Dominate the Country

In the early morning, the sun in the east sprinkled brilliant sunshine on the earth. Wisps of smoke floated over the whole city of Nanjing, making the air seem to be filled with a layer of mist like gauze.

In the thousands of rays of morning sun, Chen Ming, who was holding a bowl of shaved ice and finishing it in one breath, did not feel the freshness of the morning at all, and also turned a blind eye to Chen Ding, who was looking greedy beside him. This Nanjing is really worthy of being the furnace of the later great T Dynasty. It is really hot in summer.

"Your Majesty, the frame is ready." Li Xiaomei's voice came over.

"Let's go and pay respects to grandma. Then we will leave." Chen Ming wiped the sweat from his forehead. He couldn't stay outside this early in the morning. So, it's better to leave early. Although if he went into the house, there was an ice basin and a hair dryer, Chen Ming would definitely not feel hot. But he just wanted to take a walk, and he was a little quiet and wanted to move. He has spent a year in Nanjing!

Go to Jiangxi, go to Mount Lushan for a tour.

But the old lady really didn't have the heart to wander around and play, she just wanted to stay quietly in the palace, and chat with a few old sisters or children when she had nothing to do...

The carriage drove out of the palace gate, and Chen Ming was playing checkers with his wife and son in the opaque imperial carriage. In this high-end imperial carriage, there were only Chen Ming, Li Xiaomei and their two children, and the little girl was still sleeping.

Behind this imperial carriage, there was the queen's phoenix sedan chair. The dragon carriage and phoenix sedan chair were in the front, and below were a series of imperial sedan chairs for the concubines. The mighty team, under the protection of three thousand imperial guards, and surrounded by thousands of guards, palace maids, and eunuchs, drove to the Xiaguan Wharf.

At this moment, a large number of relatives and important ministers who accompanied the emperor had already arrived at the wharf, standing neatly on the left and right according to their status. Countless policemen and soldiers controlled the entire dock tightly, and a large number of imperial ships on the river were also preparing.

"Wow, see. This is the style of the Chinese emperor's travel. We are so lucky to encounter the emperor's travel!"

On the Yangtze River, on a passenger ship far away from the guard ship, Georg from Munich pointed at the Nanjing Xiaguan dock with flags flying and crowded people, and shouted to Ekdal beside him. Next to him was Coubier from London. The three people were on a passenger ship from Shanghai to Wuhan. Of course, the three people's goal was not Wuhan, but to come to Nanjing to take the special Chinese test in five days.

In China, which has just been "opened", the "special" level Chinese test is already a very rare level. Shanghai only has advanced tests. To take the next level of special Chinese test and the best specialization, people need to come to Nanjing.

Georg and Ekdal were teachers in the same school, so they naturally had a good relationship. Kubie was an external teacher at the Shanghai Maritime College. Georg had sat in front of Kubie for the intermediate Chinese exam. Ekdal got to know Kubie through Georg, the "bridge".

"It was a very spectacular trip. The Duke of Bavaria's style compared to the Chinese emperor is like a primary school student compared to a university professor." Georg's personality was somewhat beyond Ekdal's expectations. He was very enthusiastic and talkative, giving people the feeling that he was not a German, but more like an Italian or Spanish.

Although he had not been in China for long, Ekdal, who was already very familiar with Georg, rolled his eyes at his words to express his disdain. "The Duchy of Bavaria is just a small country in the Holy Empire, while China has been the ruler of the Eastern world for thousands of years. The comparison of national strength between the Duchy of Bavaria and China is also the gap between a primary school student and a university professor. There is no comparison between the two, right?"

Ekdal has been in China for a while. Before that, he was in the quarantine zone for a month, and they also had newspapers to read. Ekdal still remembers the shock he felt when he saw the newspaper saying that China has a population of 200 million.

Ekdal has imagined China to be strong enough. But in fact, China is much stronger than he imagined.

What is the concept of 200 million people? Especially among these 200 million people, at least 98% of the population is from the same ethnic group. This is completely incredible.

If the Swedes have a population of 200 million, it is not that they are humiliated by Tsarist Russia again and again, but that Sweden easily beats the Slavs.

But it is true. After learning that the news was indeed true, Ekdal was stunned. He really couldn't imagine what kind of nation it was that had a population larger than the entire European population. But he was sure that a country with such a great nation as its main ethnic group must be a great and powerful country.

In the following days, Ekdal suddenly became interested in Chinese history books. And he caught up with the good time. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Education, a large number of history books were translated into vernacular Chinese and published.

Ekdal has not finished reading all the history books, but he has been overwhelmed by the long tradition of Chinese historiography and the Chinese nation. Sweden, no, the whole of Europe. They all did too badly in this regard.

In Ekdal's cognition, the Chinese nation - the Han nationality, like its contemporary ancient Roman Empire, is unrivaled in regional power.

Then the incredibly powerful Romans in Europe eventually declined, and the black-haired and black-eyed Romans became the blonde Italians of today. The Chinese, who also experienced the trampling of the northern barbarians, stubbornly persisted in the relatively wild area south of the Yangtze River at that time. And ushered in a new bloom!

The prosperity of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the prosperity of the two Song Dynasties, the humiliation of dignity, the invasion of the powerful Mongolian nation, and the pride of the sun and the moon to reopen the Song Dynasty!

Although the two powerful monarchs who dominated the Ming Empire were absolute tyrants in Ekdal's eyes, one of them founded a dynasty as a commoner, which made Ekdal truly realize what it meant to be "Are there any kings, princes, generals, and ministers?" The other went to Mongolia five times and sailed to the West seven times. Let people know that China, which is almost defined as a continental nation in Europe, once stood above Europe on the ocean.

Although the great defeat at the end of the Ming Dynasty was so incredible in Ekdal's eyes, the Chinese were completely defeated by the Chinese themselves. But after more than a hundred years of shameful rule by the Tatars, the current Chen Han Dynasty once again overturned the foreign race sitting on top of its head...

This nation has unimaginable resilience and cohesion.

This time, the Chinese emperor can also use his own life experience to preach to the entire Western world what it means to be a king, a general, or a minister. Although he is not as truly penniless as Zhu Yuanzhang, the enemy he faces is also a Tatar dynasty that has entered its heyday, rather than the wars of the late Yuan Dynasty!

It is certainly admirable that a nation has always been extremely strong; but it is even more terrifying for a nation to get up again and again after falling again and again, and then stand at the top of the world again.

"To understand a nation, first understand its history." This sentence is really right. Just learning Chinese language and writing is too shallow for China as a country and the Han nationality as a nation.

Ekdal doesn't know how long he will stay in China. He is more curious and fond of this country now, rather than liking something in the East, let alone loving the country. He came here just because it would give his family a better life, just like many Chinese people in later generations went to the United States. Do they really love the United States? It is not ruled out that there are some idiots who use the Statue of Liberty as a beacon, but more of them are for a better life and a rich life. Ekdal is like this. Even if he is passionate about understanding Chinese history, in addition to satisfying his curiosity, he may have the intention of having more skills to survive after returning to Sweden.

Chen Ming certainly didn't know that a certain passenger ship in the distance actually carried three external teachers from Shanghai universities, and the Chinese level of these three people all reached the level of special Chinese. If he knew, he might have summoned these three people to the ship to meet them.

After getting on the ship, he immediately changed his robes. Of course, he would no longer play checkers with his wife and children. Now Chen Ding is leading his sister to play marbles, and Li Xiaomei is reluctant to leave the two babies.

The mighty river breeze was chilled by the ice basin. Inside and outside the boat were two completely different worlds. Chen Ming also needed to turn his resting brain back on.

He was not thinking about the ongoing wars in the northwest, northeast and Lake Baikal, but the economic fluctuations after the previous paper currency reduction. There was also the immigration work from the four northern provinces to the northeast!

The former still has aftereffects. The 20% reduction in the exchange rate adjustment was very fatal. It was not an ordinary market economy, but there were fluctuations in foreign trade. But all opposition was suppressed by the imperial power. For the latter, the cabinet made very sufficient preparations. But immigration is not easy to say. Now under Chen Han’s rule, the people are not living in poverty. Although the conditions for immigration to the northeast are very favorable - regardless of gender, age or age, each person will have five acres of land, and one acre of land will be 40 yuan in paper currency. You can choose the year of installment repayment, which is the mortgage of the 21st century. The longest is twenty years!

This can certainly tempt many poor people to go to the northeast. Haven’t there been many people who went to Guandong in history? But it is also very difficult to gather 100,000 households in a short period of time. Even if there are five people in a household, 500,000 people will go to the Northeast? Natural immigration is not that fast.

Moreover, some old and young people got sick or even died during the immigration, which caused a lot of trouble.

Although the newspapers were controlled, many news were still spread widely, and the speed made Chen Ming clearly feel that someone was stirring up trouble.

After the assassination of Li Qi, the old rival of the Sticking Rod Office once again came to his mind.

Chen Ming can understand these things. Even if some officials who handled the situation improperly and local national security officials were punished, they would not be beaten to death forever.

These things take time to polish.

What surprised Chen Ming a little was that there were more and more landlords in the world who took "employees" instead of tenants. Especially the small landlords in Jiangnan. According to the materials collected by the local authorities, this data is much higher than the previous cabinet and.

"Your Majesty, the amount of arable land in Jiangnan that is still used for rice cultivation is declining seriously. In recent years, the price of grain has been getting lower and lower. The rice shipped back from Southeast Asia, Siam, and Annan has had a great impact on the grain prices in our dynasty.

Many landlords in Jiangnan have begun to abandon grain cultivation and instead plant cotton and mulberry trees.

The latter two require much less labor than rice cultivation, and the profits are much higher. The assets of those small landowners are not large, so it is difficult to resist such temptation. Wang Huizu shook his head as he spoke. He was not sighing at the small landowners in Jiangnan, but he was embarrassed himself.

Since the change of dynasty, the Wang family has become a prominent family in Shaoxing. Although Wang Huizu himself had no blood brothers, there were many other members of the same clan in the Wang family. Following Wang Huizu's light, even if he did not do anything illegal, he became more or less wealthy. But now the Wang family's reputation in Shaoxing is quite bad, because every one of the Wang family has left the farm, and they don't show any pity to the villagers.

The Wang family concentrated their own fields, planted mulberry trees and cotton, and established oil-pressing workshops and wine-making workshops.

Shaoxing's Huadiao wine, also known as Nuerhong, is the most famous wine among yellow wines. There are many local breweries in Shaoxing, but few can withstand the impact of changing dynasties. Most were wasted in the war. Many of the famous workshops had official backgrounds in the Manchu and Qing Dynasties, but after the change of dynasties, they became the king of hell.

The Wang family took advantage of the opportunity, used Wang Huizu's savings and the money Wang Huizu borrowed in face, bought more wineries, and hired many master chefs who were unemployed at home. With a famous person at the helm and a wine cellar with good springs for hundreds of years, it is strange that the Wang family's winemaking workshop is not developed.

Moreover, after the "Patent Act" came out, the Wang family immediately applied for the two trademarks of "Nervhong" and "Huadiao", but it was disgusting to think of the Shaoxing wine shop. In the end, the Wang family didn't do everything right and sold the right to use it to their colleagues in Shaoxing. Not only did they spend no money, they also made a fortune in vain. These things have become so widespread that they almost got published in the newspapers.

…

The passenger ship Ekdal was on was 'quarantined' outside the dock for a whole morning. There was no way, this was the majesty of the Chinese emperor. It wasn't until the last imperial ship left Shimonoseki Pier that the passenger ship they took docked.

"The Chinese emperor is too domineering and really treats everyone as his servants. No matter how powerful such a country is, if it doesn't have an air of freedom, I won't like it here."

Ekdal was very surprised to find that Coubier was actually a freedom fighter!

However, Georg said to Ekdal without being surprised: "He is a disciple of Montesquieu!"

With Georg, who often came to Nanjing, leading the way, the three of them rode in a carriage and quickly found a hotel very close to the examination point. It’s a mid-range or lower grade, and it’s certainly not expensive!

"The environment here is a bit bad." After finding that there was only a square table with eight immortals in the room, Ekdal complained to Coupier after putting his luggage. The income of the three of them was enough to live in a mid-range hotel, and the current situation was beyond his expectation.

"There is no way. The money in our friends' hands has to be spent elsewhere. So the hotel they stay in has to be shabby."

"Another place?" Ekdal was a little confused.

"Qinhuai River." Cubie looked at Ekdal who suddenly opened his mouth and shrugged happily. "You have to know that the people in this place have a kind of... deep-rooted discrimination against all outsiders. If he wants to have a pleasant night with the girl on the Qinhuai River, Georg will have to pay at least twice as much. price."

Coupier knew Georg more than once, and he knew that this Munich man who also brought his family to China had a romantic heart. And he never goes to the port, but likes to come to the Qinhuai River in Nanjing. This was a very rare word, but Coupie can now speak it skillfully. He didn't understand what kind of "cultural atmosphere" a place like that could have!

"Let's go. Let me take you to something delicious. The catering industry here is more developed than in Shanghai. There is even an authentic French restaurant run by a Frenchman in Shangguan Street. But I think Wuxi food is better , especially meat bones." Coupie, who comes from a dark culinary world, clearly likes Chinese food, but I don't know how he uses chopsticks.

"We need to wait for Georg."

"No, we don't have to wait for him. He doesn't like to eat Chinese food, whether it's sweet Wuxi food or the super spicy Sichuan and Hunan food. He only eats Chinese food like sausages and braised pork. Meat……"

"Like someone, you don't necessarily like everything about them! Right?"

"It's really hard to be inclusive of everything." Ekdal shrugged. This is not a contradiction. He likes China quite a lot, but he definitely doesn't like Chinese liquor.