My father is Jiajing

Chapter 514 Differences between the North and the South
The case of Wang Zhi was settled, and Wang Zhi was appointed the general of Shuangyu Guard. The area under the jurisdiction of Shuangyu Guard was the sea area that Shuangyu Island could originally control.

It can be said that with the establishment of Shuangyuwei, the Ming Dynasty's power at sea has expanded to the greatest extent since Yongle, and its sphere of influence can reach Japan in the north and Luzon in the south.

In this vast sea area, apart from the Japanese pirates who have not given up and the Westerners from the far west, the Ming Dynasty is also the most powerful maritime force in East and South Asia in terms of strength and influence.

However, this force is still a little weak. After all, most of these forces are mainly derived from the original Shuangyu Island pirates. Although Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou's subordinates are also strong, most of them are good at land warfare, and there are not many who are good at naval warfare.

It is also subject to the number of current sea vessels, as well as the size and firepower of the ships.

Therefore, in order to completely control this maritime force, it will take several years or even more than ten years to digest it.

The prerequisite for truly digesting this maritime force is that the Longjiang Shipyard can be built to build the world's invincible ships, and then filled with the court's regular troops. In this way, these pirate forces that have been appeased will be completely controlled by the court.

Otherwise, these lawless criminals who are used to being pirates and accustomed to robbing each other would be very difficult to manage.

If you are not careful, you may even hurt yourself.

Therefore, the priority now is to let Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou each lead their own elite troops who can fight in naval battles, and use a mixed and dispersed approach to separate some of the elite pirates on Shuangyu Island into their respective naval fleets.

Then let them train and integrate through suppressing Japanese pirates and arresting smuggling at sea. In this way, the maritime force of the Ming Dynasty can develop for a long time. With Shuangyuwei as a new starting point, the Ming Dynasty can also be brought into the great wave of the Age of Discovery to compete with Westerners for future world dominance!
Therefore, Zhu Zaigui attached great importance to the establishment of the Oriental Navy this time.

"Yu Huatian, do you remember your mission?"

Zhu Zaigui looked at Yu Huatian who came to the palace to pay a visit.

When Yu Huatian heard Zhu Zaigui's words, he immediately bowed and said, "Your Majesty, I will remember every word you said in my heart!"

Zhu Zaigui hummed, "Very good. This king recommends you to serve as the eunuch guarding the Longjiang Shipyard and as the supervisor of the Japanese Navy. In fact, I have very high expectations for you. When you arrive in Nanjing, you must fulfill your responsibilities well and don't associate with those sour scholars in Nanjing who can only recite poems and write essays."

"As for the eunuchs guarding Nanjing and those old nobles, you don't have to care about them. They are just a piece of rotten wood forgotten by the court in Nanjing, and they are not capable of any great use. You just need to remember that your duty is to build big ships, arm the Japanese navy, and emulate the eunuch Sanbao in the past to achieve an unprecedented achievement!"

Yu Huatian bowed deeply again with excitement. This time he was able to get such great benefits and be so highly valued, all thanks to Zhu Zaigui's support and favor.

So he naturally knew how heavy his responsibility was this time. As long as he did a good job in Nanjing, when the ship set sail in the future, that would be the time when his name would go down in history.

Therefore, Yu Huatian knew better than anyone how great the grace that Prince Yu had shown him this time!

Yu Huatian replied excitedly: "I will definitely live up to your expectations! I will definitely build a big ship in Nanjing and will never go along with the sour scholars in Nanjing."

Zhu Zaigui smiled and said, "Alright, alright, don't be so excited. Those people in Nanjing are used to the good life. When you go there, you will definitely be greeted and sent off by them. If these people want to give you benefits, you should accept them, but you must remember who gave these benefits and how much they gave. Remembering all these clearly will also be a great achievement for you!"

When Yu Huatian heard this, he couldn't help but shudder in his heart. It seemed that the prince in front of him had long wanted to take action to cure Nanjing's chronic illness.

It seems that this visit to the Longjiang Shipyard in Nanjing is not simply to supervise the construction of a large ship.

Of course, when Zhu Zaigui asked Yu Huatian to supervise the construction of large ships at the Longjiang Shipyard in Nanjing, he did not put all his hopes for shipbuilding on the Longjiang Shipyard.

After all, the current Longjiang Shipyard has been dilapidated since the Yongle period. Although it can still build ships now, the ships it builds are all flat-bottomed boats that run on the canal, and the largest one will not exceed 600 tons.

And this 600-ton boat certainly cannot ride the waves on the sea.

Therefore, while Zhu Zaigui requested Emperor Jiajing to restore the glory of the Longjiang Shipyard, he also ordered people to select a port in Tianjin to build ships.

After all, this is the place closest to the capital. Not only is it easy to control, but it can also directly use administrative means to requisition shipbuilding materials and shipbuilding craftsmen from all over the country.

Therefore, Zhu Zaigui did not have much hope as to whether Nanjing could build real large ships. What he really hoped for was whether Tianjin, a place under his actual control, could build ocean-going large ships!

One of the most important reasons for letting Yu Huatian go was to let him collect some evidence in Nanjing, which would make it easier to take action against the wealthy families in Jiangnan in the future.

After all, these wealthy people in the south of the Yangtze River are the most well-fed and idle people in the entire Ming Dynasty. Their living standards and ideological levels are generally much higher than those of ordinary people.

However, these people with good living standards and high ideological levels are generally selfish. It is difficult for them to unify their own interests with the interests of the Ming Dynasty.

More often than not, they would think that the Ming Dynasty was taking advantage of them.

And this kind of thinking is undoubtedly the most intolerable to Zhu Zaigui!
Therefore, Zhu Zaigui had to prepare for the rainy day and send someone to explore the depth of Jiangnan first. He would wait until Hai Rui's magic sword had been honed to a certain degree and the power accumulated by the court had also reached a certain level.

Zhu Zaigui will let these wealthy people in the south of the Yangtze River who have nothing better to do, are selfish and only think about their own benefits know why the flowers are so red?
The reason why Zhu Zaigui looked down on these wealthy families in Jiangnan was not because he hated the rich.

It is because there is really something wrong with the thinking of these wealthy people in Jiangnan.

They are just like the petty bourgeois liberals of later generations, who only think about their own benefits and never think about what they have to contribute to the country.
Not only that, they would also come up with a set of high-sounding rhetoric to satirize and slander the court, as if they were the most sober group of people, and the court and the people in it were all assholes.

Therefore, it was precisely because of their mentality that the Ming Dynasty was eventually destroyed!

You must know that in the original historical time and space, the north and south of the Ming Dynasty seemed to be parallel worlds with polar contrasts.

The Ming Dynasty in the north was on the verge of collapse because of the threat from the Jianzhou Jurchens and the ravages of the Little Ice Age. Ordinary people had no way to survive. They either starved to death or were killed by outbreaks of plague or other disasters. In the end, when they were forced to do so, they could only tie their heads to their belts and follow the various rebel forces to make a living.

But in the Jiangnan region, the scene was quite different. The wealthy families and common people in Jiangnan still led a leisurely and contented life. At a time when people in the north were exchanging their children for food, they actually had surplus grain to brew wine for festivals and daily enjoyment.

And this is not the most excessive. Take the nostalgic essay "Watching the Snow at the Pavilion on the Lake" written by Zhang Dai, a great writer in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, as an example.

He clearly recorded his leisurely life watching the snow in West Lake in December of the fifth year of Chongzhen. In the article, he wrote in detail: "When I arrived at the pavilion, there were two people sitting opposite each other on a mat, and a boy was making wine, and the stove was boiling. Seeing me, he was very happy and said, "How could there be such a person in the lake?" He asked me to drink with him. I forced myself to drink three bottles of white wine and left. I asked his surname, and he was from Jinling and was a guest here."

From this passage we can see that it is the same world, but in the north in the fifth year of Chongzhen the sky was about to fall, while in the south people were still in the mood to drink, enjoy the snow, and feel the impermanence of time.

Although later generations gave this article high praise, saying that every word in it was gemstone-like, and that although it was short in length, its artistic conception was profound.

But if you are familiar with what a dark age the Chongzhen era was, when you read this essay again, you will know how terrifying the gap between the north and the south was.

Therefore, in order to deal with this kind of sophisticated and selfish petty bourgeoisie who complain without reason and have no intention of serving the country and protecting the family, Zhu Zaigui must make arrangements in advance.

Let’s put an end to the unhealthy trends among the southern intellectuals!

We must make them realize that the north and the south are one family, and that the north will have no good days anymore. That will be the time when they wake up from their dream of extravagance and decadence.

By then, even if they miss the old days and the leisurely years, they will be like flowers in the mirror and the moon in the water, which are out of reach.

Nothing can go back to the way it was before.

Therefore, no matter what, we cannot allow this kind of sophisticated and selfish thought and literary style to continue to poison the southern clans and the common people.

Otherwise, when the sky really collapses and the earth breaks, apart from writing some moral articles to put all the blame on the court, they will not take any other action.

Therefore, Zhu Zaigui felt that no matter how dark the tactics he used, it would not be enough for this kind of sophisticated and selfish cultural trend!
After all, if we really have to wait until the sky collapses and then try to deal with them, it will be too late.

After explaining everything to Yu Huatian, Zhu Zaigui withdrew his thoughts.

Now he has completely integrated himself into the times and has also clearly defined his mission and responsibilities.

After all, if we really want to develop a good era, relying solely on advanced technology may be effective in the short term, but if there is no ideological storm and change, the original ideas will still be allowed to spread like cancer in the declining body of the Ming Dynasty.

By then, even if Zhu Zaigui had used up all his life's energy to lay the foundation for the industrial revolution for the Ming Dynasty, the fruits of this victory would have been stolen by this or another group of ambitious people who emerged from nowhere.

Therefore, for the sake of long-term planning, and in order to reduce the cultural rift and cultural differences between the north and the south, Zhu Zaigui must prepare for ideological transformation while solving practical problems.

Only by achieving this can the north and south of the Ming Dynasty become an organic whole.

Instead of the North looking at the South as rich and stingy, and the South looking at the North as barbaric and poor.

The South felt that the North was taking great advantage of them and was sucking their blood through the canal every day.

The North felt that the good times in the South were all because they were at the front resisting the grassland enemies.

If there is such an ideological deficit, there will be no mutual understanding and common goals between the North and the South.

If the North and the South do not have mutual understanding and the same goals, it will undoubtedly be a huge disaster for both the imperial court and the ordinary people.

Once this potential disaster breaks out, people from the north and south will stand idly by and not care about each other's life or death.

It is just like the suffering that has happened in history.

The North was on the verge of collapse, but the South failed to offer any help and continued to live a happy and peaceful life.

Then when the North completely collapses, and those desperate people become the sharp knives in the hands of the foreigners in order to survive, the first people they will chop down are the idle people in the South.

Therefore, in order to prevent such a tragedy from happening, Zhu Zaigui had to start from both ideological and economic aspects, not only to improve the economic foundation of the north, but also to improve the ideological problems in the south.

Only if these two problems are solved organically, we cannot say whether the Ming Dynasty can last another 300 years, but it should be able to exist for at least another 100 years without any problems.

After all, everyone is well fed and satisfied, the strength of foreign enemies has been restrained and weakened, and the Virgin Mary's emotions have not been seduced by the prosperous years, so there is still hope that a hundred years of stability can be maintained.

Of course, as for whether people a hundred years later would develop a Madonna sentiment because of eating too much, that was not something Zhu Zaigui could control. After all, by that time, the grass on Zhu Zaigui's grave would have been three feet high. How could he possibly have the ability to influence future generations?
Therefore, we must be pragmatic in life, do a good job for our own generation, and lay a solid foundation for the next generation. This will be considered a success.

As for matters that will last forever, they can only be left to the people of forever to resolve.

If they can solve it, they will keep moving forward. If they can't, then it's no big deal. They will learn their lesson after getting a beating.

After all, this is how history has developed. There will always be some unforeseen accidents at certain points in history. There will always be an unexpected tough guy who comes from the sky to whip the world and make those who think they are civilized tremble in the face of barbarism.

Then, after experiencing dozens or hundreds of years of suffering, they will burst into blood again and enter a new round of prosperity and vigor.

As for how long this new round of prosperity and vigor can last, it depends on how far this new round of development can go.

If development is good, it will last for decades longer; if development is not good, it will last for decades less.

In any case, beatings will never be absent. Otherwise, no matter how powerful a nation is, it will not be possible to break through the bottleneck and enter a higher state of development by relying on stable development.

So, this is just like what Lao Tzu said, “Everything will decline after reaching its peak” and “Everything will be fine after reaching its worst”!
Everything has its pros and cons!

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Asking for a monthly ticket~~
(End of this chapter)