Revisiting Future Path

Episode 427

In the real world, after the Zhu Ming Dynasty came into contact with Portugal, they ordered people to imitate matchlock guns, and China had a birdclaw. In this time and space, the evolution from primitive fire blunderbuss to beak blunderbusses was surprisingly completed in the territory of the Wei Xia Empire, and mature beak blunderbusses were born in Henan Province in the Central Plains.

Wei Hui During the Thirteen Years' War in Luoyang, there were constant wars in North China. Henan Province, known as the Central Plains, was the most frequent area of ​​small wars. Guided by the needs of the war, the craftsmanship of the firecrackers developed rapidly with each passing day, and finally completed the innovation of the firecrackers in the territory of Lu. And because of the fierce competition among the vassal states, not only the northern vassal states quickly introduced the beak, but also the Yue and Weiguo, which came from behind in the south, also hired craftsmen from the Central Plains for the first time. The vassal states triggered a military revolution.

By 1483, even the Jiaozhi domains on the border of the empire were all equipped with beak guns.

Witnessing rows of soldiers holding beaks, Wei Dongsheng understood the comprehensive strength of the Weiguo and Yueguo, and understood why the Weiguo was able to block the Portuguese expedition ship in West Africa. The Weiguo is said to be a province, but in fact it is like Portugal to Europe, representing all the rising power of the twenty vassal states of Wei Xia. If Wei Xia's twenty vassal states continue to actively compete like this, even if the Industrial Revolution breaks out in the Central Plains, it will be an understandable miracle.

The geographical attributes of soldiers are also very interesting.

Cochin is in the south, but Wu's guards are full of soldiers with a North Chinese accent, especially Henan.

why?

It is very interesting to say, but the concept of clan in the Yue Kingdom and Wei Kingdom is very strong, and clan-scale influences are everywhere, but it is quite difficult to cross clan restrictions to establish organizations with a larger population. The maritime merchants in the Yue and Wei countries were largely unable to grow bigger and stronger due to clan constraints, but the geography found that the era had a strong demand for human resources. In order to break through the lineage barriers and quickly alleviate the crisis of human resources shortage, mercenaries gradually became popular in the two countries.

At the same time, Wei Hui's Thirteen Years' War in Luoyang severely dragged down the economy in the north, and farmers and professional soldiers on the verge of bankruptcy had to find space for survival. The northerners were many but poor, and the Yuewei people were few but rich. So the northern peasants and soldiers flocked to the two countries in the form of mercenaries. Among them, the chaos of the four counties of Henan has repeatedly occurred, and the state of Lu has done its best to squeeze its territory in Henan Province, which has led to Henan Province becoming a contemporary population exporter.

Although Henan Province is located in the inland of the Central Plains without a seaport, the local people have been able to hire cannon fodder, led by the maritime merchants of the Vietnam and Wei countries, and continue to spoil the world.

These evolutions, which are completely different from the real world, are they lucky or unfortunate?

Different people may have different opinions.

Ansuo Garden is a garden in the style of Zhu Xia. At this time, the artificial island in the artificial lake gathered a total of four to five hundred people who came to the capital to participate in the examination of the Imperial College. Wei Dongsheng asked Shi Liang as he walked after him. It took about half an hour to find Shiyan with difficulty.

Wei Dongsheng sat down to have a drink with his friends from Shiyan.

The banquet was drawing to a close, and Wu Huaqi, the host, showed his purpose slowly.

The reason lies in the new route.

Wei Xia's grand voyage is somewhat different from the real world voyage.

In real world voyages, Europe is in short supply of spices, silks, porcelain, cane sugar and other commodities. The Zhu Ming Empire can earn countless gold and silver by keeping at its doorstep. In this world, the Wei Xia Empire is more extensive than the Zhu Ming Empire. There is no shortage of spices, cane sugar, silk and porcelain. Therefore, it has formed a trade black hole that far exceeds the Zhu Ming Empire countless times. Ships of exquisite commodities sailed out of the port, ships of gold and silver returned to the port, precious metals from all over the world were concentrated in the Weixia Empire.

As gold and silver continue to depreciate, Vietnam and Wei are getting richer and richer, and other vassal states are getting poorer and poorer. Taking land prices as an example, one acre of land in the coastal counties in Jiangsu Province, directly under the jurisdiction of the royal family, is worth about seven taels of silver. After the opening of the new route, maritime merchants, sailors, mercenaries, etc. who became rich overnight have brought gold and silver back home to buy land. In just over ten years, the land price has skyrocketed to twelve taels of silver per mu, and the future trend may continue to rise. . The maritime merchants of the two countries, who are sitting on the advantage of sea trade, brandished gold and silver boldly to enclose the land, while the people of other vassal states had a very difficult time making money.

The entire Wei Xia Empire was carrying out price revolutions, and Jiao Chi, which was near Yue State, was no exception.

The Jiaozhi vassal country is very eye-catching about sea trade profits.

However, at the beginning, there is neither shipbuilding technology nor sufficient talents, so it is impossible to compete with Vietnam and Vietnam.

The reformists represented by the Wu family are eager to get a share of the pie, and are ready to send a group of elites to Vietnam to learn the latest sailing techniques. The candidates who went to Beijing to participate in the Supervision of the Imperial College were Wu Huaqi’s goal. Wu Huaqi did not dare to hope that the students of the Imperial College would give up their bureaucratic future and change to unreliable navigation halfway. child. Wu Huaqi generously guaranteed the future of all the candidates. For all the candidates who unfortunately failed the ranking, as long as the relevant subject scores are not so bad, the Wu family is willing to recommend them to the Yue Guozi to supervise Haike.

In short, the Wu family wants to organize a group of foreign students to Vietnam to learn sailing skills in a semi-official and semi-private manner.

Wu Huaqi's invitation was quite attractive. The competition of the Judicial Examination is extremely fierce. Compared with the imperial examination of the Song and Tang Dynasties, it is even worse. Even if you get the honor of being a talented scholar by entering the Imperial College, it is only the first step in the Long March. Because Wei Xia’s twenty feudal vassal states are permeated with aristocratic priority values, it is always easier to seize the “opportunity” for the shadow supervisor and the tribute supervisor. If there is no hope for a certain scholar to fail the rankings year after year, going to Vietnam to learn the most popular Haike at the moment may be a way out.

Of course, the number of enthusiastic moves is very limited.

In the Wei Xia Empire in 1483, both studying off-the-job and going to Beijing for exams were both very costly channels for rising classes. Investigating the details of each exam candidate, at least 90 out of 100 were born in a landlord’s home. In the true sense of the word, there are very few poor scholars. Unless they have the dream of going all over the world, why should they give up the elegant life in the country and risk their lives into the sea?

Shiliang's older brother, Shiyan, dismissed Wu Huaqi's proposal for studying abroad.

Shiyan attaches great importance to maritime trade profits but is not interested in discussing life at sea. He despises and says, "Maritime merchants are maritime merchants, arrogant and narrow-minded. Ha ha, when have you ever seen a wealthy house go to sea to discuss life? Vietnam dismantled Guozijian and established Haike branch , You have to lower the threshold to recruit the sons of fishermen, but Wu Huaqi deliberately wanted to recruit sailors from the list, really because he wanted fish."

Shi Liang also had the same attitude: "There is a specialization in the art industry, and the scholars have their own studies. How can you swarm to follow the trend?"

Other scholars echoed the Shiyan and Shiliang brothers.

This is the general attitude of the scholars.

The sea trade has a long history of huge profits. The Southern Song Dynasty attached great importance to sea trade. The Meng Yuan and Yuan Dynasty never ignored it. The Shunta Kingdom, the predecessor of the Wei Xia Empire, also started with sea trade. In all these cases, the twenty vassal states of Wei and Xia paid great attention to sea trade, and even the inland states of Ming, Han, Tang, Zhou, Jin, and Wei tirelessly pursued the sea.

However, just as the former state policy of emphasizing agriculture and restraining business did not regard farmers as expensive, the country now attaches importance to sea trade and does not regard sailors as expensive. The agricultural thinking is respected by the landlord, while the maritime trade thinking is respected by the chamber of commerce. Countless leaders of the chamber of commerce respect marine business on land. Even if they are determined to sea trade, they will also aspire to be "sea business on land" maritime merchants, and then condescendingly look down on the sailors who seek life at sea.

Of course, this also has the factor of excessive navigation mortality.

Ocean sky grabs and port diseases are always ghosts wandering above the sea knights. Not to mention those sailors who died in obscurity, many marine heroes who were famous in the Yue Kingdom, Wei Kingdom, and even the Twenty States of Wei Xia could not escape the regretful fate of returning to the sea at a young age. For example, the captain of the Weiguo who discovered Brazil in South America contracted a local disease in West Africa last year. He died immediately after the medicine stone was ineffective at the age of 44. Another example is the founder of the Wu family. At that time, he led a group of merchants and thief merchants in West Asia and the Middle East. He was promoted to be a baron of the territory by the prince of Vietnam, but he also died of illness when he was less than 50 years old. India.

The risk of navigation is too high.

Only those poor boys who have declining family status and who are eager to get rich overnight will use the ocean as a quick way to change their destiny.

Wu Qihua is eager for a group of students to learn sailing skills, and really dreams.

However, Wei Dongsheng is not an ordinary supervisor.

The first Wei Dongsheng was the emperor who founded the Wei Xia Dynasty, the second was the king of Jin, and the third was the general who assisted Wei Liangjun to quell the Jiaozhi indigenous rebellion. The family background that Shi Liang and other shadow supervisors are proud of, and the tireless pursuit of fame and fortune of ordinary supervisors is not worth mentioning in Wei Dongsheng's eyes. To put it ugly, Emperor Wei Xia is the descendant of Wei Dongsheng, and the fifteen of the twenty vassal kingdoms are also descendants of Wei Dongsheng. Wei Jia Tuotuo founded by Wei Dongsheng is the world's largest wealthy.

No matter how hard Wei Dongsheng will fight in the future, it will only repeat his past success again and again.

Compared with fame and fortune, Wei Dongsheng hopes to observe the evolution of the Wei Xia Empire closely as the son of the fourth-generation prefect.

The great geographical discoveries of the Wei and Yue Kingdoms were a surprise gifted to Wei Dongsheng by the Wei Xia Dynasty. Comparing the two countries, Vietnam's comprehensive strength is better than defending the country. At this moment, even if the King of Yue is not the world's number one ocean city, it is also the number one ocean city in East Asia. It is worth visiting by Wei Dongsheng himself. Besides, the era of great geographical discovery, which is only left in the old paper piles of the real world, has been fortunately reproduced in another form by the inferior Tomorrow Ring and the Wei Xia Empire. Wei Dongsheng hopes that he can personally experience the charm of the great nautical era.

Only by integrating into the times can you better feel the breath of the times.

Other scholars were unwilling to learn to sail, but Wei Dongsheng was willing to witness the great maritime era of the Wei Xia Empire.

At the end of the banquet, Wei Dongsheng responded positively to Wu Qihua’s enthusiastic invitation: "I want to study abroad in Vietnam, do you want to supervise students?"

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