New Shun 1730

Cheng Tingzuo looked at his disciple with a half-smile when he heard this.

He thought that for young people, living with common people in such a place and doing boring and solid things every day was really not as passionate as Zhang Bowang and Ban Dingyuan.

He also thought that even if Meng Songlu said that he understood the difference, he was actually following Ban Dingyuan's path and wanted to become famous thousands of miles away.

After all, he had lived for a long time, and he could see the thoughts of the younger generation at a glance.

But he didn't want to say it out loud, thinking that Meng Songlu was keen on this matter. Although there was a reason that young people couldn't stand loneliness and wanted to achieve great things thousands of miles away, it was not wrong after all.

The biggest impact of Dashun's external expansion and exploration on these Confucian scholars was that it greatly expanded the concept of "the world".

Names such as Ceylon, Java, Sindhu, and Europe frequently appeared in books and publications in developed regions. The more they knew about the outside world, the larger the scope of the world would be.

The larger the scope of the world, the less fear of the distant and distant places.

The wild land that was once outside the world has now become a distant frontier within the world.

They actually don’t know where Honolulu is. But they have begun to accept the concept that the earth is a sphere. Since Dashun’s merchant ships can go to Europe every year, how far can it be?

If scholars from Yunnan and Guizhou want to go to the capital to take the exam, doesn’t it also take half a year?

Merchant ships go to Europe, and it only takes a few months or at most half a year.

Thinking in this way, the distant and unknown Honolulu, under the new world view, is at most Yunnan and Guizhou.

"Since you want to go, it's a good thing. Although there are many sarcasms in the letter from Duke Xingguo, what we do has nothing to do with his sarcasm, but only with the king's way."

"If you want to go, cross the river to the south in a few days and visit Duke Xingguo."

"In a few days, the emperor will go on a southern tour. It is expected that Duke Xingguo will also return to the capital. He wrote a letter about this at this time, which seems to mean that he wants to finish explaining everything he wants to do before leaving."

It is no secret that the emperor wants to go on a southern tour to see the reformed Jiangsu.

But Meng Songlu is young after all and has never been an official. He can't immediately understand the relationship between the emperor's southern tour and Liu Yu's no longer being sent to Jiangsu.

"Duke Xingguo is no longer sent to Songsu? Where did you get the news?"

Cheng Tingzuo did not answer, but just smiled, thinking that this matter is obvious.

Now Songsu is an important place for the court's finances and taxes, several times more than before.

The land tax did not increase much, but the revenue from industry and commerce, monopoly, and even the royal family treasury was far greater than in the past and difficult to count.

As an emperor, you can allow people to stay in the barren land of Yunnan and Guizhou forever, but you can't allow people to stay in this place forever. If you manage it for too long, even if the emperor doesn't say it, I think the Duke of Xingguo will take the initiative to avoid it.

However, Jiangsu is now transformed, giving up the land of fish and rice and gaining the benefits of cotton and silk. Food, coal, ironware, etc., all come from other places. Or, they all come from the navy.

The emperor's southern tour this time is not for sightseeing, but to see the people's livelihood and economy of Jiangsu with his own eyes, to see the attitude of these merchants who have been supported towards the emperor, or to establish his authority.

These things can be guessed by smart people.

It seems to be very different from the last southern tour, when the canal was abolished, the Huaihe River was repaired, and the salt merchants were asked for money.

This time, Cheng Tingzuo guessed that this time must be much grander than the last time.

He might even lead elite troops to escort all the way.

It is unknown whether the naval fleet will be ordered to review in Songsu.

His guess was basically correct.

But not completely.

Indeed, this time the emperor went on a southern tour, there were many ideas that Cheng Tingzuo thought of.

Including bringing the army with him.

It also included reviewing the fleet in Songsu.

Of course, including after Liu Yu completed the reform in Jiangsu, it is not to say that the bird is dead and the bow is hidden, but he will definitely not be allowed to continue to go out of the town here.

However, these ideas are relatively normal, ordinary, and understood under the concept of "old world".

The changes in the world view and concept of the world caused by Dashun's foreign exchanges have made the "old world" and the "new world" somewhat different.

The new world includes many of the old world, just like Dashun, which was under the banner of "protecting the world" at the beginning, eventually took over most of the Ming system, including taxation, central-local relations, etc.

But many of them are similar to the old world, and some are different from the old world.

It is the same at this time.

In addition to the actions under the logic of the "old world" mentioned by Cheng Tingzuo, the emperor's southern tour this time also followed the logic of the "new world view" that Cheng Tingzuo could not understand at this time.

Even though Cheng Tingzuo and others had vaguely felt that the concept of the world at this time was different from the concept of the world in the past, they still could not grasp the key difference after all.

This time, the emperor's southern tour required the elite guards of the Beijing Camp and the review of the navy in Songsu. Under the new world view, he was preparing for the upcoming external expansion.

A comprehensive world war from Europe to America, from America to Luzon, from Luzon to India, and from India to Africa, the first real world war in human history, was about to begin.

Different people have different focuses on the outside world.

For example, the group of people at Dashun Academy of Sciences, in the past few years of Jiangsu's reform, the top priority was that Benjamin Franklin used a kite to "prove" that lightning is also a kind of electricity, which is no different from frictional electricity on the land of North America.

The reason why we use "proven" is that in the general education of the new practical textbooks of Dashun, this statement is regarded as a "common sense", which is just crammed and instilled without any proof.

Later, Lomonosov, the first native academician of Luosha State, and Li Heman, another academician who proposed an incorrect thermodynamic formula, repeated the experiment... Then Lomonosov survived, and Luosha Academy of Sciences lost a physics academician on the spot.

As a result, a wave of experimental enthusiasm for "proving those strange theories of Dashun Academy of Sciences" was triggered, and various bold and life-threatening experiments were staged in various places.

The decision-making circle of Dashun was certainly not focused on this matter.

The key news they paid attention to was still the situation in Europe, the situation in India, and the struggle between the French East India Company and the British East India Company in India.

And Britain and France officially declared war in North America.

The cause was that after the "Ginseng" War, Dashun's reforms in Jiangsu seriously aggravated the bizarre situation of East-West trade.

The Netherlands, which was originally the only country that could exchange spices for goods, cooperated with Dashun.

Dashun's rapidly developing textile industry and counterfeit watch industry made it almost impossible for European goods to enter Dashun.

There weren't many in the first place.

Now it has only exacerbated this strange situation.

France was busy digging ginseng, catching mink fur, and catching deer antlers in North America. Ships of goods crossed thousands of miles of routes and came to Dashun in exchange for the oriental fine silk that the French silk textile industry urgently needed.

The French proudly said that they no longer needed to send ships to South America for smuggling to obtain enough silver to trade with the Chinese.

The Ginseng War seemed to be over, but it was not.

The French, who had tasted the sweetness, supported the Indians to go south to the Ohio Valley.

The French built many forts along the river, and with the French forts and the manpower of the Indian allies, they continued to squeeze the British North American colonies.

This was to create a buffer zone for the "monopoly of ginseng and mink fur" trade, but they did not want to have a full-scale conflict with Britain.

Because... in trade, the French have an advantage. They just want to maintain the status quo and do not want to expand the war. They have not recovered their previous vitality, and now they have gained an advantage in the trade of ginseng, mink and pearls with the Chinese.

George Washington, a young British officer, led his troops to ambush a small French force in order to get promoted.

French officer Jumonville, with the arrogance unique to the French in Europe, believed that French was the court language and diplomatic language of Europe, and shouted in French not to shoot, we are here to negotiate.

Washington certainly did not understand French, but he was not very courageous to go alone, and he did not want to confront the French head-on.

Even if he did not understand French, he did not want to make trouble.

But the leader of the British Iroquois ally, Half King, not only understood English, but also understood French very well.

Almost in an instant, Half King made a decision that was hard to say whether it was smart or not. He rushed up and hacked the French officer Jumonville to death with an axe.

The reason for the hacking, basically everyone who is familiar with history books on the Dashun side can understand.

Provoking Britain and France to go to war, so that both Britain and France would suffer losses, and the Iroquois would take the opportunity to expand.

"Yi" says: Take advantage of their hidden chaos and take advantage of their weakness and lack of a leader. Follow, enter the banquet in the dark.

It is a strategy of fishing in troubled waters.

It cannot be said that it is not a good strategy.

But the problem is that this kind of strategy similar to provoking dogs to bite dogs has a prerequisite, that is, you must be strong enough.

If you are not strong enough, it may make one family bigger and completely lose the time for development.

Everyone was hacked to death, so Washington had to do it once and for all and wipe out this French team.

But not long after, the French came back and captured Washington with the help of Indian allies.

Because the French commander in the Ohio Valley was the brother of the unfortunate Jumonville who was hacked to death.

So Washington was captured.

As mentioned before, Washington did not understand French. Although the French believed that Europeans, especially the middle and upper classes above the level of lieutenants, could not not understand French, this was only what the French thought.

So Washington was forced to sign a confession of guilt.

The confession of guilt was written in French, and the content was very clear: it was the British officer Washington who "assassinated" the French diplomat Jumonville. All future conflicts between Britain and France in North America will be the responsibility of the British.

Subsequently, Washington, who signed the French confession, was released.

If it was only this step, the decision-making circle of Dashun was not stupid, and they would naturally understand: the French were scared and did not want to go to war with the British at all, otherwise the diplomat was hacked to death, and they would just let him go?

However, the reaction from the British side was very subtle.

British companies that were jealous of the trade between France and Dashun, colonists who tried to snatch the ginseng and sable fur trade, the East India Company that determined the India priority policy but was fighting with France in India, and financial capitalists immediately used the public opinion tools in their hands to launch a comprehensive propaganda, just like the Jenkins Ear War.

Washington himself admitted that the conflict was not big, with only 20 to 30 casualties on both sides.

But soon, the 20 or 30 people he mentioned turned into 200 or 300 people in Virginia newspapers, and then turned into "more than 900 Frenchmen shot dead" as described by the public opinion controlled by capital on the streets of London.

He was a young hero who defended the interests of the British frontier and colonies.

Interestingly, some newspapers quoted some details of Washington's letter to his friend: I heard a lot of bullets whizzing by, really! There is something fascinating in this sound...

And King George of England, who actually went to the battlefield, complained: Bullshit, do you think I have never been to the battlefield? [He couldn't have heard so many bullets].

Once the public opinion controlled by capital is launched, it is impossible to stop, and it can only escalate.