The fifth year of Longwu was spent in a period of busy construction. At the beginning of the sixth year of Longwu, after the New Year holiday, Xiao Ruxun immediately held a court meeting.
At the court meeting, all the ministers presented the work reports of the previous year and the work arrangements of this year to the public. If there were any problems, they would discuss them on the spot and hand them over to the Emperor for judgment. Then the work of the whole year began.
This year was the last year of Xiao Ruxun's first five-year plan. While completing the previous five-year plan, he also had to prepare for the northern expedition next year and the new five-year plan.
Xiao Ruxun had announced that the policy of Daqin would be arranged according to a five-year cycle. After planning the five-year development process, they would try their best to achieve it and surpass it, and then plan the next cycle.
If such a cycle system worked well, it would be very good for the smooth implementation of national policies and political stability.
At present, the political situation of Daqin was very stable, and the first five-year plan was coming to an end. It was obvious to everyone that the goals of the first five-year plan had basically been completed in the second half of the fourth year of Longwu.
Economic construction, land reform, the construction of township governments and village farmers' associations, the eradication of locusts and snails, the construction of Dazhi Road, the reorganization of the Qin Army, the enrollment of new students, the opening of trade routes to Europe, the reduction of farmers' burdens, the increase of commercial tax revenue, the expansion of potato, corn and sweet potato planting area, the expansion of the number and scale of poultry breeding, and so on.
Xiao Ruxun controlled the unprecedentedly large central government and directed the local governments to complete a series of actions. Every action was carried out in an orderly manner, and the construction was quite impressive.
And this year, the most important task was to prepare for the northern expedition. A lot of preparations had been made for the northern expedition, including the deployment of troops, simulation exercises, logistical support, investigation of the terrain, and spying for intelligence. In short, everything was ready, except for an order from Xiao Ruxun.
The General Staff Headquarters had drawn up the whole strategy, and the most critical points had been determined, such as how to strike, how to annihilate, how to carry out long-distance raids, and how to take the important grassland for themselves.
The imperial court had even prepared a set of strategies to recruit herdsmen to settle on the grassland.
Now everything was almost ready, except for an order.
Xiao Ruxun only needed a single thought to give this order. Xiao Ruxun still wanted to build a stronger foundation, so he didn't give the order for the army to go out to battle. This battle was bound to be a battle that could topple a nation, so they had to be fully prepared, and all kinds of contingency plans had to be prepared.
Thus, he was trying to judge whether the foundation of the country was solid and whether the material preparations were sufficient from the contents of the Grand Court Conference.
The answer he received made him very satisfied and happy.
The conclusion was that the Daqin was ready.
"The repair of the Grand Chi Road is almost finished in the northwest and Liaodong. The speed of transportation and marching through the Grand Chi Road has exceeded one-third of the original speed. We have a lot of time. In addition, we are constantly improving the entire operating mechanism, and the speed will be faster in the future."
The Minister of Communications, Li Ruyu, who was separated from the Ministry of Works, was fully responsible for the transportation arrangements of the Daqin. In the past few years, he had also put the Northwest Grand Chi Road and Liaodong Grand Chi Road as the top priority. The results were good, and he was very competent.
"As for the construction of elementary schools, Northern Zhili, Shandong, Southern Zhili, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Shaanxi have all been fully spread out. Among them, the elementary schools and intermediate schools in Northern Zhili and Southern Zhili have also begun construction. We plan to complete the integration of elementary schools to universities in Northern Zhili and Southern Zhili within ten years."
The Minister of Education was still the Head of the Kong family, Kong Shangxian, in name only. The actual ones in charge were the Left and Right Assistant Ministers Zhu Hua and Chen Qing. These two spread out the whole scene, one in the north and the other in the south. They built elementary schools in the villages and began to use the newly invented phonetic method to teach young children how to read.
The literacy campaign had begun, and the money spent by the Daqin was not in vain. It was believed that in Xiao Ruxun's lifetime, the initial effect of universal education could be seen.
Then there was the construction of water conservancy. The Ministry of Works had put in a lot of effort in the management of the Yellow River and the construction of water conservancy in the locust disaster areas.
The Minister of Works, Yang Yikui, did not stay in the capital for the past few years. Instead, he often went to other places to supervise, research, and supervise the construction of water conservancy in various places.
Xiao Ruxun compared the construction of water conservancy to the blood circulation of the country, and he was very concerned about it. This was also related to agricultural production and food production. Every year, the imperial court set a hard quota for food production. If Yang Yikui did not manage the water conservancy well, the Minister of Agriculture would fight with him to the death.
Therefore, regarding the problems of water conservancy in the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Agriculture was more concerned about it than Xiao Ruxun. This was related to the performance evaluation at the end of the year, and their own promotions.
There were no major natural disasters in the past few years. Generally speaking, the weather was good. The repair of the water conservancy in the places that suffered from disasters also helped a little. Coupled with the introduction of high-yield crops, there was no news of famine everywhere. Basically, the people were able to eat their fill.
As long as they could eat their fill, there would be no troublemakers, and the world would be stable. Everyone was thinking about living a good life. They had to work hard, work hard, and work hard to earn money to eat meat and wear nice clothes. The atmosphere of the whole society was very good.
Xiao Ruxun was very satisfied with such an atmosphere. Therefore, he also had a good opinion of the major departments of the imperial court. He thought that they had done a good job.
Then, there was the final data from the Ministry of Revenue's investigation of the household registration in Daqin. This data was given at the beginning of the fourth year of Longwu. The specific population of Daqin was about 130 million.
When the landlords, gentry, and local tyrants were eliminated, the local government of Daqin discovered a large number of hidden households. When they were investigating the fugitives in the mountains, they discovered another group of fugitives who had fled to the mountains.
The number of these two groups added together was very large. Then, Xiao Ruxun released the household registration of the fallen people and some non-civilian households in the Zhejiang area. This group of household registration was also very large, and they were not included in the tax household statistics of the Ming government.
This way, there were tens of millions more people.
Finally, Xiao Ruxun chopped the knife to the temples and Taoist temples among the people.
In history, movements to eliminate Buddhism and restrict Taoism were not uncommon. The emperor of China could not allow religion to compete with him for the number of taxpayers and the right to speak. Several religious uprisings, such as the Yellow Turban Uprising, also sounded the alarm for the emperor of China. Therefore, there had never been a tradition of religion and imperial power in China.
The Ming Dynasty imposed relatively strict restrictions on Buddhism and Taoism. In the early Ming Dynasty, these restrictions were quite strict, limiting the number of temples and Taoist temples and the number of monks.
Because these people did not produce, did not pay taxes, and had a wide range of real estate, there were many famines, and a large number of people invested in temples and Taoist temples, causing their power to increase in the local area.
After that, the Ming government's control over the local area became weaker and weaker. Although the official certificates were issued less, there were a lot of illegal activities in the local area.
The situation began to deteriorate.
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