Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 172: The Secret Book of the Imperial Ming Ancestor's Instructions, Will the Western Ming Dynasty Last Longer? [Subscription Request]

Under the gaze of Liu Kuan and Zhu Biao, Zhu Yuanzhang was silent for a long time before he suddenly smiled with relief.

"Your words today have awakened me. We rebelled against the tyrannical Yuan, expelled the barbarians, and established the Ming Dynasty. If we want to eliminate the people's resistance to tyranny, wouldn't that be like crossing the river and destroying the bridge?"

"Besides, this anti-tyranny ideology is indeed impossible to eliminate—as you said, it's not just Mencius that carries this ideology; it's ingrained into our very bones."

"Rather than trying to eliminate this kind of thinking, which would only lead to foolish loyalty among the people, it would be better to warn future generations to learn from history and refrain from oppressing and abusing the people. This is the only way to ensure the stability and longevity of the Ming Dynasty."

After hearing what Zhu Yuanzhang said, Liu Kuan and Zhu Biao both breathed a sigh of relief.

The two of them immediately bowed and said, "Your Majesty (Father) is wise!"

Just at this moment, the timekeeper's voice was heard outside the hall, and it was noon.

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "That's enough. I won't let you say anything more today. Please leave."

"Yes, Wei Chen is resigning."

After Liu Kuan left, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally started talking to Zhu Biao about the private matters between father and son.

"What do you think of what Liu Kuan said last?"

Hearing Zhu Yuanzhang's question, Zhu Biao suddenly became worried again, fearing that Zhu Yuanzhang was pretending to send Liu Kuan away, but was actually still weighing the options.

He quickly said, "Father, what Liu Kuan said is indeed true. Looking back at Chinese history, the Qin and Han dynasties, the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the Yuan dynasties—all these great and powerful dynasties were destroyed by uprisings by the people."

"To this day, the people's unyielding spirit in resisting tyranny and oppression has become deeply ingrained and difficult to eradicate."

"As my father said before, rather than consolidating imperial power by eradicating this kind of thinking, it would be better to warn our descendants not to oppress the people."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "I agree with this principle, but we must not relax our efforts to teach the people loyalty to the emperor and patriotism. The people are ignorant. If we don't guide them properly, they will only have the instinct to rebel, not to be loyal to the emperor and serve the country. They will easily be deceived by those with ulterior motives and rebel. How can we do that?"

Zhu Biao thought about it and found that what Zhu Yuanzhang said was right - it was impossible to let the people only inherit the idea of ​​anti-tyranny without the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor, right?
In order to test Zhu Yuanzhang's true intentions, Zhu Biao asked: "Should we move Mencius back to the Confucius Temple and restore the deleted chapters of Mencius?"

Zhu Yuanzhang paused for a moment and said, "Mencius is, after all, the Second Sage. We must not deceive ourselves. I will have the Ministry of Rites find a suitable opportunity to return Mencius to his rightful place in the Confucius Temple."

"As for the deletion of chapters from Mencius, as the emperor, I cannot easily admit my mistakes, even though I cannot repent."

"Besides, Mencius, as one of the Four Books and Five Classics, a must-read for Confucianism, has such a profound influence that the deleted chapters don't need to be restored. Of course, the court doesn't need to prohibit the circulation of the deleted chapters either."

In fact, historically, Zhu Yuanzhang did not prohibit the circulation of the chapters of Mencius that he deleted. Otherwise, given Zhu Yuanzhang's sharp edge, many of those deleted chapters might have disappeared in the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties for hundreds of years.

Later, he personally ordered that Mencius be sent back to the Confucius Temple.

From this we can see that Zhu Yuanzhang in history was probably well aware that it was impossible to make the people blindly loyal to the monarch - when he was in power, there were many places where the people rose up in rebellion due to inappropriate policies or problems with officials, not to mention the later Ming Dynasty.

He had previously deleted some chapters of "Mencius" and moved Mencius out of the Confucius Temple. One reason was that his early cognition was relatively narrow and his view of things was immature; the other reason was to get psychological comfort.

As for Zhu Yuanzhang today, he has more confident ideas about how to govern the world and how to make the Ming Dynasty last longer, so he doesn't care much about the people-oriented thought in "Mencius".

Zhu Yuanzhang continued, "There's another thing. When the country's population grows to hundreds of millions, or even over a billion, the custom of burial will quickly squeeze out land resources."

"We plan to record this in the secret volume of the Imperial Ming Ancestor's Instructions, so that future Ming emperors can seize the opportunity and guide the people to change their customs and habits, switching from burial to cremation."

Zhu Biao first noticed another word in Zhu Yuanzhang's words, "Secret Book?"

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "The public Imperial Ming Ancestor Instructions can be read by outsiders, but the secret volumes are only for the successive Ming emperors to read, as they contain some contents that are only suitable for the Ming emperor to read."

Zhu Biao nodded. "Much of what Liu Kuan said is difficult to make public, but it is important for future Ming emperors to understand. A secret book should indeed be prepared to record it."

He then hesitated and said, "In the future, when people change from burial to cremation, it will require high-ranking officials to lead by example first, and then gradually guide the people. If the Ming Dynasty wants to change the custom of burial, I am afraid that in the future, the royal family will also need to lead by example to convince the people."

"But, will the successor emperor of the Ming Dynasty really be willing to burn the body and not even build a mausoleum?"

After Zhu Biao finished speaking, both father and son fell silent for a moment.

Because if they put themselves in the other person's shoes, they would be reluctant to do so.

Especially Old Zhu, he had previously secretly thought of building another secret mausoleum.

Looking at the emperors of all dynasties, most of them were worse than the previous generation. A founding emperor with such courage and insight was unwilling to set an example by being cremated, so how could he want his successor to do the same?
I'm afraid it's unlikely.

After a few breaths, Zhu Biao gritted his teeth and said, "Father, I, your son, would like to start with myself and set an example by cremating my body. My descendants will then enshrine my body in the ancestral temple instead of building a mausoleum. This will set a precedent for advocating cremation!"

Zhu Yuanzhang frowned upon hearing this. "What are you talking about? How many people were there in the Ming Dynasty when you were in power? It shouldn't have come to this."

"Besides, aren't we about to embark on a great voyage of discovery and expand our overseas territories? By then, the Ming Dynasty's territory will be so vast that perhaps we won't have to worry about this issue for ten generations."

"As for ten generations from now... our descendants will handle this matter. We don't need to worry too early."

"My son, I know."

Zhu Biao agreed verbally, but in his heart he was thinking that he would see the situation in the future. If it didn't work out, he would set an example for the next emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang thought to himself: Maybe we should put the matter of building a secret mausoleum on hold. Biao'er is going to cremate his body, and as his father, I can't be too selfish - if any archaeologists in the future want to see our mausoleum, then let them see it.

The cremation discussion was a bit depressing for both father and son, so Zhu Yuanzhang decided to change the subject to something more cheerful. "Liu Kuan mentioned earlier that the natives of America, Australia, and Africa are ignorant and uneducated, practically unclaimed territory, and we can enter and exploit it to expand our territory and seize its resources."

"But after listening to his description of Europe, I feel that Europe is also a good place worth exploring."

"If we reach Europe, we only need to deal with the nobles and religion there, and we can make the Western barbarians obedient subjects."

"We Chinese are used to fighting tyranny. Over the centuries, dynasties have always seen rulers become incompetent, officials corrupt, and even lose control of the local areas, leading to oppression that forces the people to rise up in rebellion."

"But if it were the Western people, this dynasty might have lasted another two or three hundred years, or even longer."

"If we can establish a few vassal kings there, their vassal states might even outlast the Ming dynasty. What do you think, Biao'er?"

Not really.

Zhu Biao thought.

In his opinion, the reason why there were no large-scale uprisings and successful cases among Western people was mainly because of the feudal lord ruling method similar to that of the Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period, rather than because Western people were more docile.

After the Ming Dynasty established feudal lords in Europe, unless those vassal kings continued the policy of enfeoffment and used a ruling system similar to that of the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that the people in the West would rebel more quickly under tyranny.

However, this matter was still far away, so there was no need for him to tell it and make Zhu Yuanzhang unhappy.

Then he followed Zhu Yuanzhang's words and said, "Your Majesty is right."

"Hahaha," Zhu Yuanzhang thought about the future scenario of the Ming Dynasty's vassal states in the west having a longer reign, and he laughed happily. Then he waved his hand, "Okay, you can go back to the palace for lunch."

"My son, please retire."

···
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During the remaining half month of the twelfth lunar month, Liu Kuan's energy and time were mainly spent on railway-related affairs.

Guo Tianwen, with the personnel from the Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, Locomotive Manufacturing Bureau and Railway Bureau, lived up to everyone's expectations and installed a large snow shovel on the Zouwu before the next heavy snow arrived.

After Liu Kuan went to see it, some memories were brought back to his mind - it seemed that some old locomotives he had seen in later generations had similar snow-plowing structures on the front.

It's like two parallelogram-shaped steel plates, spliced ​​together at an angle, installed on the front lower part of the locomotive, close to the train track.

So, he really overlooked this matter before.

After the installation of the large snow shovel was completed, there were only a few days left until the Chinese New Year.

One day before the Science and Technology Department was closed, Liu Kuan was drinking tea and reading in the department's office when Qiu Qianchi brought a young official over.

Qiu Qichi said happily, "Doctor Liu, I have good news!"

Liu Kuan became interested when he heard this and asked, "What's the good news?"

Qiu Qianchi first introduced the young green-robed official following behind him, saying, "This is Zhan Guanting, the deputy director of the Railway Construction Research Institute of the Railway Bureau. He was one of the clerks recruited from among the young craftsmen by the Ministry of Railways, and was later assigned to the carriage project team."

"The doctor originally asked me to find someone to explore the method of building the railway, and this person was the backbone of that team. After the Zouwuhao railway was put into operation in the Xudan section, the court commended him for his merits and he was promoted to the deputy envoy of the Railway Bureau."

"Yesterday he proposed a method of turning the car around once it's passed. I thought about it all night and felt it was more appropriate than the circular turning method the doctor had suggested, so I brought him here to explain it."

The so-called circular line turning method is actually the "light bulb line" that Liu Kuan saw from somewhere in later generations. He just changed the name because there were no light bulbs in the Ming Dynasty.

When Liu Kuan heard someone come up with a better way to turn the train around than the lightbulb wire, he wasn't displeased. Instead, he was extremely surprised and asked hurriedly, "What's that method? Tell me quickly."

Qiu Qianchi was obviously willing to promote Zhan Guanting and gestured to Zhan Guanting to speak.

Zhan Guanting took out a few prepared blueprints and handed them to Liu Kuan before explaining, "Sir, I came up with this idea while studying the structure of railway turnouts."

"I first noticed that there were signs of branching tracks at many locations on the railway, but those branches seemed to have disappeared without a trace."

"As my research deepened, I one day pondered the issue of train turning. It occurred to me: If we could build one or more short spur tracks at the station, wouldn't it be possible to allow the first train to stop at that station via the spur tracks, rather than occupying two main lines?"

"In this way, we only need to build some spur tracks at several train stations. At any train station, we can use the spur track to avoid the following trains and then use the locomotive at the other end to return."

"Building a branch line is obviously easier than building a dedicated circular line, and it also saves more manpower and materials."

Liu Kuan was suddenly enlightened when he heard this, then he blushed.

Obviously, the use of switch tracks to pass other trains and make U-turns at the train station was a blind spot in his knowledge before he traveled through time, or even common sense that he missed.

Because he seldom traveled by train after graduation in his previous life, even when he went to the train station, he rarely paid attention to or thought about the use of the railway lines in the station.

Although he noticed many branching points on the railway when he visited Xuzhou, he did not think of them as being used for U-turns.

It was only thought to be the intersection of other railways and the Beijing-Shanghai Railway. Since other railways did not pass through it, the branch roads there naturally disappeared out of thin air.

Now, after being reminded by Zhan Guanting's words, I suddenly realized that some of those branch tracks were specially used for trains to turn around.

　First update.

　　I was delayed, so I came late.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)