Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 189: The Great Migration of Hongwu, Ancient Stories of the Liugui Kingdom [Please Subscribe]

Seeing that Zhu Biao was also interested in Zhu Biao's grand ambition of realizing universal peace, Liu Kuan knew that he had to explain things in detail today so that Zhu Biao and Zhu Biao could recognize certain realities.

He paused for a moment, then said, "Your Majesty's ideal of achieving true universal peace is naturally a good thing. In fact, later generations of China have also pursued this ideal through peaceful means."

"However, considering the current situation in the Ming Dynasty and the world, to achieve this ideal, the Ming Dynasty must be able to develop stably for more than three hundred years without major unrest."

"Even so, your Majesty's suggestion of changing the skin color of Africans is unlikely to be realized, and may even backfire."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, "To achieve true universal peace, it will certainly take a long time. During this period, the Ming Dynasty itself must not face any major problems. I understand this."

"But then you said it's impossible to change the skin color of Africans. Why? Can the natives of Southeast Asia change it? Can Africans also change it?"

Liu Kuan smiled bitterly and said, "Your Majesty, regarding the issue of African skin color, later generations have learned lessons. In later generations, people generally believe that the genes for African black skin color are the most powerful."

"If a black person and a white person mate, their offspring will most likely still have black or light black skin. To lighten their skin color genes, it will take at least two or three generations of white people to modify them."

"France was once a white power in Western Europe, but because so many black people migrated there, there are now more and more people with dark or light skin. Some even jokingly say that France has become a black nation."

"Africa is vast, and its terrain is mostly virgin forests, deserts, and grasslands. There are countless black tribes hidden there. If the Ming Dynasty wants to change the skin color of Africans, I'm afraid it may not be possible even in 500 years."

"I see."

After hearing this, Old Zhu and Zhu Biao looked at each other in surprise, and felt that they had learned something new.

Then Old Zhu said, "I just said that. Whether or not we can change the skin color of Africans is not that important. But if we can truly achieve universal peace in three to five hundred years, even if it's just a preliminary realization, our Old Zhu family will be remembered forever, right?"

Liu Kuan did not refute Zhu's words, but nodded and said, "If we can truly achieve the initial stage of universal peace, Your Majesty and the successors of the Ming Dynasty will surely be remembered forever."

As the saying goes, "He who strives for the highest will attain the average." Zhu Yuanzhang set such a lofty ideal. Even if it could not be realized until the fall of the Ming Dynasty, it would certainly promote social progress at a faster pace.

It can be said that this is a good thing for China and the entire earth.

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and waved his hand, saying, "Alright, that's all for today. You may leave."

"Yes, Wei Chen is resigning."

Liu Kuan bowed and was about to leave when he heard Zhu Yuanzhang say, "Don't spread what we said today for now."

"Wei Chen understands."

The plan to eliminate the main ethnic groups of Goryeo and Japan is contrary to the Confucian concept of "benevolence" and is different from China's consistent attitude towards its neighboring vassal states. It must not be revealed before implementation.

And when the Ming Dynasty really conquers Korea and Japan in the future, a group of vested interests will emerge to support Zhu's policies, and there may even be some "great scholars" who will argue for Zhu's ideal of "great peace under heaven."

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On June 23, the 16th year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict to establish the Liaoning Provincial Administration.

This is different from later history - in later history, only the Shandong Provincial Administration and the Liaodong Regional Administration basically treated Liao as a military control area.

Now Zhu Yuanzhang set it up as Liaoning Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office. In addition to being influenced by later information, it actually also shows his ambition in terms of territory.

After Nahachu's tribe surrendered, except for Nahachu and some important surrendered generals who were sent to the capital, the middle and low-level officers and soldiers, as well as ordinary herdsmen and farmers, were all settled in Liaoning in accordance with Zhu Yuanzhang's order.

In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang also ordered the forced migration of a group of people from Shanxi, Zhili and Jiangnan to Liaodong to settle down.

Perhaps it was because the destination of this immigration was the bitter and cold Liao land, or perhaps it was because Zhu Yuanzhang had changed compared to history. Although this immigration was also enforced by force, the immigration standards were different.

In the early years of the Hongwu period, the policy for immigrants from Shanxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi to Henan, Jiangbei and other places was: leave one person out of a family of four, two out of a family of six, and three out of a family of eight.

This time, the policy implemented is "keep two out of three families, three out of five families, and four out of seven families."

When Liu Kuan learned about this immigration policy through the court gazette, he realized how much misunderstanding there was about this policy on the Internet in later generations.

Later generations on the Internet simply interpreted "leaving one person from four families" as "leaving one person from a family of four", believing that if a family has four people, only one will be left in the local area, and the remaining three will have to migrate away.

Just think about it and you will know that it is impossible to do this.

Wouldn't this be equivalent to tearing down families, separating people from their wives and children, and forcing them to rebel?
Whether it was Zhu Yuanzhang or Zhu Di later, it was impossible for them to use such a stupid method to carry out large-scale immigration.

Because one of the purposes of immigration is to use the population of narrow villages to fill the population gap in wide villages, alleviate the contradiction between people and land in narrow villages, and help wide villages to resume farming.

Another purpose was to dismantle those wealthy families with many men - in ancient times, a wealthy family did not only mean one with money and land, but also one with many male children was considered a wealthy family.

It should be noted that today is not like in later generations. Even if two or three generations share one household registration book, in reality only one or two generations live together. It is very rare for three or four generations to live together.

During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, families were often large. Perhaps because people lived shorter lives, four generations living together were rare. However, even if there were only two or three generations, they actually encompassed multiple small families. For example, if a family had four sons in the first generation, and each of them married and started their own families, these two generations would still share a household registration with the government, but in reality, they were four or five small families.

If the third generation of males also get married, then the actual number of small families included will be even larger.

Therefore, "several families" refers to the number of men in a household registration book who have married and started families, rather than the number of people in a family.

"Leaving one behind out of four families" means that if a family has four sons and their families, three of them and their wives and children will move away, leaving only one son and his wife and children to support his parents in the local area.

From this, we can see that although Zhu Yuanzhang's immigration policy was expanded to include "small households of three families", it only migrated people from Shanxi and Zhili Jiangnan, and did not expand to Jiangxi and Zhejiang, two provinces with large populations. The scale of immigration was much smaller than when the population of the Central Plains was initially filled...

While the Ming court was busy establishing the Liaoning Provincial Government, reorganizing the local household registration and immigrating to enrich its population, the Ming Dynasty's first long-distance exploration fleet had already passed Ezo Island and Kuwu Island, leaving behind a garrison of one hundred households on each side.

Then, according to the Beiyang map given by the court, they crossed the strait between Ezo Island and Kuwu Island, sailed northeast along a series of small islands, and always kept the fleet on the west side of these islands.

After sailing and exploring for nearly ten days, the first long-distance exploration fleet finally saw a "continent".

On the deck of the fleet's flagship "Chengfeng", which weighs over 3,000 tons, Commander Chen Zhongming was looking out with a telescope.

This telescope was sent by Zhu Yuanzhang before the exploration fleet left Dengzhou. It is said to be the best telescope currently available in the Mirror Manufacturing Bureau.

The telescope tube is made of copper and can be stretched into three sections, which is enough to magnify distant scenes sixteen times. It can clearly observe scenes three or four miles away, and even vaguely observe farther places.

At this time, Chen Zhongming was looking at the coastline of the "continent" and the mountains and forests on it.

Zhang Bingyi, the commander-in-chief, asked, "How is it?"

Chen Zhongming said, "The coastline seems to stretch endlessly to the northwest. It must be the Ice and Fire Island on the map."

Zhang Bingyi said, "Commander Chen, please lend me the telescope."

Chen Zhongming handed over the telescope - in fact, the court sent four new telescopes to the exploration fleet, and as for the old telescopes, there was one for each ship.

However, there are currently only two new telescopes in use. In addition to the one in Chen Zhongming's hands, there is another one in the possession of the eunuch supervising the army.

The remaining two were sealed and kept for future use.

Although Zhang Bingyi was the commander-in-chief, he was not even given an old telescope because he was on the same flagship with Chen Zhongming.

Zhang Bingyi looked at it for a while, then returned the telescope to Chen Zhongming and said excitedly, "It must be Ice and Fire Island without a doubt. According to the reference documents provided by the court, there was a country on this island during the Tang Dynasty, called the Liugui Kingdom."

"During the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, Ke Yeyu, the son of Meng Huan, the ruler of Liugui State, came to Chang'an to pay tribute, and Liugui State thus became a vassal state of the Tang Dynasty."

"The literature also says that to the north of the Liugui Kingdom was the Yaksha Kingdom. During the Zhenguan period, this place was nearly a thousand years old. I wonder if the Liugui and Yaksha Kingdoms still existed."

Zhang Bingyi was originally a civil servant, but was transferred to a military officer by Zhu Yuanzhang because of the need for the exploratory fleet. He served as the fleet commander-in-chief and was responsible for records and classics in the fleet, so he was knowledgeable.

Chen Zhongming had actually read the reference documents provided by the court.

Although he couldn't remember the contents of the document as well as Zhang Bingyi, he knew the general idea. Hearing this, he couldn't help but ask, "Don't the documents say that there are people on this Ice and Fire Island, but at most a small indigenous tribe?"

Zhang Bingyi laughed and said, "Commander Chen, you don't know that those native tribes don't have any country themselves. They just call their tribes countries for convenience when paying tribute."

"So, whether it's the Liugui Kingdom, the Yaksha Kingdom, or the Kuwu Island and Ezo Island we passed by earlier, there are no real countries on them, only native tribes."

Chen Zhongming nodded suddenly, then took out the "Beiyang Map" from his pocket and started talking about business.

"We'll sail northwest along the coastline for a day to confirm that this island is indeed Ice and Fire Island, and then return here."

As he spoke, Chen Zhongming pointed his finger at the southernmost tip of Ice and Fire Island (Kamchatka Peninsula).

"Establish an observation post here, and the fleet will detour to the east of Ice and Fire Island and follow the coastline to this place."

Chen Zhongming pointed his finger at a fist-like bay on the east coast of Binghuo Island.

"According to the 'Northern Ocean Passage Exploration Manual' provided by the imperial court, this bay not only provides shelter for the fleet, but also offers relatively low temperatures in winter. As long as the remaining soldiers make some preparations, a safe winter won't be a problem."

Zhang Bingyi smiled and said, "We have been following the reference documents and instruction manuals provided by the court along the way, and there have been no major problems. We will just follow the same from now on."

Chen Zhongming nodded and said no more. He ordered his personal soldiers to use flag signals to issue military orders to other ships in the fleet.

　Second update.

　　Good night~
　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)