After sending away the rest of his cabinet colleagues, Huang Liji stayed, and through his ministers, he asked Chongzhen, who had already entered the apse, for a private reception.

Zhu Youzhen looked at Huang Liji, who was led over by Wang Chengen, and asked curiously: "Is it troublesome that Mr. Huang can't tell outside the world, but has to discuss with me in private?" ”

Huang Liji first thanked Chongzhen for giving him a seat, and then sat down carefully and said: "The old minister hopes that His Majesty can ask Sun Kaiyang how long he will be in a stalemate with the Chahar people outside Datong Pass?"

Although there are many nonsense remarks made by those officials, they still have a good saying, since ancient times, there has never been a heavy army on their own borders that can achieve victory.

His Majesty handed over the heavy troops of the Nine Sides to Sun Kaiyang, and raised such a huge amount of materials to supply the wartime base camp, if this war drags on for a long time, His Majesty's reputation may be ruined in Sun Kaiyang's hands.

The minister thought that no matter what, His Majesty could not be indifferent, at least he had to issue an edict to question, so as to give an explanation to the ministers of the court and the people of the world. ”

Regarding Huang Liji's words, Chongzhen was silent for a long time. The Chief's intention was to preserve his reputation, as the decision to wage a war with the Chahars was his own idea.

If this war is won, his voice in the government and the opposition will inevitably increase, and if it fails, those court officials and the people of the world will inevitably regard him as another Emperor Yingzong with low eyes.

Huang Liji's advice to him now is just to cut off the wartime base camp in front of him first. In this way, the front was victorious, because of the consequences of his strict urging by the emperor. failed, and the generals in front did not obey the emperor's orders, and he had nothing to do with him, the emperor.

This allowed him to evade responsibility, but it pushed the generals in front into an embarrassing situation, and whether they won or not, the credit had already been taken by the emperor and the civil system in the rear.

They don't listen to the emperor's orders, and if they win, they will only make up for their mistakes, but if they fail, they will bring disaster to their families.

When encountering a cowardly commander who would rather not win than let the emperor doubt his own ideas to command the war, then often the war that should be won will also turn into an inexplicable defeat.

If it was the middle and early stages of the dynasty, the Ming with a strong family background did not care about the defeat of this kind of local border war, but for the current Ming Dynasty, every defeat would bring the dynasty one step closer to the precipice of destruction.

Zhu Youzhen thought clearly about the cause and effect in a moment, he shook his head and said to Huang Liji: "Although this war is my idea, I have handed over the power of how to conduct this war to Mr. Sun.

I will not put Mr. Sun into a predicament and make him make a wrong judgment because I care about my reputation.

Although I am a great genius, my understanding of war is not as good as that of the people in the General Staff, and if such a group of personnel who know more about combat than me cannot come up with a plan to defeat the enemy, then I will interfere with the command of the wartime base camp at the front, and the chances of victory will be even slimmer.

What's more, in order to govern the body, the upper and lower levels cannot invade each other. I can supervise and supervise the battle plan of the wartime base camp, but it is impossible to replace the wartime base camp and issue orders to the soldiers at the front.

After all, I live in the capital and know very little about the situation at the front, and Datong is 15 days away from the capital, and by the time my order arrives at the front, the situation ahead has already changed.

I have done my duty for this war, and if I still don't get a good result, then I will never shirk the responsibility I should bear..."

Huang Liji still failed to convince Chongzhen after all, and when he walked out of the back hall of Wenhua Palace, he was also a little dazed. He didn't know whether this young man let go of the wartime base camp so much because of his unreasonable stubbornness, or if he really had a mind in his heart.

After leaving the Wenhua Palace, Zhu Youzhen hurried to a small cross-courtyard north of the Wenhua Palace, which was jointly established by Guanglu Temple, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Royal Academy of Sciences, a food research institute.

It mainly studies the processing and cooking methods of various edible animals and plants, as well as the storage and transportation conditions of food, and even the impact of various food ratios on the human body.

In the era in which Chongzhen lived, the average ration of the people of the Ming Dynasty was actually not small, but the types of rations were too simple.

In terms of staple food, the Ming Dynasty is no different from the previous dynasties, still millet, rice and wheat, due to the backwardness of flour grinding technology, the proportion of wheat grinding into flour is still low and frightening.

High-quality white flour is still a luxury that can only be enjoyed by the powerful, gentry, and wealthy businessmen, and the small and medium-sized landlords only eat a sifted piece of flour. The peasants at the bottom still eat coarse wheat rice most of the time.

When it comes to vegetables, northerners have fewer options than southerners, except for the three or four months of summer, when most of the time their dishes consist of a variety of beans, fresh or pickled.

In the Wanli Dynasty, even the lowest common people could eat meat several times a year, but today, even some yeoman farmers rarely taste meat.

On the one hand, the population is rising and land production is declining, resulting in farmers having no surplus food to feed poultry; On the other hand, as taxes increase, those who have large livestock at home will be the first to become the targets of extortion by tax collectors.

Under this vicious circle, the people's living standards are much worse than before. However, without the replenishment of non-staple foods, not only is the health of these low-income people threatened, but their per capita consumption of staple food has steadily increased.

Zhu Youjian's purpose in setting up this food research institute is to understand how to reduce the per capita staple food, so as to solve the problem of food shortage in the Ming Dynasty. This is not his whimsical, but a truth that has long been verified by later generations.

The researchers gathered in the food research institute were all a little excited. They have worked hard for almost 10 months, and today they can finally see whether their research is useful to the Ming Dynasty.

When Chongzhen sat down, a small official from Guanglu Temple who presided over the work of the Food Research Institute appeared in front of Chongzhen with a large stack of materials and several colleagues.

In the empty room, in addition to Chongzhen's seat, there was a blackboard in front of Chongzhen and a long table next to the blackboard. Gentle sunlight shines through the bright tiles of the roof, just illuminating the front of the blackboard.

After the little official put the information on the table, he picked up the top report, walked to the blackboard, and began to report to Chongzhen.

"The content of this experiment is the effect of dietary combinations on the general population and specific populations.

The subjects of the experiment were 500 households in the capital, 300 households in the counties of Shuntianfu and Tianjin, 34 villages within the Shuntianfu area, and all the personnel of the new army and the Beijing camp..."

The little official talked for half an hour, and the boring data had almost fainted Wang Chengen behind Chongzhen.

Just when Wang Chengen's upper and lower eyelids were fighting, Zhu Youzhen finally interrupted the little official and asked: "I can look at the specific data slowly in the future, what I want to know is, what conclusions have you come to about this experiment?" ”

The little official was stunned, and quickly lowered his head and turned to the last page of the information, and then stammered to Chongzhen and said: "According to our research and comparison of the above samples, the general population has the healthiest physique every day with one pound of staple food, one pound and a half to two pounds of vegetables and fruits, an egg, one or two meats, two taels of aquatic products, three dollars of oil, and one dollar of salt.

As for the daily food consumption of ordinary sergeants, it should be higher than a quarter to a third of the general population, and the salt content should be doubled. ”

Zhu Youzhen thought silently for a while, and then asked softly: "So only considering the population of the North Zhili area, how many people live above this standard?"

What's the easiest way to get the entire population of the region to meet this standard? ”

The little official took a deep breath before he replied in a controlled tone: "If we only consider the Beizhili region as a consideration, we agree that one is to vigorously promote the cultivation of tomatoes and potatoes, the latter can be used not only as a staple food, but also as a non-staple food.

The other is to vigorously develop the marine fishing industry, and this year more than 16,000 tons of seafood have been shipped from Shandong alone, which is equivalent to 170,000 stone of rice.

If we can continue to improve the technical equipment for fishing, the technology for transporting and storing fish, or if the initial processing can be carried out nearby, then doubling it next year should not be a problem.

The last one was whale hunting, and the ship returning from Japan brought back 200 barrels of whale oil, 120 tons of whale jerky, 15 tons of whale skin, and 60 tons of whalebones.

According to the official who presided over the trip to Japan to study whaling, near the Boso Peninsula in Japan every year, there are flocks of whales wandering there from June to September, each whale is more than 3-4 zhang long, and occasionally a terrifying monster of more than 10 zhang is seen in the open sea.

Although these whales are extremely large and powerful, they are very timid. Just take a small rowboat and let out a loud cry while throwing a spear with a barb into its back.

These wounded whales will run away in terror until they run dry and die. Each whale can give more than 10 tons of whale meat, 5 or 6 tons of blubber, and more than half a ton of whale skin.

However, in Japan, except for the inferior people, no one likes to eat whale products, and the processing methods of these Japanese fishermen are too simple, and whale meat is easy in summer**, so most of the whales they caught in the past are used as fertilizer and fertilizer.

According to our inquiry, there are two other whale clusters above and below the Boso Peninsula. It is said that in the Ryukyu Kingdom, there is also a sea area where whales gather from January to April every year.

And above the Japanese archipelago, it is said that there is the sea of whales in ancient books, and we already have two boats along the east and west sides of the island, respectively, to explore upwards, hoping to find that sea of whales..."