Chapter 1 Auspicious snow heralds a good harvest

"Such heavy snow." Zhu Qizhen stood on Tuancheng and looked at the boundless snow scenery.

This is a pavilion in Yingtai.

Of course, it would be better to say Nuanting.

Although this pavilion faces the lake for three years and has a panoramic view of the snowy sky, it is as warm as spring inside. Because there are fire bricks buried underneath, as long as you step on it, you will have a steaming feeling.

The pavilion is supported entirely by iron pillars, with hot water missions inside, paved in a grid pattern on the top of the head, and hidden among the carved beams and painted pillars.

Although the hot air was steaming up and down, it couldn't stand up to the cold air in the sky, but as long as I put on a few layers of clothes, I didn't feel the cold anymore.

I even sweated a little.

This was the influence of Zhu Qizhen’s initial promotion of briquette furnaces.

What is good from above must be followed by those below.

Zhu Qizhen just had an idea and was built like this by Ouchi craftsmen, and this snow viewing pavilion was built by Wang Zhen several years ago.

It's just that it's snowed five times in a row for several years, and even if there is snow, it's just a few spots, not enough to be seen.

Only in the eighth winter of Orthodoxy, there was finally a heavy snowfall.

For Zhu Qizhen, this snow is the best good news that Zhu Qizhen has received in the past three months. Although we don’t know whether the continuous spring drought will end, but as long as this snow is there, next year

The winter wheat harvests across Hebei are worth looking forward to.

"Your Majesty, Master Xu is here." Zhang Huan said cautiously.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Invite him."

Zhang Huan agreed, and an old minister in red official uniform walked over along the long Twenty-Four Bridge. Heavy snow fell in the lake and also on the bridge. Only the middle part of the bridge had been cleaned.

Palm-thick snow has been piled up on both sides of the bridge, and even where it has been cleared, thin layers of snow have fallen.

The person who came was Xu Xi, the Minister of War recommended by Yang Pu.

At the beginning of this year, Chai Che, Minister of the Ministry of War, could no longer hold on and died of illness. After Zhu Qizhen's grand burial, the imperial court began to compete with each other for the position of Minister of the Ministry of War.

But Zhu Qizhen remained silent. No matter who was reported below, Zhu Qizhen refused to agree.

As a result, the Minister of the Ministry of War was vacant for half a year. Kuang Ye temporarily replaced the Minister of the Ministry of War as the Minister of the Ministry of War. When everyone thought that this position belonged to Kuang Ye, only Yang Pu knew that this position was reserved by Zhu Qizhen for Xu Xi.

Zhu Qizhen had no particular inclination towards Xu Xi and Kuang Ye before. Why he is so sure of Xu Xi and negative of Kuang Ye now is because Xu Xi did something that Zhu Qizhen never thought of.

In the sixth year of Zhengtong, Zhu Qizhen casually asked Xu Xi to inspect the nine-border defense. But Zhu Qizhen did not expect that Xu Xi would finish

It took two full years to accomplish this thing.

From the banks of the Yalu River all the way to Jiayuguan, it took two years to conduct a very detailed inspection of various places.

You must know that later generations' statistics show that the Great Wall is more than 6,300 kilometers long, which is more than 12,000 miles. Xu Xi rode a horse during the day and wrote memorials under the lamp at night. He sent them to the court in envelopes.

Zhu Qizhen didn't care at first, but later he had to admit that it would be very scary if people took it seriously.

The memorials written by Xu Xi in the past two years total more than 100,000 words. When compiled together, it is a complete "Examination of Border Towns in the Ming Dynasty".

Zhu Qizhen even asked Jin Yiwei to verify some details in Xu Xi's memorial, and he had to admit that Xu Xi was not lying. This made Zhu Qizhen value Xu Xi even more.

Therefore, I would rather wait for Xu Xi to come back from Gansu and become Minister of War.

Zhu Qizhen also had different expectations for Xu Xi, the Minister of War.

After Xu Xi walked into Nuanting, he glanced at Zhu Qizhen, and immediately saluted and said, "Xu Xi, the minister of the Ministry of War, has met your majesty." He thought to himself: "Your majesty has grown up."

Indeed, Zhu Qizhen is now the father of his eldest son Zhu Jianjun. The down on his mouth has also turned black, but it has not hardened yet, but Zhu Qizhen has also retained it. Therefore, when Xu Xi came to the capital today, I met Zhu Qizhen once. When we met, he didn't have such a beard.

Now Xu Xi can see at first glance the light beard on Zhu Qizhen's lips. Naturally, he feels that Zhu Qizhen has grown up a lot. In addition, Zhu Qizhen's temperament is already mature.

Nowadays, few ministers regard Zhu Qizhen as a young king anymore.

The name of Zhu Qizhen's eldest son, Zhu Jianjun, was something Zhu Qizhen carefully considered. He knew that the historical Ming Xianzong was named Zhu Jianshen, so Zhu Qizhen obviously avoided this name.

In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang decided on the seniority, and Zhu Qizhen had very little room for consideration. His son must be called Zhu Jian, and the third character must have three points of water.

After thinking about it, Zhu Qizhen came up with the word dredging. Because Zhu Qizhen felt that his greatest achievement so far was the Hebei water control project.

The word dredging has two sounds. When dredging, dredging does not refer to what he is doing in Hebei. Moreover, the eldest son often wants to be the prince, which is taboo. Therefore, a special character for dredging was chosen, which is Dredged.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Xu Qing is old. Sit down."

Indeed, Xu Xi is much older than before.

Xu Xi became an official in the early years of Yongle, and is now over sixty years old. Although he was received by local officials and escorted by border troops during this journey of thousands of miles, it was also a great torture to Xu Xi's body.

Xu Xi's original hair is black hair with a few white hairs mixed in. If you comb it carefully, it can be covered up, so that

People can't see white hair, but at this moment, white hair completely outnumbers black hair. It seems that the last bit of white hair is just holding on to the last stubbornness.

Zhu Qizhen actually sat opposite Xu Xi, with only a tea table in the middle. Zhu Qizhen personally picked up the teapot, poured a cup of tea for Xu Xi, and said, "Xu Qing has traveled thousands of miles, thank you for your hard work."

When Xu Xi and Zhu Qizhen were sitting opposite each other, they already felt restless. At this moment, when they saw Zhu Qizhen pouring tea for him, he immediately knelt down on the ground and said, "I would never dare to do this."

Zhu Qizhen said: "Why is Xu Qing doing this? I am not making this cup of tea for you, but to respect you for running thousands of miles for the country. You are a meritorious official of the country. The court will not treat meritorious officials badly, but now Xu Qing does it. How is it different from Zigong’s redemption?”

Xu Xi naturally knew the story about Zigong redeeming people.

According to the law of Lu, when foreigners redeem Lu people, after returning to Lu, Lu will reward them. But Zigong does not want them, and Confucius sighed after hearing this: "The gift is lost. From now on, the people of Lu will not redeem people." .If you take the gold, you will not be harmed by the deed; if you don’t take the gold, you will not be able to redeem anyone.”

Sure enough, from then on, the people of Lu would no longer redeem their own people.

After saying that this was served, Xu Xi naturally picked up the cup of tea with trembling hands and drank it all in one gulp.

Although it was just a sip of hot tea, Xu Xi felt that his whole body was getting warm, but he didn't know whether it was because he felt Zhu Qizhen's courtesy or because the temperature inside the pavilion was really high.

Zhu Qizhen's method of winning people's hearts has indeed made great progress.

Xu Xi sat down again. At this time, he seemed to have calmed down.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Xu Qing reaches the Yalu River in the east and Jiayuguan in the west. It is thousands of miles from east to west. Although there are constant memorials, it is still inferior to a meeting. Today I will not see anyone, so I will have a detailed talk with Xu Qing about my Ming Dynasty.

Nine sides.”

Xu Xi said: "Since your Majesty has asked, how dare I not say anything? It's just the nine sides established by Emperor Taizong. Where do you want to start from?"

The nine borders of the Ming Dynasty are Liaodong, Jizhou, Xuanfu, Datong, Shanxi, Yansui, Guyuan, Ningxia, and Gansu. The so-called nine borders.

But there are also some minor and serious aspects, and with different times, the emphasis is also different.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Let's talk about Liaodong, how about the Phoenix Guard?"

Of course, the Phoenix Guard, as mentioned earlier, moved the Jinzhou Guard to Phoenix City and ordered Shi Li to lead them. It was nominally to protect the North Korean post road, but in fact it was to fill the area west of the Yalu River and cut off North Korea's ambitions.

Xu Xi said: "Although Phoenix Guard is newly built, it is full of vitality and has as many as 30,000 to 40,000 civilians. The only problem is that there are too many North Koreans among them, and North Korea is very dissatisfied."
Chapter completed!