Zhao Hao has done two major events in a row this year, one is to set up a marine insurance company; The second is the formation of a maritime trade caravan. Although these two are both long-term developments and can bring him rolling wealth, the initial construction cost is also huge, and his family foundation is almost hollowed out. At present, only about one million pieces of silver are left in the inner treasury for the operation and emergency of the inner government, and the rest is invested in the game of 'money makes money'.

The sequelae are also extremely serious, which makes Zhao Hao a little restless. As the saying goes: there is no panic when you have money in your hands, but now there are too many things to do, and there are more places to use money, and the corresponding dynasty has just returned to the south of the Yangtze River, and the foundation is too thin to withstand major changes.

Therefore, Zhao Yu believes that the most urgent thing at present is to quickly restore the economy and increase the reserves of the national treasury to enhance the ability to resist disasters and wars. At present, after hundreds of years of development in the Tang and Song dynasties, the utilization rate of land in the south of the Yangtze River has basically reached the limit under the existing conditions, and the growth points are only industrial and commercial. However, the development of industry is not achieved overnight, it needs the support of science and technology, and the fastest effect is business, and foreign trade is the top priority.

Now the clouds of war are still hanging over the sky of the Great Song Dynasty, and no one knows when a thunderstorm will rain. You must know that although Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty expanded the border and drove the Xiongnu away, he also exhausted the savings of the three generations of the Han Dynasty, and the people fell into hardship, so that in his later years he had to issue the "Luntai Edict" to admit his mistakes, but because of this, the Han Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline, and never regained its former glory.

Thinking that during the Han Wu period, the Xiongnu were still only border troubles, and they had not yet threatened the foundation of the Han Dynasty, and years of war dragged down the Han Dynasty. Zhao Yu thought about the Meng Yuan he was facing, his strength was not comparable to that of the Xiongnu, and it could also be said that it was not at the same level. Moreover, they have already established a country and have a perfect political system, and it is difficult to defeat them and regain the homeland of the Han people. The Ming Dynasty spent three hundred years without being able to completely defeat the remnants of the Yuan, and was dragged down by the huge military spending. And even if he is confident that he will destroy it in a short time, he still needs enough national strength to support it, let alone when the outcome is unpredictable.

Now Song and Mongolia are like boxers in the ring who have fought for 12 rounds and have not yet decided the winner, and they have to seize the short halftime break to get a respite. And Zhao Yu wants to use this time window to quickly recover his vitality and refine a pair of perfect tonic pills, in order to enhance his physical strength and prolong his life. The opportunity is fleeting, and he can only gamble, and it is a big gamble with all his might, and if he loses, he can only not marry his daughter-in-law.

The wife and son are all pressed, Zhao Yu can't help but be distracted, now the main forces of the Great Song Dynasty Navy are all on the Yangtze River, the East China Sea and the South China Sea are empty, and that side is the concentration of maritime trade ports. At present, the inland water army that Chen Renweng was ordered to set up has completed its training and can take over the defense of the Yangtze River. In the name of expressing his sincerity in the peace talks, he ordered the inland water corps to go up the Yangtze River to take over the defense of the Second and Third Fleets.

At the same time, Zhao Yu ordered the military department to reorganize the two fleets into the South China Sea and East China Sea Forces, with Guangzhou and Fuzhou as their home ports respectively, and set up marine police districts to be responsible for the defense of the two sea areas. While defending the maritime frontier, it shouldered the task of maintaining trade waterways, cracking down on piracy and smuggling, creating a good external environment for the Great Song Dynasty to carry out maritime trade, and at the appropriate time, it would also appear as a deterrent force to open up new shipping routes and trading ports.

The First Fleet was renamed the Northern Fleet, stationed at the port of Kunshan, responsible for defending the mouth of the Yangtze River, defending against maritime threats from the north, and also tasked with reinforcing the Yangtze River defense line. The Imperial Navy was stationed in Hangzhou Bay to protect the water security of Gyeonggi, and served as a strategic reserve to escort the caravan north. In this way, the purpose of national defense and the protection of the two sea trade lanes has been achieved.

Zhao Yu is a little bitter, but after all, he has money and the right to do things. The procurement comprador took the documents of the Ministry of War and quickly received the ships anchored in the ports, and after inspection, there were more than 500 large ships of more than 3,000 stones, more than 1,000 ships of 2,000 stones, and more than 400 small boats of 500 stones. Among them, about eighty percent can be used, more than fifty percent of the new ships are new, and the rest can still be put into use after repairs.

It is precisely because the maritime trade is now basically suspended, a large number of sailors are idle at home, the recruitment work is also smooth, and the conditions they offer are very attractive. Sailors are paid one-third of their wages immediately after boarding, one-third before they leave port, and the remaining one-third when they return from sea, and they are insured by the insurance office, and are highly compensated in case of injury or illness on the way.

After receiving the little emperor's conscription order, most of the retired sailors who had just returned home immediately packed up and went to the nearest ports to report, in addition to some retired infantry soldiers and veterans who retired due to injuries came to apply, and there were nearly 2,000 people in total. In fact, most of them have been in the army for many years, and they have nothing to do except operate boats and artillery, and this time they are able to return to their old jobs at sea and get a high salary enough to support their families, of course, they are happy.

According to the strengths of the recalled personnel, Zhao Yu was assigned to each ship, and at the same time, they were used as the backbone to form a convoy of escorts. It is said that it is a civilian armed organization, but in fact it is armed to the teeth, and the modified 2,000-stone merchant ships are equipped with various types of ballistas, and are equipped with flowering shells, and muskets are also the standard weapons of the team members, which are on a par with the naval army.

From the weapons equipped with armed merchant ships, everyone can see that this is definitely not only used to deal with pirates, after training more than 2,000 people can be regarded as a small army, enough to defeat the armed forces of a small country. And Zhao Yu also means this, once some countries do not open their eyes to prohibit trade, then they will bombard their country with guns and cannons, and give them a rehearsal of the 'Opium War' five hundred years in advance, and establish a take-off place overseas.

At this time, there were two main maritime trade routes: one was the route from Yangzhou or Mingzhou through Korea or directly to Japan; The second is the route from Guangzhou, to Southeast Asian countries, or out of the Strait of Malacca, into the Indian Ocean, through Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan to the Persian Gulf. At that time, some ships continued to sail west along the Arabian Peninsula to reach Africa.

The export regions and countries are: North Korea and Japan in Northeast Asia; Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines in Southeast Asia; Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India in South Asia; Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Oman in West Asia; Egypt in North Africa; Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa. Zhao Yu responded by dividing the fleet into two fleets, south and north, in full bloom, in order to obtain maximum profits in a short period of time.

After the formation of the fleet, Zhao Yu gave the name "Four Seas Commercial Bank", which was intended to make money from the four seas and merge the insurance company into it. The name is large, but the funds are limited, and the value of each shipload is often in the hundreds of thousands, but so many empty ships must be a waste of resources, so they provide transportation services to those small and medium-sized merchants who are interested in maritime trade. They can rent a boat individually or share the same boat, thus solving the problem for both parties, and of course the fleet has to charge a fee.

Another way that Zhao Hao thought of was to have Sihai Insurance Bank provide a guarantee to the supplier. But the caravans were new, and the insurance houses were new, and at first no one dared to lend them goods. So he made a big move, and asked people to melt and cast the gold ingots stored in the store into several gold balls with a diameter of one foot and two inches, and placed one on the lobby of each branch to show his strength.

After the big golden ball is placed, it is a living signboard, which immediately attracts the attention of many merchants. At first, some people questioned the authenticity of the golden ball, and the chief of the insurance bank said that whoever could take the gold ball away would belong to whom, and there were unbelievers to try, but no one could pick up the ball, and the doubts disappeared immediately. But there are still people who suspect that it is a lie, and they will be withdrawn after a day or two. After all, it was five or six hundred catties of gold, which was worth a lot of money, and it took up a lot of money. So I secretly went to see it every day, but for more than ten days, the golden ball did not move.

After a few days of such a fuss, the insurance company not only showed its strength, but also advertised. It immediately attracted many merchants who were waiting to take out insurance, and temporarily solved the problem of shortage of funds in the caravan. People also began to speculate about the origin of the sudden rise of the Four Seas Commercial Firm, you must know that the maritime giant Pu clan did not have more than 2,000 ships when it was in its heyday, and they were like the ground in general, which shows its strong financial resources, and gradually some people in the market rumored that this was a royal business, so the reputation became more famous, and the merchants rushed to the door, thinking that the emperor would never repay the debt......

Zhao Yu didn't intend to rely on the people's accounts, but it can't be said that he won't rely on the accounts. Just when Zhao Hao was in full swing with a plan to make a fortune, Meng Yuan and the peace envoy Boyan had already rushed to Yangzhou, and the two sides were still arguing over where to use as a negotiation venue. There seems to be an unwritten convention in negotiations, whoever takes the initiative to go to the other party's territory is the peacemaker, and no one will make concessions in this matter related to the national system.

Seeing that the peace negotiation was stuck on such a trivial matter, Boyan proposed that the negotiation venue be chosen on the river island between Yangzhou and Runzhou, because the two sides are temporarily bounded by the Yangtze River, and the island is in the middle of the river, and the Song side also agreed. However, because it is the rainy season and the Yangtze River is also in the wet season, the island is in danger of being flooded by the river from time to time, so it can only be stopped. So he proposed that everyone take turns to sit in the village, and the two sides agreed to negotiate in Yangzhou and Dantu respectively.

Although Dantu and Yangzhou are located on both sides of the Yangtze River, they are both node cities of the Grand Canal, and it is convenient to travel back and forth. The first negotiation site was set up in Dantu under the efforts of the Song side, but on the appointed day, none of the Zhengfu envoys of the Mengyuan mission came, and only sent a scribe across the river to deliver a letter, which made the Song side busy in vain. Xu Zongren shook his head and smiled bitterly after reading it, he didn't dare to decide on his own, and sent another letter to the imperial court, asking the Queen Mother and His Majesty to decide.

"The lord of the Great Song Dynasty, I would like to pay tribute to His Majesty Emperor Shenwu of Dayuan Renming: the ministers are young and young, they are in trouble at home, they are like treacherous people, they betray the alliance and mislead the country, and the ministers don't know it. The minister and the emperor are worried day and night, do they not want to move in order to seek both, but they are actually sending the lives of millions of people to the body of the ministers. ”

"However, the heirloom treasure of the town, dare not cherish it, I would like to serve the emperor's commandment, depreciate myself, cut the emperor's number, and take the two Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hunan, Erguang, and Sichuan Xianzhou County, and I would like to offer the Holy Dynasty to pray for the life of the sect and society, and to desire the Holy Mercy to mourn. Grandmother Queen Mother is old, bedridden for several years, the ministers are guilty, they are full of feelings, and they can't bear to be destroyed by the ancestors of the three hundred years of the sect. The minister has no sense of heaven and sainthood, and he is eager to ...... the camp."

"Is this the table of surrender sent by the Empress Dowager and Emperor Deyou back then?" Zhao Yu listened more and more tastelessly, and asked when he interrupted Chen Shishi, who was reading the letter.

"Your Majesty, exactly!" After Wen Tianxiang received the letter, he sent it to the Queen Mother, and after seeing it, he approved it to the emperor as usual, and listened to His Majesty's inquiry, and said with a wry smile.

"What does it mean that Boyan sent a copy of the old table, does he want to talk about it or not?" Zhao Yu frowned when he heard this.

"Your Majesty, the meaning is already very clear, he is saying that our dynasty has already surrendered, and now it is a breach of trust." Wen Tianxiang said.

"Oh, this old boy is saying that I am in debt, and my words don't count!" Zhao Hao smiled and said.

"Your Majesty, Boyan is very arrogant, and he still addresses His Majesty as King Wei in his letters, and the ministers are afraid of staining the dragon's eyes, so they dare not look at it with Your Majesty!" Wen Tianxiang saluted.

"Hehe, it means that I don't recognize that I am the emperor of the Great Song Dynasty, which means that there is no Great Song in the world?" Zhao Yu raised his hand to salute him when he heard this, tilted his head and thought about what Wen Tianxiang said tactfully, to put it bluntly, it was like that, and said with a smile.

"Your Majesty, that's what it means!" Seeing that the little emperor had made his words clear, Wen Tianxiang nodded.

In this way, it means that I am a rebellious minister and thief, and I do not follow the will of Emperor Deyou, so there is no Great Song Dynasty. He's here to surrender, not to negotiate! Zhao Yu touched his chin and said.

"Your Majesty, the Tartars are vulgar and don't understand etiquette, don't be angry!" Wen Tianxiang saw that although the little emperor had a smile on his face, his eyes showed a fierce light, and he hurriedly persuaded him.

"According to what Boyan said, the Great Song Dynasty has already surrendered, the emperor has been captured, and the country does not exist!" Zhao Yu didn't think it was authentic.

"Your Majesty's meaning is ......," Wen Tianxiang said in surprise when he heard it.

"I relied on this account, what can he do to me!" Zhao Yu swept Boyan's letter to the ground and said with a sneer. He knew that according to the international law of modern society, even if the power of a country is alternated, the successor still has to abide by the agreement reached with the other country, and unless the other party agrees to dissolve it, there is an obligation to continue to perform, but in practice it depends on the attitude of the successor......