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In the early days of Zhao Ji's accession to the throne, the situation of the Huizong dynasty was very good for a time - Cai Jing was in charge of national affairs and increased the country's fiscal and tax revenues. Outside, Tong Guan led the army to raid, even taking Huangchuan and other border prefectures and counties, and the negotiations with the Western Xia and the Liao State changed from passive defense to active attack. For a while, there was a faint hint of revival.

And yet—

As Wenzhi and martial arts reached a good height, Zhao Ji began to float.

Zhao Ji is one of the few artist emperors in Chinese history who has a heartfelt love for garden landscapes.

After Cai Jing was appointed prime minister for the second time, he summed up the previous lessons and decided that only by pleasing Zhao Ji and making Zhao Ji happy, can he always have power.

So, Cai Jing began to meet Zhao Ji's hobby, and set up a special Yingfeng Bureau on several roads in the southeast, collecting strange flowers and stones from the southeast and transporting them to Bianliang City, Tokyo to decorate the inner palace.

This is the Huashi Gang that repeatedly appears in the Ming Dynasty novel "Water Margin".

In the Tang and Song dynasties, the outline referred to the bulk materials transported in batches. After the materials are hoarded, they are transported in a centralized manner (mainly by waterway), which is called the platform transportation. For example, the Huashi class is based on the cargo of ten transport ships.

Actually-

From Cai Jing's standpoint, all Huashi should not be levied, but should be purchased at a suitable price.

However, under the bureaucratic administrative system of the Song Dynasty, all state actions became a convenient door for corrupt officials to accumulate wealth.

As a result, the government did everything possible to find out where there were strange flowers and stones in the people's homes, and once it was verified, it was immediately sealed. and even demolition and extortion. The slightest resistance from the crowd was immediately thrown into prison. Countless middle-class families have gone bankrupt.

After the flower stone was obtained, it had to be transported to Bianliang Castle in Tokyo by water.

In order to make the passage of the gang ship unimpeded, even the bridge was demolished and the city was destroyed.

During the transportation, the officials forcibly requisitioned a large number of merchant ships and ships to transport grain to Bianjing.

The fleet harassed the people on both sides of the strait along the way, forced the supply of errand labor, and the people suffered unspeakably.

Up to now, Huashigang has been successively looted for fifteen or sixteen years, which has become the biggest malpractice of the Northern Song Dynasty court in the southeast.

In fact, the Northern Song Dynasty court had a particularly large expense because it had to maintain the administrative and military political system.

Coupled with Zhao Ji's extravagance and wastefulness and reckless military force, even if Cai Jing and others can make money again, they will slowly be unable to make ends meet.

There is no way, Cai Jing and others can only increase the people's taxes in disguise.

Resemble:

Hemai - Hemai was originally a kind of loan provided to farmers by the Northern Song Dynasty, which gave money to farmers in the spring and silk in return in the autumn. Later, the state did not release money in the spring, and the silk was collected in the autumn, which became one of the miscellaneous taxes.

Conversion - The Northern Song Dynasty sometimes converted the taxes in kind into other items out of practical needs, such as wheat with money, silk with money, and so on.

Transfer-means that farmers must transport the paid grains and silk to the place designated by the government to pay, and if they do not want to change the place of payment, they must pay an additional transportation fee.

Boss money - refers to an additional fee paid when there is an account transaction with the government treasury. Once the tax is paid, it will inevitably be added to the head money.

And these are not counting the most basic taxes - land endowments.

The land endowment included all the public land rental income of the imperial court, the land endowment of private land, and the land endowment of private residences, shops, and vegetable gardens in the city. In addition, there are miscellaneous taxes in addition to the poll tax and various normal taxes.

Such a heavy tax is unbearable for the people.

The Northern Song Dynasty court also collected more money in the wealthy southeastern region, and collected additional taxes on the two Zhejiang provinces during the Wu Yue Kingdom. Roughly speaking, every 10 acres of land is levied according to 16 acres.

Later, the method of borrowing and spending was adopted outside the regular system, that is, borrowing taxes from next year to the next year in advance, or even borrowing and spending seven or eight years later.

Under the oppression, so that the people of the southeast have suffered from exploitation for a long time.

And even with this oppression of the people of the southeast, the financial situation of the Song Dynasty deteriorated more and more with the growth of the years.

In such a dangerous situation, the phenomenon of greed for ink from top to bottom in the bureaucratic system has become the fuse that ignites the barrel of explosives.

The house leak happened to rain overnight, and the ship was late and encountered a head wind.

Since last year, there have been disasters in the Song Dynasty, with drought or flooding in various places, especially in the southeast and the Huai River region, which began in November last year, with a series of major floods in the southeast, causing all roads in the southeast to suffer very serious floods. At the same time, an extremely severe drought occurred in Huaidian (Huaihe River Basin). The two people are unemployed and struggling to live.

Finally, in April this year, civil unrest began to break out in Jiangxi and Guangzhou.

At this moment, Cai Jingzhishi, the old captain who had been at the helm of the big ship of the Northern Song Dynasty for 16 years, was replaced by Wang Hao, who Zhao Ji thought was in the prime of life and could completely replace Cai Jing, to become the helm of the big ship of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Last year, Wang Hao was promoted eight levels in a row, and jumped from Tongyi Doctor to Shaozai (that is, deputy prime minister), which caused quite a stir in the Northern Song Dynasty court.

Wang Huang was promoted so quickly that he was definitely the first person since the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Actually-

At that time, smart people had already guessed Zhao Ji's intentions - Zhao Ji was arranging for Wang Hao to take Cai Jing's class.

Therefore, Wang Hao's replacement of Cai Jing is not sudden.

Wang Hao, formerly known as Wang Fu, the word will be Ming, Kaifeng Xiangfu people, it was Zhao Ji who gave him the name Wang Huang.

Wang Hao is very handsome, with white skin, curly hair, yellow eyes, a bit like a mixed-race child, he has good eloquence and good literary style, and he was a jinshi in the second year of Chongning's examination.

Wang Hao is very good at camping.

When he first started as an official, Wang Hao worked with the son of He Zhizhong, the secretary of the ministry, and he managed to win He Zhizhong's favor and get He Zhizhong's recommendation, and he was promoted all the way.

Later, Wang Hao followed in the footsteps of Cai Jing and was promoted by Cai Jing, and it took him only two years to go from school secretary to Yushi Zhongcheng.

Later, Wang Hao saw that the eunuch Liang Shicheng was very favored by Zhao Ji, so he took refuge in Liang Shicheng and established a close relationship with him.

It is precisely because of Liang Shicheng's support and help that Wang Hao can have the political strength to be the prime minister and repeatedly guess Zhao Ji's intentions to meet Zhao Ji's thoughts, and finally replace Cai Jing.

Actually-

The main reason why Zhao Ji reused Wang Huang was that Wang Huang resolutely supported the strategic idea of Lianjin to destroy Liao and recover Yanyun, and Cai Jing's attitude towards this strategic concept became more and more negative, Zhao Ji felt that Cai Jing was old and had become timid, so he let Cai Jing retire.

At the beginning of his tenure, Wang Hao vigorously promoted a series of reform measures such as streamlining the bureaucracy and reducing taxes and miscellaneous labor, which were impressive, and everyone called him a virtuous minister at this time.

Zhao Ji was also very satisfied with Wang Hao's performance, and personally inscribed the four big characters "Dexian Zhiding" on the door of his residence.

But—

The reason why Wang Hao was able to come to power was because of the need to recover Yanyun.

Therefore, after Wang Hao came to power, the strategic concept of Lianjin to destroy Liao and recover Yanyun was officially implemented.

……

Vertical vault in the hall.

Zhao Ji said in high spirits: "Now it seems that sending troops to the Northern Expedition to recover Yanjing is a foregone conclusion. Sun Tzu said, 'The major affairs of the country of soldiers, the place of death, and the way of survival must not be ignored'. The ancients said, 'Everything is foreseen, and if nothing is planned, it is wasted'. Therefore, we should work out an optimal plan for sending troops. ”

Wang Hao followed up and said, "What Your Majesty said is extremely true. The temple is counted as the winner without a fight, and it is a lot. Nowadays, the Khitan civil strife is not stopped, the people are not happy, and my Great Song Dynasty is peaceful and prosperous, the soldiers are strong and strong, and it is the time to swallow the mountains and rivers to recover the old land. At this time, the attack of Lianjin is a godsend opportunity to restore the territory of the Han and Tang Dynasties. ”

Tong Guan was silent, with a pensive expression.

Zhao Ji noticed Tong Guan's expression, restrained his smile, and asked Tong Guan: "Mrs. Tong, it's okay to say something straightforward." ”

"The official, the minister has been thinking, should I attack Xijing first, or attack Yanjing? There are pros and cons to both, and it's hard to say. ”

Tong Guan once gave Zhao Ji a "Ping Yan Ce", in this recital, he advocated taking the clouds first and then taking Yanjing, and now Tong Guan's old words are repeated, naturally he wants to take the clouds first, and then seek to take the Yanland.

Zhao Ji didn't agree with Tong Guan's opinion, but he didn't refute it directly, but looked at Zhao Liangsi and changed the topic: "Zhao Xiu, do you think those Jurchens will change their hexagrams halfway?" Will they make peace with the Khitan again? ”

Zhao Liangsi replied: "No, Your Majesty, the minister feels that the Jurchen Emperor is an honest and trustworthy person, since he has promised to form an alliance with my Great Song Dynasty, it should be impossible to make peace with the Khitan again, and besides, he personally led a large army to capture the Khitan capital, and set fire to the Khitan temple, the enmity between them has been so deep that it cannot be resolved, how can he make peace again?" ”

When Zhao Ji heard this, a smile appeared on his face again, and he said, "That's good!" ”

At this time, Zhao Jicai looked back at Tong Guan and said: "As for taking Xijing first or attacking Yanjing first, I think it is better to attack Yanjing first, Yanjing's geographical location is more important, Xijing is just icing on the cake." ”

Zhao Ji is actually not wrong.

In fact, Hedong is different from Hebei.

Hebei is a plain, a horse and a flat river, as long as the Hu people pass through Yanjing, they can hit Tokyo Bianliang City within a few days.

In the east of Hedong, the terrain is much more complicated, and there are several dangerous passes such as Yanmen Pass that are difficult to cross, so for the Northern Song Dynasty, the significance of the Great Wall in Yundi is far less than that of the Great Wall in Yanjing.

Wang Hao immediately agreed with Zhao Ji and said, "Your Majesty is right! If the thief captures the king first, the siege of the city is the first to break the fortification, if the first to capture Yanjing, Xijing will not attack itself. ”

Tong Guan insisted: "The minister thinks that he should first send troops to occupy Xijing, and then attack Yanjing with the Jin army, because the defense of Xijing is relatively poor, and the victory is more certain, and the defense of Yanjing City is strong, and it has always been heavily guarded by Khitan troops, which is not easy to capture." ”

Seeing that Tong Guan continued to insist on his own point of view, Zhao Ji said: "Otherwise, how about letting the generals of the Western Army come to Beijing to discuss the route of the march and come up with a detailed and feasible plan for sending troops?" ”

When Tong Guan heard this, he smiled and said, "That's good, brainstorming, the way to win."

Then, Tong Guan glanced at Wang Hao fiercely, and his face was full of confidence.

And yet—

Tong Guan was still overconfident and underestimated Wang Huang.

Tong Guan thought that if he asked the generals of the Western Army to discuss, he would definitely take Xijing, which was easier to capture, as he thought.

No, under the instruction of Wang Hao, before the meeting, Tan Zhi ran around to unite, so that in the end, the result of the discussion among the generals of the Western Army was: Tong Guan proposed "go north from Daizhou, first take Wei, Ying, Shuo, and then occupy Xijing." There was no plan secretly instructed by Zhao Ji to "go north from Xiongzhou, cross the Baigou River, occupy Zhuozhou, and then capture Yanjing." The program supports a lot of people.

Zhao Ji was very satisfied with the outcome of this discussion, so he officially issued an edict: ordering the forbidden army of Huanqing Road and Dunyan Road to change guards with the forbidden army of Hebei.

The two forbidden armies of Huanqing and Yanyan were the main forces of the Western Army, and they were transferred to the Hebei front line to assemble, of course, in preparation for the Northern Expedition.

At the same time, someone pointed out that there was still a war in Wuma Mountain, which took up a lot of resources to recover Yanyun, and it was necessary to continuously transport grain and grass materials there, and if you want to send troops to recover Yanyun, you must order there to produce a result as soon as possible.

As the person in charge of the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Hao knew that Jiangxi and Guangzhou were in chaos, so Wuma Mountain could no longer be fought, otherwise it would be a pot of porridge, so Wang Hao also suggested to Zhao Ji to end the war in Wuma Mountain.

Zhao Ji thought it was reasonable, so he issued a holy decree to the Hebei Recruitment Division: he ordered the Hebei Recruitment Division to solve the Song Jiang Righteous Army entrenched on Wuma Mountain within one month.

After Huang Qianshan, Liang Fangping and others of the Hebei Recruitment Division received Zhao Ji's holy decree, they hurriedly summoned the generals to discuss countermeasures.

And Cai Ying, who was originally licking his wounds on Zhang Liangshan, was also among the calls......

……