Steel Dynasty - Chapter 655

[Chapter 654: The newspaper’s considerations]

After the heavy rain, a ray of pure blue sky emerged from the dense dark clouds. The sunlight shone through this gap, which was as touching as the auspicious sign falling from the sky.

Qian Dafu looked up at the sky and said: “Your Majesty, it looks like it will be sunny today, but I can go out. I will call Zhao Long and Zhao Hu.”

Xiao Ming nodded when he heard this, and he went back to change into his clothes. Dressed in casual clothes, he still didn’t want to walk around in a big way. Wearing a dragon robe would be too eye-catching.

Moreover, when he was in Qingzhou, he was used to constantly looking for people in and outside the city. It was very uncomfortable to stay in the camp every day.

When he returned to the dormitory, he took a look at Fei Yue’er. The girl was very sleepy now, and the movement while he was changing clothes did not wake her up.

After stopping Xiao Huan from waking up Fei Yue’er, Xiao Ming left the camp alone and headed south of the city under the protection of the guards.

For Xiao Ming, the ideal capital city is of course Youzhou, but for him, Youzhou is still suitable as a capital city for the time being. After all, Youzhou is now poor and the city’s infrastructure is very poor.

According to Pang Yukun, it is said to be a state, but in fact it is not even as good as a county in Qingzhou.

So after careful consideration, Xiao Ming still planned to use Qingzhou as the capital, and then consider moving the capital after Youzhou developed, but this time is estimated to be about twenty or thirty years.

“Your Majesty, there is a lively fight outside, but our Qingzhou is becoming more and more lively.” Qian Dafu smiled, which turned his already small eyes into slits.

Zhao Long said: “The people who came here are all businessmen and wealthy families. They are very smart. They know that the emperor is invincible and Qingzhou is as stable as Mount Tai. There will be no war.”

“Not just businessmen and wealthy families, there are also many refugees outside the city during this time. After getting up, the government has set up many porridge soup places outside the city,” Zhao Hu added.

Compared with before, the two of them are more energetic now. After all, they are no longer called guards of the palace, but have become imperial guards. This makes many soldiers of the Qingzhou Army envious. In the past, many people were not willing to be such idle workers. of.

Xiao Ming now looks like someone who was released from a detention center after spending half a year in jail. Since he ascended the throne, he has found that his freedom of movement is far less than before.

His daily itinerary is basically the political hall, study room, and bedroom. All matters big and small in Qingzhou City are reported to him through the mouths of officials, and he also conveys orders to the outside world through Qian Dafu.

Suddenly, he became a canary in a cage, and Xiao Ming was instinctively wary of this closed environment.

Being familiar with history books, he knew very well that emperors of all dynasties were confused by powerful ministers and eunuchs around them, because everything he knew came from the mouths of others.

He can only listen to what others say. As a result, he will naturally get a lot of untrue and opinionated information.

However, Xiao Ming was prepared for this situation. This was the secret guard, his eyes on the outside.

However, secret guards also have their own limitations. In this era where transportation is basically based on walking, and orders are basically delivered by shouting, most of the limited secret guards are used to monitor important figures, but basically there is no timely feedback on the lives of ordinary people.

Based on this, he has been thinking about ways to obtain real information for the past two days. After much deliberation, only allowing newspapers to report fairly can solve this problem.

Just as Niu Ben was worried that Xiao Ming would allow the wealthy family to gain power, it is now obvious that every official and general has his own ideas and considerations.

Regarding the military, he can only consider nationalizing the military.

Of course, nationalizing the military is just a false proposition. For him, the essence of nationalizing the military is the royal talk of the military. He must ensure his absolute leadership of the military and prevent generals from turning the military into their own private soldiers.

After all, his army will compete with Western powers for colonies in the future, and he does not want his generals to stand on their own after occupying a colony.

As for officials, in addition to separate two groups in the DPRK and the Central Government for mutual supervision, he is also preparing to adopt a top-down supervision model.

This model was the newspaper he had in mind. After all, contemporary facts have proven that media disclosures play a very good role in exposing official corruption and are also helpful in supervising officials.

The only shortcoming is that there is only one newspaper office in Qingzhou, which will make some newspaper articles too subjective, so he plans to establish two more newspaper offices in Qingzhou and open two newspapers to businessmen at the same time.

In other words, there will be three official newspapers and two private newspapers in Qingzhou. Such diversified competition will allow some concealed scandals to be unearthed.

Thinking about what to do next, the group of people arrived at the south of the city unknowingly. At this time, a building complex was gradually taking shape under the work of the construction camp.

He is still quite concerned about this palace, which he may live in for twenty or thirty years, so the design of the palace is basically his own. In addition to the formal buildings, there are also secret passages for escape.

Of course, the original intention of the design was to give the palace a modern flavor, so a large number of brick and wood structures were used in the construction of the palace. This structure is much stronger than a pure wood structure, and it also leaves a lot of Construction time.

After all, building a wall with red bricks is much simpler than a carpenter’s work, and he also asked the craftsmen to reserve porcelain pipes among these red bricks, which will be used for wiring in the future.

It is precisely based on this simple and unsophisticated design that the construction speed of the palace is unprecedented. At this rate, it only takes eight months to move in. However, at the normal speed, the palace cannot be built in five or ten years.

“Your Majesty, this construction camp is really good. I have never seen the palace built like this in such a short time.”

At this time, the walls and gates of the palace have been completed, and the walls have also been stained. In red, a group of people entered along the palace gate. In front of it was a staircase that went from bottom to top, leading to the Zhengda Guangming Hall in the front.

This Zhengdaguangming Hall is the place where the palace discusses politics. The reason why it is named Zhengdaguangming is to alert officials at all times.

Compared with the luxurious palace in Chang’an, Xiao Ming wanted his palace to be simple, so he didn’t ask for anything like white jade steps, and used whatever was available locally.

Bypassing the Zhengdaguangming Hall is where the concubines live, each with a separate small courtyard. Outside the palace, on the right is the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is where the eunuchs live, and on the left is the East Palace.

Generally speaking, the general layout of his palace is somewhat similar to that of Chang’an, but there are some differences. This is the boiler water tower that stands in the palace.

While Xiao Ming was looking at his future palace, a huge change quietly occurred in the Yan Kingdom.

(End of chapter)