Chapter 1028
Drawings
Chapter 1028 Drawings
Tabloids existed as early as the Song Dynasty, but they were mostly popular among musicians and gentry.
After all, ordinary people are illiterate.
However, after the Ming Dynasty was established, as Zhu Yuanzhang promoted community schools and military academies, more people in the countryside became literate, and tabloids began to circulate.
Initially, they were mostly handwritten, but with the development of the printing and papermaking industries, coupled with cultural diversification, they began to be printed.
However, there were many cults in the early Ming Dynasty, and they often used tabloids to recruit followers. In order to crack down on cults, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor) vigorously banned tabloids, which is why the private newspaper industry did not develop.
While private tabloids did not develop, government-run newspapers did, with the official gazette being the most prominent.
Unfortunately, official gazettes were mostly policy-related documents and usually circulated among officials.
In the past two years, anti-Japanese activities in the Jianghu (江湖, the martial arts world) have increased, the imperial court's policies have changed significantly, and Pan Yun has been collecting new weapons. Meanwhile, local newspapers have spontaneously started to emerge among the people.
Initially, teahouses and bookstores collaborated to compile the collected information into booklets and sell them.
Storytellers could either buy material from booklets or write down their own stories and sell them to bookstores to be printed into booklets...
Initially, these booklets were published every two weeks, then it became once every ten days, and then once every three days...
Finally, this led to the emergence of various tabloids, basically one a day, which were distributed in bookstores and teahouses and were very popular.
As private newspapers further developed, some local government offices recognized their potential and entered the market before the capital.
For example, in Nanchang Prefecture, Jiangxi Province, they ordered the prefectural school to publish a journal called "Ganjiang Journal".
It's supposed to be an academic journal, but it contains all sorts of things, including everything.
Lu Junning, the prefect of Nanchang, considered Pan Yun to be a fellow townsman, so as soon as the academic journal was published, he sent her a ten-day issue of the newspaper, which contained very interesting content.
After reading it, Pan Yun couldn't help but chat with Miao Zhen: "No wonder Jiangxi is the richest and has the most officials. With such vision and keen insight, it's hard not to win."
Miaozhen: "Isn't Jiangnan the richest place?"
Pan Yun clicked his tongue and said, "Jiangxi is not bad either, it's just that it's not as high-profile as Jiangnan. If you count the officials from Jiangxi in the court, it's high-profile in the officialdom."
Miaozhen: "Anyway, ordinary people are all suffering."
Pan Yun nodded in agreement: "That's true. Wheat ripens five thousand times, but the people live only once."
"Huh?" Miaozhen looked puzzled.
Pan Yun waved her hand, indicating that the topic should be skipped, and asked, "How's your stargazing career going?"
Miaozhen: "I observed the celestial phenomena last night and found that the stars were very different. Junior Uncle, the celestial phenomena may have changed, and the dynasty may also be changing."
Pan Jun flipped through her notes, her gaze slightly narrowed.
Miaozhen glanced at it and said, "Last spring, the hibernating insects began to stir three days later than the previous year. In winter, the river waters dried up two days earlier than the previous year. However, the temperature during the Great Heat was higher than the previous year because the palace used three more cubic meters of ice than the previous year."
Pan Yun: "You mean, winters will be colder and summers will be hotter in the future?"
“No,” Miaozhen shook her head, “I think the fact that last summer was hotter was an anomaly. The general trend in the future should be that it gets colder and colder throughout the year. I have checked the records of the Imperial Observatory over the years. There are abnormal weather conditions every year, with ups and downs, but if we start to analyze them from the second year of Hongwu, we can find the general trend.” Miaozhen took out a roll of paper and slowly spread it out in front of Pan Jun.
The paper, three meters wide and over eight meters long, was drawn with several winding lines. The undulating lines were clearly visible, but the overall direction was downward.
Pan Yun stared blankly.
Her niece is quite remarkable; she manually analyzed nearly eighty years of weather trends, including changes in grain yield, precipitation, and other numerical values.
Pan Yun sighed and said, "What about the Ministry of Works? The thermometers I made for them, they haven't even thought of using them among the common people? Our Great Ming needs a clear unit of temperature and accurate measuring tools. With these two, the Imperial Astronomical Bureau can do things more accurately."
Miaozhen said, "We've used it, but there are no specific numerical calculations for each year. To make a comparison, we still need to draw this graph. However, I think that if we collect temperature data for another three years, we can deduce the temperature data for the past eighty years based on the records of the Imperial Observatory."
Pan Yun looked at Miao Zhen with admiration, then turned around and delivered the drawing she had made to the Imperial Study.
The emperor and his cabinet ministers were completely baffled, but as they looked, Yu Qian quickly noticed the problem: "In the past seventy-nine years, the average yield per mu of our Great Ming has not increased at all."
As Cao Nai looked at the figures, he said quietly, "It's not just that. Look at the total numbers. The population hasn't increased much. The figures given by the Ministry of Revenue in the ninth year of the Zhengtong reign are only 340,000 fewer than those in the twenty-sixth year of the Hongwu reign."
Zhu Qiyu stood in front of the table, looking down at the map, and remained silent for a long time: "I know that this population is the taxpayer population calculated by the Ministry of Revenue according to the tax collection. People hide their households to avoid the poll tax. But how come the cultivated land is less than during the reign of Emperor Taizu Gao?"
The officials present remained silent.
When Pan Yun came to offer his opinions to the emperor after he had eaten and drunk his fill, he was taken aback by the heavy atmosphere in the Imperial Study.
The ministers all turned to look at her.
Pan Yun was so frightened that she took two steps back and put her hands in front of her: "What do you want to do? No, my niece has done so much, what's wrong with me asking her for an official position? The saying goes that one should recommend the virtuous without avoiding relatives. She is so capable, shouldn't she serve the country?"
The ministers were taken aback: "The Imperial Preceptor sent this picture just to ask Master Miaozhen for an official position?"
Pan Yun paused for a moment and then said, "Not entirely. Isn't it because the Ministry of Works has tools for measuring temperature, so they wanted to discuss with His Majesty the matter of promoting the use of thermometers?"
The room was silent.
Pan Jun quickly said, "Don't underestimate this thermometer. Its widespread adoption among the general public involves many issues and brings numerous benefits."
Cao Nai: "The Imperial Advisor's attention is always different from others."
Yu Qian was even more direct: "Then what is the purpose of showing the rice and wheat yields per mu, cultivated land area, national grain output, and population changes on this map?"
“It depends on the weather!” Pan Jun said matter-of-factly. “Isn’t the climate closely related to these things? Longer days and more rain mean higher grain yields and better living conditions for people. Otherwise, if the weather is unpredictable and the climate is harsh, people will die from the heat in summer and the cold in winter. Wouldn’t that slow down the population growth, or even cause negative growth?”
Pan Yun suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He looked at them, then at the painting on the table that hung all the way to the ground, and said with a meaningful "Oh": "Are you suspecting that I am hinting at something, implying something, using veiled criticism, having ulterior motives, and that my true intentions are not what they seem?"
Yu Qian coughed lightly and said, "Grand Preceptor, you should not indulge in cultivation. You should read more books."
Pan Jun snorted and said, "Unless I go out to gain experience and witness injustice that forces me to change things, I won't bother getting involved in these matters."
(End of this chapter)