Zhao Yu knew that it was too easy to get money in his own capacity, and an edict could satisfy his wishes, but his mind was not so depraved, and he still wanted to solve his needs in his way, not wanting to be a pure 'exploiter'. But it is not so simple to maintain the luxurious life of the first family of the Great Song Dynasty, there are still a large number of relatives waiting to be raised by themselves, if they are all raised by the country, sooner or later they will have to go down the old road and be spurned by the world.

In this era, the gift of the world is still salt and iron, but Zhao Yu did not touch the edge, but took the smelters and salt farms owned by Meng Yuan in the past into official ownership, changed them to be operated by the government, and allowed private capital to enter the smelting industry. Because the salt tax is still an important source of national taxes and involves the issuance of salt stamps, it must be controlled by the state, otherwise it will cause chaos in the financial order, so it will not be liberalized at least at this stage.

Another lucrative industry is overseas trade, and customs duties and commercial taxes are still the main sources of tax revenue in the Great Song Dynasty, accounting for more than 40% of the country's wealth over the years. However, if it is converted to an official camp, it will be suspected of competing with the people for profit, and it will be endlessly admonished by those old men, and it is inconvenient for him to interfere. In addition, he owns a large area of land in the Huangzhuang and Lin Yuan, but everyone knows that the little money earned by digging in the soil is not enough to cover the huge expenses.

Therefore, Zhao Hao's idea is to make some money from the surrounding industries, which will not disturb people's livelihood, avoid criticism, and make profits from it. The income of the manufacturing industry is relatively stable, and it is impossible to obtain 'windfall profits', and Lin'an is not as good as Qiongzhou, and the pomp will be bigger and bigger, and the cost is increasing day by day. It's okay to save money from between your teeth and show it to outsiders by frugality, but you can't really save much money.

"Your Majesty, do you want to use the money in the inner treasury as capital?" Zhuang Shilin looked at the little emperor and asked the remaining money in the Zuo Treasury vigorously, and asked guessingly.

"Well, the silver is stored in the treasury and cannot be interested, so of course it must be moved!" Zhao Yu nodded.

"Using the accumulation of the left treasury, Your Majesty still needs to be cautious!" Zhuang Shilin knew that investment was risky, and the little emperor loved to take risks, afraid that he would impulsively waste the money, thought for a while and said, "Your Majesty, there are many places to use money at present, to repair the mausoleum for Emperor Jingyan, and Your Majesty will also get married, and now we take over all the post houses need to be repaired, which requires a large amount of money, once the library is empty, don't you worry." ”

"You don't know what I'm going to do, how do you know you won't make money!" Zhao Hao smiled.

"This ...... Your Majesty, please! Zhuang Shilin was stunned and said.

"Thousands of years ago, there was a country called Babylon that was displaced by fires in its country, and its king ordered monks, judges, village chiefs, etc., to collect taxes to finance the fires. In the event of damage caused by a fire, compensation is paid from the tax collected for the construction of new houses. "Later, in order to ensure the normal conduct of maritime trade, this country stipulated that the loss suffered by a certain cargo owner shall be shared by the beneficiary, including the owner of the ship and all the cargo owners of the ship." ”

"The method that Your Majesty said is similar to the effect of my dynasty's regular closing, but how can we profit from it?" Zhuang Shilin listened to it and thought about it, but still puzzled.

"I'm asking you to emulate it, but it's not like that!" Zhao Hao said a little anxiously, "You should know that there are risks in sailing on the sea, and if you don't get it right, the ship will be destroyed and people will die, I mean...... To put it simply, a merchant ship pays a sum of money to us before it goes to sea, and if it dies at sea, we will pay compensation, and if it has a safe journey, the money paid by it will belong to us. ”

Modern people immediately understand that this is 'insurance', but in fact, this is not a product of modern times, to be precise, it was formed thousands of years ago. Human society has been faced with the infestation of natural disasters and accidents since the beginning, and in the process of fighting against nature, ancient people have come up with the idea of insurance to deal with disasters and accidents and the original form of insurance methods.

In addition to what Zhao Yu just said, more than 2,000 years ago, the king of the ancient Babylonian kingdom ordered the stonemasons of ancient Egypt to set up a funeral mutual aid organization to solve the cost of collecting burial funds by paying membership dues. In the era of the ancient Roman Empire, the soldiers' organizations provided living expenses for the bereaved families of fallen soldiers in the form of fund-raising, and gradually formed an insurance system. With the development of trade, the sixth king of ancient Babylon Hammurabi erabi, commerce flourished, in order to aid commerce and protect the caravan mules, horses and goods to compensate for the loss, in the Code of Hammurabi, there is a clause for common apportionment of compensation for losses.

During the Punic Wars, in order to solve the problem of military transportation, the ancient Romans charged merchants a high fee as a reserve fund to compensate for the loss of cargo, which is the origin of marine insurance. And in medieval Italy, there was adventure lending, and the interest rate of adventure borrowing was similar to today's insurance premiums, which gradually developed from the embryonic form of mutual aid to adventure lending, to marine insurance contracts, to marine insurance, fire insurance, life insurance and other insurance, and gradually developed into modern insurance.

Zhao Yu knows that the existence of insurance must meet several conditions, one is that there must be a danger, which is the basic condition, and there is no risk who will spend that unjust money; second, it is necessary to give financial compensation for the losses caused by the danger, which is also an attractive condition; Third, there is a relationship of mutual assistance and mutual assistance, and the contribution must be reasonable. At present, maritime commerce is the most suitable for these conditions, and the huge flow can also ensure that it can be profitable.

"Your Majesty, if the fee is too high and the merchant is overwhelmed, no one will pay for it; And if we collect less, once something happens, we won't lose money! Zhuang Shilin shook his head and said, thinking that it was not feasible.

"Alas, you must know that if there is only one ship to pay for it, we will definitely not make a profit, but the more money we collect, the more money we collect, and it is impossible for all ships to have an accident at the same time, and it is impossible to lose all the money collected at one time, and the difference in quantity between them is our profit. And then there is so much time lag between the income of the merchant ship and the payment of compensation, and this money can be used by us, and it can be lent to those who need it, which is another income. Zhao Yu explained.

"Oh, my subordinates have some of it." Zhuang Shilin nodded, shook his head again, and said, "Your Majesty, if these people lie and say that they have not lost the goods, and the ship has not sunk, but they say that it has sunk, how can we verify it?" ”

"Of course, this can't be ruled out, but we can have a presence at the main ports they pass through, or reputable merchants to assist with verification, and without their certification, we won't pay out. And for those businesses that have no reputation, simply reject them, and the root will not accept them. Zhao Yu replied. He knows that insurance fraud has not stopped in modern times, but no insurance company has collapsed because of this, but they have made a lot of money.

"Your Majesty, if it can really be operated, it can indeed make money, after all, sailing on the sea is extremely risky, once there is an accident, most merchants are still willing to pay for a guarantee as long as the price is reasonable. And after the battle of restoration, the big maritime merchants were basically lost, and those small maritime merchants could not afford to buy ships and goods, so we could re-lend the money to them, and make profits on both sides. Your Majesty is such a great idea! Zhuang Shilin pondered carefully.

"There is still a lot of work to be done to make this thing work, first of all, we have to find out which route has the most ships, which route is the most dangerous, what goods are most vulnerable, etc., and then determine how much to charge according to this; Then there are detailed rules, what kind of circumstances we will pay, what circumstances will not be accepted, and what is the proportion of compensation; The other is to recruit and train people to familiarize them with procedures and operating methods. In this way, we can avoid risks and prevent people from committing fraud. Zhao Yu said. He knew how harsh the insurance regulations were in his previous life, and it was not easy to get money from the insurance company.

"Yes, subordinates remember!" Zhuang Shilin said.

Although Zhao Hao's trial is aimed at maritime commerce, it also involves several types of insurance, including: ship loss insurance, cargo loss insurance, theft rescue and casualties. And he also tried his best to tell Zhuang Shilin about the modern insurance rules, you must know that every modern insurance book has more than a dozen pages, or even dozens of pages, and you don't want to be detailed. At first, Zhuang Shilin could still remember with his brain, but then he had to ask for a pen and paper to record in detail, and when he finished speaking, it was already dark, and there was a thick stack on the bookcase.

The reason why he chose insurance as the entry point to make money is that Zhao Yu is not only to make money for himself, but also to consider the overall situation. Zhuang Shilin also said this just now, the most feared thing about overseas trade is war, not only may you lose all your money, but even your life will still be in a foreign country. This year, however, there will be a lot fewer merchant ships, which will inevitably affect tariff revenues, and then greatly reduce fiscal revenues.

If you want to change this situation, you need to not only invite foreign businessmen in, but also go out. Insurance can provide protection and capital for domestic maritime businessmen, attract more businessmen to join the maritime team, so as to make their own profits and increase the country's financial revenue, and achieve a win-win situation. This can also drive more foreign maritime merchants to return to the Chinese market and bring more income.

Zhao Hao earned money, and from a young age, he could reduce the burden of the country and be self-sufficient. To say that most of the money he earns is subsidized to the state, and only a small part is spent by himself, thus acting as a 'water tank', which can stabilize the country's finances and avoid economic collapse. His investment has also created more jobs, which is also of great significance for stabilizing people's livelihoods......

Zhuang Shilin left, Zhao Yu had a little dinner, but he still felt sulky in his heart, and he walked out of the East Palace to the back garden. Although the assassination had taken place for several days, the vigilance had not relaxed at all, not only did the guard battalion preemptively seal off the back garden, but also lit lanterns everywhere, and the guards did not leave the left and right. He walked into the Lake Pavilion and looked at the starry sky, as if he was in his own heart.

On that day, the students smashed the pavilion, and the spies of the affairs bureau mixed in took advantage of the chaos to sneak into Liu Mengyan's house and found out the correspondence between him and Chen Yizhong, which basically confirmed the fact that the two colluded with each other. Although the mastermind of the assassination could not be determined, the bait released was still swallowed by the fish, and some people secretly inquired about the assassin's life and death, and suddenly lost their target after the bureau sent someone to track him, but they still found his residence. After Zhao Yu and Zheng Huchen discussed, they suspected that Chen Yizhong, who had been missing for many days, lived there, but it was heavily guarded and it was difficult to investigate deeply.

No one was found to have heard of the Assassins, and the spies in charge of monitoring the mansion were getting less and less supplies from it, realizing that the people in the house might have absconded. Zhao Yu immediately understood that the opponent saw through his plan and fled secretly, but it can also be judged that these people are the masterminds who planned the assassination, so it can be attributed to Chen Yizhong.

In addition, the state capitals where the Queen Mother drove were all reported, saying that someone stopped the car and wrote a book, accusing His Majesty of being unkind and unjust, and imploring the Queen Mother to depose him and set up a new monarch. However, Zhao Hao thought it was funny, although some people said that the Song Dynasty was the most democratic era of ancient feudal society, but after all, it was only a bud, or a limited democracy under imperial power. Wanting to rely on the power of the masses to change the dynasty is no different from daydreaming, otherwise you don't have to fight so hard with the Mongols, and they can drive the Tartars away if they mobilize the masses.

So Zhao Yu understands that as long as the Queen Mother understands in her heart, no one can do anything about herself. And what can the Queen Mother do to him, at most two sentences of reprimand, and he can't shake his position with one of them. And from the style of his actions, it is clear that he is the ghost of Chen Yizhong's gang, which is an arrogant, deceptive and two-faced person, who is accustomed to putting forward high-sounding high-profile words and condemning any propositions and behaviors of compromise and concession. Chen Yizhong was originally invoked by Jia Nidao, but after Jia Nidao was defeated, he took the lead in proposing to execute Jia Nidao in order to improve his prestige, and he had no shame.

Don't look at Chen Yizhong's long-term use of this kind of sensational performances and rhetoric to gain power and improve his prestige, but in fact he is an indecisive coward who pretends to be a hero of resistance, and has no courage and talent to fight to the death with the Yuan army. Before the fall of Lin'an, he fled to the southern coastal area, far from the front line, and asked the imperial court to arrange a position for him in this area. However, he refused the order sent by the imperial court to invite him to return to the court, and the empress dowager had no choice but to write a letter to his mother in person. With his mother's intervention, Chen Yizhong returned to the capital to take up his post.

At that time, the students strongly criticized Chen Yizhong's escape, accusing him of being timid, cowardly, and duplicitous, and a minister who misled the country like Jia Yidao. Therefore, Zhao Yu concluded that the soldiers would not be on his side at the critical moment, and now that he was pressing step by step, it was time for him to have a showdown with him......