At the court meeting that day, the officials delivered an interesting report.
In Nan'an County, Jian'an County, a naval engineer named He Man, every spring and autumn, when the sky was calm and the wind was light, he would look across the sea and find smoke stretching for thousands of miles. He thought that there should be people living on the other side of the sea.
So he told the county magistrate, the county magistrate told the county guard, and the county guard reported it to the court.
A seaman is a person who is familiar with sea lanes and drives sea ships.
There are many knowledgeable officials in the DPRK and Central Government. Even though some of them have never been to many places, they have books, and they can know many things from books.
Su Wei said: "What the fishermen said is probably Yizhou. "Linhai Tuizhi" written by Shen Ying of the Eastern Wu Dynasty records that Sun Quan, the king of Wu, sent Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi to land on Yizhou. On the island
There are indeed barbarians."
Jian'an County belongs to Fujian, and Nan'an County is Quanzhou, Fujian. Who else is separated from Fujian by a sea?
However, there is no navy in Jian'an County. The navy is in Jiangdu. If you want to cross the sea, Jiangdu needs to deploy large sea ships.
Yang Ming smiled at Su Wei and said, "Where has Fang Guogong seen "Linhai Land Chronicles"?"
Su Wei twitched the corner of his mouth and said honestly: "What I have in my house is just a transcript."
Yang Ming looked at Secretary Supervisor Liu Pin again and said, "Is there anyone in the Secretary Supervisory Department?"
"No," Liu Pin shook his head.
Su Wei quickly took the initiative and said: "I will send someone to the Secretary's Department for copying."
Yang Ming, who was discerning, smiled and said: "Since Sun Quan has been there, I, the Sui Dynasty, have no reason not to go. I ordered the Jiangdu Navy to sail fifty searches and hand them over to Xiangyang Hussar General Zhou Zhongmou, and leave from Nan'an County.
The sea master He Man served as a guide and traveled across the sea to visit foreign customs."
Duan Wenzhen, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, said: "It is not yet known whether there is Yi Island on the other side of the sea. Wu is a long-standing country, and it seems that it is not enough to rely on some ancient books to determine it. I think it is better to send three or five ships out to sea to explore first."
You're not sure, I'm sure, Yang Ming raised his hand and said: "There are Japanese countries in the east of the sea, and of course there will be Yi people living in Hainan. The ancient land of Yizhou has been recorded in Han Dynasty documents. It can't be wrong, that's it.
"
All knowledge in ancient times came from books, but books were monopolized by aristocratic families, and almost every family collected a large number of unique copies, which is of great significance for the study of history.
How much you can know about the Sui Dynasty today depends entirely on how many books you have at home, because you can't see other people's books, and you can't even see the secretary's books.
So what people know and think is very limited.
If Su Wei hadn't read "Linhai Land Chronicles", he wouldn't have known about it.
The knowledge that Yang Ming knows is a comprehensive and detailed explanation of all ancient documents and ancient books compiled by later generations. Therefore, his understanding of the world far exceeds everyone here, but when it comes to scheming and machinations, he may not be able to fight.
These are the people.
Taiwan is currently called Liuqiu Country. The barbarians living here have migrated across the sea from the mainland for thousands of years. Their genetic alleles are exactly the same as those in South China.
It was impossible for Yang Ming not to take down Liuqiu. He had to take it no matter what the cost. Of course, it didn't cost much.
Zhou Zhongmo has been in Xiangyang, helping Yang Ming run the Xiangyang Navy. Yang Ming is relieved to entrust this task to him. Zhou Zhongmo's father, Zhou Luohu, also passed away a few years ago and was sent back to his hometown in Jiujiang.
After being buried, Zhou Zhongmo was in an important position in the army, so his love was naturally taken away from him.
With fifty ships, or about two thousand people, it was impossible to destroy Liuqiu, but the preliminary test was completely sufficient.
Comrade Yang Guang's investment promotion in Zhangye has achieved great results. At present, countless caravans from the Western Regions have entered Daxing, and some have gone directly to Luoyang.
The goods sold to the West during the Sui Dynasty were mainly grain, textiles and handicrafts.
Among them, silk, linen, tea, and porcelain are the bulk. At present, the Sui Dynasty is short of food, and food is a strategic resource, so we will not sell it this time.
So what did the Sui Dynasty buy from the West? Cattle, horses, sheep, skins, wool, meat, milk and other animal husbandry products. The two sides were basically complementary, because the Sui Dynasty was a farming civilization, and the most lacking thing in farming was substitutes for labor.
of livestock.
Honglu Temple was the busiest during this period, because they had to process customs clearance documents for the incoming Hu people so that they could go to various places in the Sui Dynasty to purchase goods.
The main currency of the Hu people was gold and silver, so a large amount of gold and silver flowed into the Sui Dynasty, and the Sui Dynasty used this gold and silver to buy their things.
Because China has a vast territory and rich resources, the Sui Dynasty had a complete trade surplus, which was a huge profit.
Therefore, Yang Ming did not persuade Yang Guang to make this western inspection tour at all, because he knew the significance of the western inspection tour, which was different from building the canal. One was to spend money, and the other was to make money.
The two most outstanding porcelains of the Sui Dynasty were white glazed porcelain and green porcelain.
Green porcelain is actually celadon. The celadon craftsmanship of the Sui Dynasty was not as advanced as that of the Tang Dynasty, but the white glazed porcelain reached its peak.
Yang Ming has a lot of this stuff. It is no exaggeration to say that the high-quality white glazes produced in later generations are at this level and not much higher.
Porcelain is a very strange thing. Many fine works of ancient times cannot be produced by later generations relying on advanced technology.
After the court meeting, Yang Ming summoned someone in the East Palace.
He Chou, the Prime Minister of Taifu Temple, was the most outstanding porcelain expert in the Sui Dynasty.
"Where is the largest white kiln?" Yang Ming asked the other party after asking him to sit down.
He Chou said: "Back to Prince Edward, there are more than ten kilns between Neiqiu County in Xiangguo County and Fangfang County in Zhao County. Because there are a large amount of clay, alumina, jade (quartz) and other mineral soils in the area,
So it’s suitable for firing.”
That was the area in Wei Zheng's hometown. Yang Ming nodded and said, "You are a master of porcelain firing. Now the white glaze craft has reached its limit. Have you ever thought about how to add color?"
White glazed porcelain is a type of plain porcelain with no patterns or colors. However, the maturity of white glazed porcelain technology is the most basic condition for painted porcelain.
In fact, colored porcelain was produced in the Wu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period. It is the earliest colored porcelain. However, this porcelain is fired with dark brown pigments. The color is dim and simple, and the patterns are messy.
Beautiful.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! So Yang Ming hopes that He Chou can make pottery like Tang Sancai, or even blue and white porcelain.
He Chou also wondered why the prince was so curious about this kind of thing? I've never heard that you like porcelain?
He Chou said: "The craftsman probably knows about adding color under the glaze, but the pigment is hard to find."
It's not difficult. Tang Sancai is made of copper, iron, cobalt, and blue and white porcelain, all of which are produced in Jiangxi.
The raw materials are easy to find, but the firing process requires countless failures before it can be successful once, so Yang Ming probably pointed him in a direction and asked him to find these pigments. The rest is up to him, after all.
Yang Ming didn't know how to make pottery at all.
If painted pottery and blue and white porcelain can come out, these two items will undoubtedly be top-notch luxuries and will have a boosting effect on the entire economy.
Because the economy has always been afraid of money not circulating, and all the aristocratic families in the Sui Dynasty had a problem, they didn't spend much money.
To be more precise, the ratio between the money that should be spent and the money he had saved was seriously mismatched.
You have a million dollars in savings, but your monthly expenses are only 2,000 yuan. No, you are hindering the circulation of money.
The Sui Dynasty paid great attention to burial utensils. The top luxury jewelry was also the top funerary object.
The place where the most tri-color paintings of the Tang Dynasty were unearthed in later generations was in Beiman Mountain in Luoyang. Why? Because there are the tombs of awesome people there.
The largest celadon kiln in the Sui Dynasty was located in Kuaiji County in the south of the Yangtze River.
Xiangguo County in the north was originally part of Xingzhou, so it was called Xing Kiln in history. Kuaiji County was originally Yuezhou, and was called Yue Kiln, hence the term "Southern Green and North White".
When social, political and economic development reaches a bottleneck, there are only two ways to solve the problem.
One is called war, and the other is called technological innovation.
If the current Sui Dynasty can successfully fire painted porcelain, it can be regarded as a technological innovation. It will inject a strong impetus into the market, thereby driving economic development and avoiding the use of war to solve problems.
Therefore, this kind of thing must be in the hands of the state, and the aristocratic family should not want to get involved in it at all.
So Yang Ming directly ennobled He Chou as the minister of the Taifu Temple, responsible for collecting raw materials and firing porcelain.
This method can only delay social conflicts, but cannot cure them. If you want to cure them, you have to clean up the aristocratic families, but cleaning up the aristocratic families requires a long process, and this process requires technological innovation to provide enough time.
So Yang Ming focused on block printing and papermaking, but he had to take his time with these two projects.
At present, books are a monopoly for the royal family and aristocratic families. If you dare to popularize them, the prince will not even think about it.
This thing can only wait until the family is weakened, and an absolutely totalitarian emperor can be the last straw to break the camel's back.
At present, it is impossible to popularize schools, let alone print books.
Yang Rui and Yang Jin didn't even think about studying for a month, because they had to sit down to study, and they couldn't sit down.
Naturally, Li Shimin and Changsun Wuji couldn't read, so they took care of Yang Rui and Yang Jin honestly.
And Yang Yinjiang was pregnant again, and Pei Shuying also hoped that she would give Yang Ming another child, so in the following days, Yang Ming spent most of his time with Pei Shuying.
In November, Yang Guang returned to Beijing from Zhangye.
And several elders in charge of Dasuo Maungyue in various places are also returning to Beijing one after another.
This time, the imperial court brought back a huge amount of funds from the local area, plus taxes from the trade carried out by the barbarians from the Western Regions after they entered the Sui Dynasty, and the national treasury was full in an instant.
Now no one mentions that the money collected will be used to pay off Hebei's debts, because Hebei has no debts.
The first time Gao Xi came back, he met Yang Ming.
"There must be another general manager in Bashu. This place is rich in products and food, but most of it is in the hands of local wealthy families. My inspection this time was extremely difficult. It was blocked at every turn and the result was not ideal."
Faced with Gao Xi's helpless sigh, Yang Ming agreed:
"Improving Bashu is not something that can be accomplished in a day. In the final analysis, we still need to eliminate avoidance and allow local wealthy people to become officials, so that the root cause of the problem can be solved."
Gao Xi nodded and said: "Avoiding Bashu is an ancient tradition. It is not easy to abolish it all at once. However, I agree with His Highness's point of view. In the short term, we need to rely on the general manager to take charge. In the long term, we still need Bashu to return to our heart."
"We will discuss this matter at the court meeting tomorrow," Yang Ming said.