For more than three months, he went deep into the grassroots fields, teahouses and restaurants, and came into contact with ordinary people, craftsmen, workers, boatmen, and even some small workshop owners and other people from all walks of life, which gave Zhu Yuanzhang a full understanding of the ten years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.
Since then, we have had a more in-depth understanding of the changes among the people.
This is a decade in which the land of China has recovered its vitality at an extremely fast speed.
Especially in recent years, materials have become more and more abundant.
He remembered that in the first year of Hongwu, some families didn't even have iron pots. In winter, a poor family could only wear a pair of trousers. The whole family stayed in the house, and only one of them could wear it when they went out.
When some people plow in the spring, they don't even have a hoe. They can only work with sticks and hands, and the production efficiency is extremely low.
During this period, when he visited several nearby provinces again, he found that such things were rare.
The people have indeed begun to become rich.
Of course, there are relatively wealthy provinces near Nanjing, and there are probably still many people in the north struggling to live below the food and clothing line.
But this is indeed a huge improvement compared to ten years ago.
Such a change has a great relationship with the policy of self-cultivation and rest that Zhu Yuanzhang has been promoting for the past ten years.
Since the establishment of the Ming Empire, except for the wars to regain territory that had to be carried out in the surrounding areas, Zhu Yuanzhang basically would not start a war lightly, and even restrained the recruitment of civilians.
Even when he conquered other worlds, he was cautious and tried not to bring troops from the early Ming Dynasty unless necessary. Even if he mobilized troops from the Ming Dynasty, he never brought in grain and grass.
All supplies of food and grass come from the other world itself.
In this way, after ten years, the national power of the Ming Empire finally showed signs of prosperity.
This is what makes Zhu Yuanzhang most gratified.
But Zhu Yuanzhang was not satisfied with such changes.
What he wants is a prosperous world where everyone has clothes to wear and food to eat.
If we continue to cultivate our health in this way, I am afraid it will be difficult to achieve this goal in twenty or thirty years.
Because in the original history, he always insisted on the policy of recuperating the people, and he did not change it until he died of old age in the 31st year of Hongwu.
And many of his descendants also pursued the same policy.
Even though there are a few bastards, most of them can at least do this.
However, looking at the entire 276-year history of the Ming Dynasty, he clearly saw that in fact, the people lived the best in the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties, which had the cleanest officials and the most severe punishments for official corruption.
People are becoming more and more lenient, but the lives of ordinary people are becoming more and more difficult.
Slowly, it fell into the same situation as in the late Yuan Dynasty, when corrupt officials and local tyrants and gentry jointly exploited the people.
Of course, these are not problems for him now, because he will live longer than the original history, and those officials of the court will live under his rule for a long time in the future.
Under his own rule, no corrupt official can escape the sanction of the court's laws.
The really serious problem for the Ming Dynasty was actually natural disasters.
The entire Ming Dynasty was actually in a stage where natural disasters occurred frequently. As time went on, the number of natural disasters increased. This was also one of the important factors that led to the eventual destruction of the Ming Dynasty.
But relying only on self-recuperation and trying to resist natural disasters is wishful thinking.
It is just a legend that manpower is exhausted and man can conquer nature.
The reality is that a flood will take away countless lives, destroy decades of development in an area, and create tens of thousands of refugees.
As for the cultivators?
The kind of people who can't even kill a pig by using the secret technique of sky thunder, and can't even drop enough rainwater to bathe a child when using the falling rain technique. For a big empire, they can play a minimal role.
The only way to change this situation is to develop industry.
This is the conclusion Zhu Yuanzhang came to after experiencing the two planes of the late Ming Dynasty and the late Qing Dynasty, especially the late Qing Dynasty plane, and seeing the rapid changes in science and technology there.
In the next ten years, the tone set by Zhu Yuanzhang for the Ming Empire was development.
Establish workshops covering all walks of life, build roads, dredge rivers, develop breeding industries... Each of these things needs to be completed.
To accomplish these things, there is a prerequisite, which requires huge financial support.
This couldn't help but remind Zhu Yuanzhang of a piece of news that Zhu Biao told him before.
Japan has silver mines.
And silver is the thing that Ming Dynasty needs most for its rapid development.
Although the Ming Dynasty has replaced the use of silver money with treasure banknotes, every bank still needs a large amount of silver as a principal reserve to prepare for emergencies.
In addition, they still need to go to the late Qing Dynasty to conduct large-scale transactions with foreigners. The current productivity of the Ming Dynasty is still very weak, and material production cannot even fully satisfy the domestic market, and it is simply unable to support the export of large quantities of goods.
But silver is different.
After all, it was dug out of a silver mine, shipped to the late Qing Dynasty, and exchanged for various machine tools and various advanced technologies from gringos.
Therefore, after Zhu Yuanzhang visited and investigated for three months and determined that the people were stable enough and the time was basically ripe to conquer the Japanese country, he called Tang He over.
"Tang He, we are preparing to conquer the Japanese country!"
"Look at it!"
"Those Japanese are too arrogant, we must give them some color!"
Zhu Yuanzhang handed a memorial to Tang He with a serious look on his face.
Tang He took it and took a look, his face straightened.
"The Japanese people are so hateful. Your Majesty sent envoys to ask them to pay tribute to our heavenly kingdom. Instead of obeying, they killed my envoys from the Ming Dynasty. This matter is intolerable. They must be given a sufficient lesson.
.”
Although this incident actually happened seven years ago.
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang exposed it lightly.
But seven years later, when Tang He talks about it now, he still speaks righteously, as if he had just learned about it.
"Very good!" Zhu Yuanzhang was quite satisfied with Tang and this old brother's answer.
"We will mobilize fifteen warships and thirty troop transport ships for you. You will bring eight thousand navy and twenty thousand new infantry to conquer the Japanese country. You must bring back the guy who killed my Ming envoy. I will kill him myself.
His head!”
"Of course, we are not going to wipe out the Japanese country. We will let the fourth child go with you. This guy has performed well in the past few years. Let him go on our behalf this time. After you have stabilized the overall situation, let him
Stay there and practice for a few years to see if you can control the situation in Japan."
"Yes!" Tang He respectfully performed a military salute.
As for discussing with the courtiers and officials about using troops to fight externally, for Zhu Yuanzhang, this did not exist.
I'm just fighting a war, do I need anyone's consent?