Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 175 Deleted Video, Plague-Shrouded Europe [Please Subscribe]

Liu Kuan secretly took Zhu Tan into consideration, but he was not panicked.

He bowed and said, "Your Majesty, in later generations, material abundance has made the Chinese people rarely worry about hunger and cold. With almost everyone literate, they have other pursuits, and song is one of them."

"As for decadent music, there is indeed a lot of it in later songs, but it is not all of it. For example, the pure music I selected twice before was all grand and elegant music."

"As for why the videos are full of alluring beauties—if the videos I collected weren't full of beauties, but instead were full of handsome men, wouldn't that be even stranger?"

Zhu Yuanzhang was slightly stunned after hearing this, then he laughed and said, "You kid... you are really good at making excuses."

While saying this, Zhu Yuanzhang also knew that it was normal for men to love beautiful women. As long as they didn't become obsessed with it and missed out on their important work, it wouldn't be a big deal.

In addition, as Liu Kuan said, if the video was full of handsome men, then he should be worried about his daughter's life.

So he didn't ask about the song videos anymore, but instead asked, "Besides these six later songs, how many videos and movies have you prepared this time?"

"Your Majesty, I have prepared a movie and three videos."

Zhu Yuanzhang then asked, "What are the movies and videos about?"

Liu Kuan said, "The movie is The Wandering Earth 2, which tells the story before the first film. As for the three videos, there isn't much content. Your Majesty will know after watching them later."

Zhu Yuanzhang was puzzled, "Why does The Wandering Earth 2 tell the story from the beginning of the first film? Shouldn't it be the end?"

"I don't know about that either." Liu Kuan thought for a moment and added, "This series of movies is actually adapted from a novel called The Wandering Earth."

"Perhaps the team that created the film at the time didn't know whether the film would be popular, so they selected the most exciting part for adaptation first."

"After the movie became a big hit, they supplemented the background of the first film and created 'The Wandering Earth 2'."

"Before I came to the Ming Dynasty, The Wandering Earth 3 was reportedly in the works, and it should be the story after the first one. In later times, movies are a commercial product, so it's normal for a creative team to do this."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded and said, "Since this movie is a sequel, let's play it last—otherwise, the children won't be able to focus on the video after watching the movie."

Although Liu Kuan felt that the video was as attractive as a movie to everyone in the hall, he did not refute it but nodded in agreement.

After a while, the main hall was cleaned up by the palace servants, and the tables and chairs were arranged in a way that was convenient for Zhu and his family to watch the video. Liu Kuan found the first video he had prepared, put the tablet in place, and started playing it.

Zhu Yuanzhang found that the title of this video was a bit long. It was called "A simple diagram sorting out the historical context of the development of the East and the West before the First Industrial Revolution."

A sentence appears at the beginning of the video.

“Why is our world like this today?”

Then a man's voice appeared as the picture changed.

"Civilization 6 has an opening line: From the first sprouts of life underwater, to the giant beasts of the Stone Age, to the first time humans walked upright, you have experienced a lot. Now, begin your greatest quest."

Then, a "causal logical reasoning method" was proposed in the video.

Although this statement is modern, people like Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao are not unfamiliar with it - because the Buddhist theory of cause and effect has long been integrated into Chinese culture.

What's more, the thoughts of Zhuangzi and other philosophers also contain the contents of cause and effect and dialectics.

However, the phrase "the first time humans walked upright" surprised the Zhu family. They subconsciously thought: Could it be that people didn't walk upright in the past?

Lao Zhu and Zhu Biao did not rush to ask and continued watching the video.

Then, the video briefly narrated the origin of mankind, which made people more skeptical about the traditional myth of Nuwa creating humans.

Then, the video uses a very general language, accompanied by various pictures and video clips, to describe the process of human beings from eating raw meat and drinking blood, to gathering and hunting, and then to how they differentiated into two major groups: nomadic and farming.

Then, it goes on to say that due to the improvement of productivity, people have a more stable source of food and the population has grown rapidly, so social division of labor began to appear, and it focuses on describing the reasons for the emergence of handicrafts, commerce, and war.

Seeing this, Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and other smart people all had a sense of sudden enlightenment.

First, they have never thought about the question of "how did agriculture, handicrafts, commerce, etc. come into being?"

Secondly, they did not expect that the emergence of social division of labor such as agriculture and handicrafts could be explained from this extremely rational perspective.

This not only made Zhu Yuanzhang and others feel enlightened, but also gave them a deeper understanding of the role of agriculture, handicrafts, commerce and other aspects of society.

"In the offensive and defensive struggles of small clans, the demand for weapons in turn stimulated the further development of handicrafts."

"As the clans' common affairs in production, life, attack and defense increased, they united for common interests and formed tribes, which then formed tribal alliances."

"In order to better plunder others, or to avoid being plundered by others, military personnel also gradually separated from agricultural production and became increasingly specialized..."

As the video continues, the reasons for the birth of religion and writing are clearly explained.

Then came the birth of tribal military and religious leaders, as well as the deepening and specialization of division of labor.

Then came the birth of private property, the gap between the rich and the poor, and even the birth of slaves. Finally, tribes evolved into early states...
This video was originally nearly twenty minutes long, and it talked about the birth of mankind and the formation of the latest world order in later generations.

However, the next few minutes involved some content that Liu Kuan did not want Lao Zhu to see.

For example, the video says that it was the Industrial Revolution that promoted social development and disintegrated the monarchical autocratic system.

At the end, it also involves several steps of evolution of China's modern social system, and describes everything as the inevitable result of scientific and technological development and social progress.

Liu Kuan was worried that Zhu Yuanzhang would see these and start to make the people ignorant and even stop developing science and technology. In addition, these contents were meaningless to the current Ming Dynasty, so he used the video editing software on his computer to cut them out.

As for the middle part of the video, it is a summary supplement to what Liu Kuan had previously told Zhu and Zhu Biao about Western affairs.

It mainly talks about how Eastern civilization, due to its cultural characteristics, came to an abrupt end after Zheng He's voyages to the West.

And how countries like Persia in Central Asia became bridges for cultural exchange between the East and the West.

The book then focuses on how modern Western nations came into being after the fall of Rome, how theocracy came to be superior to royal power, and how the West launched the Age of Discovery and eventually the First Industrial Revolution.

“…Blood-stained profits flowed continuously into Europe from all over the world. Under the bloody and brutal plunder and exploitation, the West completed capital accumulation.”

"The huge demand is driving traditional industries to improve their organization and technology, with the textile industry taking the lead."

"The improvement of spinning machines required higher power, and the improved steam engine solved the power demand. Then it stimulated the supply of steel and coal to meet production... We call this series of technological advances the First Industrial Revolution!" The end of the video was a bit abrupt, but Lao Zhu and Zhu Biao did not doubt anything.

After signaling Liu Kuan to pause the video, Zhu Yuanzhang asked the first question.

"The video just mentioned that in the mid-fourteenth century, a plague called the Black Death swept across Europe, killing tens of millions of people. This led to a significant loss of religious authority and sparked the Renaissance."

"If my calculations are correct, this is the end of the 14th century in Western chronology, right? Is the Black Death still raging in the West?"

"Old Zhu is indeed a very practical person."

Liu Kuan sighed inwardly and said, "Your Majesty, the Black Death was a common plague in medieval Europe, but it was at its largest in the mid-fourteenth century, affecting the entire Europe."

"So, the Black Death definitely still exists in Europe today, but its scale should have shrunk a lot as the population has decreased."

After hearing this answer, Zhu Yuanzhang frowned.

A few days ago, he was still thinking of making Europe one of the main regions for the Ming Dynasty to establish vassal states in the future.

If such a terrible plague breaks out in Europe at any time, I am afraid that few of his children and grandchildren would be willing to go there, and he does not want his children and grandchildren to face such a terrible plague.

Then he asked, "What kind of plague is this Black Death? Has it ever broken out here?"

Liu Kuandao said: "The Black Death was later called the plague because it was mainly caused by a virus carried by rats."

"There are many types of plague. The plague prevalent in Europe is mainly found in marmots. When humans are infected, more and more black spots appear on their skin, and they eventually die in agony. The death is extremely horrific, hence the name Black Death."

"In our area, a large-scale plague outbreak didn't occur until the end of the Ming Dynasty in history."

"The plague virus here mainly exists in grassland mice. As for whether the grassland mouse virus was transmitted from the West, I don't know."

"Because from the end of the Yuan Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, there was a climate change called an ice age. During an ice age, the temperature would get colder year by year, and the late Ming Dynasty happened to be at its coldest stage."

"It is said that many places south of the Yangtze River were frozen over, and even Guangzhou was snowing frequently."

"The cold weather not only caused nomadic peoples to migrate south en masse, but also grassland mice, leading to the large-scale outbreak of plague in the late Ming Dynasty."

After Liu Kuan said this, Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and others were stunned for a moment.

Especially Zhu Yuanzhang, he didn't expect that when he asked about the Black Death in Europe, he actually asked about the fact that the Ming Dynasty would become increasingly cold in the next few hundred years.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang had never been to Guangzhou, he had heard from generals who had been there that the temperature there was much higher than in Nanjing in winter, so there was no need to wear a cotton jacket. As for snow, people in Lingnan would never see snow unless they went out.

If the weather gets so cold in the future that it snows in Guangzhou, how cold will it be in the north?
Thinking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang stopped asking about the Black Death and asked, "What exactly is going on with this ice age? Is there no way to change it?"

Liu Kuan smiled bitterly and said, "If Your Majesty has read Xunzi, you will know the saying: 'Heaven's ways are constant; they do not exist for the sake of Yao, nor do they perish for the sake of Jie.'"

"Everything in the universe changes according to its own laws, which are difficult for us humans to change. Especially the natural laws of ice ages, which affect the entire Earth and span hundreds or even thousands of years, are even more difficult to change."

"I can assure Your Majesty that the weather will continue to get colder over the next four hundred years. Well, if industry develops rapidly enough, this period may be shortened to three hundred years."

Zhu Yuanzhang was displeased. "You just said that the ice age couldn't be changed. How can rapid industrial development shorten it by a hundred years?"

Liu Kuan explained, "This is just my guess—industrial development will emit large amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases, which will in turn cause global warming."

"Global warming will be a huge environmental problem in the future because it will cause icebergs to melt, sea levels to rise, and coastal land and cities to be submerged, shrinking land areas."

"So, I've been wondering, if global warming occurs during an ice age, will it offset each other and prevent temperatures from dropping as low as they did during the late Ming Dynasty?"

"However, this question has not been thoroughly studied by later scientists, so this can only be regarded as a guess by me. I don't know if it is correct."

Liu Kuan saw Lao Zhu's worry about the colder weather during the ice age - for people at that time, excessively cold weather would indeed cause many disasters.

But if the Ming Dynasty had developed science and technology for two hundred years, that might not have been the case.

He paused and said, "Your Majesty, there is no need to worry about the ice age. As long as the Ming Dynasty persists in developing science and technology, it will be more than capable of coping with the cold weather brought by the ice age in two hundred years."

"Are you sure?" Lao Zhu was skeptical.

"I am sure!" Liu Kuan said affirmatively.

"Okay, let's talk about the Black Death. Is there any way to prevent this Black... plague? For example, similar to how you vaccinate bull heads to prevent smallpox."

Liu Kuan said, "Your Majesty, it is basically impossible to develop a plague vaccine under current conditions. However, it is not difficult to reduce the outbreak of plague."

"Why do you say that?"

Liu Kuan asked in return: "Your Majesty, have you ever thought about how the plague virus, which is in mice, could be transmitted to humans?"

Zhu Yuanzhang pondered for a moment and said, "Could it be that Westerners are so hungry that they often eat rats?"

Lao Zhu's guess was based on his own experience - during the famine at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, many people ate rats, and Lao Zhu had eaten them too.

He didn't think it was a big deal at first, after all, eating rats wasn't like eating humans. But when Liu Kuan said rats had some virus, he felt a little disgusted.

The others were also thinking.

Seeing Liu Kuan shaking his head in denial after Old Zhu finished speaking, Zhu Tan suddenly had an idea and asked, "Could it be because of fleas?"

flea?

The others were stunned at first, then suddenly understood.

Liu Kuan laughed and said, "Prince Lu is indeed clever. It's just like fleas—rats actually have very little contact with us humans except for stealing food."

"However, both humans and mice are suitable for fleas to survive. Fleas suck the virus-containing blood from mice and then bite humans, leaving the virus in the human blood, which is how the infection occurs."

"So, as long as we pay attention to killing more rats, pay attention to hygiene, and bathe frequently, the possibility of plague outbreaks will be greatly reduced."

At this time, Zhu Xiongying couldn't help but ask, "Teacher, if the plague is so easy to control, why does it happen so often in Europe, with even a large-scale plague killing tens of millions of people?"

　Second update.

　　Good night~
　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)