amaotonovel Chapter 989 The Nemesis of Officials and Gentry!
Chapter 989 The Nemesis of Officials and Gentry!
Xue Xiang felt an inexplicable urge to cry.
Look at those elderly officials before the first year of the Hongwu reign; weren't they all white-haired and youthful-looking?
Looking at the officials after the first year of the Hongwu reign, which one of them didn't go bald at a young age?
He was already having a headache dealing with official duties at court, but then there was this madman Yang who was always causing trouble outside of court, always making a fuss over nothing.
What about the five small workshops, harvesters, water presses—weren't they all his creations?
Even on his way from Ningyang County to Dengzhou Prefecture, he still managed to find time to tinker with a plowshare.
They are simply the nemesis of government officials!
Oh, not quite like that.
After all, the officials are just being tormented; only the corrupt officials who harm the people will lose their heads.
The local gentry of the Ming Dynasty fared much worse.
Whenever he gets into trouble, he inevitably drags a whole bunch of local gentry and gentry into it.
They would either lose their heads or be exiled to Liaodong.
Although the number of local gentry and worthies who were directly implicated by him was not in the tens of thousands, the number of those who were indirectly implicated by him must have been at least one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand.
Xue Xiang's thoughts gradually veered from initial grievance to complaining about Yang Shaofeng.
Seeing Xue Xiang's absent-minded expression, Li Shanchang couldn't help but cough and say, "Minister Xue, don't you have anything to say?"
Startled, Xue Xiang quickly bowed to Emperor Zhu and said, "Your subject has been disrespectful; I beg Your Majesty's forgiveness."
Emperor Zhu snorted coldly with a dark face and said, "We can talk about etiquette later. Now we're talking about the railway."
Xue Xiang quickly tried to salvage the situation: "I would like to inform Your Excellency that the Ministry of Works will send appropriate personnel to assist the Ministry of Railways in surveying the terrain."
"In addition, the Ministry of Works will take this opportunity to help the Ministry of Transportation replan the main roads between the provincial administrations and prefectures, and strive to widen the land occupied by the roads to ten zhang."
"The iron and coal mines in each provincial administration will also increase their exploration and mining efforts, and will absolutely not lag behind on the steam engine issue."
As Xue Xiang finished speaking, Zhu Shouren, the Minister of Transportation, immediately turned pale.
The Ministry of Works has been invaded by dogs!
It was clearly your dereliction of duty that started this, and now you're the ones helping our Ministry of Transport to replan roads in various places!
You son of a bitch, don't you even know how many people are actually in the Ministry of Transport?!
But then Zhu Shouren felt something was amiss.
Yes, the Ministry of Transport is indeed currently understaffed with only a handful of staff.
But why would Xue Xiang be so kind as to transfer people from the Ministry of Works, which was already short-staffed, to support the Ministry of Transportation?
and so……
Zhu Shouren was startled and quickly bowed to Emperor Zhu, saying, "Your Majesty, if the Ministry of Works were to transfer personnel to help the Ministry of Transportation replan the roads, it would likely make the already short-staffed Ministry of Works even more so."
"Your Majesty, I humbly request permission to assign more students from the Geology Department of Dengzhou University to the Ministry of Transportation."
"This will also alleviate the manpower pressure on the Ministry of Works."
Yang Shaofeng was completely stunned.
what's going on?
Why aren't you causing trouble for the Imperial College, which has already been split up, but instead inexplicably starting to divide up the students of Dengzhou University?
No, Dengzhou Prefecture doesn't even have enough to go around, you bastard!
Yang Shaofeng was very dissatisfied and was about to stand up and say a few words in rebuttal when Emperor Zhu saw this and quickly nodded, then turned his gaze to Xu Da, who had rushed back to attend Zhu Biao's wedding.
"As for the navy, we still need to expand its scale and try to build a second Dengzhou fleet as soon as possible, so that we can start mining the iron ore on the island of Rinan County sooner."
Xu Da bowed in agreement, and Li Shanchang followed suit, bowing to Emperor Zhu and saying, "Your Majesty, it would be better if that large island in Rinan County had a name."
Emperor Zhu gave Li Shanchang an approving look, then bent his finger and tapped the table twice.
According to the information that the Ministry of Rites found in the old marriage records, and the information that the Embroidered Uniform Guard obtained from overseas merchants and Semu people, the island in Rinan County was simply too damn big, almost the size of half of the Ming Dynasty.
Such a large island must have more than just iron ore; there must be plenty of other miscellaneous minerals as well.
If we hadn't taken it sooner, our descendants would probably have cursed us, Old Zhu, for squandering our wealth.
However, relying solely on old documents containing the name "Rinan County" is not enough to legitimately claim the territory.
At the very least, we need to give that big island an official name, then send troops to garrison it, and once the garrison is established, we can slowly relocate the people and set up government offices such as the Provincial Administration Commission and the State Government.
Then, the question returned to its original point—where the hell does the Ming Dynasty have so many people to relocate?
Forget about mining and relocating people, even setting up a fleet to garrison troops is a damn difficult task.
The more Emperor Zhu thought about it, the more his head ached. He couldn't help but scratch the back of his head and said, "Let's call the big island Xinming Island for now."
The island, a newly recovered former territory of the Han Dynasty, now belongs to the Ming Dynasty.
The name Xinming Island is very fitting.
Emperor Zhu continued, "The Ministry of Revenue also needs to think about this; we'll have to relocate people to the island later."
"The Ministry of Personnel should also accumulate more manpower in the next few years."
"And the Ministry of Works, the mineral exploration and dock construction on Xinming Island, cannot be neglected either."
"The Ministry of War's relay stations must also be prepared. As long as the Dengzhou fleet is ready, the relay stations must be built to Xinming Island."
"..."
As Emperor Zhu finished speaking, all the officials present nearly fainted on the spot.
Minister of Revenue Yang Siyi pondered, if our Great Ming had enough people, would there still be a vast wasteland in Liaodong where "not a rooster crows for a thousand miles"?
Oh, no, it can't be said that there are no roosters crowing for miles around, because there are so many wild pheasants in Liaodong that they are said to fly right into the cooking pot.
The problem is that the sheer number of pheasants is astounding as it gets, which also speaks to the desolation of Liaodong.
Good heavens, you Emperor Zhu want to develop Liaodong, but you also have your eyes on Xinming Island, which you haven't even gotten your hands on yet. You really dare to dream big, and you're really not afraid of going too far!
Minister of Works Xue Xiang was so desperate he felt like dying.
What I'm saying is, before you assign tasks to the Ministry of Works, could you at least send some people to the Ministry of Works first?
Throughout the Ming Dynasty, even though the Ministry of Transportation was responsible for the replanning of roads, the Ministry of Works was still responsible for a whole host of miscellaneous matters, such as mineral exploration, construction and repair of river bridges and water conservancy projects, construction of community schools, and construction of imperial mausoleums.
You really don't care about the fate of the Ministry of Works!
In contrast, the Minister of War and the Minister of Personnel were very happy.
The Minister of Rites and the Minister of Justice were so happy that they wanted to sing a song.
The Minister of War and the Minister of Personnel were pleased because their tasks were light.
The Minister of Rites and the Minister of Justice were pleased because the matter on Xinming Island had nothing to do with the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Justice.
Seeing the worried looks on the faces of the ministers, Yang Shaofeng immediately shrank back and moved to Zhu Biao's side, whispering, "They're going to be very busy this time!"