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All the officials raised their glasses and shouted, and they all killed them in one gulp, and no one really drank slowly.

The emperor gave the banquet, using the private treasury of the royal family.The food and drink are not luxurious, but they are also quite delicious. Zhao Han is no longer so picky.

After the officials put down their wine glasses, Zhao Han finally brought up the topic of today's meeting: "Do you know that the earth is a sphere? Those who want to speak can raise their right arms."

More than half of the officials raised their hands.

Zhao Han pointed to one of them: "You tell me."

It was Yan Tinghui, an official from Fujian. He stood up and bowed to him and said, "Your Majesty, I am from Fujian. When I was a young man studying, I met Western Hongmaofan people. They came from the West thousands of miles away. According to these Hongmaofan people It is said that a small country in the west sailed westward and crossed the sea to a continent. This continent was named America. If you take a boat on this continent and go westward, you will be the country of Luzon in the South Sea. It can be seen from this that the land is indeed A sphere too."

As soon as this remark came out, the banquet scene was noisy, and many officials really didn't know it.

Zhao Han is very satisfied with this, and every morning in the future, he can spread new knowledge to all officials, lest their vision is still so narrow.

Zhao Han pointed to Julian Ai: "Master Ai, tell me."

Among all the missionaries, Aileen was the most proficient in Confucianism.Even his Confucianism recuperation can crush many Ming scholars.He advocated the integration of Christianity and Confucianism, and advocated respect for the customs of Han Chinese believers. Therefore, when the missionaries were expelled, Aurelius was not affected in the slightest, and now he has become a master of Qintian Academy.

The Italian old man dressed in the official mansion, bowed to Zhao Han, and bowed to all the officials: "Your Majesty, the earth is indeed a sphere. There is a sun in nine days, just like a king. The earth and the five stars (five major planets) all revolve around the sun." , Just like all the ministers defending the king. Your Majesty is the sun, which shines brightly. The people are all things, and the sun shines everywhere, so they can prosper."

"well said!"

Zhao Han accepted the flattery and said with a smile, "Tell the officials again, what countries are there in the west?"

Aurelius began to popularize science for all officials: "There are island countries in the far west, which are called England and Scotland. There are also continents, and there are many small countries. France, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Rakshasa (Tsarist Russia), Poland... and so on. In the Near East, there are Ottomans, Persians, Mughals..."

The officials listened carefully.

Zhao Han asked, "Which countries are the strongest?"

Ai Julius said: "For the western countries, if you talk about the army, France is the strongest, and if you talk about the navy, the Netherlands is the strongest. There is also the Raksha country, which has a vast territory, bitter cold and barren, and has a large number of troops. The Ottomans, Persians and others in the Near East The Mughals are all countries that are slightly inferior to my Datong China."

Yang Guanji was confused and couldn't help raising his hand.

Zhao Han said, "Please tell me."

Yang Guanji immediately asked: "Mr. Ai, I have heard about Persia. Where are these Ottomans and Mughals?"

Ai Julius explained: "The Mughals are in Tianzhu, and the monarch of this country is a descendant of Genghis Khan. As for Ottoman, it covers half of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory is the big food country in Chinese history books."

"Dashi, Persia, and Tianzhu, so that's how it is." Yang Guanji understood a little bit, and asked again, "Which of these three countries is the strongest?"

Ayulio said: "Persia is caught in the middle, and most of the land is annexed by other two countries."

Another official raised his hand, and was allowed by Zhao Han to ask: "How does the land of the three kingdoms compare with my court in Datong?"

Ai Julius replied: "The size of our country today is comparable to that of Mughal, slightly larger than Persia, and certainly not as good as Ottoman."

"hiss!"

The ministers gasped.

"Is the land fertile in these countries?"

"Some are fertile and some are barren. The land of Tianzhu seems to be fertile. The quality of cotton produced there is better than that of Lumian."

"Tianzhu cotton is actually better than Lumian?"

"Indeed. English merchants bought more Indian cotton."

"Where is the Raksha country? The name of this country is quite interesting."

"..."

Zhao Han was very pleased with the results of this court meeting and banquet, and the global vision of the officials was illuminated.

Chapter 526 [Lantern Festival]

In the fourth year of the Republic of China, it was 4342 in the lunar calendar and 1645 in the Western calendar.

According to the original history, at this time, the Manchu Qing army had already occupied the entire north, and only part of the territory in Hubei was left in the Dashun Dynasty.Zuo Liangyu was at the side of the Qing emperor, and Zhang Xianzhong was fighting hard with Nanming in Sichuan.

By the way, Tsarist Russia is here!

Although the most eastern city built by Tsarist Russia is Ust-Kut in the northwest of Lake Baikal.However, a group of one hundred Cossack cavalry rushed all the way to the mouth of Heilongjiang.

The population along the way was not much left by the Qing Dynasty, and the Cossack cavalry seemed to be in a land of no one.

They don't want food, they only grab what they can eat in the short term.

The natives didn't have gold and silver for them to grab, so they stared at the fur.Order the Beishan savages, Sauron natives, and Sakhalian natives along the way to offer furs that should have been left to the Qing Dynasty.

Tsarist Russia expanded thousands of kilometers in Siberia, and the driving force was to obtain fur.

At this time, it was the Little Ice Age, Europe was frighteningly cold, and fur was very expensive.The fur business was the mainstay of Tsarist Russia's economy. It relied entirely on selling fur to support the army, and it relied entirely on selling fur for the squandering of the royal family.

In the first half of last year, Beishan Savage came to grab a trip.

In the second half of last year, the Tsarist Russian Cossack cavalry came again, and the robbery route was pretty similar.

The Manchu nobles were very angry and sent cavalry to pursue them again.

But the Tsarist Russian cavalry had already slipped away, and they couldn't even touch their hair.The Cossack cavalry only lost two people (the ones were frozen to death and frostbitten), and they retreated all the way to Lake Baikal, loaded with stolen furs.

During the New Year, the Ministry of War sent an emergency military situation.

"Your Majesty, the pseudo-emperor of Yunnan has removed his imperial title, and brought along Mu Tianbo to request to join us!"

"what happened?"

Zhao Han was very surprised when he heard that, he grabbed the military newspaper with one hand, only to find out that the emperor in Yunnan was killed by the chieftain and fled in a hurry, and Kunming had already been occupied by the chieftain army.

The chieftain of the rebellion was called Sha Dingzhou.

Sha Dingzhou's father is Sha Yuan. During the Wanli period, he made great contributions in resisting Annan's invasion.Since Annan's lawsuit has been abolished, all the territory under the jurisdiction of Annan's court was awarded to Sha Yuan by the imperial court.

That piece of land is Mengzi, Yunnan.

During the reign of Tianqi, during the chaos of She'an, Sha Yuan made great contributions again, and was promoted by the imperial court to be a Xuanfu envoy.

During the reign of Chongzhen, the chieftain of Yunnan rebelled from time to time.Under the guise of countering the rebellion, Sha Yuan kept looting the surrounding area and accumulated countless money and food.

After Sha Yuan's death, the eldest son Sha Dinghai succeeded to the throne. Because of his incompetence, the chieftain of the Sha family gradually declined.

The reputation of Tuzhizhoupu in Ami Prefecture is not a chieftain, but better than a chieftain.After this person died, his wife Wan Shi remarried to Sha Dinghai.The second son, Sha Dingzhou, secretly had an affair with this sister-in-law, and the two conspired to expel Sha Dinghai and stand on his own.

After expelling Sha Dinghai, the adulterous uncle and sister-in-law murdered Wan Shi and his first husband's son, directly annexing Ami Prefecture in essence.

In other words, in order to help his lover, Wan expelled his second husband and killed himself and his original son!

In this way, Sha Dingzhou owned two chieftain territories, and loyally helped Mu Tianbo fight the war.Mu Tianbo never expected that Sha Dingzhou would rebel, and he had no defense against this guy at all.

Last winter, Sha Dingzhou raised troops suddenly, and like his dead father, he has been using the pretense of calming down the chaos.

Mu Tianbo was still very happy, feeling that Sha Dingzhou was really loyal and took the initiative to help the court put down the rebellion.In the end, all the way to the outside of Kunming city, Mu Tianbo was caught off guard, and quickly fled with the emperor and ministers.

They counterattacked many times, but were repelled by Sha Dingzhou, so they had to retreat to the Yunnan-Guizhou border, requesting to surrender to the Datong court.

Historically, Mu Tianbo fought for two or three years, but he had no choice but to take Sha Dingzhou, and Sha Dingzhou even counterattacked into Guizhou.It was Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo who defeated Sha Dingzhou and helped the small court of Nanming regain Kunming.

After discussing with the cabinet ministers, Zhao Han immediately gave a reply: accept the submission of the puppet emperor of Yunnan and Mu Tianbo, but cut off all their titles and official positions.If they wanted to be officials, they had to come to Nanjing to receive ideological education, and they could start as mayors in the future.As for their land, it will be distributed to the farmers according to the rules in the future, but each of them is allowed to keep [-] mu more.

As for the treasures and food, hehe, Sha Dingzhou took them all in his hasty escape.

Now Mu Tianbo still has more than [-] troops, but he can't even pay the army's salary. The soldiers are all hungry and waiting for food.Mu Tianbo couldn't hold back any longer. Many officers led troops to plunder everywhere in northern Yunnan, just to grab a bite to eat.

The imperial court's reply was sent to Yunnan immediately, Zhao Han and the ministers didn't care whether the puppet emperor and Mu Tianbo accepted it or not.

What can a group of laggards be worth?

If they had dedicated the entire territory of Yunnan before the fall of Kunming, that would be considered a real meritorious service, but now they are just begging for mercy.

In a blink of an eye, it is the Lantern Festival, and this year's lantern festival is extremely beautiful.

Zhao Han spent tens of thousands of taels of silver from internal funds to purchase lanterns from the people.With the sponsorship of merchants, they jointly made two large Ao lanterns.

The largest Ao Deng is 14 meters high, just like a building.

Around the Ao Lantern, there are many small light groups, and the name of the sponsor is written on the light board: Furuixiang Jewelry, Shengchangtai Bank and so on.

This kind of commercial sponsorship is not Zhao Han's first initiative.

It already existed in the mid-Ming Dynasty, and merchants made lanterns for the emperor.Although he can't directly highlight his own brand, he can send a buddy to promote it next to Ao Deng. Zhao Han just makes this kind of commercial advertisement more obvious.

At the same time, Zhao Han prohibited the local government from presenting lanterns to the emperor!

That kind of practice is easy to cause comparisons, and finally becomes a kind of disturbing behavior.

On the fourteenth night of the first month of the lunar calendar, lamp tests have begun in various places in the city, and the police in the whole city are on standby because the police also have firefighting duties.

For more than two hundred years in the Ming Dynasty, there were more than one or two fires caused by the Lantern Festival.During the Zhengde period, the lanterns presented by King Ning to Zhu Houzhao burned the emperor's Qianqing Palace.Zhu Houzhao ordered to put out the fire, watched the commotion on the city tower, and joked, "What a shed of fireworks!"

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival is officially held.

The whole city turned into a sea of ​​lights, and the imperial city was partially opened, allowing the common people to come in and watch the lights.This is a continuation of Zhu Yuanzhang's practice, expressing the joy of the emperor and the people.

There are people everywhere in the streets and alleys, and many people from the outer city also came in.Although they can watch the lanterns by the Xuanwu Lake, it is not as lively as the inner city, and everyone still wants to enter the imperial city.

That night, millions of people flowed inside and outside Nanjing.

The retail industry is booming to the extreme, and countless small merchants and hawkers have emerged.For those mobile stalls, there is no way to manage them during the Lantern Festival, and the government is too lazy to send people to collect taxes.

For some fixed stalls, the sales tax has become particularly heavy, and bids are required to settle in. They are all golden seats opened during the Lantern Festival-the location is close to Aodeng.

In the stores along the street, the boss spontaneously put up lanterns, the purpose is to attract passers-by, and there will be sales if there is traffic.

"Don't squeeze, don't squeeze, line up and enter the imperial city one by one!" the guards of the imperial city were devastated.

The common people entered the imperial city through Donghua Gate, and if the imperial examinations were still in force, all previous champions would also come out from Donghua Gate.

This section of the street was completely blocked, in a physical sense of "shoulder rubbing".

The stalls nearby are also very expensive. People who watch lanterns can’t walk, they can’t go into the imperial city to see Ao lanterns, and it’s difficult to go to other markets, so they just watch other lanterns on the side of the road and spend at those stalls by the way.

"Is this the palace?"

"It's still early, the palace is inside, this is just the imperial city."

"The lights in the imperial city are more beautiful than those outside."

"Look, Your Majesty is coming!"

"..."

Zhao Han's guard of honor suddenly appeared on the east wall of the Forbidden City.

"Long live your majesty, long live, long live!"

"Young lady, thousand years old, thousand years old, thousand years old!"

The people watching the lanterns in the imperial city knelt down one after another.In addition to shouting long live, there were also mixed shouts of excitement.

"Shh~~~ bang!"

"Shh~~~ bang!"

Fireworks were set off in the Forbidden City, and the fireworks rose into the sky and bloomed. The people looked up to watch, and many children jumped and clapped their hands and laughed.

Zheng Sen took Zhao Zhenfang back to Beijing to report on his work, and his new position was to know the state.This kind of promotion speed can be said to be very fast. Firstly, Zheng Sen has outstanding ability, secondly, he has served as Zhao Han's secretary, and thirdly, he still has the identity of a son-in-law.

After taking Luzon, Zhao Han fulfilled his promise and canonized Zheng Zhilong as Duke of Nanhai.

In this regard, Zheng Zhilong completely withdrew from the political arena, and became a duke in his hometown with peace of mind.

"I haven't been back for two or three years, and the Nanjing Lantern Festival is getting more and more beautiful." Zhao Zhenfang looked around, Zheng Sen helped her block the crowd, and there was a nanny holding her son behind her.

Zheng Sen nodded with emotion: "Yes, Nanjing is still lively."

Beside them is Zhao Zhenlan's family. Zhao Zhenlan has already given birth to a son and a daughter.

The two princesses traveled together, and their husbands were also chatting.It's a pity that an official and a businessman are still more than ten years apart in age, and they have no common language at all.

Zhu Cihong also took his younger siblings to watch the lanterns in the market.

Zhu Cihong just turned 16 years old and was not admitted to Jinling University last year.But Zhao Han lent him money so that Zhu Cihong could go to university at his own expense. As long as he got a diploma, he would get the same diploma from now on.

Auntie Zhu is also 15 years old, and she is very slim, her academic performance can only be regarded as moderate.

The younger brother was standing in front of the booth, and seemed to see a gadget.

Zhu Cilang bought it with a smile, and bought something for his other siblings.The emperor lent him ten taels of silver, and the purchasing power of the silver was quite sufficient. As long as it wasn't a luxury, they could spend it as they wanted tonight.

"Brother," Aimee Zhu said with a smile while holding a lantern, "When I make money in the future, I will repay the silver borrowed by Your Majesty together with you."

A few French envoys stood dumbfounded in the street market, drawing a cross on their chests and said, "God, have we arrived in your country?"