The tenth year of Apocalypse is the late spring.

Although a year has passed, according to Shaanxi Governor Ma Maocai, the severe drought is still continuing.

Even some places have shown signs of locust flooding.

However, because Zhu Youxiao ordered Ma Mao to organize a locust catch team last year, raised a large number of ducks and ate a lot of locusts in advance, the locust plague in many places in Shaanxi has not yet experienced a large-scale flooding.

In addition, after ten years of Zhu Youxiao's governance, the Ming Dynasty, due to its strong financial resources, established official medical clinics in various places. Zhu Youxiao ordered clinics in various places to bury the starving people, sprinkle lime everywhere, and even kill rats, mosquitoes and flies, so the plague in Shaanxi has not yet occurred on a large scale due to drought.

In addition, many people in Shaanxi can no longer feel the impact of drought.

Some of them have begun to participate in the water conservancy construction organized by the government and have become workers.

Most of them took their families and crossed the ocean to the Rhodan area in the northern part of the Bay of Bengal in later generations, and began to participate in the enclosure movement organized by the Ming Ocean Development Company.

"Bang!"

A wisp of white smoke rose.

Zhang Xianzhong looked at the dead native landlord and the local soldiers who fled in a panic, curled up his lips slightly, carried the three-eyed gun on his shoulders, and then took out the wine bag at his waist and took a sip of the strong wine.

The three-eyed gun and spirits are now the old Qin people who were arranged to Ruodan to carry out the enclosure mission.

Because the three-eyed gun can be used as a firearm to shoot and kill natives, or it can be used as an iron bone to hit people directly.

As for the spirits, it naturally boosts the air.

Zhang Xianzhong now likes this kind of life very much. He can open up hundreds of miles of land for the Ming Dynasty in one day with a three-eyed gun, a pot of strong wine, and a horse.

These lands will become Zhang Xianzhong's farm, and his relatives and friends will farm in his farm except for fighting with him.

Moreover, Zhang Xianzhong only needs to pay relatively low public grain to the company to be recognized by the company and protected by the company's standing armed forces.

However, those who can fight wars like Zhang Xianzhong are already the larger manor here, and there are a bunch of native slaves who can be used to farm, and his relatives and friends have become the managers of his farm.

Just like in history when the Qing Dynasty entered the pass, some Eight Banner nobles would enclose land and even forcefully plunder the Han people to make clothes.

Zhang Xianzhong is doing such a job now.

Li Hongji was no worse than him. He led the entire Lijiazhai village, including his nephew Li Guo, to this area, and soon became a force and a large manor owner.

In short, in order to avoid large-scale peasant uprisings caused by continuous droughts and to avoid the financial crisis of the court due to continuous disaster relief, Zhu Youxiao began to transfer the impact of natural disasters on the Ming Empire to other regions.

After all, who made the current Ming Empire a super empire of this era?

The Ming Empire was hit by disaster, and other countries could not have a good life.

"Although Shaanxi is now a thousand miles away, it is no longer hungry. A large number of people were hired in batches by Ocean Development Company and transported them overseas. However, according to Governor Ma Maocai, Shaanxi is now empty. After a large amount of farmland is idle, weeds have grown. In addition to the official roads, weeds have appeared on many roads."

Zhu Youxiao has returned to Beijing now, and at this time, Yuan Keli reported to him the latest situation in Shaanxi.

"The decree was given to Ma Maocai, asking him to organize those who stay in Shaanxi to turn idle farmland into forest land and plant more trees to consolidate water and soil. The intensification of drought may be related to the reduction of trees and the intensification of loess in that area. In addition, we will take this opportunity to build water conservancy and dredge river channels so as to minimize the impact of drought."

Zhu Youxiao said.

"Your Majesty, according to the report of the Ministry of Works, there are many coal mines in Shaanxi. Therefore, the Ministry of Works suggests that coal mines can be opened to solve the food problems of the affected people in Shaanxi, without having to transport them overseas in large quantities to expand the soil."

Xu Guangqi talked about something here again.

After hearing this, Zhu Youxiao was not good at bringing them up with any coal that is a non-renewable resource. He said only on the grounds that it does not affect the feng shui of the dragon vein: "If the mines in the pass are not necessary, try not to open as much as possible to avoid affecting our Chinese dragon vein. When mining should be opened as much as possible and those outside the pass should be kept for the first time. These mines in the pass are like ancestral properties. They should not be mined and used unless they have to. The affected people should try to move to arable land overseas as much as possible."

"yes!"

Xu Guangqi replied.

"Since I've heard that there are many local gentry or tyrants in the people who open mines privately. According to logic, mines are the private property of the emperor, so we must tell the world clearly that it is not allowed to open mines privately. Once discovered, the mine will be sealed and the family will be punished!"

Zhu Youxiao continued.

"Abide by the order!"

...

"How is the steam locomotive being developed now? In addition, I asked you to conduct related dissolution and inflatable experiments on the rubber you brought from Nanyang. How is it going? Now that all kinds of steam engines have begun to appear, these cars and new wheels conceived by me must also appear as soon as possible to facilitate longer-distance transportation in the future. After the Ming Dynasty immigrated a large number of people overseas to drive the border due to natural disasters, the area it ruled will naturally become larger and larger. At that time, better cars will naturally be needed."

Zhu Youxiao suddenly asked about the progress of the manufacturing of steam locomotives and rubber tires.

Xu Guangqi replied: "At present, the locomotive has been made at a speed of 20 miles, but the rails designed by His Majesty have not been laid yet. Therefore, the locomotive has not been moved to the rails for testing. It is expected that if you want to truly achieve what Your Majesty said, you have to wait a little longer, but it is also soon. As for the rubber experiment, pneumatic tires have been made and have been promoted to carriages for use. The shock absorption system is indeed good. In addition, the Academy of Sciences has manufactured the bicycle designed by His Majesty, and pneumatic tires are currently installed and are about to be presented."

Zhu Youxiao was quite surprised after hearing this and asked, "Is that true, the bicycle wheels and wires are difficult to pull, how do you make them?"

"By your Majesty, since Song Yingxing and others promoted converter steelmaking on the basis of crucible steelmaking according to your instructions, they have tried to add some other metal elements. Now they have obtained a kind of wire that is easier to pull into wire, but it is expensive."

Xu Guangqi replied.

Zhu Youxiao nodded: "Hurry to send it to the palace. I want to take a closer look. In addition, since we can pull out the wire, we should reduce the cost as soon as possible. In the future, there will be many places to use these wires. For example, when defending against Tartars in the border town, we can first arrange a circle of wires with barbed and bells on the periphery, which can be faster and easier to detect than building a wall!"

"What Your Majesty said is that now that these new things have emerged, the court's demand for coal and iron will surge in the future. Since it cannot be mined within the pass, it is necessary to continue to explore more mineral land outside the pass."

Xu Guangqi replied.

"It is not only the increase in demand for coal and iron, but the number of troops will increase again in the future. Not only the victims, but also the workers who have been unemployed due to the emergence of various steam engines. With so many soldiers, it is time to launch a large-scale war to eliminate the Eastern Barbarians. The Tatar tribes are all nomadic tribes, and it is difficult to wipe out them all, and it is difficult to cause great trouble. The Eastern Barbarians must be completely wiped out."

As Zhu Youxiao said, he looked at Zhu Xieyuan, the new minister in charge of the Ministry of War, and said: "The Ministry of War needs to set up recruitment offices in various prefectures, prefectures and counties to recruit young and strong people from all over the country, and to concentrate on training first, and the training must be strict. In addition, new students from each school must also carry out one month of combat training."
Chapter completed!