhu Cilang's children were robust, and deaths in infancy were extremely rare (not impossible, of course — this was, after all, the seventeenth century). And Zhu Hexing, who had been frail since childhood, grew stronger with age; with Wu Sanmei regularly taking him out for exercise and physical training, his health improved steadily, and he had not fallen ill for several months now.

If Zhu Hexing eventually grew to adulthood and was invested as Crown Prince, then Zhu Hehao's days would likely not be easy. He was, after all, the eldest son, and so outstanding besides — and Zhu Cilang was not going to raise the imperial clan like pigs. If Zhu Hehao went on to achieve anything in his career, would he not truly become a thorn in Zhu Hexing's eye?

In the house of emperors, even father and son could turn against each other, let alone half-brothers born of different mothers.

But to send Zhu Hehao across the ocean to the New Continent — Zheng Chagu, as his mother, found the thought unbearable. At the very idea, her eyes stung and tears threatened to fall.

Watching his beloved consort on the verge of tears, Zhu Cilang felt uneasy in his heart as well, yet some things simply had to be done.

He sighed. "It is not all for Tuhao alone. Children like Tuhao are not unique to Our family. Every princely household, every noble house, has several such children! If they all crowd into the bureaucracy, all squeeze into the military — where could they possibly fit? We cannot let it come to the point where the high offices hold no men of humble birth and the low offices hold no men of noble houses, can We? And besides, there are plenty of people in this country who cannot even survive!"

Zhu Cilang did not need to go among the people in disguise to know that the country he ruled was no paradise — a nation of over a hundred million people, in the early stages of capitalism, and without a chosen land of its own, could not possibly make the common people comfortable and content!

If the capitalist road were so easy to walk, what need would there be for socialism?

The current social stability within the Great Ming had two main causes. The first was increased grain production — over ten million shi of rice were imported from Southeast Asia every year, and after the great works on the Yellow and Huai Rivers, the lands south and north of the Huai had been transformed from disaster zones plagued by floods and droughts into grain-producing regions with bumper harvests year after year, adding an average of twenty to thirty million shi annually compared to the past. In addition, the large-scale emergence of capitalist farms in the Four Rivers region, the Two Lakes, Fujian, Guangdong, and the newly recovered Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong (western portion), had also boosted grain output. Thus, in the tenth year of Hongxing, excluding Sichuan and Yunnan, the grain supply of the Han provinces of the Great Ming was at least over a hundred million shi greater than in the sixteenth and seventeenth years of Chongzhen!

Therefore, the poor of the Ming in the tenth year of Hongxing found it clearly easier to feed themselves than in the sixteenth and seventeenth years of Chongzhen.

The other cause of stability was somewhat politically incorrect — the new aristocracy and new army, tempered by the war of national salvation and restoration, had greatly increased their capacity to suppress peasant uprisings. Rebellions and disturbances had no chance to grow before they were ruthlessly crushed by the new army and new nobles.

But both of these stabilizing factors had an expiration date!

Because after Zhu Cilang took over the country and achieved the restoration, he interrupted the process of total collapse and rebuilding, and this produced two serious consequences.

The first was that the Han population had not been massively depleted in a process of collapse and rebuilding — in history, the early Qing had only a few tens of millions of people in the entire country. But the present Great Ming, excluding Sichuan and Yunnan, already had a population of around one hundred fifty million; if Sichuan and Yunnan were included, it was nearly three times the early Qing figure!

Although the amount of arable land was somewhat greater than in the historical early Qing, it was absolutely not three times as much. Thus the contradiction between people and land remained quite acute!

Moreover, since society had by and large stabilized, the Ming's birth rate remained persistently high, and it would probably not take many years for the population to break through two hundred million.

By then, the contradiction between people and land would become even more pronounced!

The second consequence was the expansion of aristocratic power during the restoration.

The Ming's ennobled houses had been in steady decline ever since the Tumu Crisis, and the social wealth they held had naturally diminished as well — when the power of the nobles declined, the wealth they held declined with it. The scholar-officials of the examination system had seized the opportunity to rise, taking possession of vast amounts of wealth and resources.

This process was, in fact, a downward flow of power and wealth, from the top stratum to the middle, and it was beneficial to social stability — the number of people who benefited from Ming rule increased, and the foundation of Ming rule expanded accordingly. Had it not been that this newly admitted group within the ruling class lacked the skill of killing people, the realm would not have fallen into such chaos.

And in the war of national salvation and restoration, Zhu Cilang had boldly and decisively stripped away the privileges of the scholar-officials while expanding the size and power of the military aristocracy. Large numbers of meritorious heroes of the restoration joined the formerly moribund ranks of the ennobled houses, injecting vigorous vitality into a dying group.

In fact, the present Ming aristocracy was almost an entirely new founding group — otherwise it could never have defeated the Manchu Qing and suppressed the Shun!

Furthermore, Zhu Cilang had established modern education and juvenile officer training on a grand scale, injecting even greater vitality into the second generation of the restoration.

Large numbers of energetic second-generation restoration scions, armed with advanced knowledge and skills, could indeed effectively defend the Ming realm, but at the same time they would seize vast wealth for themselves and monopolize the channels of upward mobility. Moreover, the vigorous restoration noble families also possessed stronger reproductive capacity, so the restoration aristocracy, already numerous, was now rapidly expanding!

Zhu Cilang sighed and continued, "It has been more than ten years since We took command of the army and achieved the restoration, and now the children of the restoration heroes are about to come of age. The primary schools in Laoshan and the eastern district of Nanjing are already overflowing, and when the middle schools recruit students, people practically break down the doors to get in. If this trend continues, in another ten years every household — meaning the powerful and privileged families — will be racking their brains over the future of their sons."

"And we cannot occupy all the good positions ourselves; we must leave a path for talented men of humble birth, must we not?"

"Besides, the utterly destitute at the bottom of society are growing more numerous as well!"

"Now that the realm is stable, grain is fairly abundant, industry and commerce are flourishing, and We have abolished the poll tax, the common people are all willing to have more children. But the population of the realm already stands at over a hundred million, and two hundred million or even three hundred million is only a matter of time. When that day comes, will there be enough grain? Will there be enough land?"

"So after much deliberation, We can see no alternative but to expand outward and win some land for the survival and development of our descendants. We intend to make the Americas into a joint-stock united nation, with wealthy and powerful nobles and magnates investing in it. Once they have invested money, they will hold a share of that nation, and any sons in their families for whom there is no place at home can be sent to the united nation as men of rank. Being rich and powerful, they cannot possibly go abroad empty-handed and alone! They will surely bring a group of people with them. The utterly destitute of our country can follow them, and that too will be a way out."

"Moreover, the land of North America is fertile and vast, suited to farming. If in the future a hundred thousand people a year can cross the ocean, the returning passenger ships can also carry back millions or even tens of millions of shi of grain. People go out, grain comes in — only then can our country enjoy lasting stability!"

Da Luoluo once again strongly recommends the July Great One's new book, The Han Palace!

Looking back across a thousand years, the palaces of the Han still stand!

It is the third year of Yuanfeng under Emperor Zhao of Han; powerful ministers dominate the court, the Xiongnu beyond the borders remain unsubdued, and the Silk Road hangs by a thread...

Though Wei and Huo are gone, the pioneering spirit of the Han sons will never cease; new heroes are about to emerge!

In the Dunhuang Gobi, at a post station called Xuanquan, a lowly clerk named Ren Hong casts aside his brush and cries out in fury:

"A true man with no other ambition should follow the example of Zhang Qian and Fu Jiezi, winning merit in foreign lands to gain a marquisate — how can he linger long over brush and inkstone?"

(End of Chapter)