New Han Dynasty 1834

Chapter 37 The King of a Nation, The Head of a Family

Liu Yulong chatted with his mother for a while, and then the two of them went to the Qianqing Palace together and sat in the seat for the head of the household.

All members of the royal family and relatives of the emperor of the new Han Dynasty, namely Liu Yulong's uncles, brothers, maternal uncles, paternal uncles, brothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law, entered the palace at ten o'clock in the morning to pay New Year's greetings to the Empress Dowager and the emperor in the Qianqing Palace.

After Liu Yulong and Wang Ying sat down to receive the greetings, they hosted a family banquet for their relatives in the Qianqing Palace.

The ceremonial royal family banquet soon came to an end, and Wang Ying returned to Cining Palace, while the other members of the imperial family and relatives of the empress returned to their respective residences.

Although Qianqing Palace was the emperor's sleeping quarters, it had actually become a royal ceremonial palace, and Liu Yulong did not live there on a daily basis.

Kunning Palace also became a ceremonial palace for the emperor's and princes' weddings, and the empress did not live in Kunning Palace on a daily basis.

Upon returning to his usual residence in the West Palace, Liu Yulong immediately instructed his chief eunuch to retrieve the files of the female historians around him.

After receiving the files, Liu Yulong quickly flipped through them and filtered through them.

The women in the Han Dynasty palace were actually of several categories, with clear distinctions in their status, making it difficult to confuse them.

The first category is, of course, the emperor's women. Those with ranks are collectively called concubines, while those without ranks are collectively called imperial concubines.

Whether they were imperial concubines or palace maids, it was usually clear when they entered the palace that they were there as the emperor's women.

The second category is the emperor's daughters.

The third category consists of daughters from top-ranking noble families. They were raised in the palace from a young age, growing up alongside princes and princesses, and were intended for marriage alliances.

Empress Xu, Zhu Di's wife, lived in the palace with the princesses from a young age and was Zhu Di's childhood sweetheart.

The fourth category is female historians, also known as female officials. They usually come from middle-level bureaucratic families and are responsible for the emperor's and royal family members' daily life.

They had ranks and positions, similar to female stewards in wealthy families in ancient East Asia, or high-ranking royal maids from noble families in Europe. In reality, their work was similar to that of modern personal secretaries.

The fifth category is ordinary palace maids, mostly from low-ranking officials and commoner families, who are responsible for chores such as sweeping and cleaning in the palace.

Whether they were female historians or palace maids, they were not considered the emperor's women; their status was that of corvée labor.

According to the rules set by Liu Desheng, all those who entered the palace were between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, and left the palace after serving for five years or until they reached the age of twenty.

If they did not commit any obvious offenses during their service, the palace would directly provide them with a dowry and arrange their marriage.

In their daily lives, emperors rarely had the opportunity to see ordinary palace maids, and they usually did not visit female scribes or palace maids who were doing their work.

If the emperor were truly interested and actually favored a palace maid, he would immediately make her his concubine, and naturally, she would no longer be allowed to leave.

Any female historians and palace maids who were released were invariably those who had not been favored by the emperor.

Thanks to Liu Desheng's personal example, the marriage age of noble and high-ranking officials has been slightly postponed, and now most of them are over eighteen.

Getting married at twenty is not considered late, and with the added advantage of having seen the world in the palace, these women find it easy to find a husband.

Liu Yulong had not yet specifically selected any imperial concubines, but there were 384 female officials serving the emperor, 32 of whom had been with him since he was the crown prince.

They were all young girls between the ages of fifteen or sixteen and twenty.

After reviewing the family backgrounds of these female historians, Liu Yulong selected three female historians from families of civil officials, three from families of military officials, and three from families of artisans, based on their origins and places of origin.

The fathers of civil and military officials were ranked between the fifth and seventh ranks.

The fathers of the artisan families in the Gewu Academy held ranks between the third and fifth grades, but only had the rank of artisan without any actual official position.

Most craftsmen only received promotions in rank and salary, but did not participate in any administrative or management affairs; in other words, they did not hold power.

At the same time, the higher the craftsman's rank, especially after exceeding the fifth rank, the higher their cultural knowledge and basic modern scientific literacy.

Of the nine girls Liu Yulong selected, three were old acquaintances of his, whom he was already very familiar with. He had also seen the other six frequently over the past six months.

None of them were stunning beauties, but they were all quite outstanding in a crowd; otherwise, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to become the emperor's personal secretaries.

Liu Yulong had no interest in talking to women; his goal was to have several children as soon as possible.

Since the new Han imperial family does not wait for the legitimate heir, there is no need for him to wait until he gets married to take a concubine; he can have several sons born out of wedlock first.

After Liu Yulong selected the women, he summoned the Shanggong, who was in charge of managing the female historians, and changed their identities directly to Imperial Concubines. He then recorded their menstrual cycles.

From the start of their next period, they should not be allowed to leave the palace and return home.

He arranged for them to take turns serving him in bed, placing the three craftsmen first, and then the others after they served him.

However, it must be chosen on the day between their two menstrual periods, and two to three people are arranged each month.

The middle of the menstrual cycle is when the chances of getting pregnant are highest.

The Shanggong was also a female official, but she was older and had not left the palace to get married.

Hearing Liu Yulong's arrangements, I was very surprised. I had never seen a group of female historians being converted into imperial concubines before.

If the emperor needed women, he could simply arrange for their selection; there was no need for this internal selection process.

I've never seen a request to arrange the order of bedchamber service according to menstrual cycles.

Despite her surprise, the court lady didn't say anything more and simply accepted the order to handle the matter.

The emperor is the ruler of a country and also the head of a family.

The ancient saying "men are in charge of external affairs, and women are in charge of internal affairs" was actually a requirement for the female head of the household.

The female head of the household should be able to manage household affairs well so that the male head of the household can focus on external affairs and not have to worry about trivial matters at home.

It doesn't mean that the lady of the house has the final say in household affairs, nor does it imply that the emperor cannot interfere in the affairs of the harem.

If the female homeowner cannot manage the situation or does not manage it well, and the male homeowner is dissatisfied, the male homeowner will step in and manage it directly.

If the emperor is willing to manage the affairs of the harem, he can get rid of the empress and even the empress dowager.

Even if the Empress Dowager is the Emperor's mother, she can only restrict and criticize the Emperor in terms of filial piety and family affection.

The emperor had already made up his mind; once he had decided, there was no need to seek the empress dowager's approval to implement it.

Emperors with good mother-son relationships would use easily acceptable methods to inform their children, while those with poor relationships might simply ignore it, like Emperor Jiajing did.

So the next morning, Liu Yulong went to Cining Palace again and told his mother, Wang Ying, about his arrangements:

"After I went back, I thought about it carefully. Going through the whole wedding process slowly is too slow. It would be fastest to just have sex with a few ladies-in-waiting and palace maids."

"The Empress will continue to carefully select these ladies-in-waiting. If any of them bear a son or daughter, they will all be granted the title of Imperial Concubine."

Wang Ying looked astonished upon hearing this:

"Even though it's not about choosing an empress, isn't the emperor in a way too much of a hurry...?"

Liu Yulong said with a smile:

"My child has this decisive and efficient personality; he doesn't want to procrastinate on anything that can be started as soon as possible."

"This way, the children can have their own children soon, and the mother can hold her grandchildren soon, putting the brothers and ministers at ease."

Wang Ying was speechless, somewhat regretting urging Liu Yulong yesterday, but what's done is done. She could only look forward to holding her grandson for now.

"That's fine, but the Emperor must take care of his health. Both the founding emperor and the late emperor instructed him not to indulge in sexual activity..."

Liu Yulong explained directly:

"I have already made arrangements; I will arrange for you to serve me in bed a maximum of three times per month."

Wang Ying nodded gently:

"That's fine then."

Liu Yulong spent the morning with his mother, and only returned to his West Palace after lunch.

With basic arrangements made for the family matters that he had to deal with, Liu Yulong could then focus his attention back on political affairs and research.

During the Lunar New Year holidays, without having to deal with government affairs, I could clear my mind and contemplate the future of the Han Dynasty.

The internal theme is construction, while the external theme is exploration, and at the same time, the Gewu Institute system is being expanded.

Time slowly passed until the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, and all departments, prefectures, temples, and monasteries officially resumed their work.

Last year, the industrial construction and overseas expansion activities of the Great Han Dynasty could be considered to be in the preparation and preparation stage.

But after the start of this year, it can be considered to have officially begun.

The various plans and arrangements made before the Lunar New Year are now being officially implemented and put into practice one after another.

This has naturally begun to directly affect more and more ordinary people.

On the 21st day of the first lunar month, construction began simultaneously on two railways: one from Jingzhao to Luanzhou, and the other from Luanzhou to Liaoyang.

The construction materials used to build railways, such as rails, sleepers, and stones, are very heavy and difficult to transport using traditional mule and horse vehicles.

The most suitable method is to use the railway under construction to transport the goods, laying the foundation while transporting them.

Luanzhou had the only large-scale steel plant and the only rail rolling mill at that time.

The obvious approach was to start construction from the Luanzhou Steel Plant and proceed in multiple directions simultaneously.

However, this construction method allows for the training of more workers in advance, who can then be responsible for the construction of more railways in the future.

The militia members who had participated in the test railway construction were divided up to lead four batches of new militia members to learn how to lay the tracks.

At the beginning, the two construction teams could only lay a few rails a day and build a little over 100 meters of railway.

However, the new militia workers who had received military training were very disciplined, and they also benefited from the management and dispatching methods provided by Liu Yulong.

Once the new militia workers became proficient in their work, the construction speed began to increase rapidly.

Five days later, the daily laying speed exceeded 500 meters, eight days later it reached 1,000 meters, and ten days later it exceeded 2,000 meters.

Han Chinese laborers can be said to be the most efficient laborers in the world.

Being able to endure hardship is not the most important thing; the key is excellent organizational and coordination skills, that is, a natural higher level of organization.

This was honed and selected through two thousand years of highly coordinated labor in water management, river dredging, and city building.

Even ordinary laborers have their own ideas and think things through when they do things.

If their wisdom can be guided and brought into play, they can do everything very quickly and efficiently.

It is not the same species as the single-minded European white-feathered chicken and the Southeast Asian monkey.

During the era of massive railroad construction in the United States, the record of laying 16 kilometers of railroad in 12 hours was set by a team of Chinese laborers who made up 90% of the workforce.

At that time, there were very few specialized machines, and most of the work had to be done by hand.

However, this data was created in advance with all preparations made, and was an extreme figure built up for publicity and competition. It is impossible to maintain such a high speed when laying railways manually.

After each construction team became familiar with the work, they each accelerated their construction speed, with the highest reaching 8,000 meters per day.

However, after maintaining this pace for two or three days, the laying speed was reduced for safety and stability reasons.

Ultimately, the daily construction mileage of each team remained between four and six kilometers.

The first official railway of the Han Dynasty, the Jingzhao-Luanzhou Railway, was a little over 200 kilometers long and was completed in just two months.

Even after the railway was extended to Jingzhao, the construction team did not stop.

The railway was to be laid southwards from Jingzhao, with the first phase aiming to reach the north bank of the Yellow River in Guide Prefecture, and then continue across the Yellow River to Jiangpu County on the north bank of Nanjing.

For large-scale bridges such as the Yellow River Bridge, Huai River Bridge, and Yangtze River Bridge, the Institute of Geology and Physics has established a separate engineering department to tackle the challenges and construct them. It is still uncertain whether they can be completed in sync with the railway construction.

However, regardless of whether it can be completed, the railway must continue to be built first. In the early stages of construction, ferries will be used to cross the river. Once the bridge is completed, the railway will be connected to it.