kvmb Chapter 183 One Year of Development
Chapter 183 One Year of Development
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With hundreds of stunning beauties in the harem, Lu Cheng also had an additional entertainment activity: playing with dragons and phoenixes.
Each of the selected beauties can be said to be one in a hundred or a thousand, each with her own characteristics, and can well represent the women of a certain place.
Lu Cheng also got to know the different customs of different parts of China from these women.
At the same time, Lu Cheng also gave the Intelligence Department a small task to go to Suzhou to find a ten-year-old girl, Chen Yuanyuan.
Lu Cheng was not particularly interested in the other Eight Beauties of Qinhuai, but he would definitely take Chen Yuanyuan into the harem and send her to the palace to raise her for a few years first.
Of course, while enjoying life, Lu Cheng will never neglect government affairs.
Since you are the Son of Heaven, responsible for hundreds of millions of people, you should take responsibility.
In recent years, as the territory occupied by the Huaxia Empire has become larger and larger, the accumulated grain wealth and various mineral resources have increased. In addition, the earliest batch of orphans from Liaodong have also completed their studies and entered various jobs. The great development of the entire China has entered a fast track.
In order to further strengthen ethnic integration and enhance national cohesion, Lu Cheng has added a number of policies in recent years, such as flying the national flag in all areas occupied by Huaxia, holding flag-raising ceremonies in every school in Huaxia, and every student must learn to sing the Chinese national anthem.
For some newly occupied foreign areas, the Chinese army will also take away all their cultural books and force them to learn to speak Chinese, learn Chinese characters, and identify with Chinese culture.
To this end, Lu Cheng also convened a group of scholars to simplify and promote traditional Chinese characters to facilitate the dissemination of Chinese language and culture.
At the same time, for the people in the newly occupied areas, who were initially classified as second-class and third-class citizens, as long as they could intermarry with the Han people, they could upgrade their citizenship level more quickly.
Of course, for those foreign men who want to marry Han women, they must undergo the most rigorous scrutiny and physical examinations. Some groups are even directly prohibited from marrying Han people and can only become second-class or third-class citizens.
Lu Cheng will show no mercy to those who dare to resist.
Intermarriage is allowed, but it cannot cause blood pollution.
In the autumn of the sixth year of Yongchang, an earthquake suddenly occurred in Longxi, causing considerable casualties, and even the capital felt the tremor.
After Lu Cheng learned the news, he immediately organized rescue and relief efforts and gave orders to the nearby military district to send soldiers to rescue the victims.
At the same time, Lu Cheng also ordered the mobilization of food and supplies from other places to resettle the affected people.
After making all the arrangements, Lu Cheng personally went to the disaster area to comfort the people, guide rescue and relief work, and tell the people that the emperor would be with them and face the natural disaster together.
This move undoubtedly made the people of Longxi burst into tears of gratitude, and their support for Lu Cheng reached its maximum.
Afterwards, Lu Cheng stayed in the disaster area for half a month, and only left after confirming that all disaster relief and post-disaster work had been completed.
Lu Cheng also knew that in the next few years, natural disasters and man-made disasters would continue, and the world would enter a mini ice age.
Therefore, Lu Cheng had already mobilized grain from all over the place, established granaries everywhere, and stored enough food supplies to deal with the disaster.
At the same time, coastal areas also vigorously developed the fishing industry, stockpiled salted dried fish and canned fish, and kelp in the ocean was also used to make dried vegetables and sealed.
Not only that, Lu Cheng also sent an ocean-going fleet along the Bering Strait deep into North America to hunt, and transported large amounts of meat and furs into China to make bacon and furs.
While starting to build the railway, Lu Cheng was also planning the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.
Both of these are major projects, which may take more than ten years or even decades to complete.
In order to better deal with the disaster, Lu Cheng also asked people to build more houses in various parts of the south. In case the drought in various parts of the Central Plains was too severe, temporary migration would be carried out directly to help the people get through the difficult times.
Anyway, China's territory is large enough now. If a disaster occurs somewhere and it is really unbearable, the people can be relocated directly.
Of course, various strategies for flood control, drought relief and locust plague prevention have also been implemented one by one.
Natural disasters are both a crisis and a test for the Chinese Empire, but also an opportunity to strengthen national integration and promote unification.
Of course, if possible, Lu Cheng would not want to face these natural disasters.
After all, no matter how well Lu Cheng prepared, human resources would be too limited in the face of natural disasters.
Even in the future when technology is advanced, natural disasters always bring great losses.
In the seventh year of Yongchang, drought had already shown signs just after spring. No rain fell for more than two months, the crops in the fields had withered, the water levels of rivers in various places dropped sharply, and some small rivers even dried up.
Lu Cheng found something wrong, and started to provide disaster relief while personally visiting Central Plains and other places to persuade people from all over the place to leave temporarily and seek refuge in the south.
Some people were attached to their homeland and did not want to leave, so Lu Cheng sent soldiers to forcibly take them away.
At the same time, Lu Cheng also traveled to various places to investigate the people's conditions.
Thanks to the court's timely response and the timely relocation of the people, there were not many casualties due to the drought.
In autumn, locust plagues struck the Central Plains again.
After the people migrated, Lu Cheng also sent people to keep an eye on the Central Plains and other places. As soon as the locust plague was discovered, Lu Cheng ordered the army to use fire to eliminate the locusts, and transferred chickens, ducks, and frogs from all over the south to catch locusts.
At the same time, fires were set in the areas surrounding the locust outbreaks to create large isolation zones and control the locust plague as much as possible.
In areas where locust plagues have occurred, licorice is also sprinkled on the ground and burned to burn away insect eggs and the like underground.
In the following years, many disasters broke out in the Central Plains. The imperial court responded actively and tried its best to minimize casualties among the people.
Although there are natural disasters every year, the active response of Lu Cheng and the court has allowed people all over the world to see how diligent the current emperor is and how responsible the current court is.
Every time a natural disaster occurs, Lu Cheng will ask the China Times to report the disaster relief process in detail, report on Lu Cheng's personal experience of disaster relief on the front line, and deliver this information to every corner of China.
As natural disasters passed, the prestige of the imperial court grew day by day, and Lu Cheng was revered as a sage by hundreds of millions of Chinese people, incomparable to any other wise rulers in ancient times.
Whenever there was a natural disaster, as long as the Chinese soldiers arrived and Emperor Lu Cheng arrived, the people would no longer panic or be afraid.
Later on, whenever the common people heard someone dare to say a bad word about the emperor, they would rise up and attack him.
In the process of dealing with natural disasters one after another, the imperial court also accumulated rich experience in disaster prevention and relief. Later, the death rate of the people due to natural disasters was greatly reduced, and the population growth was also faster and faster.
While fighting against natural disasters, the Chinese Empire never stopped its external expansion.
By the 26th year of Yongchang, all natural disasters finally ceased, and the Chinese army had successively conquered the entire Eurasian continent, Australia, North and South America, and most of Africa.
Except for some primeval forests, cliffs and places like the North and South Poles that are not yet suitable for human survival, the Chinese flag is basically planted all over the world.
Of course, there is still some resistance in some local areas, but the general trend is set, and the Chinese Empire is already an empire on which the sun never sets.
At the age of 55, Lu Cheng could finally call himself "captain".
At the same time, a railway running across the east and west and connecting the north and south was finally built on China’s original homeland in Asia.
When Lu Cheng has nothing to do, he will take the train to look around the territory he has conquered.
As the occupied territory was too large and the population was far from enough, Lu Cheng simply gave orders to return farmland to forest and control the desert in the northwest region of the mainland.
Over the years, Lu Cheng has favored many women in the harem and has given birth to eighty to ninety sons and daughters.
Today, those earliest sons have grown up.
The eldest son Lu Junhong was sent to rule Europe, the second son Lu Junyi was sent to North America, and the third son did not want to go out and stayed in Beijing to enjoy his life.
The fourth son was born to Zhou Miaoxuan and was sent to Australia to oversee immigration and development in Australia.
The rest of the sons, those who have grown up, have gone to different places or have different jobs, while those who are underage are still in school and receiving education.
Apart from the one hundred beauties selected in the sixth year of Yongchang, Lu Cheng never held another talent show afterwards.
In the past twenty years, Lu Cheng had already favored all of the one hundred beauties, and occasionally he would favor one or two palace maids with outstanding looks.
Sometimes when Lu Cheng went out for inspection, he would bring back one or two women.
A few years ago, after the Western Military Region conquered Europe, it sent Lu Cheng several blonde and blue-eyed princesses from various countries.
For those that are beautiful and suit his aesthetic taste, Lu Cheng would occasionally change his taste.
However, Lu Cheng's favorite is still oriental women.
Although he is already 55 years old, Lu Cheng's body is still well maintained. In addition, his physique is far superior to that of ordinary people, and he has an extraordinary endurance talent. Lu Cheng is stronger than many young men in their twenties and thirties.
What's more, as an emperor, he has all kinds of expensive tonics at his disposal, and Lu Cheng himself is best at conditioning. Once his health deteriorates, he will exercise restraint and recuperate in time.
Even now, if Lu Cheng wanted to, he could still defeat three or four people in one night.
Of course, after he turned fifty, Lu Cheng also started to take care of his health. He no longer spent as much time playing as he did in previous years, and put more energy on the women he had favored.
The number of women he has favored in total, less than two hundred.
Except for some more important ones, such as Ding Baiying, Zhang Yan, Zhou Miaoxuan, Zhou Miaotong, Liu Rushi, Gu Hengbo, Chen Yuanyuan, Hai Lanzhu, Dayuer, etc., most of the others were conferred beauties. Lu Cheng also divided them into groups of three or five, and tried his best to find time every year to accompany them, talk to them, and reward them with some small gifts.
With so many women, it is inevitable that there will be some intrigue. After all, with so many women vying for the favor of one man, it is impossible for Lu Cheng to treat them all equally.
Fortunately, Ding Baiying has military power, Zhang Yan has means, and Liu Rushi is also a good adviser, helping to manage the affairs of this family...