Li Ning stayed up all night, with red circles under his eyes, and met the emperor early the next morning.
The emperor also got up very early, because in the past three years, he and this minister who was far away on the border had only communicated through letters and had never met each other.
The excitement of meeting a pen pal. The setting is very warm.
"I've decided on your cousin's name for you. Although it took a little longer, I feel that the name of Xi Dao should be worthy of your wait."
"Enlighten the Great Way to bring peace to the country. This is the ambition that every scholar should have. Your Majesty's expectations for the humble ministers are known to me."
"What a sentence to enlighten the country. I have recently read some of your publications with those young scholars, and found that your talent is not in words, but you like to mess with the so-called science. You said that these sciences are useful , and wrote something like that on the title page, whatever exists in the world, one should be aware of its pros and cons and make use of it. Anyway, it is a passage with this meaning. Only later did I realize that your attitude towards the light curtain probably originated from this. This kind of thinking. In fact, I know about the light screen earlier than you, but I have never actively thought about how to use it. "
"Then, can your Majesty tell me about the Hedong Light Curtain?"
"Of course, I am sending you to Hedong this time. I also want to use your familiarity with things in the Light Curtain Division."
"It seems that Your Majesty can send someone else there. Or the family members who have been staying there."
"I thought about sending someone else, but you never believed me. Transferring you from Fujian to Hedong Road already shows distrust in you."
"I am scared, please take back your words."
"What are you afraid of? How many people in the world can understand Yi Qing so well?"
"Your Majesty seems to have more trust in me."
"It's nothing. There are always favored ministers, but not sycophants. You just need to be careful. As long as you are not a sycophant."
"I will bear in mind His Majesty's teachings."
"You don't need to be so restrained here." Perhaps feeling that the atmosphere was a bit serious, the emperor stood up and slowly walked down the steps, came to Li Ning, patted his shoulder gently and said, "I have never been with anyone before. The ministers have had such intensive correspondence. You are the only minister who knows many of my innermost thoughts. Being an emperor is somewhat difficult, and there are many things that you cannot tell others. Fortunately, you are a considerate person, although not everything can be done. Solving problems for the poor, but this just proves your loyalty. This is really too rare for the emperor."
Li Ning felt that these words were very heavy, but also very honest. This made him not know what to respond for a moment, so he could only stand there and listen quietly.
"I am not a stupid emperor, but I am not smart enough either, so it is really important to have achievements like yours. The light curtain in Hedong will be left to you to handle. If there is anything that needs to be mobilized from Fujian, you can prompt it yourself. That’s okay. If you still need sponsorship from the imperial court, that’s not impossible, but I can tell you that there is no money in the Zuozang treasury, and you have destroyed half of the inner treasury.”
"I really deserve to die for these years of fighting, but I forgot to save some money for the court."
"That's not your fault. You don't know that money is never stored in the imperial court's warehouses. Even the inner treasury, apart from gold, silver, and jade articles, can only be used for sealing piles. Money must be spent and flowed into the hands of the people. Only in this way will their livelihoods be secure. As for the court's expenses, the tax revenue in the coming year will be enough to support those corrupt officials. They are always kept in the treasury. It’s not necessarily safe here.”
Li Ning had long known that the Song Dynasty had always adhered to the principle of deficit economy. Even the writer Ouyang could see the trick, let alone other ministers who were more proficient in practical matters. Therefore, the things that the red-haired tiger satirized in his works were probably not common in the Song Dynasty.
However, the biggest problem caused by the deficit economy is that once a war starts, gold and silver need to be used, and conventional reserves are often limited. Therefore, in many cases, iron money has to be urgently issued, or even directly issued, to maintain the basic balance of military supplies.
In the past three years, the Light Curtain Division's successive campaigns have used the regular reserves of operations to a certain extent, but Li Ning's spoils are also quite generous, so this hole can still be filled, and it is still after its military requirements are met. If you are normally satisfied, you can fill this hole. Of course, the rewards after filling the hole will not be much. This also means that his war did not bring direct dividends to the Song Dynasty. If the emperor had not insisted on it, many things would have been ruined long ago.
But the reason why the emperor talks so easily to himself now is of course because the farm system has begun to provide them with a steady flow of food output.
This means that only a few sea ships are needed to transport the grain from Quanzhou, where Guangmusi is located, to the Huaihe River Basin near Jingdong Road, and then through Weishan Lake (which should have been called Juyeze at the time, that is, Liangshan Eight Hundred Miles Water Park) and Wuzhang River wandered to Bianjing, and then westward along the Yellow River to the east of the river and even further.
To a certain extent, this effectively guaranteed the food supply problem on the front line and the capital, and Asia Minor produced wheat instead of rice in the south. The former is undoubtedly more suitable for northerners' tastes. I believe that these foods will bring many benefits to the public in the near future.
After seeing these benefits. The Light Curtain Division also sped up. The political and legal affairs on the northern shore of the Black Sea and the cities along the coast could no longer meet their needs. After recruiting more Greek mercenaries, they gathered local indigenous and some nomadic tribes, and even the Asian tribes defeated by Alexander. Initiated a quarrel over the Dnieper River Basin. Although the Scythians there had already foreseen the coming war, they did not expect that the other party had assembled elite armed forces such as Greek mercenaries, and the number of them was probably too large for Alexander and the Persian king. Not worth it.
What's more, behind them, the main army of the Song Dynasty has been following. They continued to attack along the river, and then stopped to let Macedonian engineers help them build fortresses, the kind of bastions that rose on the banks of the Granicus River. This strange thing was cited by the Song Dynasty generals as an important aid.
Especially the old generals kept recalling how Taizu had adapted to local conditions when he built the city of Kaifeng, and renovated the city walls into a less regular shape to give full play to the role of the nearby terrain in protecting the city.
Although many people know it well, these old generals have never seen the true appearance of Song Taizu. But the basic role of energy protection is still broken by them, so even the Macedonians are preparing to use it in future wars. However, Alexander has been on the way to attack and has no intention of stopping to build castles, except for those with few vitamins. In Alexandria, he has not been able to use similar thoughts so far.
But he was very eager, because this move was very effective. While advancing along the river, a large amount of fertile land by the river came into the control of the Song Dynasty. Nengbao became an important fulcrum to protect these lands. Therefore, Effective rule was quickly spread. Ren Fu, who led the army to launch this battle, had suffered a disastrous defeat with a loss of 30,000 people before and was severely punished by the court. But this time, he unknowingly unblocked the court. Which relationship among them actually got an opportunity to commit crimes and make meritorious service.
No matter how much money he spent on connections, this time he earned a lot of land and quickly entered the hands of the Song Dynasty. Orderly agricultural production also developed rapidly under the management of relevant management, and several counterattacks organized by the Scythians were repelled by them. Although the winter that will be unbearable for the Greek mercenaries is coming, Li Ning's idea of cruising patrol aircraft to annihilate your effective forces is also being stepped up.
Therefore, the emperor could still have an optimistic attitude and discuss these things with Li Ning, and even more similar matters. In other words, it was his outstanding achievements in the Fujian Light Curtain Division that allowed the emperor to see the success of other light curtains. There is a possibility of opening up a new world. Although the light curtain situation in Hedong is more special, he thinks that Li Ning should try it first.
As for what is going on with the light curtain on Hedong Road, let the Emperor slowly tell Li Ning.
"Ten years ago, before I took over the government, someone from the Zhong family discovered a light curtain in the north of Qingjian City. The light curtain was located in a residential house. Zhong Shiheng felt that this matter was strange. So I quietly bought the residential house that no one dared to live in anymore, then built a building and raised the courtyard wall to block the light of the light curtain."
"It seems that the light curtain is not as big as the one in Fujian."
"You are wrong. He saw the light curtain when it just appeared. Not long after, he had to buy the surrounding land and then built a higher courtyard wall farther away. , so that when viewed from a distance, it is difficult for people to notice the existence of the light curtain.”
"But I remember that Hedong Road is very mountainous. If you look at it from nearby mountains, then..."
"You are right, so later he had to spend money to buy mountains. However, some mountains are buried with treasures. This is not uncommon in our land of China. Therefore, the price of medicine for some people is very high, even if he lied No matter what he was threatening, there were people nearby who insisted on the original offer, but did not dare to go up the mountain easily. For the sake of safety, he finally revealed the matter to the government and begged the government to lend him money to buy those things. Mountain."
"Why didn't the government take back those mountains? Just give the local people some compensation. Why do we have to lend them money?"
"You are right, but the local officials don't think so. Since there are people who work enthusiastically for them, it is natural to give them some benefits. What's more, the Zhong family was a famous landlord hero when they were in Xindi. Zhong Shiheng is comfortable. Fang, sitting on thousands of miles of land on Zhongnan Mountain, is like a country within a country, and he is known as the hermit king. Of course, the government and the public respect this hermit very much, so they do not doubt that he has any intentions of rebellion. And their family, now It seems that they are indeed loyal to the Song Dynasty. Just doing so many things for Cao Ping is enough for me to thank them, not to mention that they also built Qingjian City to block the Xixia rebels for me."
"So His Majesty has always been very tolerant towards them."
"Not only that, they also brought us a lot of information about the other side of the light curtain. To a certain extent, they were the first people to explore the other side of the light curtain. At least according to what I know, this is the case. Shocking Just after Ying was rectified, they sent a secret agent, saying that two years ago, they had led their servants to sneak into the other side of the light curtain, and were shocked to find that there was a war going on there. One of the warring parties was a group of people. The group with fair skin, and the other group of people were flying the banner of the Tang Dynasty, and later they discovered that it turned out to be the land of the Western Regions."
"Under the banner of the Tang Dynasty, doesn't it mean that it was at least more than 100 years ago?"
"What you say is a bit of a dream. The Tang Dynasty lost the Western Region for more than 200 years, and now there are very few places where we can see the Lakers."
"Then there is..."
"According to your statement, that time and space should be the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, or even the end of Kaiyuan. But it is always possible that we were not able to investigate what exactly was there in the first place? We just secretly sent people to rob the nearby temple, and then They moved several Buddha statues to the other side of the light curtain and lied that the light curtain was made by these Buddha statues. Otherwise, I am afraid that two armed groups will invade our Song Dynasty."
"This move is very quick. If it had been someone else, I'm afraid they might not have such a reaction."
"Yes, so it is beneficial for a gentleman to examine himself. Since he has crossed the light curtain and came to the other side, then the other party can naturally do the same thing, so he must take precautions, otherwise he will not know What happened?"
"In this way, I, the Great Song Dynasty, have been spared a disaster."
"But we, the general public, did not dare to stretch out our tentacles to explore this big thing. It was not until many years later that we all knew that the place where Dong Shiheng went was the Broken Leaf City in history, and that year Gaijia Yun just led the Tang Dynasty army back to Suiye City and brought it back under the control of the Tang Dynasty."
"That should be in 739 AD."
"I don't know what Western calendar you are talking about. I only know that the year is the sixth year of Tiansheng."
"That was 1028, 11 years ago."
"Yeah. It seems to be about the same. There are still not many Han people in Suiye City today, so it is not easy to find out the era name of the Tang Dynasty. What's more, it is always humming. I just remember to keep the door and don't dare to The banner of the Song Dynasty was rashly sent to the Tang Dynasty, and he knew that it would be a waste of time to deal with us with the Tang Dynasty's great martial arts."
"He's right."
"You are very good at affirming other people's attacks, but I would like to hear some different opinions from you. If we can get some benefits from there, just like what you got from Alexander, then can I, Huang Song Won’t it get better?”
"Your Majesty, please allow me to boldly say that I am under great pressure. I am just a slave owner from 1300 years ago. However, the Tang Empire is only a hundred years apart from our Emperor Song Dynasty. Its combat power is not inferior to our Emperor Song Dynasty. Although we have them. The western border is a so-called place beyond reach, but it is also a strange place for us. Therefore, it is undoubtedly correct to start exploring quietly. "
"You are right. Buddhism was flourishing in the Tang Dynasty at that time, and Taoism was not too backward. The eminent monks who traveled through the Western Regions continued to follow suit. They faked the light curtains in Suiye City into miracles of the Buddha. This is what we have learned so far. The most talented thing I’ve ever done.”
"I wonder how much the Privy Council spent on this matter?"
"There should be hundreds of thousands of cans. You know, we don't have a good way to block all the tall light curtains, so we built a circle of pagodas around it, a whole pagoda. It didn't even cover his light at night, but it made the Privy Council complain."
"This method is really stupid."
"Yes, but at that time, all the insiders in the government and the public were frightened by such a strange phenomenon. Although later they finally figured out that they only needed a few long bamboo poles and then hung a big piece of bamboo to succeed. The ground blocked the light of the light curtain, but by that time it was too late, many pagodas had already started construction, and it was too late to change the mind."
"Didn't the local people raise any doubts about this matter? Didn't it mean that Gai Jiayun was leading the troops in the battle at that time, and he won the battle?"
"It was this Gai Jiayun who gave us the funds to build the pagoda, otherwise the Privy Council would have cried to death. He was also very shocked by such a magical sight, but after all, he was a general fighting on the western frontier. , the appearance of some strange things that he had never seen before would not surprise him too much. It would only make him present some strange knowledge to the emperor and the ministers in the capital. Therefore, he did not pay too much attention to this matter. Because Zhong Shiheng and others did not allow him to get close to the light curtain, let alone pass through it."
"It seems like this is a very thrilling thing."
"Yes, Gai Jiayun later talked about this incident and said that he was charging when suddenly a shining light appeared next to him, which scared him so much that he almost fell off his horse. However, when he calmed down, he found that The enemy soldiers were more frightened than him, which made him seize the opportunity and capture Suiye City in one battle. Of course he was very grateful for the light curtain afterwards. After the war, he led his men to pay homage. Fortunately, Zhong Shiheng When others appeared in time and successfully blocked him with Buddha's lies, I was able to stabilize the Song Dynasty."
"Later, the two sides even became good friends because of this. The Privy Council had to mobilize heavy troops silently and surrounded them. But no one dared to show off their power in front of the Tang army, so everyone just held their breath and concentrated. As long as the other party did not Just cross the border.”
