Simulates history, but Chongzhen is the Divine Emperor at the beginning

Chapter 56 Emergence
Sitting in the prime minister's residence in the capital, yet your heart is filled with the vastness of the land, you have fully utilized the court's macroeconomic control capabilities. The new Ming court is like a highly efficient machine operating at full power, distributing resources as evenly as possible, thereby fully utilizing limited resources and allowing the Ming Dynasty's hundreds of millions of people to smoothly survive the Little Ice Age, which was plagued by natural disasters.

You are very confident about this, because history, the best textbook, has already made the path clear for you!

This path forward is the Dai Qing Dynasty: In the original historical arc, Dai Ming and Dai Qing shared the same territory, with the same Han Chinese population. However, when Dai Ming died, his population was stuck at around 100 million, while Dai Qing managed to reach 400 million.

As we all know, the people of the Central Plains never mutated, so their fertility and natural survival rates wouldn't change significantly. So, in ancient times, when there were no population control policies, population growth actually followed only one principle: the better the living conditions, the larger the population!

Therefore, the Qing dynasty's ability to reach a population of 400 million wasn't solely due to sweet potatoes and corn, but rather to its governance and distribution capabilities, which surpassed those of the mid-to-late Ming dynasty. This is how it was able to maintain a population of 400 million until the end of the Qing dynasty.

[Although the late Qing Dynasty degenerated into a mess, it is indeed the final version of the answer to the Chinese feudal dynasty... Therefore, you have to refer to many of the policies and experiences of the Qing Dynasty.]

For example, the maximum carrying capacity of this ancient land is actually around 400 million. The reason why the population of the former Ming Dynasty was stuck at 100 million was because the aging Ming Dynasty was difficult to recover from and the country's governance capacity was extremely inefficient.

So, as long as you manage carefully, with the current population of Ming Dynasty, it would be equivalent to 100 million people enjoying the natural resources of 400 million people. Everyone can definitely live a relatively prosperous life!

[Whether this is the ideal era of peace and prosperity is hard to say, but it is definitely better than all the previous prosperous times!]

You are working hard for this.

【…】

[In the eighty-third year of Chongzhen's reign, while maintaining large-scale water conservancy projects, you also continuously exempted the Ming court's original harsh taxes... I didn't realize this until I did: why the hell are they still collecting "Liao taxes"?!]

You really don't know whether to laugh or cry: over sixty years after the Qing Dynasty was destroyed, these corrupt officials are still collecting the "Liao tribute" that was originally imposed to restore Liao. They really... deserve to die!

[You, completely speechless, abolished these inexplicable taxes, and from then on only collected minimal agricultural taxes from the vast majority of farmers, while slashing taxes and corvée services almost entirely, and reiterated your declaration of "never increasing taxes."]

[As for the possibility that such a small amount of agricultural tax might not be enough to maintain the government? That's fine, we still have commercial taxes!]

[While reducing agricultural taxes, you directly extended your tangible hand and imposed extremely high commercial taxes on wealthy merchants. The tax rate made them roll their eyes and almost faint...]

[In short, you struck the landlord on the head with your sword, amputating his entire limbs below his eyebrows! Then you struck the wealthy businessman in the aorta, giving him a heart attack!]

If this were an ordinary person's reform, the court would have been overthrown by vested interests long ago. However, since you have the Divine Emperor standing behind you, and the purple eggs of the 100,000-strong Beijing Camp army, they can only secretly curse the new policy while expressing their gratitude with tears...

"The Prime Minister's kindness is not over yet!" (Gnashing of teeth!)

The common people cheered and said: "This is the mouth we want to see!!!"

"To see such a wonderful transformation is worth the price of admission, even if I die!"

"The Prime Minister's kindness is not over yet!"

【"loyalty!"】

[Bloodthirsty civilians, make a grand appearance! ]

[However, while you received everyone's cheers, you also inevitably suffered pressure...]

[Because your "robbing the rich to help the poor" policy has really cut into the lifeblood of those with vested interests, especially those royal nobles, princes, and grandsons of the royal family, their outcry has become even more intense!]

For example, Prince Fu and his men directly accused you of treason. Their reasoning was simple: Taizu and Chengzu established a system of preferential treatment for members of the imperial clan, granting them fiefs, wealth, and everything in between. How could this servant of yours openly violate that system?!

[You need to understand your position clearly! You are just a servant of the Zhu family! How can a servant deprive his master of his wealth?]

【Those surnamed Zhou, return the land! 】

[Faced with the extremely unpleasant yelling and cursing of these domestic pigs, you are so angry that your eyes turn red, and you wish you could turn into a thief and chop off their heads one by one!]

[Fuck it! King Chuang, please lead us all in preparing a Fu Lu Feast! I can’t stand these pigs squealing anymore!]

[But despite your complaints, you clearly know: other gentry, landlords, wealthy merchants, and the like can be killed, but these royal relatives must not be allowed to eat purple eggs. At most, some of their fiefdoms can be cut off.]

After all, what they said was true. You were merely a minister and servant of the Divine Emperor. If you harmed his relatives, it would be tantamount to rebellion! So, after gritting your teeth again and again, you decided to take a step back: the fiefdom definitely couldn't be returned. It had already been divided, so why would you give it back? However, the annual salaries of the various royal palaces had increased. Just think of it as a cosplay of Buddha cutting off his flesh to feed the eagles...

Soon, the pigs received the silver. Although it wasn't much, it was still an income. They snorted coldly and left the prime minister's residence with a haughty air: "A slave is a slave!"

Their success also gave hope to the nobles, who flocked to the prime minister's residence, blocking the door and making a fuss.

[He opened his mouth and said, "Zhou Zifang! F*ck! You're a poor bastard from northern Shaanxi who took the imperial examination for 24 years. What gives you the right to show off here?"]

"Don't you want to divide the land? Let me tell you, when our ancestors followed our great-grandfathers Taizu and Chengzu into Nanjing Yingtian Prefecture, they made all the sufferings of our descendants come to them!"

【you:……】

[Fuck! I can't beat a pig, so how can I beat you?!]

[Beijing Camp soldiers! Give me six sticks in one second!]

[Amidst your furious curses, the soldiers of the Beijing Camp, armed with long sticks, shouted out "loyalty" and "gratitude," beating the useless nobles into submission...]

[In short, despite all the setbacks, you ultimately carried out the reforms vigorously. The situation where the rich had vast fields stretching for miles while the poor had no place to live was effectively alleviated. Important issues such as the gap between the rich and the poor, the royal family, and the aristocratic families were also gradually resolved. Although the solutions were not particularly thorough, you did your best.]

[Then, your attention naturally turned to industrial construction...]

You know clearly that without industrialization, all reforms will only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. Therefore, you must industrialize and achieve a leap in productivity!

However, the present is different from the future. The reason why industrialization was so rapid in the future was not only due to the hard work of those heroes, but also because the foundation of industrialization already existed abroad. People's efforts were more reflected in learning and introducing advanced foreign technologies.

[And now it is still the early eighteenth century, a bunch of Western feudal countries, where did the industrial foundation come from? ]

So you have to build something from scratch, which is very difficult...

[After all, you're not a professional, so your knowledge of the details of industrialization is limited. The most you know about is the steam engine, and everything else is just a superficial understanding.]

[So, even if you had all the top craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty dedicated to developing steam engines several years in advance, you still haven't achieved any significant results... But you're not in a rush, because you still have plenty of time.]

[The Divine Emperor has given you a full thirty years, and only ten have passed. You still have plenty of free time! And even if you submit your paper early, you will definitely have met the Divine Emperor's requirements!]

[The world is thriving now, and it can be called a peaceful and prosperous era.]

[Anyway, you are driving the new carriage of the Ming Dynasty in an orderly manner, moving step by step towards a more promising future...]

[But as you made the Ming Dynasty more prosperous, the expressions of the yellow-robed men in the Forbidden City became increasingly grim.]

[Under the setting sun outside the window, he, who originally looked middle-aged, had a few strands of white hair without knowing when...]

"Your Majesty! The Crown Prince and the Princess' fiefs were not reduced, and those princes whose fiefs were reduced were all rewarded with silver... The Prime Minister didn't punish them, only the nobles..."

[The eunuch beside him knelt on the ground, his face pale and his body trembling.]

The yellow-robed man remained silent, his blood-red eyes revealing immense cruelty and pain. He seemed to be enduring something...

[After a long while, He finally let out a low roar.]

[…How could there be a good minister in this world! How could there be someone honest and upright in this world! How could there be someone loyal and devoted in this world! Who does he think he is? Kong Ming?! I don’t believe it! There is no such person in this world!]

"Keep going! We must make him reveal his disgusting true nature! We must prove it with irrefutable evidence!"

"Yes, long live..."

……

(End of this chapter)