Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The academy is on summer vacation, and the weather is very hot. My second brother Xie Kan plans to stay at home.

The officials are also on vacation today, and only some miserable people are on duty in the government office.

Xie Yiqin originally planned to have a good rest for a day, but as soon as he got the new issue of "Da Ming Xun Bao", he sat up and read the front page headlines carefully.

The front page headlines are about the big change of officials in Shanxi!

In Hubei, only the left and right governors and the provincial governors were replaced, and the three officials who left were not arrested. It is a relatively gentle official transfer.

It is different in Shanxi. More than 30 people have been replaced from top to bottom, and they were all arrested by the three judicial commissioners.

The Luoyang Imperial Guards were dispatched and sent directly to Taiyuan. Accompanied by the Shanxi general, they took the Shanxi commander-in-chief from the barracks.

Xie Kan lay behind his father, stretched his neck and read together: "Shanxi has such a big thing, I'm afraid it's because of coal? The prime minister intends to completely control Shanxi."

"Look at the new officials behind." Xie Yiqin said.

Xie Kan moved his eyes to the last two paragraphs, and immediately said with joy: "Uncle was transferred to Shanxi Province as an inspector!"

Xie Yiqin said: "I have to reform even if I don't want to. Your uncle is a reformer, and I can only be a reformer in the future."

Xie Yan heard it clearly and hurried over: "Uncle is a high-ranking official? What is the ranking of the inspector in the officialdom of a province?"

This kind of childish question must be a brain injury for Xie Yan, otherwise his father and brother would not bother to answer.

Xie Kan explained it, and Xie Yan roughly understood it.

After reading the front page headline, he read the second headline on the front page, which was also a big news.

It was the "Liangzhe Shangbao" that was closed down, and a lot of newspaper staff were arrested, with more than 40 charges. Also arrested were officials from the three offices of Zhejiang and the Shibosi.

But the chief of the three offices of Zhejiang was only dismissed and returned to his hometown, and he could even receive a pension. It is estimated that there was some political deal involved.

Xie Yiqin analyzed to his sons: "The reason why the prime minister compromised must be related to the army. The three chief officials of Zhejiang Province can retire peacefully must be exchanged for the loyalty of the army by some people. In the past three years, they are estimated to have been negotiating secretly. Otherwise, the news in Zhejiang Province would not be the front page, but the front page."

Continue reading the newspaper.

Xie Yiqin scanned the headlines and read them, and soon saw another important information-

The newly revised "Da Ming Law" (the seventh edition in total) will be printed soon and will be officially implemented on January 1 next year.

Among them, the "Working Law" has been revised the most. In order to facilitate the understanding and use of the general public, the "Da Ming Law·Working Law" only includes programmatic clauses, and more laws and judicial interpretations are compiled into a "Commercial Law".

The newly compiled "Commercial Law" summarizes various commercial regulations from the Taizu and Taizong dynasties to the Dingtai period. The conflicting old orders have been unified in the newly compiled "Commercial Law". In the future, we can only and must abide by the newly compiled "Commercial Law" and must not use earlier conflicting regulations to judge cases and do business!

Xie Yiqin said to his two sons: "In the past three years, the prime minister has been busy doing these things besides quietly collecting military power. The newly compiled laws and textbooks are their new policy program."

Xie Kan muttered: "Will the new textbooks be used in the imperial examination next year?"

"It will definitely be used." Xie Yiqin said.

Xie Kan sighed, he was busy now.

I just hope that the new textbooks can be printed earlier to leave more time for study.

Xie Yan was secretly happy, anyway, he had to take the science exam, no matter how much the textbooks were changed, the scientific formulas could not be changed.

Xie Yiqin gradually turned to the science and education page of the newspaper, and there was indeed information about the revision of the textbooks: the new textbooks had been printed, and public schools across the country would uniformly adopt the new textbooks in the second half of the year.

The court did not force private schools to use the new textbooks, but those who failed the imperial examinations would bear the consequences themselves!

Newspapers and telegrams were too useful for the great unified dynasty, especially when it came to public opinion propaganda for reform.

Of course, the premise is that the reformists completely grasp the power, otherwise the newspapers and telegrams will be used by the opposition, and that situation will definitely be an extremely fierce war of public opinion.

Now it’s cool. The prime minister directly closed down the most influential private newspapers, obviously wanting the remaining private newspapers to take it easy.

Covering the mouth, but not completely, because covering it to death would be ugly.

It’s best for newspapers with different positions to spray each other, and official newspapers have always had the upper hand, so that officials and people can understand why the reform is carried out through public opinion war.

"Sir," the old housekeeper stood outside the study and knocked on the door and said, "Zhongjia Silang, Caijia Shiyilang, and Yangjia Wulang personally came to invite the two gentlemen to play Cuju. It’s really hard to refuse on the spot. Now they are drinking tea in the side hall and waiting."

Xie Yiqin asked: "Have they been to the government office?"

The old housekeeper said: "I don’t know."

Xie Yiqin thought for a while and said: "Tell them that the weather is hot and my two young men have heatstroke."

"Yes." The old housekeeper withdrew.

Xie Yiqin said to his sons: "Don't go out this summer vacation."

Xie Kan was in a good mood to joke: "It's hard to collect taxes on industry, agriculture and commerce this year. I'm afraid that even the clerks can't be ordered around, so I can only go to various places to be a tax collector."

Xie Yiqin rolled his eyes at his second son: "After all, this is the territory of the Ming Dynasty. Do they dare to rebel? You stay in the study to review your lessons and don't step out of the backyard. I'll go to the prefect next door to talk."

...

Xie Kan, Xie Yan, and Xie Wan, three siblings, were locked up at home for the entire summer vacation, and even their mother stopped going out.

They could only learn about what was happening outside through newspapers and magazines.

"The weather is almost 40 degrees Celsius," Xie Kan said, exposing his chest and fanning frantically. The heat was so hot that the dog stuck out his tongue. "I heard that there are electric fans in the palace, but I don't know when they will be widely available."

Xie Yan, who was reading a math book, suddenly turned around and was extremely surprised: "Electric fan?"

Xie Kan said: "It's only available in the imperial city, but it's not popular in Luoyang. It seems to be encountering some difficulties."

As a civil engineering brother, Xie Yan has some superficial understanding of building hydropower dams. Small-scale dams can be built easily, but their power generation capacity is very limited, while larger power-generating dams require extremely high construction skills.

Extremely high technology, compared to this era, the current building materials are substandard!

The cement technology used in the Ming Dynasty is still at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.

Portland cement was not even available yet.

Moreover, when Portland cement was invented, its quality was extremely unstable and it was a niche product. It will take decades of continuous improvement before it can be applied to buildings with high strength requirements.

Xie Yan asked: "Has anyone tried using coal to generate electricity?"

"I don't know." Xie Kan shook his head.

Xie Yan didn't ask any more questions and would ask more slowly from now on.

Both brothers were too hot to be in the mood to study, so they lay on the couch and took a nap. They called the maid to help fan them.

With the maid serving him, Xie Yan felt much cooler.

What a great day.

He does not have a high moral consciousness, nor does he have a high pursuit of life.

Just compared to the days when I was delivering food before time travel, where I suffered from the irritation from the platform and customers every day, now Renshangren's life is very comfortable.

If you haven't traveled through it yet, you should run around under the scorching sun in such hot weather.

I drank Huoxiang Zhengqi water so much that I didn’t dare go to the hospital when I had a heat stroke. I had to rush to deliver food after a short break.

From now on, it's actually quite good to be a young master for the rest of my life.

To save the world and the people? Love so and so!

In a daze, Xie Yan heard his little sister sobbing. He opened his eyes and looked: "What's wrong?"

Xie Wan handed over the newspaper: "These child laborers are younger than me. They live a very hard life."

The war of public opinion is coming.

Xie Yan took it and saw that it was the emperor who ordered more than a dozen officials who had returned to Beijing to report on their duties (those local officials who had just been dismissed), as well as some Hanlin officials and private scholars, to go to Shanxi coal mines to inspect.

This article was written by a great Confucian in an almost vernacular style.

There’s even a comic accompanying it.

The heroine of the article is a 9-year-old child worker in a coal mine.

Why old child labor?

Because in her job, people usually start at the age of five or six, and basically retire when they are eight years old. If they are still working at the age of nine, they are naturally old workers.

She went down to the mine at 4:30 a.m. every day, and spent the next 12 hours squatting in the dark and narrow underground space, operating the mine gas trap in the dark to keep the mine air flow smooth and prevent the accumulation of underground toxic gases.

The reason for using such young female workers.

First, because the mine tunnel is narrow and the place where the gas valve is installed is even narrower, even older children cannot do it.

The second reason is that girls are more careful than boys and can tolerate loneliness in a dark and closed environment.

This little girl joined the company at the age of five and has now been working for four years.

She went down to the well at midnight every day and returned to the surface in the evening. During this time, no one talked to her and she saw no light. She even dared not speak out, fearing that there would be innocent souls seeking her life in the mine. She is happiest when she returns to the ground, and she sings the songs her mother taught her to reward herself.

Then it’s time to eat, sleep, and wait for the next early morning to continue working.

This female child worker is just a microcosm of the large number of child workers in coal mines.

The boy laborers in the coal mines were equally miserable because they did manual labor.

Due to a combination of factors, the underground mine tunnels at this time were dug very narrow. Adult miners must crawl in and out, and going back and forth is very time-consuming.

Therefore, the task of transporting coal in underground mine tunnels was given to male workers as young as several years old. They were tied with ropes, belts, and harnesses, like dogs pulling carriages, crawling on all fours to transport carts of coal.

If it dies, it is thrown away like a dog.

Xie Yan, who thought about being a young master for the rest of his life, had a huge impact on his outlook after reading this article.

Especially those cartoons, which are obviously written by famous artists, can make people feel heartbroken just by looking at them.

The author of the article also asked the readers: "Do you know that the blood and tears of child labor are contained in every coal used to boil water for cooking in our homes, to run machines in factories? It is extremely sad to write this. You and I were both born to parents, People have the same mind and the same principle... If Taizu Taizong knew this, what should he do?"

The second brother Xie Kan woke up at some point, took the newspaper, read it, and said with a smile: "We're going to have a pen fight."

Xie Yan asked: "What kind of newspaper is this Yi Bao that publishes articles? It doesn't seem like an official publication, but my father has been subscribing to it."

Xie Kan explained: "Yi Bao was founded by a group of old academics. At the beginning, it only published research articles on Yi studies, and also published some poetry scripts. I don't know when it started to criticize factories and steam engines, and it actually sold so much After a huge rise, it gradually became what it is now. They miss the Taizu and Taizong dynasties and think that everything was perfect at that time, everyone lived and worked in peace and contentment, there was no suffering, and even the illiterate people were moral. "

Xie Yan scratched his head.

Using this kind of newspaper to kick off the war of public opinion, are those in power in the court the conservatives or the reformers?