Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1424 Sweeping the Six Directions

Victoria suddenly realized: "Hey hey hey! Shangluo, we came here with you to find a way to escape from the sea of ​​suffering, why did you turn around and chop me with a sword after you got ashore!"

"Wasn't Rome about to be destroyed?"

"That's another matter. Rome is destroyed, that's seclusion. If you want to destroy Rome, that's another mission."

"Same, all the same, all the same."

"Can this be the same?"

"Yeah, that's fine." Shangluo put his hand on Victoria's shoulder, "You can trust me."

"Okay, but take your time."

【What are you talking about.】

"In short, the strategy has been decided, right?" Phaethon clapped his hands. "We should follow the example of the First Emperor and aim to wipe out all the rebels on Earth. So, Mr. Xu Fu, can we achieve immortality this way?"

"Only in this way can we deploy the formation with the whole world as the scope. Morning fungus does not know the new moon and full moon, and cicadas do not know spring and autumn. There is a spirit in the south of Chu, who regards five hundred years as spring and five hundred years as autumn. In ancient times, there was a tree called Dachun, who regarded eight thousand years as spring and eight thousand years as autumn. Refining the elixir in the bottle is just a trivial skill. The real way of elixir should be to use the heaven and earth as the furnace, all things as firewood, collect yin and yang to form the fire of composition and martial arts, and cut off the mountains and rivers as the dew-receiving plate. People living in it will naturally achieve immortality."

"I see." Shangluo said, "Only by making everyone in the world immortal can I achieve immortality."

"That's why I said that the First Emperor never understood - and the principles of today's emperor are correct, but he is working in the wrong direction. It doesn't matter, we can get things done by changing the direction."

"Did you advise him like this at the beginning?"

Xu Fu shook his head: "In front of such a person, I don't even trust my own words, let alone him. It's just that when it comes to immortality, no one can be sure."

After all, he was an emperor of all ages. Although Xu Fu is now an immortal, he was just an alchemist at that time. If he really knew what he was doing, he wouldn't have to rely on such means to hang on to his life. "

"Yeah," Shangluo nodded.

He already knew the general goal.

The current task of the Ming Dynasty is to clear all possible threats, just like a planet clears asteroids from its orbit, to bring the entire earth into the "world", and to relegate all remote places to barbarians. Because only in this way can the natural sacredness of this land be demonstrated. Sacredness needs to be proved through conquest, because barbarians fear power but not morality, and barbarians cannot understand human language, barbarians can only understand the language of weapons.

[Shangluo, what do you think? ]

"In theory, Zhou Li is also like this."

The Zhou Li emphasized the concept of the five mourning garments.

The five levels of the five mourning garments are Dianfu, Houfu, Suifu, Yaofu and Huangfu.

Although it can be roughly explained as direct-administered territories, vassal states, etc., in fact each level has detailed divisions.

The territory of the Son of Heaven is 500 li away from the country of the Son of Heaven. A tax of 100 li is paid as a levy, and a tax of 200 li is paid as a levy.
Outside the Dianfu, the three li margins are the Houfu: one li margin for Cai, two li margin for Renguo, and three li margin for Zhuhou.

In addition to the marquis's territory, there are 500 li of pacification: 300 li are for cultural and educational purposes, and 200 li are for military defense.

The areas outside the Suifu area that need to be governed are: 300 li of Yi and 200 li of Cai.

We must subdue the wild people within a radius of 500 li: the barbarians within a radius of 300 li and the drifters within a radius of 200 li.

This is the most authentic Zhou Li. The world view of Zhou Li itself includes the rule over the four barbarians. Although the current Ming Dynasty has not adopted it in its entirety, this structure of overlapping concentric circles has actually been included in the governance system.

For example, in the two capitals and thirteen provinces in the royal capital, the main practice was "Dianfu". Dian means suburbs, which is the area under the jurisdiction of the emperor.

The meaning of this rule is that within a hundred miles one has to pay fodder for the emperor's horses, and within two hundred miles one has to pay a sickle for cutting the wheat.

This is actually the difference between Zhili and other provinces in the Ming Dynasty. Zhili is responsible for paying "fodder", which is the materials needed to run the emperor and the court itself. Southern Zhili is the political head of the world, and Northern Zhili is the industrial heart of the world. These two are both achievements and the energy needed to rule the world. Therefore, the apprentices of the Southern and Northern Zhili will let the two capitals of the North and South complete their missions.

As for the other thirteen provinces, because they were far away from the emperor, the tribute they provided was not time-sensitive, and the "sickle" was a representative example of this.

This administrative area is quite specific, because according to Zhou Li, the emperor would only govern the royal capital himself, and other areas were the territories of vassal states. This is the Houfu under the Dianfu.

There are also levels of marquis. 100 li Cai, 200 li Ren Guo, 300 li Zhu Hou. This is the difference between the Western Regions Protectorate, Lan Fang and Korea. The Western Regions Protectorate is under the king's command, Lan Fang is under the king's command, and Korea is a traditional vassal. In fact, the Zhou Dynasty itself did not make such a detailed distinction between the three.

Beyond that, they were not considered vassal states - that is, the emperor did not recognize the existence of states in these places, and there was no "Marquis service", but only Sui service. Sui means "to stabilize the politics and religion of the king", which is an informal existence.

This was the case with the indigenous territories governed by Lan Fang and the foreign tribes governed by the various protectorates. Many of them were actually quite large, but they did not exist in the eyes of the emperor.

Beyond that, they completely ignored it. The meaning of "five hundred miles of obedience" is to be restrained by culture and education, and the meaning of "five hundred miles of wild obedience" is that politics and religion are neglected and the people are governed according to their customs. [So which level does Rome belong to?] Apollonia asked.

"Of course Rome doesn't exist. Isn't Rome going to merge with Ming? Then it doesn't exist."

What about the technological barbarians?

"It depends on their own wishes. The Zhou Li arrangement was based on distance, because the physical distance was what held the royal power at the time. The current situation is more complicated, so we can't just divide it according to 'five hundred miles', but according to the level of governance - in fact, I don't need to formulate this, the court has always done this."

[But now you are trying to cram a bunch of other stuff into this system. You have to deal with these new additions - for example, what about the UAE in the technological barbarians?]

“Which UAE?”

[The Alemanni United Emirate has many chieftains. For example, the Franconian chieftain who led the Franks, the Saxon chieftain who led the Saxons, the Swabian chieftain who led the Suebi, and the Bavarian chieftain who led the Bavarians. These Alemanni (Germanic people) all had their own chiefdoms, and these chiefdoms united to form the Alemanni United Emirate. This name is too long, so it’s better to call it the United Arab Emirates. ]

"So how do you manage these technological barbarians?"

[I told you before that Rome mainly controls these countries indirectly through the Holy See, so that they feel that they are not controlled. This is the "holy lie". We have placed three bishops in Cologne, Trier and Mainz. These three bishops can also elect the Alemanni chieftains and control them through these bishops. As for the Governor of Gaul, we have tighter control over them, and there are more bishops there, so they are more loyal.]

"Wait. Are you saying that your rule in Gaul is also indirect?"

[Yes, they actually thought they were a country called 'France', not knowing that they were actually controlled by the Roman Empire from the deep government. However, the control over Gaul was always less than ideal, because the bishops we sent there often had too much power, such as Cardinal Richelieu, who once secretly established the Gallic Empire and no longer obeyed our orders.]

"Wait. Did I notice something?" Shangluo asked, "So many places outside the Roman Empire generally believe that they are governing themselves and are not controlled by the outside world?"

[Yes, we mainly control them through hidden forces - but with the recent explosion of New Antioch, I'm afraid the Holy Lie has become increasingly fragile. When they realize their situation, I'm afraid the Holy Lie itself will also break. ]

"So they actually thought the Roman Empire didn't exist?"

[What they thought was the Roman Empire was actually the Roman Church.] Apollonia replied, [They thought the Church had few divisions. They also thought Greece was a wasteland with nothing. What's more interesting is that many of them have actually discovered the truth, but we used the story of the lizard people to fool them. This is much more appropriate than publicly declaring that nothing exists.]

"So, those countries also have many politicians of their own? How do you control them?"

[It actually depends on the region. Outside the Great Wall, our control over the UAE is actually quite weak. Unless we risk breaking the Holy Lie, we can only instigate the Gauls to attack Qi - but we also have some additional control measures, which you can ask Phaethon. ]

"Yes." Phaethon nodded and said, "In fact, we secretly controlled many of their politicians with the promise of immortality. After all, no one can refuse our request in the face of immortality - even the First Emperor couldn't refuse Xu Fu, right? Of course, we are not a telecom fraud, we will indeed perform the funeral."

"You guys actually keep your word?"

"Because the law requires us to do so. In fact, the logic is this - according to the relevant provisions of the Tenth Table of the Twelve Tables, the Sacred Law, the Romans must hold funerals according to the funeral rituals. There are eleven articles in total. These include not burying or burning corpses in urban areas, not using logs for cremation, three sets of burial clothes, one purple burial clothes, and not holding two funerals for one person. The main ones that apply here are the fifth and sixth articles.

"Article 5: The remains of the dead shall not be collected for burial, except for those who died on the battlefield or in a foreign land. This article requires us to hold a funeral before the soul of the body leaves the body, and we shall not hold a funeral for those who died without a proper burial.

“Article 6 provides that the bodies of slaves may not be embalmed with spices, and slaves must be buried according to slave rites.

"Then in 529, in the Justinian Code, the provisions of the Twelve Tables regarding slaves were revised. The code emphasized that all slaves must be buried in a holy manner and must be buried in a holy cemetery."

"Wait a minute." Shangluo replied, "Are you guys stuck on a bug?"

"No, no, no, there is no problem here. We are actually selling the right to slaves - we make those politicians from the technological barbarians become slaves of Rome. This allows them to be controlled in the same way as slaves during their lifetime, but at the same time, they must be buried in the same way as Roman slaves after death. According to Article 5, even if we don't collect them on the spot, we can go to foreign countries to collect the remains of slaves and bury them, because the amendment to the Justinian Code emphasizes that all slaves must be buried in sacred cemeteries, that is, national cemeteries."

"So, your authority to act comes from the Act?"

"Our authority, our motivation, and our commitment to slaves are all secured in the form of laws. As long as they are willing to become Roman slaves during their lifetime, they will be treated as slaves after death. Even if only their bones are left after death, they can be buried in the sacred cemetery of Rome to await future resurrection. The only requirement is that spices cannot be used for embalming, and they must be buried as bones, so the bone storage group is called the 'bone storage group'."

"So that's what happened. You're pretty busy then?"

"It was a bit troublesome to explain our mission to the unsuspecting families and to collect their remains. Sometimes it even looked like grave robbery. But we kept our word. The slaves now lie in the sacred cemetery, waiting to be resurrected like Roman citizens."

"Wait, they're not slaves anymore when they die?"

"Yes, they are no longer slaves after death - because according to the Claudius Code, if a slave owner abandons a sick slave, he can be free after he recovers. Slaves who die in a foreign country can be regarded as abandoned, and they can be regarded as recovered after they die and are cured. Therefore, slaves who follow this process can be freed after death and become free men - of course, this status in the afterlife also needs to be bought, because there is an abandonment ceremony before death, which is another price."

"Ah," Shangluo nodded, "Is this process troublesome?"

"It's easy. And dealing with barbarians who don't know the truth is sometimes... cool. We sometimes suddenly appear in black clothes and show our credentials and the promises he made to the family of the deceased. But in places where we act too intensively, some technological barbarians will deploy secret services to investigate our affairs. It's also fun to play tricks with them."

"Since we are going to conquer these barbarians, then take me to see the process. I also want to see how far your holy trick has progressed."

[Ah] Apollonia suddenly said, [Shangluo, you can go. But Victoria absolutely cannot go - have you ever played the game of Beast Fighting? Victoria is an elephant in mystery. But some of her mouse-like common sense will surprise Victoria. So, in order to maintain the existence of this game of Beast Fighting, you absolutely cannot let her know this.]

(End of this chapter)