Early the next morning, Li Yuntian was summoned by Emperor Xuande into the palace to discuss matters, and Li Yuntian was accompanied by Zhang Fu, Yang Shiqi and Jian Yi and other important ministers of the imperial court.

Emperor Xuande's face was pale, and he kept coughing on the warm couch in the East Warm Pavilion, which made the atmosphere at the scene very depressing, and everyone looked like Emperor Xuande's current state was very bad.

"When the Northern Yuan soldiers besieged Beiping City, the shops and dwellings outside the city were badly destroyed, and it is only now that they have recovered their vitality."

After discussing the military affairs, it was already night, Emperor Xuande asked the imperial dining room to prepare a supper for Li Yuntian and others, and said while everyone was eating, "Now that the number of people outside the city is increasing day by day, I am ready to expand the outer city, which can be used as a barrier to the inner city and protect the safety of the people!" ”

The ministers at the scene couldn't help but stop the movements in their hands when they heard this, and looked at each other in surprise, although Beijing City has assumed the obligations of the Ming Dynasty, but it is not the Ming Dynasty's orthodox Beijing Division, because what Emperor Hongxi did before his death was to move the capital to Nanjing City, and he was still concerned about moving the capital when he died.

Unlike Emperor Yongle, who fought in the south and the north and galloped across the field, Emperor Hongxi, who had a leg disease, did not agree with the "Son of Heaven guarding the country", thinking that the capital was too close to Tatar and Warat, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable if it failed, and Nanjing City was more prosperous and rich than Beijing, so he wanted to move the capital to Nanjing.

Emperor Xuande grew up with Emperor Yongle since he was a child, so he sharpened his strong temperament, and naturally agreed with Emperor Yongle's military strategy of "the Son of Heaven guarding the country".

Therefore, after Emperor Xuande ascended the throne, he did not continue to move the capital, but he was not good at disobeying the edict of Emperor Hongxi, so he adopted a maneuver method and used Beijing City as a "walking place", that is, the place where the Son of Heaven came.

In order to distinguish it from the yamen of Nanjing, and also to show that Emperor Xuande fulfilled the edict of Emperor Hongxi, the big seal of the yamen of the major ministries and courtyards in Beijing changed from "a certain department of the Ming Dynasty" to "a certain department", which means that Beijing City is no longer the capital division of the Ming Dynasty, but only the place where Emperor Xuande came.

For example, the great seal of the Ministry of Officials has changed from "the Ministry of Officials of the Ming Dynasty" to "the Ministry of Officials".

Originally, the civil and military officials in Beijing all wanted to move the capital to the flowery city of Nanjing, but after Emperor Xuande ascended the throne, he faced the threat of the King of Han, and the forces in the court who supported Emperor Xuande and supported the King of Han fought openly and secretly, and the King of Han soon launched a rebellion, so the matter of moving the capital was delayed.

Later, there were heavy events such as the Jiaozhi Rebellion, the embezzlement of ink in the Lianghuai Salt Road, and the invasion of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, which made the ministers in the court have no heart to discuss the relocation of the capital, and everyone can see that Emperor Xuande does not want to go to Nanjing, so no one mentions the matter of moving the capital to touch Emperor Xuande's mold.

Now Emperor Xuande proposed the expansion of Beijing City, although he did not say that he would use Beijing City as the capital of the Ming Dynasty, but he had virtually vetoed the edict of Emperor Hongxi with practical actions.

Although the civil and military officials at the scene were surprised, no one spoke out against it, because Emperor Xuande did not explicitly set Beijing City as the Ming Dynasty, but only expanded Beijing City from the perspective of safety and needs.

And everyone knows very well that Emperor Xuande will never issue an edict to veto Emperor Hongxi's edict to move the capital to Nanjing, and will only use the edict to make the prince suspend the move of the capital, so that the prince will not bear the reputation of violating the edict, and no one in the court dares to mention this matter again.

"The expansion of Beiping City is not trivial, it cannot be achieved overnight, I will hand over this matter to you Aiqing, and I hope that you Aiqing can complete the preparations for the expansion of the city next year." Emperor Xuande was startled when he saw that the ministers at the scene were taken aback by what he said, and then took a breath and said solemnly.

"Your Ministers obey!" When all the civil and military ministers present heard this, they bowed to Emperor Xuande and said in unison.

Since Li Yuntian opened up overseas trade with Nanyang and confiscated the officials and wealthy merchants involved in the Lianghuai Salt Road, although he experienced wars with Tatar and Warat, the treasury of the Ming Dynasty was still full, so there was no problem in expanding the city of Beijing.

To put it bluntly, Li Yuntiantong's overseas trade with Nanyang and the commerce of Jiaozhi and Guangxi continuously earned taxes for the Ming Dynasty, which gave Emperor Xuande the confidence to expand the city of Beijing.

Today, the commerce of Jiaozhi and Guangxi has developed rapidly under the promotion of Li Yuntian, and it has been able to pay nearly one million taels of silver to the Ming treasury every year, which can be called a miracle.

Li Yuntian's face looked very calm, among the ministers on the scene, he was the only one who knew that Emperor Xuande wanted to expand Beijing City, and he had already participated in the expansion of Beijing City.

When the Tatars and Warat besieged the capital, the houses and shops outside the capital were severely destroyed, so Emperor Xuande handed over the aftermath to Li Yuntian and let Li Yuntian preside over the restoration after the war.

Few people will notice that the reconstruction presided over by Li Yuntian has changed the original pattern outside the capital, and if you look condescendingly from the sky, you will find that those rebuilt areas have been connected with the city of Beijing and become part of the outer city of Beijing, thus clearing the troubles of relocating the people during the expansion.

Especially in the area outside the south of Beijing, it is a prosperous area where people gather, and if the expansion of the city is usually involved, it will inevitably involve disputes with local residents, which is definitely a situation that Emperor Xuande does not want to see.

Therefore, the invasion of Tatar and Warat gave Li Yuntian a chance to persuade Emperor Xuande to expand the city of Beijing, and it was obvious that with the development of society, the Ming Dynasty's Jingshi would become more and more prosperous, and the population would become more and more, so in Li Yuntian's view, it was necessary to plan early.

It's just that, according to the progress of the situation, Emperor Xuande should mention the expansion of Beijing City next year, and it seems that Emperor Xuande's health has become worse and worse, so he has to talk about this matter in advance.

Historically, Emperor Xuande once made a second addition to the city of Beijing, and the first addition was during the period of Emperor Yongle.

In the fourth year of Yongle, Emperor Yongle began to plan to move the capital to Beijing, and built the West Garden on the site of the Yanwang Mansion, and built the Shouling Tomb in Tianshou Mountain in Changping in the seventh year of Yongle.

In the fourteenth year of Yongle, Emperor Yongle began to order the construction of palaces, and in the eighteenth year of Yongle, the Forbidden City Palace, Taimiao, Taisheji, Wansui Mountain, Taiye Pool, Ten Princes' Mansions, the Emperor's Grandson's Mansion, the Five Mansions and Six Yamen and the Bell and Drum Towers were built, and at the same time, the southern city wall was moved nearly two miles south to build the imperial city.

In the nineteenth year of Yongle, Emperor Yongle officially moved the capital to Beijing, and successively built the Temple of Heaven, the Temple of Earth and the Altar of Mountains and Rivers in the southern suburbs of Beijing.

It is worth mentioning that Emperor Xuande did not directly add to the city of Beijing, but was completed by the orthodox emperor who succeeded to the throne.

In the tenth year of Xuande, Emperor Xuande died, and the orthodox emperor who succeeded to the throne in the first year of orthodoxy carried out the second addition, and its main project was: the inner side of the city wall was covered with bricks; excavation of the South China Sea; Build the Nine Gate Tower, the Urn City and the Arrow Tower; The four corners of the city are built with corner towers; Outside the city gate, each erects a memorial arch; The wooden bridges over the moat were all converted into stone bridges, with sluices under the bridges and revetments built of bricks and stones on the banks of the river.

After the increase of the circumference of the capital is 45 miles, a solid city defense system has been formed, and the imperial tomb and Changping City, Gongji City and the Inner Great Wall and other defense facilities have been built in the far suburbs of the capital.

The reason why it is said that Emperor Xuande added to the city of Beijing, because the orthodox emperor was only eight years old when he ascended the throne, and it is obvious that the civil and military ministers in the court implemented the national policy of the Ming Dynasty left by Emperor Xuande, so although the second increase in Beijing city occurred in the orthodox years, it should be a project left by Emperor Xuande when he was alive.

After the Battle of Tumubao, the city of Beijing was repeatedly harassed by the Tatars and the Warats, so in the twelfth year of Chenghua, the imperial court proposed to build an outer city outside the capital.

In the first year of Jiajing, the imperial court built the Temple of Earth, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon in the suburbs of the capital.

In the 29th year of Jiajing, he began to build the Guanxiang City outside the three gates in front of the south of Beijing, that is, three small cities independent of the city gates, but because there were many shops and houses that needed to be demolished, the project was soon stopped.

In the 32nd year of Jiajing, the imperial court decided to use the ruins of the Tucheng of the Yuan capital to build the outer Guo City of Beijing on all sides, and initially planned that the outer city was 70 miles long, 17 miles from east to west, and 18 miles from north to south, with 11 city gates, 176 enemy platforms, two sluices outside Xizhimen and Tonghui River, and eight water gates in other low-lying areas.

Due to the huge construction period of this time, under Yan Song's construction, the outer city in the south of Beijing was built first, including a large prosperous area outside Zhengyang Gate.

Later, because of the frequent use of troops by the Ming Dynasty and a fire in the Forbidden City in the 36th year of Jiajing, the imperial court had to concentrate financial and material resources to rebuild the burned palace, so the expansion of the outer city stopped.

In the forty-third year of Jiajing, the imperial court added the urn city of the outer city gates, and since then it has formed the pattern of Beijing city that has been handed down to future generations, and the city gates of its inner city, outer city and imperial city are often said to be "seven inner and nine outer imperial city four".

The city of Beijing is composed of four parts: the Forbidden City, the Imperial City, the Inner City and the Outer City, of which the Forbidden City is also called the "Palace City".

The Forbidden City was the place where the emperor lived, so it was surrounded by tall city walls, with four gates: Wumen, Shenwumen, Donghuamen, and Xihuamen.

The Imperial City is the place where the Forbidden City is guarded and provides various services to the Forbidden City, built around the outside of the Forbidden City, and is forbidden to idle people, etc., there are royal gardens, temples, warehouses, workshops, and a large number of breeding and service institutions.

Unlike the Forbidden City, the Inner City, and the Outer City, the Imperial City did not have a wall with horse paths and battlements for defense, but only a red gate barrier wall more than 6 meters high, the Xiao Wall.

Xiao wall body red top covered yellow glazed tiles, that is, we often say red wall yellow tiles, the imperial city wall on all sides of the Daming Gate, Di'an Gate, Dong'an Gate and Xi'an Gate four gates, that is, commonly known as the "Imperial City Four".

The inner city refers to the capital before Emperor Jiajing expanded the south of Beijing, located between the city wall of the capital and the city wall of the imperial city, most of the people live in this area, and there are nine city gates of Zhengyang Gate, Dongzhi Gate, Xizhi Gate, Chaoyang Gate, Fucheng Gate, Chongwen Gate, Xuanwu Gate, Desheng Gate and Anding Gate, which is commonly known as "Inner Nine".

Emperor Jiajing built the city in the south of the capital is the outer city, the city wall of the outer city is slightly lower than the inner city wall, surrounded by Yongding Gate Guangqu Gate, Guang'an Gate, Zuo'an Gate, You'an Gate, East Gate and West Gate seven city gates, that is, commonly known as "Outer Seven".

In Li Yuntian's view, Emperor Xuande mentioned the expansion of the city wall at this time, it is obvious that he is planning for the aftermath of a rainy day, once he dies, then the political situation in the court will be affected by the civil official group and the Xungui group, and it is not so easy to expand the city of Beijing.

Emperor Xuande didn't want the funds in the treasury to be coveted by the officials in the court after his death, so it was better to use them to expand the city, which was also a major achievement during his reign.

At the same time, Emperor Xuande's move undoubtedly helped Liu Zhen a lot, as long as the news of the Ming Dynasty's expansion of Beijing City spread, the King of Joseon would definitely breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that the Ming Dynasty would not be interested in the Kingdom of Korea.