Chapter 67 Chapter 67 Staying in the Capital
Just when Yonglian and the craftsmen of the Imperial Household Department were brainstorming to make a steam plow, Qianlong assigned Yonghuang a job and asked him to walk around in the study.
Shuhede had previously been in charge of translating the books. Fluent in Manchu, Chinese, and Mongolian, Shuhede was well-suited to the task. However, he was currently the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of War and was also busy teaching the princes in the Shangshu a language of both Chinese and Mongolian, keeping him extremely busy.
Qianlong gave the task of flipping through the study to De Tong.
Qianlong asked Yonghuang and Detong to study, which caused a huge uproar. After all, the eldest prince was still a young boy of thirteen or fourteen years old!
But Yonghuang is currently just walking around the study, similar to an internship, and does not make any decisions.
Yonghuang was very frightened. He was unprepared and knew nothing about the work of looking through the study.
Yonglian encouraged him, "You need to learn when you're not familiar with something. Everyone starts by not knowing how to do something. Even Khan Ama wasn't very good at planning when he first became emperor." He lowered his voice and said, "I heard that when Khan Ama first ascended the throne, he couldn't even recognize all the ministers."
Yonghuang: "..." Although he was comforted, could you please not use Khan Ama as an example?
"If you don't understand anything, you can ask Master Shu." Yonglian said.
Yonghuang thought about it and realized that they could see Shuhede almost every day, so it was indeed very convenient to ask him questions.
"Why did Khan Ama suddenly assign me a task?" Yonghuang couldn't understand.
"Of course it's because big brother performs well in the Shangshufang!" Yonglian was very happy for his big brother. Big brother was a little shy, but he was very careful in his work, so he was suitable for the job of book editing and proofreading.
He flattered Yonghuang, and Yonghuang finally gained some confidence. He planned to seize this opportunity. This was his first step into the court. If he didn't handle this well, the Khan Ama would not assign him more important tasks in the future.
Qianlong assigned Yonghuang a task in the hope of making Yonglian feel a sense of crisis.
But the boy was excited for his elder brother for two days and soon returned to his previous state.
"Guochao News" has been put on the right track. Most of the time, Hongxiao is in charge of it, and occasionally Qianlong also checks newspapers from various places.
Yonglian was a hands-off boss who only asked about things a few times a month.
Qianlong thought that you would be anxious when there was trouble below, but Hongxiao was very concerned about the matter, and as the emperor, he often asked about it. From the editorial team in the palace to the newspaper offices in various places, no one made any trouble.
Now the imperial poems are not published every month, but occasionally the works of some princes and ministers are published.
Some of the articles were commissioned by the editorial team, while others were submitted by the authors themselves.
There is no payment for publishing poems, everyone does it purely to show off their poetic talent.
However, serializing novels and stories does bring generous royalties. The most recently serialized book is "Journey to the West Sequel", and the author is signed as "Nanxing".
This story is very imaginative and tells the story of four masters and apprentices who, after becoming Buddhas, punish evil and promote good in the human world.
The writing style is easy to understand and has a touch of humor. Although pedantic scholars look down on such works, low-level officials who can read a little love it. There are also storytellers in teahouses who tell this story to illiterate people.
Some Manchus who did not have a deep cultural background also liked this story. According to Mingrui, his father was anxiously waiting for it every day, and in order to see the next chapter in advance, he even sent a jar of wine to Prince Yi.
Yonglian laughed and said, "Nanxing won't send the manuscript to the editorial team before the deadline. No matter how much wine he sends, Prince Yi won't be able to show it to Fourth Uncle!"
"Yes, my father came back disappointed and said angrily that he could just write a book himself and write a better one than this Nanxing one." Mingrui said.
Yonglian gives full support, let's all participate in the creation of "Journey to the West" fan fiction!
The sales of "Guochao News" have been increasing in the past two years, especially after the interviews and articles about cowpox vaccination were published last year. Many people wanted to know whether cowpox vaccination was reliable and specially bought those two issues of the newspaper.
Newspaper shops in various places printed more copies several times but it was still not enough. Some poor scholars even bought newspapers themselves and explained the method of cowpox vaccination to illiterate people.
Some prefectures and counties would organize the people to be vaccinated against cowpox, while remote villages could only find dairy cows themselves.
Although there were a few cases where vaccination failed or caused wound infection, most people successfully vaccinated their children against cowpox based on the explanations in the newspapers.
Newspapers played an important role in the popularization of cowpox, but ethnic minorities in the Huguang area were isolated from information. The Miao people controlled by the chieftains were still in the midst of war last year and missed the news.
Even if someone knew the benefits of cowpox, if their chieftains were against the imperial court, they would be prevented from getting vaccinated.
The Miao people were in chaos again. Some small chieftains could not bear the oppression of the big chieftains and surrendered to the court. The court immediately arranged for people to vaccinate the children in the village against cowpox and gave them new looms.
When other chieftains heard about this, many of them also surrendered. However, the great chieftains would not bow to the imperial court for such a small benefit. The lives of the common people had nothing to do with them, and they did not want to pay taxes to the imperial court anyway.
There were also those gentry in Jiangnan who did not want to pay taxes to the court. The previous emperor had begun to implement the system of equalizing the land tax, but they quickly came up with a solution.
After all, there are many people who have no land and still have to rely on these landlords.
However, as textile factories in Jinling and Suzhou sprang up like mushrooms after rain, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was also constantly recruiting workers. Some people chose to go to the city to work in factories. Moreover, both men and women could do this job, and two incomes were enough to support their families.
Only the landlords who lived closer to the textile factories felt vaguely uneasy, while more landlords were still immersed in the sense of superiority of owning grain fields.
Xinji opened its doors in Jiangnan, and wealthy businessmen in Jiangnan liked to have their glasses customized to show off their wealth and taste. Some people would spend hundreds of taels to make a pair of glasses.
There were also pressure cookers, which were purchased by wealthy businessmen. In order to show off their wealth, many restaurants replaced their kitchen utensils with new ones and placed stoves at the entrance. The aroma of braised meat filled the air, and customers were attracted by the aroma and the new pots.
Pan Zhencheng led the merchant ship north, passing through Jinling, Suzhou and other places, and found that many things that were very rare in England were already very popular here.
He also heard that a steam water pump appeared in Zhili this year, which made it very convenient to irrigate farmland.
At present, only Zhili, which is close to the water, is using it.
Pan Zhencheng looked at the drawing of the Newcomen steam engine that he had secretly drawn, and was not sure whether it was the same kind of steam power.
In August, Pan Zhencheng arrived in Tianjin. He first went to Beijing to meet the emperor, and the other goods were transported to the capital by a special person.
As he passed by a farmland, he saw someone plowing the land with an iron plow attached to a large iron box that was emitting smoke.
Pan Zhencheng, who had seen the Newcomen steam engine, immediately recognized it as a steam engine.
Could steam engines actually be used to plow fields?
Although he only saw one or two along the way, Pan Zhencheng was still very excited.
He had made up his mind that he would sing praises of the emperor when he met him.
However, when he arrived in the capital, he learned that the Emperor had taken the Empress Dowager to Mulan for the Autumn Hunt. He could only see Prince Lu, Prince He, the Second Prince, and several officials from the Grand Council who remained in the capital.
Yonglian was furious when talking about the Mulan Autumn Hunt. He and his elder brother were originally on the imperial entourage. But just before departure, he was practicing archery during a horseback archery class when he somehow strained a muscle in his shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain.
For the next few days, I couldn't lift my left arm. The imperial physician said I needed to apply some blood-activating and blood-stasis-removing medicinal oil, and that it would take about ten days to recover.
How could he walk without even being able to lift his arms? Qianlong therefore asked Yonglian to stay, and on August 13th, the Emperor's birthday, he asked Yonglian to go to the Taimiao on his behalf to offer sacrifices.
Yonglian couldn't believe it at the time. Wasn't Khan Ama afraid that he and the Empress would say bad things about him?
If it were the previous two years, Qianlong might not have been reassured. But through listening to the communication between Yonglian and Khan Ama's spirits over the past two years, he discovered that the grandfather and grandson discussed nothing more than designing various things.
On the summer solstice, he took Yonglian to offer sacrifices to the Taimiao, and Yonglian talked to Khan Ama's spirit about the steam plow for half an hour.
Qianlong was so sleepy listening to what was going on that the brat finally left reluctantly after he urged him to leave.
Qianlong was in a complicated mood, feeling both worried and relieved.
But having him offer sacrifices to the Imperial Ancestral Temple was also a form of training. It wasn't that offering sacrifices to the Imperial Ancestral Temple was difficult, but rather that performing the sacrifices on his behalf held extraordinary significance. This kid should finally be aware that he's the future crown prince, right?
Yonghuang accompanied the emperor on the Mulan Autumn Hunt, and the classes in the Shangshufang were suspended. Yonglian was recuperating from his injuries in the past few days. Every day he either played with his sister or went to see his third, fourth, and fifth brothers.
When Qianlong learned that this brat had not even read a book or practiced writing a few pages in the past half month, he was very angry and sent someone to convey his oral order, ordering Yonglian to help Prince Lu and Prince He.
Yonglian couldn't protest even if he wanted to. Since Khan Ama was not there, he couldn't bargain.
Fortunately, his twelfth uncle and fifth uncle were both good people and did not ask him to do any work. Zhang Tingyu smiled even more kindly when he saw him.
Yonglian would just punch in every day and then follow his fifth uncle to listen to stories.
Uncle Wu knows so much gossip, from the royal family to the civil and military officials, he knows everything, including which family favors the concubine and kills the wife, and which family has given birth to twins, a boy and a girl.
If he doesn't know something, he can ask Prince Lu. As the head of a professional team for weddings and funerals, Prince Lu has seen more excitement.
Prince Lu and his wife are still grateful to Yonglian for his help in Fu Liang's succession to the title. They have a very good impression of this little nephew. He is smart and capable, and the designated crown prince is reliable.
Prince Lu was also very kind to Yonglian and told him that he didn't need to come every day. There was nothing important in the capital, and all important matters were sent to Mulan Paddock for the emperor's personal approval.
However, some of the officials who introduced the emperor needed to be arranged to stay first and wait for the emperor to return.
Prince Lu and his men thought it would be okay to meet a businessman like Pan Zhencheng first. After all, he brought several ships of goods, and whether they were to be stored in the warehouse or sent to Mulan Palace needed to be arranged early.
Yonglian would not get involved in the matter of meeting with foreign officials, for fear that he would be accused of colluding with foreign officials.
But he really wanted to meet Pan Zhencheng and see what good things he brought back.
Hong Zhou knew that Yong Lian was interested in Western affairs, so he brought him along.
Since the emperor was away, Pan Zhencheng did not report many important details and only talked about the transactions along the way.
Pan Zhencheng was thinner than the last time Yonglian saw him, and he seemed to have aged completely.
Yonglian asked a few questions with concern, "Did you have a hard time on the road? Did you encounter any danger?"
"My dear young master, although we encountered a few storms along the way, we were able to escape danger safely. However, the vegetables we brought with us ran out early, so we had to rely on dry food. I had hoped to replenish some food in Europe, but the food there..." He said with an expression that was difficult to describe. "The food in their high-end restaurants was also terrible. I had to bring some potatoes, pumpkins, dry food, and dried meat back home."
After this trip, Pan Zhencheng's Mandarin became even worse, but fortunately he found a trusted translator.
Yunlu and Hongzhou hurriedly said that they would host a banquet for Pan Zhencheng to let him taste the flavors of his hometown.
Pan Zhencheng thought that the food in Beijing didn't taste like home anymore. He would rather go back to Fujian and eat seafood. However, he had never been a person who cared much about food. He had endured the dark food in Europe. The food in Beijing was naturally delicious compared to the British dishes stewed with more than a dozen kinds of meat.
The raw silk and tea he brought were almost sold out in Europe, especially the tea. He brought several new varieties that the European nobles had never tasted, and the price was several times higher than what foreign merchants bought in Guangzhou's Thirteen Factories.
England's overseas trade is controlled by the great nobles. If people from other countries want to enter Britain to trade, they must have good relations with these nobles.
Pan Zhencheng met with the noble representative in charge of trade and expressed his interest in English woolen cloth. He praised the cloth highly and wanted to order a large amount of it.
Prince Lu and others couldn't help but frown when they heard the number Pan Zhencheng said.
"So much wool? Can it be sold?" Hong Zhou asked. Actually, the Qing Dynasty didn't like wool as much as Pan Zhencheng said! His wife thought it was too heavy and rarely wore it.
Pan Zhencheng said: "It will definitely be sold. The worst that can happen is to lower the price."
Yonglian was even more confused, "Then you won't make much money?" After all, the expenses on the road are not small, and the woolen fabrics may get moldy and damaged.
Pan Zhencheng smiled and explained that he signed such a large order in order to estimate Britain's production and get a glimpse of Britain's textile technology.
As he signed the order, he was worried that Britain would not be able to deliver on time.
The nobleman took him to visit a factory and told him that the textile machines they used were new and they would definitely be able to deliver the goods on time.
Yonglian: "So you know how they produce woolen cloth?"
Pan Zhencheng nodded, "There's also a senior official from the Weaving Bureau traveling with us. He understands this better than I do."
Yonglian was overjoyed. The Qing Dynasty had not yet been able to weave fabrics such as woolen cloth and feather gauze, and even the empress was worried about this.
Pan Zhencheng finally brought this technology back.
Pan Zhencheng also said that he had seen a Newcomen steam engine, but that it was very easy to break down and was only used in coal mines. The Qing Dynasty's steam engines were already used in the fields.
He also saw coal tracks, steam pumps and other things.
Pan Zhencheng finally concluded that the fact that foreigners invented these things does not prove that they are smarter than the people of the Qing Dynasty, but simply because they need them. If one industry develops and other industries do not keep up, the entire industry will be affected. For the sake of money, those businessmen naturally start to use their brains.
Pan Zhencheng also brought back some useless gadgets, such as music boxes, high heels, wine and beer.
These things were all on the boat, and no one dared to look at them without Emperor Qianlong's approval.
Yunlu and Hongchu asked a lot of questions about the European royal families. Although monogamy was practiced there, it was common for royal families to find lovers outside, and illegitimate children were born one after another.
Hong Zhou found that the content was becoming more and more inappropriate for children. Not only did men take pride in having mistresses, but women also enjoyed having affairs.
The child beside him listened with great interest. Hong Zhou was afraid that he might be led astray, so he hurriedly said, "Yong Lian, it's time for dinner. Go back and have dinner with your mother."
Yunlu also reacted, and the uncle and nephew used various reasons to drive Yonglian away.
Yonglian didn't want to leave, he wanted to hear gossip.
Hong Zhou had no choice but to use his trump card, "If you don't leave, we will tell your Khan Ama."
Yonglian: “…”
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