sjar Chapter 1035 You've really struck at Old Deng's heart!
Chapter 1035 You've really struck at Old Deng's heart!
Ever since he saw a small steam locomotive pulling a rotary tiller, Old Deng has been holding daily meetings with a group of officials from the imperial court.
The Ministry of Works was the first to be affected, followed by the Ministry of Revenue, and many other ministries, academies, temples, and supervisory offices were also busy.
If you ask what the Guanglu Temple has to do with small steam engines, and why it also has to hold a large meeting, you might ask...
How strange! The emperor and his ministers are busy from morning till night, so why can't they be given lunch?
Even the Censorate, which had absolutely nothing to do with small steam engines, was repeatedly warned by Emperor Zhu: "If the problem of refined iron flowing out of the country occurs again, your Censorate should prepare to face my wrath!"
Even Heizhi Tangyuan, whose wedding is at the end of the month, is required to attend meetings and speak every day.
The result of several days of repeated meetings and discussions was that once small steam engines were deployed, a large number of young and strong men would be freed up for farming.
In theory, young and middle-aged people who leave farming can also choose to work in workshops to earn money.
The problem is that once small steam engines are widely deployed, they will certainly be used in workshops, which will free up a lot of manpower.
Of course, there are also a large number of workshops and even mines that cannot use steam engines, and they can be used to absorb some of the young and strong.
But what about the rest?
More importantly, according to calculations by the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Revenue, and many other officials, based on the current steel production of the Ming Dynasty, it would take about two years to reach the level of one steam engine per commune.
However, it may only take six or seven years, or even four or five years, to reach the level of five steam engines per company.
Because the existing open-pit iron mines in the Ming Dynasty are being mined at breakneck speed, and iron smelting workshops in various places are also doing their utmost to smelt iron and make steel.
In other words, the Ming court had no more than ten years to react, and at the very least, no more than five years.
The bureaucratic model of a completely centralized court, once fully operational, is incredibly efficient.
Then the problem is coming.
If these were the only problems, Emperor Zhu was still very confident that he could work with the officials in the court to develop a plan to deal with them.
After all, there are at least four or five years left.
Take your time.
The key is that if we want to promote the widespread use of small steam engines, the Ming Dynasty still needs a huge number of people to mine.
The most critical issue is the conflict between the two – the front requires a large number of people, while the back requires consideration of how to allocate them. These diametrically opposed needs make it difficult to strike the right balance.
This "degree" is not a problem that can be solved simply by increasing the number of people or adding a provincial administration office.
Of course, there were also moments of leisure in the imperial court.
After Yang Shaofeng spoke actively for two consecutive days, and then fell asleep standing up and snored for two consecutive days, the enraged Emperor Zhu kicked him back to the Prince Consort's Mansion.
Then, Yang Shaofeng continued to laze on the recliner in the Prince Consort's mansion, slurping his little dragon dumpling while making sarcastic remarks.
"Those officials are just too fussy."
"Hurry up and say what you need to say, make a plan for what you need to do, and then go home and sleep."
"What kind of behavior is it to stay in the palace every day and freeload off others?"
"The food served at the Guanglu Temple is especially awful."
"..."
Jin'er glanced at Yang Shaofeng, then touched her belly and said, "You can't learn from your father. If we're going to learn something, we have to learn something good."
Yang Shaofeng rolled his eyes and said, "Why can't you learn from your husband? Don't you have any good qualities that we can learn from your husband?"
Jin'er smiled and said, "As I just said, if you're going to learn something, you should learn the good stuff."
Yu'er, always eager for a good show, immediately laughed and said, "My husband has so many good qualities. He even snores while sleeping during the grand court assembly, and he can write a few memorials that give my adoptive father and Prime Minister Li headaches so much that they have to hold grand court assemblies every day. This ability is not something that ordinary people can have."
Yang Shaofeng gave a soft snort and said, "Who told them to scheme against their husband first?"
"What was my purpose in establishing the county school and community school in Ningyang County?"
"The goal is to train more clerks so that they can share some of the official duties with me."
"Now look what's happened, our students from Ningyang County School are being targeted by my father-in-law and Prime Minister Li."
“The students of Qingla and Shexue in our Ningyang County are coveted by the Duke of Wei and the Duke of E.”
"Just a couple of days ago, even my cousin and sworn brother came to fleece me."
"If I don't write a few memorials to make things difficult for them, it would make me seem like I'm easy to bully."
Jin'er smiled and said, "In my opinion, my husband actually knows how to solve the problem of insufficient manpower, and he also knows how to solve the problem of too many manpower after the steam engine is deployed, but my husband is unwilling to say it, isn't that right?"
Yang Shaofeng shook his head and said, "Too many people?"
"Who knows how Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen came to such a ridiculous conclusion."
"Honestly, I just can't understand it. Even if we had ten times more people, we still wouldn't have enough. How could they complain that we have too many people?"
Jin'er was slightly taken aback and asked, "Ten times more?"
"Our Great Ming Dynasty currently has over 70 million, nearly 80 million people. If that number increases tenfold or more, wouldn't it be 800 million or even close to 100 million people?"
"One hundred million people are not enough?"
Yang Shaofeng nodded and said, "The replacement of human labor by machines is an inevitable trend, but machines are inanimate and need to be operated by people. Moreover, there are many places where machines simply cannot be used."
"Putting aside other things, just take Liaodong as an example. How many people would it take to develop Liaodong?"
"And then there's Shinmei Island in Rinan County. How many people would it take to develop that huge island?"
"And then there's the continent of Yindi'an. Its territory is about the same size as the entire Ming Dynasty. Even if you put 100 million people there, it would still feel empty."
"They actually said they had too many people and it was difficult to arrange them?"
At this point, Yang Shaofeng curled his lip and said sarcastically, "Besides, I clearly wrote in my memorials that the Ming Dynasty will need a lot of oil, a lot of steel, and a lot of coal in the future. Just these three things alone will require a lot of manpower to solve."
"They don't think in that direction; instead, the more they think about it, the more skewed it becomes. But who can they blame?"
"But then again, who cares if they're biased or not? Plans can never keep up with changes, and they might find one day that they'll never have enough manpower."
Jin'er nodded and said, "That's good too. At least Godfather and Prime Minister Li have misunderstood, and won't have time to worry about Ningyang County for a while."
Yu'er's eyes darted around, and she said, "The Crown Prince's wedding is in two days. After the wedding, my husband can write another memorial about the shortage of manpower and submit it."
Yang Shaofeng was stunned.
What is this called?
Is it true that you have to destroy someone's spirit before you can kill them?
The problem is, you've struck at Old Deng's heart—that old fellow dotes on his daughter, but he might not necessarily care about his son-in-law, me!