New Han Dynasty 1834

Chapter 35 Ascension to the Throne and Change of Era

Liu Yulong chatted with several scholars all afternoon, and finally returned to the West Palace to rest in the evening.

The next morning, I went to the cabinet to handle routine government affairs as usual.

Liu Yulong casually flipped through today's memorials, first reading a report and request from the Court of State Ceremonial.

Following Liu Yulong's request, the Court of State Ceremonial drafted detailed rules for the "Entry and Exit Management System" and completed preparations for its implementation.

The procedures were drafted and basic personnel were selected.

However, it will still take some time to raise funds and construct the collective dormitories used for the temporary accommodation of non-entry personnel.

The Court of State Ceremonial (Honglu Temple) suggested that the policy be implemented starting from the first day of the first lunar month of the following year.

New arrivals will be handled directly according to the new regulations, and they don't need much housing.

Those who were already in Dahan will be temporarily arranged to leave the country and then re-enter, and will be managed according to the new regulations.

Once all the required dormitories are completed, the remaining unregistered personnel will be forcibly processed or deported.

However, seigniorage and currency controls were enforced from the first day of the first lunar month.

Liu Yulong felt there were no problems, so he directly approved the Honglu Temple's suggestion and reminded them that it must be fully implemented within three years.

Three years later, all foreigners who still do not have entry permits will not be allowed to move freely within the territory of the Han Dynasty and must remain in collective dormitories on designated islands.

After reviewing the memorial from the Court of State Ceremonial, Liu Yulong picked up a request from the Ministry of Rites.

Preparations for the enthronement ceremony have begun, but the official reign title for the following year has not yet been determined, and the Ministry of Rites has consulted the emperor for his opinion.

According to the tradition of most dynasties, after the death of the old emperor, the reign title of the new emperor was still used in the year of his ascension to the throne.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year of the following year, the new emperor held a grand ceremony to worship Heaven and ascend the throne, and at the same time officially changed the era name.

The Ministry of Rites consulted Liu Yulong's opinion and provided several alternative options for him to choose from or make other arrangements.

The candidate options are: Xian'an, Taikang, Hanchang, and Jing'an.

The other three are quite ordinary, but Hanchang is the most distinctive one, and it can take over Liu Desheng's Xinghan.

However, Liu Yulong knew that this reign title had been used for three months by a separatist regime during the Sixteen Kingdoms period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

This kind of problem is not unacceptable; many famous reign titles have been used more than once.

There shouldn't be any major problems as long as it wasn't used in this dynasty.

If I use it for a few more years, future generations will only think of me when they mention this reign title.

In addition to the reign titles, the Han Dynasty established by Liu Desheng actually had another system of dating, known as the Han calendar dating system of the historians.

The year Liu Bang ascended the throne as emperor is designated as the first year of the Han calendar, and the years before that are referred to as "the year before the Han calendar".

The year Liu Desheng proclaimed himself emperor was 2001 in the Han calendar (1800), a year he specifically chose to mark the beginning of the third millennium after Liu Bang.

Liu Yulong ascended to the throne in 2035 (1834).

The Han Dynasty calendar used by historians was a pure Yang calendar, which only recorded the year and day but not the month, and separately marked the new moon and full moon days.

The total number of days in each year is recorded directly, with the first day after the winter solstice being the first day of each year.

The last day of a common year is the 365th day, and the last day of a leap year is the 366th day.

A leap year is set every four years, and one less leap year is set every 128 years.

The last day of the year is usually the winter solstice.

The "Daily Records of the Emperor" and the "Veritable Records," as well as all newly revised historical books and diaries on various aspects such as research and development, construction, and navigation, will all be written using this Han calendar system.

However, the government offices and the people's daily lives still used the reign title system for dating.

The fact that this new system of dating was used, yet the traditional reign titles were still used, is primarily due to traditional customs.

More importantly, it served to create a code name for the emperor that did not need to be avoided.

Since the Ming Dynasty, emperors no longer changed their reign titles easily; with the exception of Emperor Yingzong, each emperor had a different reign title.

The reign title naturally became the emperor's designation.

Liu Yulong was not prepared to change this tradition. He circled the two characters "Hanchang" that he had chosen and instructed the Ministry of Rites to continue preparing for the ceremony.

Time passed slowly, and the preparations for the ceremony proceeded in an orderly manner.

The imperial court released timely news about the Luzon campaign, announcing to the world that the court had officially occupied Luzon.

The Han Dynasty will prepare to usher in a new "Hanchang" era in an uplifting atmosphere.

At this time, the Han Dynasty could be considered relatively stable and peaceful, the only problem being that the population was simply too large.

At the current level of productivity, we have already fallen into the population trap.

In other words, the new dynasty had just been established, and the bureaucratic system had not yet become corrupt and decadent on a large scale.

The founding emperor completed the forced equal distribution of land, which alleviated the conflict between land and population.

However, the result of the equal distribution of land was that population growth accelerated again, so the newly established Han Dynasty faced enormous pressure.

Ordinary people, and even ordinary officials, are unaware of this.

In other words, the military personnel, having received Liu Desheng's constant guidance and knowing the population and land data at the grassroots level, had some understanding of this matter.

Liu Yulong's understanding became even clearer. Based on the population growth trajectory of his previous life, he estimated that there would be an additional 100 million people every five years in the future, and the number would double in thirty to forty years.

With these worries in mind, Liu Yulong received several pieces of expected good news.

The Metallurgical Department quickly completed the principle verification of seamless steel pipes and produced seamless steel pipes using the method described by Liu Yulong.

After receiving the report, Liu Yulong immediately issued an order to establish a seamless steel pipe plant next to the steel plant.

Explore mass production methods and start mass production as soon as possible.

Another month later, the oil-gas sealing structure of the propeller main shaft was tested and Liu Yulong's idea proved to be feasible.

Liu Yulong responded directly and made arrangements to begin the conversion and testing of the steam turbine propeller ship as soon as possible.

In addition, it was instructed that if there was a surplus of steel materials, efforts could begin to be made to build warships with pure steel structures.

The early testing of steam turbines with propellers was certainly similar to that of reciprocating steam engines with paddle wheels, starting with modifications to old ships.

But when Liu Yulong approved it, he thought that the Gewu Academy would probably create something that made people feel like they were in a time warp:

"A wooden sailboat with a steam turbine and propeller..."

The idea of ​​mounting steam turbines and propellers on wooden sailboats was something I had never heard of in my previous life.

Steam turbines were not used on large warships until the early 20th century, by which time wooden warships had long been obsolete.

Both of these things are now usable, but steel warships have not yet appeared.

After reading the memorial, Liu Yulong put it down with some emotion and continued to handle the remaining routine government requests before the end of the year.

By this time, the second year of the Tai'an reign was drawing to a close, and preparations for the coronation ceremony were complete.

On the first day of the first month of the first year of Hanchang, Liu Yulong first led his officials to the outer city to worship Heaven and Earth at the Temple of Heaven and Earth.

Then he returned to the imperial city and went to the Imperial Ancestral Temple to personally worship the ancestors of the Han Dynasty.

The current Han Dynasty is ambiguous about whether to inherit the legal system of the previous two Han dynasties.

Liu Desheng said he wanted to emulate the system of the former Han Dynasty, but apart from the system of rotating militia service, he did not actually adopt many of the systems of the two Han Dynasties.

Moreover, Liu Desheng's ancestors were farmers for generations, and at most they could be considered relatively wealthy small landlords.

Liu Desheng once frankly told his ministers and historians that he himself did not know whether he was a descendant of the Han imperial family.

Liu Desheng positioned himself as "the emperor of the Han people," not as the emperor of a new dynasty that traditionally used Han as its name, nor did he claim to be a descendant of the Han imperial family.

Just as Napoleon declared himself Emperor of the French, no longer the traditional Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

However, in his will, Liu Desheng instructed his descendants that in the future, there will be a molecular biology technology that can detect genes to determine whether or not it is true.

If it is claimed now, even if it is confirmed in the future, it will not bring any obvious benefits to the royal family.

If future testing confirms that they are not descendants of the Han Dynasty, it could cause a public relations crisis.

The number of Liu Bang's descendants is very large, and the number of new Han imperial family members will also increase, making it easy to detect whether they are the real Liu Bang or not.

Even if the test is done secretly and not announced, it will still generate public skepticism. If you don't dare to make it public, it will be considered fake.

If we don't claim to be descendants of the Han imperial family now, and it turns out we aren't in the future, it won't have too bad an impact. We can just continue to claim that the new Han emperor is the emperor of the Han people.

If it is discovered that the royal family is indeed a descendant of the Han Dynasty, then publicly promoting it at that time can enhance the royal family's reputation among the people.

Even if the emperor lost power in the later stages of a dynasty, it was easier to transform into a harmless national symbol.

However, Liu Yulong saw the memorial tablets of Liu Bang and Liu Xiu in the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

However, the posthumous titles of the two Han dynasties were not used directly. Liu Bang's posthumous title was "Holy Ancestor Emperor", and Liu Xiu's posthumous title was "Xi Ancestor Martial Emperor".

Liu Desheng enshrined the two figures to enjoy incense offerings, but did not publicize or promote them.

This can be seen as the new Han Dynasty posthumously honoring the former Han imperial family as its ancestors, which is equivalent to the Tang Dynasty emperors posthumously honoring Laozi Li Er as their holy ancestor.

They can also be understood as sages of the Han people, so the new Han Dynasty also worshipped them.

This freed up the posthumous title "Emperor Taizu Gao" for Liu Desheng to use himself.

Below Liu Bang and Liu Xiu are the four generations of ancestors posthumously honored by Liu Desheng after he ascended the throne, and finally Liu Desheng and his son Liu Jin'an.

Under the guidance of officials from the Ministry of Rites, Liu Yulong completed the ancestral worship ceremony in an orderly manner and returned to the main hall of the palace to receive the homage of civil and military officials.

He read out the edict of succession, explaining that he would continue to conquer barbarians, expand into the south and overseas, and seek more land for the people of the Han Dynasty.

A general amnesty was declared, and all prisoners were granted a reduction of one degree in their sentences, with death sentences commuted to exile to Luzon, Burma, Central Asia, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

However, those who commit the ten heinous crimes, smuggle opium, or torture and kill multiple people are not eligible for pardon.

After the imperial edict was read, Liu Yulong changed back into his armor and led the nobles to inspect the imperial guards outside the Meridian Gate.

After the inspection, Liu Yulong returned to the palace to change into his imperial robes and hosted a banquet for the meritorious officials, senior generals, high-ranking officials, and craftsmen.

The entire process took almost a whole day, finally ending in the evening.

When Liu Yulong returned to the palace, he was exhausted and went straight to bed to rest.

Liu Yulong's enthronement edict was sent out of the capital via post roads to all urban and rural areas under the control of the Han Dynasty, announcing the official start of a new era.