Among the pictures he saw when he died frequently, there was a sentence that impressed Zhu Youzhen deeply, that is, in order to do big things, he had to "make as many of his own people as he wants to make and make the enemy few." ”

As the emperor, nominally all the people of the Ming Dynasty are his own people, and all the officials are his own courtiers, so they should all be their own people, and they can mobilize everything to do what they want to do. But Zhu Youzhen knew that it was impossible.

Officials are their own courtiers, but only if they do not touch the interests of their whole, otherwise they will turn from courtiers to enemies. Throughout the ages, have there been fewer killings of kings?

For example, if Zhu Youzhen dares to announce the abolition of the privileges of the gentry now, and all the talents and scholars will have to pay taxes, I am afraid that it will not be long before the world will be in chaos, and he will be ousted from the throne, or even die in an unknown manner.

When it comes to self-interest, these courtiers are very vicious, even in the face of their king.

From the moment of rebirth, Zhu Youzhen made a great vow to completely change the world, so the privileges of the scholars must be abolished, and the decadent class must be eliminated! He wants to rebuild a brand-new Ming Dynasty, a Ming Dynasty that is far away from the time of Taizu Taizong.

But to do all this, whether it is a gentry official or a noble clan, they may be enemies in their own way. And between the three, only the gentry represented by the officials are the biggest enemy, the number of clans is huge, but basically the threat of being kept in captivity is the least, the number of nobles is the least, and the power is not great, and it is most likely to become a help.

So at the beginning, Zhu Youzhen decided to win over the nobles, suppress the clan vassal kings, accumulate his own strength and prestige, and wait for his strength to cover the entire Ming Dynasty one day, and after eliminating the foreign enemies of Jiannu and Mengtar, it is the time to have a showdown with the great enemy of the official gentry.

Winning over knowledgeable nobles, winning over the people at the bottom, and forming an army that is completely loyal to him is what Zhu Youzhen wants to do now.

Therefore, these honed noble children, even if Lu Xiangsheng doesn't like them, Zhu Youzhen will use them, but he will use them elsewhere.

For example, put them in the Han generals to enrich the palace guards, or put them in the Jinyi Guards to transform the Jinyi Guards, or put them in the Tengxiang Four Guards to improve the strength of the Tengxiang Four Guards. What Zhu Youzhen needs most now is people, and he doesn't have to worry about having nowhere to put it at all.

After chatting about the new Praetorian Guard, Zhu Youzhen left Xiyuan and drove to the Royal Arsenal. The Royal Arsenal was built on the site of the original Wang Gong Factory, which had a big explosion, and it was only two miles away from Xiyuan.

Now, the traces of the explosion are long gone, replaced by neat patches of buildings and sheds.

Sun Yuanhua led a group of officials to greet the emperor's arrival, and Wu Yangyang knelt down in a large area.

"Get up, on the occasion of the New Year, thinking of your hard work to build weapons for me, I want to come and see." Zhu Youzhen smiled slightly and ordered everyone to stand up.

Sun Yuanhua and the others were very excited, they never thought that the emperor would come here to see them, what a glory this is!

Here, Sun Yuanhua, who has the highest status, is just a person, and now the grade is only the fifth grade, and he has the title of a military department Langzhong in charge of the arsenal, and others such as Chen Yujie are the secretary of the ninth military department. Of course, everyone's official positions are not too high, but there are thousands of official positions in the arsenal, and those blacksmiths recruited from Guangdong are all Jiupin military attachés, and they belong to the Jinyiwei system! Zhu Youzhen laid off thousands of brocade clothes and guarded the officials, and gave them them.

But these people used to be just low-status craftsmen, although they had official positions, they had not yet made a psychological change, and there were too many officials in Beijing, and they were not a military attache of the Nine Grades without duties and powers. When they saw the emperor coming in person and talking to them with a kind attitude, they didn't know what to say, only knelt and kowtowed.

Zhu Youzhen smiled and swept over everyone, and when he saw that there were indeed people with deep eyes and high noses in the crowd, his smile was even brighter.

are all honest people, Zhu Youzhen casually soothed a few words, and then asked the accompanying eunuchs to distribute the reward wine, meat and copper coins they brought, and then let these craftsmen go back, just these, let these craftsmen feel the emperor's grace, one by one excited, to see the emperor, the emperor also spoke to them cordially, enough for them to brag for a lifetime!

"Your Majesty, the minister is really dead." The craftsmen retreated, leaving only Sun Yuanhua and other management, Sun Yuanhua took a few people to kneel down and salute again, and said with emotion.

Thinking that he was just a man, he was trusted by the emperor and handed over the entire arsenal to him, what a great grace the emperor was!

"In my mind, your role is no worse than those six members of the court!" Zhu Youzhen smiled and said, "Jiannu is rampant, occupy my Liaodong and kill my Liaomin, only by creating powerful firearms can you deal with them, you have a long way to go!" ”

"The ministers will live up to His Majesty's trust!" Sun Yuanhua and the others said excitedly.

Next, Sun Yuanhua reported the situation of the arsenal on behalf of everyone, the blacksmiths in Guangdong have been settled, and everything in the arsenal is on the right track.

"At present, the craftsmen are divided into two groups, and most of the blacksmiths make the pipes and make the Lumi guns. Lumi Gun Pipe has high requirements for iron quality, and most of the iron materials transported from Jizhou Iron Works do not meet the requirements and need to be re-smelted. The Lumi gun pipe is long, the air tightness is good, the process is complex, it takes at least half a month for a blacksmith to make a gun pipe, according to the minister's estimate, by next month, the first batch of Lu Mi gun will be built, the number is more than 1,000. ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded, and the speed had reached his psychological expectations.

"We must strictly control the quality, and we are not allowed to explode when using!" Zhu Youzhen said solemnly.

The explosion of the fire gun will cause great fear to the gunners, and if it appears on the battlefield, it will have a great impact on the victory or defeat.

Sun Yuanhua hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, rest assured, each firearm will be engraved with the name of the craftsman, and if there is a bombing, the craftsman will be held responsible." ”

"I see a lot of Franc people here, what are they doing now?" Zhu Youzhen asked.

"They are now making a cannon mold and preparing to build a Hongyi cannon." Sun Yuanhua said.

Zhu Youzhen said: "Don't worry about the Hongyi cannon for the time being, you are now building more small cannons for the march, Furlong machine guns, tiger squat cannons, etc., it won't be long before the Praetorian Guard will send the requirements for the types and quantities of artillery needed to the arsenal." ”

Sun Yuanhua was puzzled: "Your Majesty, the Hongyi cannon is the most powerful in the Xiyi cannon, and when he was guarding Ningyuan, he relied on the power of the Hongyi cannon to defeat the Jiannu army, why don't you build more Hongyi cannons?" ”

Zhu Youzhen said: "Because what I want to build is a Praetorian Guard that can fight in the field, not to defend the city, the Hongyi cannon is powerful, but is it easy to move with the army?" ”

Sun Yuanhua shook his head, the Hongyi cannon weighed thousands of catties each, and it was originally used to defend the city or warships, but the words of the army were too cumbersome.