On the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, Zhao Mengqi led a mighty fleet to Lin'an via the canal.
Accompanying him on the embankment were twenty battalions of Eastern Guards. It was not that Zhao Mengqi was so afraid of death that he needed so many people to escort him, but that it was arranged in this way due to various factors.
First, after returning to Lin'an, with the power of direct lineage in hand, no matter what I do, it will be safer.
Secondly, marching is also a military training subject. This is not a new creation of Zhao Mengqi. The "Modern Garrison Law" was formulated during the Song Dynasty, which was not only to prevent military generals from taking power, but also to strengthen the physical training of soldiers, "to make the road of travel so that they can practice hard work and rest equally." "
In the Song Dynasty, there were no special training subjects for the physical strength of soldiers. Strength was generally achieved through bow and crossbow training. For abilities such as running and jumping, different generals may use different methods. For example, in Yue Fei's army, "division every break" When you are at home, the soldiers are jumping from slopes to trenches, and they all practice it with heavy armor."
In the absence of horses, Zhao Mengqi could only hope that his troops would have a pair of iron feet to improve their mobility.
Therefore, this kind of fully armed marching training will be normalized, and all the Dongwei battalions will be transferred between Pingjiang and Lin'an regularly.
In order to cooperate with this training project, barracks and depots were set up at regular intervals along the route to provide logistical support.
As a result, this section of the canal was also firmly controlled by Zhao Mengqi in disguise.
In addition, under the leadership of Shi Huai, there are five thousand imperial guards in front of the palace who have set off two days in advance and returned to Lin'an to return to work.
When Old Zhao sent out 10,000 people, they were all relatively elite men selected by Old Man Lin. Compared with the current Dongwei, they had more actual combat effectiveness.
Logically speaking, it was not impossible for Zhao Mengqi to keep everything in his own hands, but he just gave back half of it considering the public opinion in the DPRK.
Moreover, these five thousand forbidden troops are basically older, have families in Lin'an, and are not very enterprising. Moreover, even after returning to the army, these forbidden troops will probably be biased towards King Yan, and maybe they can expand King Yan's influence. Influence among the Lin'an Forbidden Army.
Over the past six months, although the Wan Dian Qian Si Imperial Army still received their usual military salaries, the wealthy Zhao Mengqi not only provided them with generous logistical supplies, but also paid them an additional monthly subsidy, which was euphemistically called Task perks.
Whether intentional or not, this is to win over the morale of the military.
This kind of thing is somewhat taboo. If Lao Zhao doesn't like him, it will be a big crime to bring it out.
But Zhao Mengqi didn't care. When he thought about it, even if he was a good boy and couldn't find any charges, he would be "unfounded."
The other five thousand stationed in Pingjiang, Zhao Meng used in the name of continuing to cooperate with the economic border implementation next year.
Now that the economic boundaries between Pingjiang and Jiaxing have been completed, the results have been remarkable. The redrawn fish scale map and the newly built copy of the anvil base book are in the fleet and transported back to the Ministry of Household Affairs for archiving.
Before the border, Pingjiang Prefecture, including official fields, had more than 7 million acres of registered farmland.
This time under Zhao Mengqi's command, the intensity was unprecedented and the execution was the most thorough. Coupled with several methods to make the gentry more cooperative, the final figure was more than 8.3 million acres.
It seems that only about 15% of Hidden Fields have been detected, but it must be considered that during the Shaoxing period more than a hundred years ago, Li Chunnian, with the support of Zhao Jiumei, conducted a relatively successful economic expedition to Pingjiang Mansion, which was already extremely successful. The scale of Hidden Field was greatly compressed, and the boundaries were re-traced many times afterwards.
This time, compared with the previous one, is definitely the most successful and the one closest to the actual situation.
Zhao Mengqi vaguely remembered that after Zhang Juzheng implemented a whipping method in the Ming Dynasty, Suzhou's farmland seemed to be only more than 9 million acres, while the total area of Suzhou in later generations was less than 13 million acres.
In addition to differences in units of measurement, there are also some changes in jurisdictional scope.
Therefore, Zhao Mengqi is quite satisfied with this result.
The most important thing is to clarify the ownership of land, eliminate the shortcomings of "those who have land do not have tax, and those who have tax have no land", and can achieve taxation according to property to the greatest extent.
This not only freed the poor people from having to bear unjust taxes, but also significantly increased the tax revenue of the government.
There were floods this year. North Korea
Ting exempted the land tax from the disaster-stricken areas, but it is estimated that by next year, the tax and grain tax alone will be enough to turn over one million shi.
This number is quite large, because the peak in Pingjiang Mansion's history did not exceed 700,000 dan, and usually it was more than 300,000 dan.
This number is not large, because during the Ming Dynasty, the land tax set for Suzhou was two million dan.
In addition, the conversion of hidden fields into official fields and the implementation of farm management can also provide more food to the court, so that there is no need to use and buy to supplement the food needs of the court, so as to prevent the common people from being exploited again.
In addition to land tax, both in the Ming Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, there were other taxes. In the Ming Dynasty, after the implementation of a whip, all taxes were converted into silver and collected as money.
Zhao Mengqi also plans to reduce some items when the time is right, and then implement monetized taxation.
The Ming Dynasty had enough money in circulation to have the basis for the implementation of the Whip Law, but it still forced many people who usually had no silver to sell grain at low prices in exchange for silver to pay taxes after the grain harvest.
If Zhao Mengqi wants to avoid similar drawbacks, he must first complete the currency reform and food price protection mechanism.
Political matters are like this, complementary and step-by-step. It is complicated to say and even more complicated to do.
If Zhao Mengqi were to do it with his own hands, he would definitely not have the ability. The key is that he doesn't need to do it himself.
Wu Qian, Ma Guangzu, Xie Fangshu, Jiang Wanli, Yang Dong, Ye Mengding, etc., which one is not a political veteran?
As long as he expresses his ideas and analyzes the feasibility, these people will naturally improve the details. If there are any flaws or inappropriate points, they will also try to make up for them and avoid them.
This time when he returned to Lin'an, Jiang Wanli brought more than 600 Tai students with him. Although most of them were not from Lin'an, they should be rewarded for their meritorious service.
At the beginning, Zhao Mengqi promised that as long as they passed the examination, they would be released and awarded officials.
Now the result of the economic world is a perfect answer sheet. After Zhao Mengqi returns to Lin'an, he will start to operate in the court and at least find a ninth-grade official status for them.
Of course, even if they have official status, most of these people will still work in the economic field for three to five years, and then slowly fill other positions, becoming Zhao Mengqi's political direct descendants.
There is another group of people in the fleet, the "bankers" led by Zhao Heyun.
It was of course a joke to say that they were bankers at this time, but a few years later, they were indeed the leaders in finance in the Song Dynasty.
The next step they have to do is to establish the Lin'an sub-head office of the Royal Bank of the Song Dynasty. Because the economic center in Zhao Mengqi's mind is Pingjiang Prefecture, the head office will definitely not move.
All in all, Zhao Mengqi's trip to Pingjiang Mansion was quite fruitful. To put it bluntly, it was a double harvest in love and career...
The boat sailed slowly and finally arrived at Lin'an on the fourth day.
The docking place is the pier two miles north of Prince Yan's Mansion. We originally set out from here and returned here today.
However, the scene has become very different from before.
It used to be a small dock that could accommodate two or three ships, but now a semicircular bay with a diameter of one mile has been dug out.
On the shore, there are large warehouses arranged neatly, with square masonry and cement structures, and the roofs are still gabled.
The arc-shaped embankment is built with large rocks and reinforced with cement, and permanent trestles that are 30 feet long and 30 feet wide are stretched out to the water every 20 feet.
There are berths on both sides of the trestle, which can berth at least six canal boats at the same time. Nine trestles can accommodate at least 50 largest canal boats.
There are some equipment like tower cranes of later generations standing on the trestle, ranging from one to two feet high, used for loading and unloading goods.
This earthen tower crane was naturally inspired by Zhao Mengqi, and it used the principle of levers and pulleys. The people of the Song Dynasty had already had applications in this area, and it was not difficult to build.
There is a hardwood track covered with iron sheets in the middle of the trestle. Special transport vehicles can save a lot of effort when driving on it. It is easy to use an ox to pull a load of three to five thousand kilograms.
Ordinarily, this should be the best and most convenient pier in Song Dynasty, but all the berths are empty and seem very bleak.
If you don’t look at the crowd of people on the shore.
Seeing this situation, Zhao Mengqi on the ship was very shocked.
Qian Duo was even more surprised, "Why are there so many people? Maybe half of Lin'an is here."
Half of Lin'an is really an exaggeration, there are definitely 20,000 to 30,000 people.
"Are they here to greet us?"
Zhao Han's big eyes flashed suddenly, his face was just curious, and he was no longer as embarrassed as he was half a year ago.
Zhao Mengqi frowned, "They must be picking us up, but..."
There's just something wrong. Is it necessary to welcome a prince who has been out for half a year with such a big battle?
With doubts, Zhao Mengqi's boat sailed towards the center of the bay and directly docked on the embankment.
There was a relatively large open space separated by the Forbidden Army, and dozens of officials-looking people were waiting.
Chang Geng led the guards of the fifth east group to disembark first and set up a warning.
Zhao Mengqi saw the situation on the shore, which was obviously an official move, so he asked a few ladies to wait on the boat first, and he and Jiang Wanli went ashore together.
When he was still three feet away from the official train, all the officials bowed their hands in unison, causing Jiang Wanli, who was two steps behind him, to dodge to the side.
"I respectfully welcome His Highness the King of Yan and pay my respects to De'an."
Zhao Mengqi, who was confused, clasped his hands and returned the greeting, "Good morning, my dear prince, please be safe."
After the etiquette was completed, Yang Dong, the minister of the Ministry of Personnel, who was in the front row of officials, took an edict from the tray held by the clerk next to him.
"There is an edict from above, please announce it to King Yan."
This edict was a bit long. When I looked up, I saw Zhao Mengqi's long list of official titles, which I couldn't even read in one breath.
The general meaning of the content is that Zhao Mengqi has made many achievements in the past six months, including destroying rebels, fighting floods, mitigating hurricanes, alleviating food shortages, repairing water conservancy, stabilizing people's livelihood, doing business, developing industry and commerce, revitalizing the economy, etc., one after another. Everything was a great contribution to the country. Lao Zhao was very happy and extremely proud of his son, blah blah blah.
So after careful consideration, Lao Zhao decided to marry his son a wife as soon as possible. After the marriage, the crown prince ceremony was officially held.
Zhao Mengqi felt a little dizzy after hearing this. It turned out that he had made so many great contributions without realizing it?
However, even if there is really no other way to reward yourself, there is no need to announce that you will be crown prince as soon as you arrive in Lin'an, right?
What does Lao Zhao want to do?
