In September of the eighth year of Yongxing, Lin Fujian resigned from the Yongxing Emperor's edict, supported King Min's succession, and changed his reign to Jizhen. Liang died of illness at the end of November, and was given the posthumous title of Empress Dowager Xiaozhenmu.

One month later, on the first day of the first month of the second year of Jizhen, Emperor Jizhen issued an edict to abdicate, and Lin Fu officially ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor. The country was named "Chong" and the reign name was changed to "Qiyuan".

Gu Junxun became the queen, and Su Mei, Liu Miaozhen, Sun Wenwan, Liu Yuer, Xiaoman and Yuan Yan were named the six noble concubines, while the Zuo sisters and Rui Jiang Lingzhi were named the concubines. The three daughters Song Jia, Gu Yingxiu and Shan Rou were

Together with the female relatives of other important ministers and generals, they were conferred the title of Lady of the State or Lord of the County, in order to hide their eyes from others...

Lin Fu also issued an edict to confer the title of Duke of Yongji and Duke of Yongchang to the surviving son of Emperor Yongxing, the successor to Emperor Zhen, and the title of Duke of Yongchang. Prince Yuan Jianhai of Hailing was renamed to Duke of Chengguo, and the Marquis of Yongchang Yuan Jinqiu was renamed to Changbo, making the four of them the same as other Yuan clan members.

The children moved to Wuyuan in western Zhejiang.

At the same time, he rehabilitated the Qiuye prison, rectified the name of Jingbei Hou Suhu, issued a national soul edict, erected a national soul monument, and commemorated Li Zhuo, Gu Wuchen, Chen Xiyan, Zeng Mingxin and other generals and officials who had sacrificed their lives for the country since the Qingyu Year.

Completely abolish the political hall and the six central ministries, let the Privy Council and the sixteen ministries and departments under its jurisdiction take charge of the central government, change the Metropolitan Procuratorate to the Supervisory Yuan, separate the Criminal Trial Department under the former Ministry of Criminal Justice, and make Tige the Criminal Trial Yuan, together with the Privy Council

, the Supervisory Council was paralleled, other departments of the former Ministry of Criminal Justice were merged into the Security Department of the Privy Council, and the Public Council was changed to the Privy Council, which was placed above the Privy Council, the Supervisory Council, the Criminal Court and the Military Department.

In February of the same year, Ye Jiluo was crowned Emperor of Yan in Guanzhong.

Cao Yiqu did not choose to support a descendant of the Yuan family as emperor and confront Jiang Ning. Instead, he couldn't wait to ascend the throne in Yuzhou, establish the Liang Dynasty, and proclaim himself Emperor Liang, seemingly to enjoy the last wonderful time.

In May, the Western Expedition Army Headquarters, together with Ning Zechen, Ao Canghai, Tao Chun and other troops with 200,000 troops, attacked Guanzhong from Nanyang, Luoyang and Hejin.

Although the Beiyan craftsmen who fled west with Ye Jiduo Dy at that time also followed the Huaidong Fuhuo Crossbow in casting bronze cannons, but with the financial and manpower in Guanzhong, they could only cast more than 30 bronze cannons before May.

Respond to the occasion.

At the same time, in addition to 800 light and heavy artillery pieces, the Western Expeditionary Army also had more than 6,000 flintlock muskets equipped to front-line soldiers. It also established a separate grenadier section in the army to form an organic unit.

Use fire mines in field battles and offensive and defensive battles.

After several battles in Pucheng, Tongguan, and Wuguan, the Western Expeditionary Army wiped out more than 40,000 enemies in two months and forced open the gate to advance into Guanzhong. Although Chen Zhihu and Ye Ji Luorong still commanded hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses

, but the general situation was lost and they did not dare to fight the Western Expeditionary Army in the Weihe Plain, so they could only abandon Guanzhong, pass through Qingyang, Guyuan and flee westward into the old county of Hexi, that is, the Western Regions.

When Yuan returned to the government, Yuan Jinsheng, Gao Yi and others were killed when Ao Canghai led his troops to storm Wuguan. Dong Yuan was still missing, and there was no news that he had defected to Chen Zhihu or Cao Yiqu.

By mid-August, the Western Expeditionary Army had recovered the entire territory of Guanzhong, and Yang Yihang was appointed as the propaganda envoy to Guanzhong. Lin Fu also established the Northwest Garrison Defense Area, and organized the Huai Army and the Taihang Mountain Independent Town Division into the Northwest Defense Area, sending Ao Canghai and Deng Yu to the northwest defense area.

They served as the chief and deputy capital commanders respectively, responsible for continuing the important task of pursuing and suppressing the remaining enemies who fled west.

In the spring of the second year of Qiyuan, Lin Fu sent Ning Zechen to Weiyuan and led an army of 100,000 infantry and supplies. At the same time as Zhou, Su Pinxiao led an army of 80,000 infantry and supplies to Jingzhou. The troops divided into two groups and invaded Sichuan and Shu. At that time,

Cao Yiqu moved the capital to Chengdu, and Yuzhou was guarded by Shuliang general Wei Shiyan.

Wei Shiyan surrendered and led his troops to march north with Zhou Tong. In April, he and Ning Zechen's troops surrounded Chengdu. Cao Yiqu had only been emperor for a year, and his imperial dream was shattered. He ordered more than a hundred soldiers to kill him in Chengdu.

After all the concubines were executed, they burned themselves to death, and Shuliang was destroyed. After the war, Lin Fu established Sichuan-Shu County and made Zhou Tong serve as the Xuanfu envoy. The war in the Central Plains was completely extinguished...

After Chen Zhihu and Ye Ji Luo Rong led their troops to escape from Guanzhong, they parted ways. Chen Zhihu proclaimed himself Emperor of Qin, controlled the old county of Hexi west of the Heyuan River, and established the Western Qin Kingdom. Ye Ji Luo Rong died in the Xi Hu rebellion in the third year of Qi Yuan.

Ye Jiduodi succeeded to the throne of Khan and led the remaining troops to flee to the northwest Xinjiang, until they fled to the old county of Beiting (today's northern Xinjiang region) to establish a foothold.

In the seventh year of Qi Yuan, Chen Zhihu went west to conquer the Kingdom of Chile. After slaughtering the city, he summoned the Princess of Chile to serve him in bed. In his sleep, Princess Chile pierced his left eye with a silver hairpin and died.

After the death of Chen Zhihu, the Western Qin Kingdom was in chaos. All the barbarians in the northwest who had been violently suppressed by Chen Zhihu rose up in rebellion. Lin Fu then ordered Ao Canghai to lead a 100,000-horse infantry to march westward, and captured Shanshan, the capital of the Western Qin Kingdom, in June of the ninth year of Qiyuan (

Today's Hami), it was divided into Hexi County and the Western Qin Dudu Mansion.

Ye Jiduo led the remnants of the Yanhu tribe to occupy Beiting. They struggled in the bitter cold land of the northwest for several years, but could not tame the Hus in the northern Xinjiang. In the eighth and ninth years of Qiyuan, they fought several battles with the Western Expeditionary Army led by Ao Canghai.

Although there were victories and defeats, the energy accumulated over the years was exhausted. Ye Jiduo could not abandon Beiting in the early tenth year of Qiyuan and fled west again, escaping to the area west of the Ili River to eke out a living, while Lin Fu and

Set up the Beiting Governor's Mansion.

The national border extends to Yili, west of Hami, and the entire logistical supply line that relies on land routes has stretched for four to five thousand miles. The central government and local governments have no intention of expanding the national border to the west, so Lin Fu stopped his expansion to the northwest.

pace, adjust the strategy for the northwest frontier, and change armed conquest to naturalization of immigrants.

From the first year of Qiyuan to the tenth year of Qiyuan, the naturalization work in the Northeast region has been carried out in an orderly manner.

In addition to setting up Liaoyang County under the direct jurisdiction of the central government, in the area north of Liaoyang, Lin Fu successively transferred a total of 200,000 young people from Jianghuai, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi and other places, and set up three agricultural reclamation corps to enter the area north of Liaoyang for farming.

Due to the haste of Yanhu's flight to the west from Yanjing, Liaoyang and other places, nearly 300,000 young women were abandoned. Nearly 200,000 of them moved north with the Agricultural Reclamation Corps, formed new families with the Agricultural Reclamation Corps, and settled down.

Starting from the second year of Qiyuan, marked by the construction of the Liaonan Railway Station, the coal and iron resources in the eastern foothills of Qianshan Mountain between Liaoyang and Liaokou have been developed on a large scale. By the tenth year of Qiyuan, the Liaonan Railway Station

The output of iron reached 100,000 tons (200 million jins), and the production of steel reached 5,000 tons (10 million jins). The mining and smelting industries surrounding the Liaonan Iron Field developed rapidly.

The entire Liaodong Peninsula faces the sea on both sides, and sailing through the Bohai Sea, the East China Sea and the Jianghuai area is far less threatened by storms than in the sea south of Yizhou; even some bold merchants need to stop sailing to take shelter from the wind in the summer - this makes

Forests and other mineral resources from the Liaodong Peninsula were continuously imported into the Jianghuai River. Liaokou and Tieshan Port in Jinzhou soon became the main ports after Chongzhou, Mingzhou, Jinhai, Haizhou, Dengzhou, Jin'an and Zhuxi.

Big harbor.

In the Liaodong region alone, there were 16.7 million Han people in Liaodong plus those who were forcibly moved there by Yan and Hu. These factors made Liaoyang's status in the new empire even higher than that of Henan and Yanji.

Zhongyuan County was severely injured by the war and had not yet fully recovered.

The faster and more thoroughly Liaoyang is developed, the less space there will be for the remaining Yanhu forces to survive in Liaoyang.

Although the expansion to the northwest Xinjiang came to an end in the 10th year of Qiyuan, the expansion into Southeast Asia involved huge commercial interests, and the pace has never stopped.

In the first year of Yongxing, a pound of Jianghuai cotton yarn was worth about 400 yuan, which was already a bit lower than the traditional local yarn. By the first year of Qiyuan, the price of Jianghuai cotton yarn had dropped by about half. By the tenth year of Qiyuan, the price of Jianghuai cotton yarn had dropped by half again.

A pound of yarn is only a hundred yuan - the great progress in technology has enabled Huaidong industrial products, represented by cotton yarn and cotton cloth, to sweep the traditional homespun cloth and homespun yarn markets in China, Haidong and Southeast Asia, and make huge profits from it.

And Jiang Ning is also very aware that only with the continuous expansion of domestic and foreign markets, which keeps industrial products in short supply, can it continue to strongly stimulate the continuous expansion of the industrial zones mainly in the Jianghuai region and stimulate the continuous development of new technologies.

growing up.

Under the strong impact of these industrial products, the space for traditional handicraft production in Nanyang countries has become increasingly narrow, and a rebound is reasonable. Whenever there is resistance, Jiang Ning is accustomed to using warships and cannons to clear the way.

In the fourteenth year of Qi Yuan, Lin Fu asked Yang Shi, then commander of the Southeast Navy, to personally lead half of the troops of the Southeast Navy and battleships to conquer Jiduo in the south. In the Southwest Ocean (Indian Ocean), the Southeast Navy, which had been fully equipped with explosive ammunition,

The navy, at the cost of two frigates running aground and sinking, completely annihilated the Jido Dynasty navy.

In the end, they accepted the peace negotiations of the Jiduo Dynasty on the condition that they cede the Buddha Singluo Island, which was twice the size of Yizhou and establish a port. At that time, the Buddha Singluo Island was already the eleventh overseas governor established by Jiangning.

government and military bases.

By the 20th year of Qi Yuan, overseas governor's offices and naval military bases had extended to the eastern coasts of the Western Empire (Arabia) and Subia, Aksum and other countries, reaching as many as sixteen. Due to the Western invasion of Yanhu's remnants,

Advances in artillery, muskets and many new shipbuilding technologies also began to spread in the West, Subia, Axum and other countries, but they still could not close the gap with the new emperor.

The population explosion that Liu Shidu was worried about first broke out in the Jianghuai region.

After the end of the campaign against Shu in the second year of Qiyuan, the new empire, including Liaoyang County, conducted a thorough census. The total population of the country was 86 million. The population of the area south of the Huaihe River (excluding Sichuan and Shu) was as high as

Fifty-eight million.

By the 20th year of Qiyuan, in just 18 years, the population in the area south of the Huaihe River surged by more than 60%, reaching 93 million.

Although the grain-producing potential of the land in the south can withstand the consumption of hundreds of millions or even more people, these lands can barely be cultivated by 40 to 50 million people. The industrial, mining and transportation industries in the Jianghuai area have been developing rapidly, but by Qiyuan

In the past twenty years, the domestic industrial, mining and transportation industries have only accommodated a labor force of slightly more than 10 million. In terms of pure labor force, although the land can bear it, a large number of surplus people have been produced nationwide.

Northwest Xinjiang is a land of bitter cold. There are not many people willing to immigrate to the actual border of Northwest Xinjiang. This requires a large amount of subsidies from the central government to make it feasible. A large number of remaining people are moving to the Nanyang region with the sixteen overseas governor's offices as the core.

migrate.

Including the Yongxing period, in the past thirty years to the 20th year of Qiyuan, the 16 governorates of Jeju, Luca, Putan, and Buddha Singluo accommodated more immigrants than the local indigenous people, up to 4 million people.

There are almost the same number of overseas immigrants who migrated to surrounding countries with sixteen governor's offices.

Compared with the active immigration to the Nanyang region, as of the 20th year of Qiyuan, the actual number of immigrants to the northwest and northeastern regions was only 1.2 million, and the central government paid tens of millions of silver dollars for this.

The Buddhist and Nunluo establishment of the Overseas Governor's Office was only in the 14th year of Qiyuan. By the 20th year of Qiyuan, the number of Jianghuai people who immigrated to the Buddhist and Nunluo reached as many as 200,000. The colonial merchants, Nanyang Shipping Company and the Dudu's Office provided services at extremely low prices.

He sold fertile land to Jianghuai immigrants at a reasonable price, and in six years, he merged or opened up nearly 10 million acres of cotton plantations on Fosunila Island, becoming one of the most important raw material producing areas for the Jianghuai cotton spinning industry.

By the 20th year of Qiyuan, there were as many as 5,000 merchant ships of over 500 tons registered under the name of Heishuiyang and Nanyang Shipping Company.

In addition to the Jinghai Navy and the Southeast Navy, the Heishuiyang and Nanyang Shipping Company's escort fleets equipped with third-level main battleships and the escort armies of various governorates have also become the most important overseas military force of the new empire.

Compared with Heishuiyang and Nanyang Shipping Company, a special force that combines military, government, finance and business, the Settlers Bank is slightly simpler.

In the early days, the capital of the colonial bank was 20 million silver dollars, which was replaced by 6 million acres of reward land. By the 20th year of Qiyuan, the capital increased 20 times to 400 million silver dollars. This has not yet reached 400 million silver dollars.

The interest distributed to shareholders of nearly 200 million silver dollars is included.

The strength and scale of Huaidong Bank is larger than that of Seongshang Bank, with assets reaching 600 million silver dollars. In addition, Jeju Bank and several other smaller banks that developed later have capitals of tens of millions of silver dollars.

Ranging from nearly 100 million silver dollars, the capital strength cannot be underestimated.

Early overseas trade was mainly conducted with local people and forces, and traditional overseas trade goods could no longer meet the increasing needs of the new empire. By the 20th year of Qiyuan, overseas immigrants gradually became the main body of trade.

Haidong and Nanyang, including the 11 overseas governorships as well as Johor, Borneo, Korea, Fusang and other countries, are full of mines and plantations invested and developed by Han people.

By the 20th year of Qiyuan, the number of Borneo oil imported into the country had risen to 600,000 tons per year, while the number of Borneo oil imported into other regions was as high as 300,000 tons per year, and the total annual trade volume was as high as 30 million silver dollars. And the control

The Borneo Petroleum Trading Co., Ltd., which accounts for more than 90% of the oil wells in Borneo, has not only the specific operators, managers and core technicians who are all Han Chinese, but also its shares are held by the royal family, colonial bank, Huaidong Bank, Nanyang Shipping Company, etc.

The rest are mainly held by immigrant groups in Luga Governorate and other places.

In addition to Borneo oil, cotton imported from overseas to the Jianghuai, Zhejiang, and Fujian regions as a raw material for the textile industry increased to 800 seagoing ships every year by the 20th year of Qiyuan. The suppliers of these cotton raw materials were almost

Seventy percent of the plantations are supplied by overseas immigrants. Prisoners of war who were exiled overseas in the early days, local indigenous people, and Jianghuai people who later immigrated overseas are the main labor force of these plantations.

In addition to kerosene and cotton as the main input goods, there are almost 3,000 sea-going ships every year, loaded with saltpeter, Borneo ash, sulfur, gold, silver, copper and precious metals, abaca, cane sugar, precious wood, medicinal materials and other bulk goods.

Call at ports in Chongzhou, Jiangning, Mingzhou, Haizhou, Jinhai, Tieshan, Liaokou and other places...

These huge imports of bulk goods are traded domestically with bulk goods such as new cloth, ready-made clothing, dyes, salt, porcelain, steel, ships, ordnance, as well as traditional tea, silk, etc.
To be continued...