Zhang Yue traveled all the way from Xiangzhou to Daming Mansion.
Now the judge of Daming Mansion is Wen Yanbo.
Once Han Qi left, only Wen Yanbo and Fu Bi remained among the three Jiayou ministers, and Wen Yanbo was the only remaining official guarding Hebei.
Daming Mansion is the most prosperous place in the North, but the city is tall and criss-crossed with trenches. The first thing that catches the eye is the Drum Tower towering into the sky.
People entering and exiting the city gates were strictly inspected, but they still couldn't help the crowds pouring into Daming Mansion from far away. After entering the city, armored cavalry patrols could be seen everywhere.
It really deserves to be the most important town in Hebei.
The establishment of this Daming Mansion is related to Lu Yijian. At that time, the Liao Kingdom was going south, and Renzong planned to abandon the capital and move to Luoyang.
Lu Yijian expressed his opposition, thinking that the capital should be built instead, expressing the official's determination to personally conquer the land, and demonstrating to the Liao State. Now the Liao State would be afraid. Renzong adopted Lu Yijian's suggestion to upgrade the name to a companion capital and guard it with important ministers.
After the Liao Kingdom learned about it, they really gave up their plans to conquer the south.
This is also the Song Dynasty version of the emperor guarding the country.
Zhang Yue arrived at Daming Mansion and met Wen Yanbo.
Zhang Yue travels in a simple car, but Wen Yanbo greets him with great grandeur.
Wen Yanbo personally went out to the left-behind residence to meet Zhang Yue, as well as his two younger sons Wen Weishen and Wen Zongdao.
Wen Yanbo smiled and said to Zhang Yue: "My son, Liulang, said before Zhang Shuzhu passed the exam, he said that the future is not something that can be saved in the pond. He has read many people, and there is no one like him in the world."
"Now that the Duke is ranked second in the palace, not only has it come true, but today the old man has the audacity to entrust his two young sons to the Duke."
After speaking to Wen Weishen, Wen Zongdao stepped forward and bowed to Zhang Yue.
Zhang Yue immediately helped the two of them up, said he didn't dare to take it seriously, and then said that he would definitely take care of them.
The two gentlemen of the Wen family were very happy. At Zhang Yue's age, he had been in the position of prime minister for less than thirty years, so that they would have a backer in the future.
Wen Yanbo welcomed Zhang Yue into the left-behind mansion.
During the dinner, Wen Yanbo talked and laughed happily. He ate quite lightly and seemed to know how to maintain good health.
Zhang Yue looked carefully at Wen Yanbo, who was now very old, but in good spirits. Emperor Renzong, who was good at recognizing people, said that he resembled Bingji, a minister of the Western Han Dynasty.
Zhang Yue feels that this evaluation is correct. Bingji and Wen Yanbo are the role models for us officials. Among the three figures of Jiayou, Wen Yanbo was the most proficient in being an official. Perhaps this is why he lived the longest.
After chatting for a while, we got to the main topic, which is the strategy of Ying Liao.
Although Zhang Yue was the two-way propaganda envoy, he did not expect to be superior to Wen Yanbo, so he still asked Wen Yanbo for advice on how to break the Liao Dynasty.
Wen Yanbo replied: "In response to Liao's policy, I think it is impossible to attack without relying on it, but because I have something to wait for it. If it is not attacked without relying on it, it cannot be attacked if it depends on me."
Wen Yanbo's words come from Sun Tzu's Art of War, which sounds quite general, but it is indeed the best way to deal with the Liao Kingdom's military intimidation today.
Zhang Yue asked: "If the Liao people really come, what are the chances of winning?"
Wen Yanbo raised the wine cup and said: "To judge, it is best to drink three cups of this wine. It will give you a feeling of swaying. If you drink too much, it will easily hurt your body. Just like the matter of conquering the Liao Dynasty, although I have been fully prepared, it is best not to start it. Once the sword is used, it is over."
Zhang Yue asked: "Do you have any room?"
Wen Yanbo said: "Indeed, this dynasty used many rooms, and the Liao people also used many."
"So if I enter Daming Mansion, will the Liao people know about it?"
Wen Yanbo said: "We may not know."
Zhang Yue thought to himself that the Song Dynasty did not know much about the Liao Kingdom. This time he promoted Hebei. In order to understand the situation of the Liao Kingdom, the emperor copied to Zhang Yue a copy of the quotations written by the envoys who went to Liao Kingdom every year. Let him know the national conditions of Liao.
Zhang Yue asked: "So how was the discussion between Han Zhen and the others?"
Wen Yanbo sighed and said: "Let's endure it for the sake of the country!"
After speaking, Wen Yanbo handed Zhang Yue a letter filled with "word verification". This word check is similar to a code book. After it was passed to Wen Yanbo, it was later translated.
Zhang Yue read the text and said that the negotiation process between Han Zhen and the Liao State fully reflected the arbitrariness, unreasonableness, domineering, and superiority of Liao imperialism.
After Zhang Yue read it, he laughed angrily and said: "What are we talking about? If we continue to talk like this, we won't get any results. It's better to just agree to the Liao people. There is almost no room for bargaining for us."
Wen Yanbo said: "It's not that we can't talk. If this continues, we can still talk at the Huangwei Mountain watershed, but I'm afraid we won't be able to hold on to the other three places."
Zhang Yue immediately looked at the map of the Liao Kingdom, and then said: "Even if we defended Beiwei Mountain during the demarcation dispute, if we lost the other three places, we would have lost six to seven hundred miles. From now on, if word spreads, you and I will fall into the trap of Talking point."
This is indeed the case in history. After the demarcation, land was ceded to the Liao Kingdom. In the end, Han Zhen and Wang Anshi, who presided over the negotiations, were criticized a lot by the old party.
Wen Yanbo said: "I am old and deaf, not to mention I have not been in the center for a long time. I don't know what the saint wants. It is up to Deputy Zhang Shuduo to make the decision on this matter."
Wen Yanbo immediately acted wisely to protect himself.
Zhang Yuezao knew that the other party would say this and immediately said: "It is for Han Zhen that Zhang Cheng and the Liao people are negotiating with the border demarcation. The Liao people are pressing down the border with a large army. I have always believed in diplomacy if we are strong, and no diplomacy if we are powerless. The Liao people must be allowed to Only when people see our strength can we do it.”
"What's the plan?"
Zhang Yue said: "As far as I know, the Liao Kingdom has no coins, and they are all using our country's copper coins. As long as we can cut off the source of the Liao's copper coins, the Liao people will be in chaos."
"Nowadays, the Liao people are addicted to tea, but they do not produce tea, so they all rely on our tea imports. We can use money to buy tea from the world, and add a tea tax to give the Liao people a disincentive."
Wen Yanbo said: "But what if the Khitan takes revenge? We buy hundreds of thousands of Khitan sheep every year. What if the Khitan bans the sale of sheep to us?"
Zhang Yue said: "This is what Guan Zhong said about fighting against each other. When the two countries are fighting, they spend everything they have on each other with things that are not rare. There is no mutton, but the high-ranking officials in Bianjing spend a few extra dollars every month. It's just meat for money, but how can the Khitan people endure it without tea?"
Wen Yanbo smiled and said: "As far as I know, the people who love mutton the most are the officials!"
Zhang Yue smiled when he heard this and said, "Since I'm here, I'll let it go."
This trade war is like this. The Liao people like to sell the Northern Pearl to the Song people. The Northern Pearl is a luxury product, just like Hermès, Prada and so on. The monarch of the Liao Kingdom knew that the Song people liked the Northern Pearl and said, China squanders its treasury to sell useless things. This is to my benefit, and China can be impoverished.
On the contrary, the Liao people strictly prohibited the sale of war horses in China, so that the Song army in Hebei had almost no horses to use.
The Song Dynasty also had its own problems. During the reign of Zhenzong, the Song Dynasty had 200,000 war horses, and used them to herd horses and monitor sheep and horses in various places. Later, after signing the Chanyuan Alliance with the Liao Kingdom, the Song Dynasty really started to "put the horses in Nanshan and store the swords and guns in the treasury." By the time Yingzong arrived, there were only 30,000 war horses in the country.
Almost all the land that was once used to herd horses has been used to raise sheep.
People in the Song Dynasty were fond of eating mutton, and the official family of the Song Dynasty was the leader. For example, the current official family consumes more than 17,000 sheep a year in the palace. Needless to say, officials also receive a portion of their annual salary.
As the saying goes, what is good at the top will be bad at the bottom. In the past, the Liao Kingdom often used a ban on the export of mutton to sanction China, and it succeeded every time.
The most important thing is that the Liao State did not have the ability to mint currency. They relied on the inflow of copper coins from the Song Dynasty, and mutton alone brought the Song Dynasty a large amount of foreign exchange. Otherwise, the Liao people will regress back to the era of barter.
But even so, the economy of the Liao Kingdom was far inferior to that of the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty's trade with the Liao Kingdom in border markets could make up for the loss of one-half of the yearly coins.
However, once the Liao Kingdom was in a situation of "entering the Super League", it would use the last resort, which was to intimidate with force. It took advantage of the Song Dynasty's fear of war from top to bottom to gain advantages in trade and negotiations. This move by the Liao people has been tried and tested repeatedly.
In order to strengthen this psychological advantage, the Liao people behaved very arrogantly and rudely in diplomatic negotiations.
Envoys from the Liao State never exchanged names with local officials when they entered the Song Dynasty, even if they stayed behind. As for the envoys from the Song Dynasty, they suffered a lot of grievances when they were on their missions. If they could get some relief, it would be enough to be included in the history books. .
In fact, the hundred-year peace between Song and Liao in the Chanyuan Alliance was due to the Song Dynasty's humiliating diplomacy to compromise.
Zhang Yue returned to the living room and before he could sit down, he saw Tong Guan walking in, carrying a man dressed like a monk and throwing him to the ground.
Tong Guan clasped his fists and said, "I'm reporting to my husband that I've caught a spy! This person dressed up as a monk and was near the camp to find out where my husband was."
When the monk heard this, he immediately explained that he was a wandering monk and could enter and leave the Liao and Song Dynasties without passing through customs. The Liao Kingdom has been buying information about the Song Dynasty. If he gets any valuable information, he can sell it at a high price by going to the Liao Kingdom.
Tong Guandao said: "It is useless to kill this man, my husband. It is better to keep him and use him to fight against traitors."
Zhang Yue glanced at Tong Guan and said: "You are not only smart and strategic, I will leave this matter to you and see if there is any way to spy on the secrets of the Liao Kingdom."
Tong Guan was overjoyed and said, "Thank you so much, Mr. Sir!"
Arrive at the office the next day.
Not only the generals in the Daming Mansion, but also the generals on the Hebei Road, the water and land commanders, horse and infantry generals, and the imperial army and rural troops all came to pay homage to Zhang Yue.
Zhang Yue looked at the notebooks presented by these generals one by one, and then checked with the people in his tent.
Zhang Yue didn't show any prestige, but all the generals were uneasy.
The Song Dynasty focused on border defense in the northwest and Hebei provinces. Everyone knows Zhang Yue's achievements in taking control of the northwest army and regaining land thousands of miles away from the Qing and Tang Dynasties with millions of people.
This time, the officials asked him to dispatch troops and horses from Hebei and Hedong. This is equivalent to saying that he had controlled three-quarters of the troops and horses in the Song Dynasty.
At this moment, hundreds of generals were in the hall and did not dare to show their anger, for fear that Zhang Yue would be unhappy and push them out to show their power and chop them.
Only Wen Yanbo, who was sitting aside, was relatively calm.
Zhang Yue had read all the manuscripts and said: "In fact, Hebei's elite soldiers were originally the heroes of the world. In the past, when the Liao Kingdom invaded, Hebei was able to fight back with all its strength. But after the Chanyuan Alliance, Hebei's soldiers and horses I have lacked training and have become slack, and I don’t know what the military is about. If there is a war with the Liao Kingdom, I don’t know which one of you here would dare to go into battle to serve the king!"
"This commander is here today to rectify the troops of Hebei and prepare for a decisive battle with the Liao Kingdom!"
After hearing what Zhang Yue said, everyone was shocked. Didn't it mean that Zhang Yue came to negotiate? Why start a war with the Liao Kingdom?
(End of chapter)
