Zhao Jun looked at the mountains and fields, which were empty, with no villages or people.
"Southern History·Liu Zhilin Biography": Emperor Wu said: "Qing's mother is of high virtue in old age, so she will return to her hometown in fine clothes and honor her."
Returning home in rich clothes has been one of the most proud things for Chinese people since ancient times.
But the same.
The saddest thing in the world is that when you return home in fine clothes, you are faced with "children who don't recognize each other, and laugh and ask where the guest is from."
Your hometown has long since changed. Not only do people not recognize you, they have even forgotten your existence.
That feeling of desolation will come over my heart.
However, at least for Zhao Jun, this is not the saddest thing.
Because even if things change and people change, many people in your hometown will not remember you, but as long as you have money, they will soon remember you.
When you drive around the village in your luxury car, the villagers will recognize you immediately.
oh.
It turns out that you are so-and-so from a certain family. I remembered that I hugged you when I was a child.
Even when you build the house in your old house and turn it into a luxurious villa, you will ensure that all the relatives who are beyond your reach will come to your house to join in the fun.
So as long as you and your hometown exist in the same era, even if more than ten or twenty years have passed and you haven't returned to your hometown for a long, long time, time will still not take away the traces of your life here.
The saddest thing in the world is that you do not belong to this era, and there is no trace of you even living here.
Not even your ancestors have migrated here yet, there is only a wilderness left here.
Is it still your hometown?
So for Zhao Jun, the sad thing is that he doesn't even know whether to recognize this hometown, because this is his hometown thousands of years from now, not this wasteland in front of him.
Zhao Jun stood on the mountain and looked at this land for a long time.
He remembered that there was a small town in the bay at the foot of the mountain, and further north along the town was his hometown of Zhaojiawan. Although it looks completely different than it did a thousand years ago, the entire mountain topography has not changed much.
When he was a child, Zhao Jun often herded sheep with his friends on the hillside. The terrain of the entire town and village had long been imprinted in his mind and has never been erased.
But now the plain farmland on both sides of the river is now dense jungle, and the location of the town is a grassland with dense mountains around it, and there are almost no traces of human habitation in the distance.
"Zhiyuan."
Seeing that he was looking down the mountain ridge, the mayor pointed to the distance and said, "Twenty miles from there is Meishan Mountain."
"oh."
Zhao Jun responded. He knew the location of Meishan better than the mayor. He pointed at the foot of the mountain and said: "Looking at the terrain here, it should be possible to build a village. Why is there no one to inhabit it?"
The mayor smiled bitterly and said: "This place is too close to Meishan. The Meishan barbarians live on the mountain. The Han people are not allowed to come to the foot of the mountain, and they are not willing to live at the foot of the mountain. These Meishan barbarians, except for occasionally coming to the town to exchange for some grain, rice, oil and salt, live all year round. Hiding in the mountains, we would sometimes argue and fight with the Han people, which made us miserable."
"That's it."
Zhao Jun responded, not knowing how his ancestors broke through this barrier and settled here. But that was a matter of the Southern Song Dynasty after all. Maybe the barbarians had been wiped out by the government at that time, or they had begun to come into contact with the Han people. Who knows?
The mayor said: "There will be no Han villages in the past. Those barbarians will drive away anyone who comes close. How about going back, Zhiyuan."
"No."
Zhao Jun looked around, turned his head and said to the Shaozhou magistrate and the Xinhua county magistrate: "You have the responsibility to defend the land. Go back each other. I will stay here for one night. There is no need to stay with me all the time."
He said so, but how dare the two of them leave?
Since Zhao Jun is in their territory, he must be with them 24 hours a day.
The two of them said quickly: "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. It's our duty to accompany the magistrate to inspect the place."
"That's okay."
Zhao Jun did not force them, and then ordered Jiang Dalang and the others: "Set up camp here."
"yes."
Jiang Dalang and the others actually don't want to camp in this barren mountain.
After all, the New Year is here, and although the soldiers followed Zhao Jun away to other places, they are also creatures that love to join in the fun, so they naturally want to hang out in the county town.
They had saved a lot of reward money on the way, and they wanted to find a brothel, a tavern, a gambling house, or some other place to spend it.
As the new year approaches, I still hope to be lively and lively, which is much better than staying in the mountains.
But Zhao Jun's order had to be obeyed, so the soldiers had to reluctantly go down the hillside and set up tents at the foot of the mountain.
As night fell, the soldiers camped near the stream in silence.
The crackling of firecrackers could be heard in Baisha Town in the distance. Zhao Jun just stood by the river and watched the small river flow quietly.
Thousands of years later, he often swam in this river. The river is not big, only twenty meters wide. The deepest part is a pool under the dam. The dam has not been built yet, it is just a high and low gentle slope, but the pool is there.
Zhao Jun looked down at the pool. He almost drowned in it as a child and was pulled up by adults who were bathing in the river together.
At that time, people often swam in it in the summer. When I grew up, I don’t know why, but the river smelled bad. It was full of domestic sewage and garbage, and there were even dead babies and dead pigs. Naturally, no one went into the river.
There is also the hillside to the east. On the gentle slope of the winding mountain is the Zhao family ancestral hall. Later, the ancestral hall was built very large. It was donated by the rich people who left the Zhao family. It can accommodate hundreds of people to worship. At the annual sacrificial ceremony, Zhao Zhen’s spiritual tablet is displayed. Hanging high on it.
Zhao Jun just stayed by the river, staring blankly at all this, which was both familiar and unfamiliar. Everyone could tell that something was wrong with him, but no one dared to disturb him.
"What is Zhiyuan doing?"
Huang Sanlang tidied the tent and asked Jiang Dalang next to him: "Today is weird."
"I do not know either."
Jiang Dalang scratched his head and said, "Maybe I'm too busy with government affairs. Let's go for a walk in the mountains occasionally to make our body and mind more comfortable."
"That's wrong, it's because Zhiyuan has something on his mind."
It was Shaozhou Zhizhou that was educated. After all, he was a Jinshi. He could see Zhao Jun's current state at a glance.
Worried?
Everyone looked at each other, confused.
No one understood why Zhao Jun suddenly changed his route and came to a barren mountain under a remote town in Shaozhou.
But no one dared to go.
Time flows slowly like water in a stream.
It's late at night and the New Year is approaching.
Zhao Jun spent the end of Jingyou's fourth year in this mountain nest and also entered the new year.
At the beginning of this year, Song Renzong Zhao Zhen announced that the reign name would be changed to Baoyuan.
At the end of this year, historically Li Yuanhao officially attacked the Song Dynasty, setting off a several-year Song-Xia war.
Early the next morning, Zhao Jun once again set out on his southern tour.
On the first day of the new year, he waited for the soldiers to pack their luggage, stood on the ridge, took a deep look at the small mountain nest, and then left without looking back.
If he could change the fate of the Song Dynasty, perhaps the Zhao family's ancestors who fled here in the late Southern Song Dynasty would not happen again in the future.
At that time, naturally there was still no one here, maybe other Han people would move here.
But at least his ancestors will never come over again.
Here, there is only a trace of his thoughts and memories left, and it will no longer have anything to do with him.
"Let's go."
Back in Baisha Town, the boat rented by Zhao Jun was still waiting at the dock.
The water flows slowly.
This time, instead of continuing north, we headed south back to Shaozhou.
Jiang Dalang on the boat was still curious. When he saw Zhao Jun standing on the bow of the boat, standing with his hands behind his hands, still looking in the direction of Baisha Town, he couldn't help but ask: "Zhiyuan."
"Um?"
"I don't understand why I want to come here specially?"
"I just came to see what happened here before."
"oh."
"Okay, let the boatmen speed up, we have to go south to Guangzhou."
Zhao Jun didn't want to explain too much to Jiang Dalang, because there was actually nothing to explain, he just came to see his former hometown.
That's it this time.
Maybe he will never come back in the future, and this time he has finally stopped thinking about him.
Jiang Dalang left confused.
The ship slowly sailed away from the port, and Zhao Jun still looked at the mountains in the distance. It wasn't until the fleet turned a cliff that the mountains in the distance were completely blocked by the mountains behind, that he sighed and returned to the cabin.
In the past, I didn’t have much sense of belonging to the Song Dynasty. Even if his surname is Zhao, Emperor Zhao of the Song Dynasty is indeed his ancestor, but it still misses the mark.
In Zhao Jun's mind, the small mountain village that haunts him is the hometown where he was born and raised for more than 20 years. Even though he later moved north to study in Beijing, he still could not forget the mountain village. everything of.
But now, after taking this look, I have officially said goodbye to my former self.
Because no matter what, even his ancestors don't exist here, so there is no trace of him at all.
So he has been here but can't belong here, so he might as well just cut it off.
future.
He devoted himself wholeheartedly to the cause of the Song Dynasty.
The fate of our ancestors completely changed.
This hometown will become a thing of the past, just stay in dreamland.
．
．
In February of the first year of Baoyuan, Zhao Jun went south to Guangzhou and inspected Panyu Port, where he saw many foreign ships densely parked at the dock.
In fact, this situation can only be regarded as a small scene worth mentioning in any Chinese foreign trade terminal in later generations.
However, during the Song Dynasty thousands of years ago, no empire at the same time had ever seen so many foreign ships swarming in, just to take away the country's tea, porcelain, silk, spices and other specialties.
Zhao Jun asked local officials whether they had had any contact with Southeast Asian countries and whether they had taken the initiative to send ships to investigate the situation there.
The answer he received turned out to be, "We are a small country and there is no need to send envoys." "Only those from abroad can meet with the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty has never sent envoys to other countries except the Liao Kingdom."
Hearing such arrogant words, Zhao Jun was speechless.
If the investigation hadn't revealed that Fan Shidao, the transfer envoy of Guangnan East Road who said this, was a man of strict integrity and a rare honest official, he would have wanted to knock him on the head and ask him why he was so arrogant with the power of the Song Dynasty. From above.
Finally, Zhao Jun told him that he must form a fleet this year and go to Nanyang to inspect.
In addition, Nanyang is rich in grain production. If conditions permit, I hope he can find ways to import grain from Southeast Asia to alleviate domestic food pressure.
In fact, the Song Dynasty did not import food. For example, the north traded with Tubo, Xixia, and Liao countries, and they often purchased each other's cattle, sheep and other livestock. Moreover, during the Song Zhenzong period, due to the disaster in the south, food was imported from Vietnam to provide relief to the victims.
Champa rice was also introduced to China at that time.
It’s just that importing food is too troublesome and the cost is very high. It is estimated that more than half a year has passed since it was transported from Guangzhou to Hunan via the Lingqu Canal, then from Hunan via the Xiangjiang River to the Yangtze River, and finally via the canal to Bianliang.
Therefore, except when disasters occurred in the south and it was inconvenient to transport grain from the north, so the problem was solved at close range by importing grain from Nanyang, the Song Dynasty did not import goods.
This is also why foreign trade has been so developed since the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties. Basically, there was a trade surplus, with a large amount of silver flowing in. However, few Chinese regimes imported goods from outside and had a trade deficit.
The Opium War of the Qing Dynasty started because even though Britain industrialized, it did not compete with the local manufacturing industry of the Qing Dynasty. An industrial country still had a trade deficit with an agricultural country.
Britain needed to import a large amount of porcelain, tea and silk from the Qing Dynasty, and its wool and woolen fabrics could not be sold at all.
The so-called empire on which the sun never sets was so angry that it used foreign guns and cannons to solve this problem by exporting opium. It was really despicable.
Now Zhao Jun asked Guangdong Road to import Nanyang grain. His original intention was that although the import cost was high, he knew that war would start this year and grain prices would rise sharply. Even if the cost was high, it would not be able to compare with the skyrocketing domestic grain prices.
Therefore, imported grain can be used to stabilize food prices at that time, which will at least be much stronger than sudden inflation.
In addition to inspecting the port situation in Guangdong, Zhao Jun also visited the cotton planting situation.
Last year, the Constitutional Yuan had ordered a large amount of cotton to be planted in Guangzhou. It is not yet fully promoted, but local counties have political tasks, and cotton has begun to take root in the Song Dynasty.
Judging from the inspection, the yield of this poisonous cotton is still not as good as that of later generations of Xinjiang cotton. After all, Xinjiang cotton is well-cultivated, so the yield and quality are naturally very good.
However, ancient cotton has not been scientifically cultivated. Even if the output is half of that of later generations, it will definitely not be as good as that of later generations.
Zhao Jun stayed in Guangzhou seriously for more than two months. During this period, he also handled some cases. Some were people who were exiled in Lingnan who complained about injustice, some were problems with local officials, and some were disputes between foreigners and Han people.
He recorded everything he saw and heard, and also wrote a report on the local governance and arrangements in Guangzhou and sent it back to the court. It was not until March of the first year of Baoyuan that he left Guangzhou and went to Guangxi.
In June, he returned to Hunan and continued his tour.
At this time, the war in the northwest was intensifying. A special unexpected situation made the two sides at war with each other, and there was a vague sign of the beginning of the war.
I also know that these two chapters are a little watery, mainly due to the change in the protagonist's state of mind, which makes him feel more belonging to the Song Dynasty. After that, it is basically a new beginning. The protagonist's inspection ends, the Song-Xia war begins, and then the comprehensive promotion of reforms , which is considered the climax of the book, so stay tuned.
(End of chapter)
