I

   Chapter 529 526 [Lantern Festival]

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

  According to the original history, the Manchu Qing army at this time had already occupied the entire north, and only part of the territory in Hubei remained 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 the land of no one.

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

  The aborigines 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 puppet emperor of Yunnan has removed his imperial title, and brought Mu Tianbo to request to join us!"

"what happened?"

  Zhao Han was very surprised when he heard that, he grabbed the military report 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 to 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, Shayuan made great contributions again, and was promoted by the imperial court to be a Xuanfu envoy.

  During the reign of Chongzhen, the chieftains 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 Tu Zhizhou 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.

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

   That is to say, in order to help his lover, Wan expelled his second husband and killed himself and his original son!

  Sha Dingzhou owns two chieftain territories, and loyally helps Mu Tianbo fight. Mu Tianbo never expected that Sha Dingzhou would rebel, and he had no defense against this guy at all.

  Last winter, Sha Dingzhou suddenly raised troops, and like his dead father, he has been under the guise 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 ministers of the cabinet, Zhao Han immediately gave a reply: accept the surrender 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 20 mu more.

  As for the treasure and food, hehe, they ran away in a hurry, and they were all taken by Shadingzhou.

  Now Mu Tianbo still has more than ten thousand 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.

   A group of dogs in the water, what is it worth?

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

   In the blink of an eye, it’s 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, 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.

  It already existed in the middle of the 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, light 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.

  During the more than two hundred years of 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 was 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.

  The streets and alleys were full of people, 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.

   This 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 becomes 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 put up lanterns spontaneously, 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. If the imperial examinations were still in force, the top scholars in the past would also come out from Donghua Gate.

   This section of the street is completely blocked, in a physical sense "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 very 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.

   "This is the palace?"

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

   "The lights in the imperial city look better 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.

   "Whoo~~~Boom!"

   "Whoo~~~Boom!"

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

  Zheng Sen brought Zhao Zhenfang back to Beijing to report on his work. His new position is 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.

   At this point, 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 nurse 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 are traveling together, and their husbands are 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 sixteen, 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 fifteen years old, and she has grown up in a graceful manner, her academic performance can only be regarded as middle-of-the-road.

  The younger brother stood 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 pay back the silver borrowed by Your Majesty with you."

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

  These French envoys were sent by Louis XIII.

  They don't know yet, the king is dead, and now the king of France is the young Louis XIV.

  The leader of the mission was stuck in the crowd and moved forward with difficulty: "It's unbelievable. It seems that half of France has so many people crowded into one city tonight."

   Of course not so many. Although Europe is sparsely populated, France and Italy have very high population densities.

   "Whoo~~~Boom!"

   "Whoo~~~Boom!"

  The second round of fireworks was set off over the Forbidden City. This year's Lantern Festival is very lively.

  (end of this chapter)