The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"So, after Wala becomes stronger, it will need more materials from the Ming Dynasty to support its development, but what about the imperial court at this time?

It should be said that the court officials at that time were aware of Wala's intention to contribute a large number of horses to the court, but they were helpless in the face of the rising Wala.

Because at that time, the Ming court should no longer have the military strength of the Chengzu period and could launch a major war to weaken Wala's strength again, so they took the safest way, which was to reduce Wala's tribute.

On the one hand, I hope to reduce the growing tribute and restore it to its previous scale; on the other hand, I also want to lower the price of tribute horses, so that more horses can be obtained while maintaining the original scale."

Outside the study room of Prince Yu's Mansion, Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng stood outside the window, listening to Wei Guangde pointing at the huge map of the north and giving a lecture to Prince Yu Zhu Zaijing.

Wu Shan's memorial was sent to the palace and was approved by Emperor Jiajing the next day. Wei Guangde also naturally became an official in Prince Yu's palace, along with Zhang Juzheng.

After receiving the order, Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng went to Prince Yu's Mansion together. On the one hand, they paid homage to Prince Yu, and on the other hand, they discussed their work arrangements with Yin Shizhen.

Since it was an official lecture, it was natural for him to give lessons to His Royal Highness King Yu, but as for what lessons to take, he needed to discuss with Yin Shizhen.

In fact, King Yu's curriculum had been set long ago. The main courses were books such as "Shang Shu", "University", "Zi Zhi Tong Jian", "Ming Huidian", etc., as well as arithmetic, astronomy and other knowledge.

Obviously, the courses for the Confucian classics and history mainly fell on Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng. Wei Guangde was assigned relatively few courses. However, according to the wishes of the eunuch who passed the decree, and according to the wishes of Emperor Jiajing, Wei Guangde also had to teach His Highness Prince Yu and Beifang. Knowledge about the Mongols.

Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the northern nomads have always been regarded as the empire's biggest hidden danger, and they are always on guard against their comeback. As the crown prince, Emperor Jiajing naturally hopes that Prince Yu Zhu Zaijing will have a deeper understanding of this to help him make the right decision. , rather than simply following what others say. Everyone says that the Tatars threaten the Han people in the Central Plains, and that is a threat.

For this reason, Wei Guangde also searched for documents related to the Ming Dynasty and the northern Mongols in the Hanlin Academy's collection of books and documents from the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of War, as materials for teaching King Yu.

Although Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng took on more courses, most of them followed the textbook. The key point was that they needed to carefully explain the content of the scriptures to King Yu, while Wei Guangde's courses required him to find information by himself, so in fact he had to do more work than There are even more Yin and Zhang.

King Yu had already completed basic education under Gao Gong's professor, so now Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng were under much less pressure to teach. However, what Wei Guangde taught had never appeared before, which made King Yu feel a little novel.

In fact, in private, King Yu also discussed some current affairs with Gao Gong and others, especially the dangers from the north and the Japanese pirate attacks along the coast, but they were not as rigorous as Wei Guangde's lectures.

As for Wei Guangde, after confirming Emperor Jiajing's intention, he was naturally very concerned about it.

Coming from later generations, he naturally knows what kind of era he is in now.

I didn’t know this when I was in Pengze, but after arriving in the capital, I started to come into contact with more things, especially the news from the Shipping Department. Wei Guangde has realized that the current period of the Ming Dynasty is the "Age of Discovery" .

The Age of Discovery is also known as the Great Geographic Discovery.

It was the Europeans who opened up a new route across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, bypassing the southern tip of Africa to reach India, and the success of the first circumnavigation of the world. It is one of the most important histories in the process of human civilization.

Wei Guangde only knew something about this period of history, but not in detail. However, he could make a judgment from the news coming back from the Shipping Department, that is, we are now at the end of the Age of Discovery.

In the past, when Wei Guangde heard and saw Fran cannons and matchlock guns, he thought that Europeans came around from Africa and sailed along the coastline to Asia. However, there were reports from the Shipping Department that there were large ships from the barbarians. Traveling thousands of miles from the east.

From the perspective of other officials of the Ming Dynasty, these news naturally meant that they came from Japan and other places. However, Wei Guangde's guess was that they might have occupied the American continent, and the barbarian ships might have been loaded with looted goods from the Americas. Jinyin went to the surrounding areas of the Ming Dynasty to purchase supplies from the Ming Dynasty.

Because it is very simple. If the gold and silver looted in the Americas are to be transported back to Europe, they should choose to take the Atlantic route, and it is unlikely to go far away to the Ming Dynasty.

The Age of Discovery, this word represents the New World and wealth. In addition to its vast land, the New World also has rich products and huge gold and silver in these lands.

Don't blame Wei Guangde for discovering this fact at this time, it wasn't because of the game.

In Wei Guangde's impression, there were not many courses on the Age of Discovery in domestic books, the content was very thin, and the limited knowledge taught was only a rough outline. What really made him remember this era was the game.

However, there are not many things that Wei Guangde can still use in that game, because everyone who has played it knows that the main map area of ​​the "Age of Discovery" game is actually in the area centered on the Mediterranean Sea, so Wei Guangde has I really didn't realize this problem at first.

But for him now, even knowing the impact of the current period on later history is in vain. The most valuable things have been discovered and snatched by Westerners. Unless a war is launched, those benefits will never be lost. Easily spit out.

And does the current Ming Dynasty have this strength?

of course not.

The threats from the north are somewhat helpless, and they are still worried about the Japanese pirates raging along the coast. How can they participate in the feast of carving up the world.

But from this, Wei Guangde found out what knowledge he wanted to teach King Yu, which was to instill some things from later generations into King Yu's mind.

This is the period when international trade was formed. Europeans plundered huge wealth from the American continent, and most of this wealth seems to have ended up in China.

The Opium War was the Western world's response to an intolerably huge trade deficit.

Although Wei Guangde has not thought about what to tell King Yu specifically and needs to think about it carefully, the most basic thing Emperor Jiajing wants is to tell King Yu about the relationship between the Ming Empire and the northern nomads, so he still has time to think about this. question.

In the study, Wei Guangde was still talking to King Yu. What he was talking about was the relationship between the Ming Dynasty and northern Mongolia during the Yingzong period of the Ming Dynasty. Then he naturally mentioned the "Tumu Fortress" and a series of events that followed. event.

At this time, Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng outside the window frowned slightly.

Of course Wei Guangde would not say at this time that the "Tumubao Incident" was a conspiracy theory on the Internet. This is definitely unfriendly to him as a civil servant. After all, everything he enjoys now comes from this.

Moreover, this conspiracy theory itself is based on conclusions and lacks factual basis.

In his lecture to King Yu, he mainly brought up the Tumu Fort Incident, which was also commanded by the leader of Wala. The incident of capturing Ming Yingzong was an accident in itself. Before confirming the identity of Ming Yingzong, perhaps he himself did not know it. I thought there would be such a result.

There is a huge gap between this and the main thinking of the Ming Dynasty civil servants at this time. They believed that they should attack the Ming army first, and their goal was to directly point out the Yingzong, hoping to obtain more benefits through the Ming Yingzong.

If Ming Yingzong hadn't succeeded in restoring his power through the "Change of Seizing the Gate", he might have criticized Ming Yingzong for being ignorant and blindly trusting the eunuchs. Why not trust the loyal eunuchs? What about civil servants?

Look, after the Tumu Fortress, the Ming Dynasty was preserved by civil servants who risked their lives.

Therefore, the emperor treated the eunuchs around him as domestic slaves, who could be used but not trusted. He still had to rely on civil servants to govern the country.

The civil servants hoped that through this incident, the emperors who would follow would understand that their status was different and they could not personally involve themselves in dangerous places. Many enemies outside the palace were eyeing them. It would be best for all emperors to live in the Forbidden City for the rest of their lives. .

As for the rest, Wei Guangde even stated the theory of "leave professional matters to professionals." If there are specializations in the arts, such as fighting, they should be left to officials who know how to fight. The emperor only needs to choose the appropriate commander-in-chief. Just be military officers, don't give random orders.

This is what Wei Guangde decided to say after carefully looking at the military deployment and action route of the Ming army in the Tumubao incident. There were indeed problems with Ming Yingzong's command. The Ming army was mobilized back and forth, and he became a tired soldier.

Wei Guangde considered explaining all this to King Yu. Maybe King Yu had understood it before, but Wei Guangde still planned to explain it to each emperor according to his own ideas.

After the Northern Tatars finished speaking, they talked about the private goods they had prepared and the current era background of the Ming Dynasty. They hoped to change something after King Yu ascended the throne and strive to end the Ming Dynasty's national policy of "forbidden sea".

The Ming Dynasty's sea ban actually prohibited private foreign trade, and the official tribute trade was not prohibited. This was also the fundamental reason why the "tribute dispute" broke out among the Japanese big names in the early years of Jiajing.

If you come to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, you can get more rewards than the tribute items, and you can also engage in profitable trade between the two countries, so it is not surprising that they compete to pretend to be tribute envoys.

Wei Guangde planned to sort out the relevant information of Shishi Shipping Department. He also needed to analyze it carefully and try his best to make King Yu, the future ruler of the Ming Empire, understand the importance of international trade, especially the Ming Dynasty's influence on the international situation during this period. influence.

The Ming Dynasty of this era is undoubtedly the superpower of the world. Although its own strength is limited, this is due to many reasons and is not due to lack of national strength.

Moreover, Wei Guangde also hoped that King Yu and his descendants would understand this, so Wei Guangde recorded everything he said in detail.

Unintentionally, Wei Guangde actually started compiling books in the Ming Dynasty.

Wei Guangde has not yet planned to push these things to scholars now, because the scholars in this period still adhere to the Confucian approach. From the perspective of the high-ranking officials in the court to the common people at the bottom, the country should be based on agriculture, emphasizing agriculture and suppressing agriculture. Businessmen, businessmen are too profit-seeking and unjust. Now if we talk about banning maritime trade with them and engaging in international trade, I am afraid they will be sprayed to death.

Of course, Wei Guangde would not be a Confucian rebel and choose the path of being spurned by scholars. He could plan some things quietly, but he must not let himself stand in front of the stage, let alone be exposed prematurely.

Having been here for many years, Wei Guangde sometimes thinks about what he should do.

From the first time when I was in Bengshan Fort, I thought about being able to live in a big city. After I became successful in school, I thought about passing the imperial examination and becoming an official. When I became a high official, I also enjoyed the luxury of having three wives and four concubines. Life.

Now that he is an official, although his official position is humble and he still needs to work hard to climb up, in the end he is a little confused.

In Yan Mansion, Wei Guangde saw the life of the powerful in this era.

To be honest, it was in line with his original yearning for the future life.

However, only when he actually came here did he discover that petty officials could actually enjoy such a life, but they would be slightly worse than the rich and powerful, but seemed to be safer.

According to your own imagination, you can become a high official and enjoy a more luxurious life, but when you sit in that position, you are looked up to by countless people below. In fact, they are always thinking about how to overthrow you and replace you.

Yan Shifan can enjoy such a life because his father has given him a solid foundation, but can he live like this forever?

Apart from anything else, the thing that the people in Prince Yu's Mansion are considering is, isn't it just that they want to bring him down?

King Baoyu came to the throne not only to maintain the system, but also for their prosperity and wealth. If they wanted to obtain it, they had to climb up and get rid of the people who occupied the position.

Wei Guangde is a little scared. In the future, when he really climbs to a high position and starts to enjoy himself, countless pairs of hostile eyes are watching behind him, always looking for opportunities to replace him. Can this enjoyment still be comfortable?

After receiving the order, Wei Guangde seemed to have finally found the goal of coming here, to make the gradually decaying machine of the Ming Dynasty run again, at least it could not continue to be so sluggish.

There is no harm in restraining some pleasures and drinking wine with his colleagues. Forget about living a life of luxury and lust. He wants to be famous throughout the ages and not be infamy for forever.

Why is Zhang Juzheng so famous in later generations? Isn't it because he is a tragic hero?

His reforms were considered effective, but not thorough enough, and his premature decree was eventually overturned.

Although Wei Guangde already regarded Zhang Juzheng as a political opponent at this time, Wei Guangde chose to hide himself and first see what Zhang Juzheng wanted to do and what the reforms were about, and then he could learn from it himself and bring Yongzheng's tactics to the Ming Dynasty. Try it.

Even if he fails by then, he will probably be even more famous than Zhang Juzheng in future generations.

Is King Yu the Wanli Emperor?

I remember that what I saw was that Zhang Juzheng and Feng Bao teamed up to bully Xiao Wanli, although it seemed that King Yu and Xiao Zi had nothing to do with each other.

Forget it, let's wait and see. We'll find out when King Yu ascends the throne and determines his reign.