In front of Emperor Dongyuan, a few Zhao Kuo sang and I appeared, from the surplus of the treasury to the consumption of troops, from the transportation of troops to the resistance that may be encountered, and finally criticized Zhai Cuo and others to the point of incompleteness, which completely proved that the affairs of the Eastern Wa Kingdom could not be done.

Although the verbal battle was lightly defeated, Zhao Kuo still remained calm, they did not take advantage of the momentum of the big victory to pursue the victory, and it was not the one who went to find the county uncle, but to collect the troops and return to the camp, sit back on the seat and wait for the next step of others. As a result, the side hall inevitably fell into Cen Jing again.

The right prime minister, Zhang Pu, sits in the second seat on the left in front of the imperial platform. Above him is an empty vermilion lacquered chair with a splendid peony flower pattern; This is what the old Xiang Tang Xing did. Although Tang Laoxiang has not been to the imperial city for a long time, Zhang Pu has always respected Lao Xiangguo, just like now, although Tang Laoxiang did not come to the meeting, the seat was still reserved for him.

After the hall was quiet, Zhang Pu still didn't speak. It happened so suddenly, and he didn't have time to exchange views with the other lieutenants, and his thoughts were a little chaotic, so he couldn't express his attitude immediately.

The first question he had to judge was what purpose Shang Yanshan had in coldly throwing out the affairs of the Eastern Wa Kingdom? Shang Yanshan and him are not of the same mind, and when the two of them met for the first time, he was soberly aware of this. At the same time, Shang Yanshan is not an ordinary person. Judging from the past dealings, the two of them have won and lost each other, and they can barely be considered a draw. But Shang Yanshan has a broad vision, far-reaching vision, a careful mind, an old and spicy wrist, and is more able to strategize the enemy thousands of miles away, all of which cannot but teach him to be vigilant. Especially at the moment, he finally took advantage of Dong Quan's stupidity to move out of the Beijin faction, there are no more eye-catching miscellaneous people in the court, and he has the opportunity to show his strength to achieve his life's ambition, so he must be even more careful of this fake monk! He also reminded himself at all times that he must be careful of Shang Yanshan. But who would have expected that Shang Yanshan's plan was far more drastic than he expected, and casually said "glass", and led the Ministry of Industry to the fire pit, and by the way, he also cleaned up Zhu Xuan's disciple and close friend Chang Xiu, and taught the prime minister to spend a lot of effort to plan the promotion of new farm tools and new practices......

Thinking of the promotion of the "two new", he couldn't help but think of Zhu Xuan's cleanup of the hidden households. This is something he strongly advocates, and if it can be carried out smoothly, it will at least increase the revenue of the national treasury by more than 30 percent. He thought very well at the beginning, and there would be no obstacle to this kind of thing that would benefit the country. The result? As soon as "Telling the Matter of Nuclear Land and Acres" came out, the government and the opposition were full of complaints, and there were almost no people who said good things, even Gyeonggi County, which was under the nose of the prime minister's public office, was still pushing and procrastinating, and also instigated the gentry and villagers to rise up and make trouble. A few days ago, he also received a private letter written to him by his friends for many years, saying that "once the hundred-year-old foundation is gone, this is all caused by Bochun's reckless actions", and even alarmist, asserting that this is "the beginning of the chaos of Zhao......

He didn't want to dwell on the matter with his friends, so he didn't reply. He asked himself, is he really harming Da Zhao? No, he's planning ahead! How did the Tang Dynasty fall? It was because of the serious land annexation that a large number of displaced people appeared, which finally led to the disaster of the Yellow Nest, thus shaking the country's capital; How did the Han Dynasty fall? It was also the land annexation that could not be contained, and then there was the scourge of the Yellow Turban. What he has to do now is to dissolve and eliminate the land annexation before it becomes more and more violent, so that it will not cause so much harm and destruction. How could he be wrong in doing so? Could it be that he is harming Da Zhao?

For his friend's groundless accusations, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart: I am widowed, with the size of the world, how many people can know it, and how many people can know it?

He sighed silently, turned his thoughts back to the front of him, and his eyes happened to meet Shang Cheng on the opposite seat. Although he knew that Shang Cheng always looked like he was smiling because of the injury on his face, for a moment, he felt that the smile was ridiculing and sarcastic......

But he thought about it carefully, and felt that it couldn't be Shang Cheng's fraud. He thought that Shang Yanshan was one of the few generals in the dynasty, and since he knew the priority of the matter, he wanted to encourage the imperial court to send troops to the Eastern Wa Kingdom, and the reason for it was that if it could be successful, it would be successful, and if it could not be done, it would not cause him any damage, so there was no need to talk nonsense about any gold and silver, let alone a big lie such as tens of millions of taels of gold and ten thousand taels of silver. You know, if he does this, once the truth is revealed, his fate will be unimaginable......

Not? He suddenly realized something, and he couldn't help but take a sharp breath. From this point of view, isn't Shang Yanshan talking in vain, and in the Eastern Wa Kingdom, there are really two gold and silver mountains like that?

If there really are 10 million taels of official gold and 10,000 taels of official silver, it will solve a big problem. One of the problems facing Da Zhao at the moment is a serious copper shortage and money shortage. After a hundred years of recuperation, the people in the Central Plains have accumulated wealth, and the people have surplus money in their hands...... The demand for things and so on is also huge. As far as Beijing is concerned, tens of thousands of quintals of goods are transported from all over the world every year, and the converted money is more than 10 million yuan; And that's just Shangjing. The rest of Quanzhou, Jiankang, Yangzhou, Huzhou, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Ezhou, Chengdu and other places are all similar to Beijing, and the annual buying and selling transactions are also more than millions. Large-scale transactions create a serious problem: the private sector does not have enough money. Speaking of which, Da Zhao minted nearly one million yuan of money every year, which was several times that of the former Tang Dynasty, and in the past ten years, nearly 1.5 million yuan of new money was minted every year, but everywhere was still shouting that the money was not enough. Every year, 1.5 million yuan of new money is minted, which is already the limit of the imperial court, and any more will cause the consequence of insufficient quality of the money. After all, the 37 copper mines in eight states and three places can only mine so much copper every year, and can only mint so much money. In order to make the money of the people sufficient, the imperial court tried its best, and in the fourth, ninth, fourteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth years of the Eastern Common Era, it sued the world five times in a row, strictly prohibiting the people from smelting money and taking copper without permission, and cracking down on those illegal businessmen who privately made and sold copperware, and even made detailed regulations on the amount of money that each ship could carry when going to sea, but the money was still not enough. In places where bulk goods are distributed, such as Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Chengdu, and other places, the people already have "tea introductions", "medicine quotations", "grain quotations" and "silk exchanges" that can be used as large amounts of money. The imperial court also realized that one of the reasons that hindered the growth of the treasury revenue was that the money was not enough, according to Shang Yanshan, which was called "insufficient money circulation, resulting in deflation, continuous decline in prices, increase in unemployment, and finally leading to economic recession, so the treasury revenue stagnated or even regressed." In this regard, the Ministry of Household also proposed the idea of casting silver and gold ingots. However, the household department only mined 35,000 taels of silver every year, and the gold mining was almost negligible, relying only on the existing flat treasury silver of less than 1.8 million taels in the state treasury, and the flat treasury gold was only 210,000 taels. It's just a drop in the bucket......

Now, two mountains of gold and silver suddenly appeared in the Eastern Wa Kingdom, and they are all "gold, silver, copper, iron and polymetallic associated mines", even if they cannot be immediately put into manual mining, the mined gold, silver and copper can not be transported back to Dazhao in time, but with such two places to support, at least it is a thought, which can always teach people to breathe a sigh of relief. What's more, there is so much gold and silver in these two mines......

He made a decision: for the sake of the 10 million taels of gold and 10,000 taels of silver, he supported the dispatch of troops to the Eastern Wa Kingdom! Even if this was Shang Yanshan's lies, he admitted it!

Now that the decision has been made, Zhang Pu has also opened his mouth.

"Gu Hou, Shang Bo," Zhang Pu named Gu Shi and Shang Cheng's names. His gaze skimmed over Gu Shi and stayed on Shang Cheng. "Among you here, the two of you are the Shangzhu Kingdom, and you know the most about military affairs. What do you think? ”

Gu Shi nodded, only said "can fight", and then stopped speaking.

Shang Cheng, who was sitting next to him, took his words and said, "I support Gu Hou's opinion, Dongwei can fight this battle." I also agree with Lord Zhai's opinion that the expedition to the east to raze the Fujiwara clan is imperative and must be fought. ”

There was silence on the Hanyuan Palace.

Just now, Zhai mistakenly said that he could send troops to the east, but he found a lot of opposition; At present, Gu Shi and Shang Cheng said that they could fight, but they didn't hear it, as if Gu Shi and Shang Cheng didn't speak at all. Zhang Pu waited for a while, and saw that the twenty or thirty people in the hall all seemed to have no different opinions, and then asked: "Guhou, Shangbo, you said that you can send troops, what is the reason?" ”

Why do you want to fight the East Widow, and how to fight the East Widow, this question Gu Shi has already discussed with Shang Cheng. After some arguments, he and Zhenqian both agreed with Shang Cheng's point of view that Dongwei had to fight. However, the reason for going to the Eastern Wa Kingdom was put forward by Shang Yanshan, and the Eastern Wa strategy was also Shang Cheng's overall planning, so Zhang Pu asked on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office, and he couldn't answer, so he looked at Shang Cheng with his eyes.

Shang Cheng didn't shirk, stood up and saluted Emperor Dongyuan and Zhang Pu respectively, and then said, "Long live, Zhang Xiang, my lords." The reason why we have to send troops to the East is not because the Fujiwara clan is tyrannical, nor because of the gold and silver mountains of the East Japan, nor because our Celestial Empire has the responsibility and obligation to uphold justice for the vassal states! The most fundamental reason why we want to send troops to the East is that the matter of the East is related to the national security of our Great Zhao! ”

Shang Cheng's first few words were very harsh, but Emperor Dongyuan, several prime ministers, deputy ministers, and all the important ministers all looked as usual, and no one paid attention to these rough words. It has been a hundred years since the founding of the Great Zhao Kingdom, and the Eastern Wa Kingdom has never offered a national book to Bao Mao, and now it is bullied by others that there is no way to live, and it is only when I remember that there is a Heavenly Empire; It's this kind of guy who is so disobedient, who is willing to deal with them? But when they heard the last sentence, they invariably frowned: "National security", what does this mean? The four words are separated, and everyone clearly understands which word they refer to; can be combined in one place, it makes people have a kind of confusing feeling: the country is the country, the home is the home, the two meanings are completely different, how can they be compared? "Safe" is quiet, "all" is complete, the two words also have a source, carefully scrutinize the meaning of the word, it should be the meaning of peace and security, no danger and no danger. However, listening to Shang Cheng's previous words, and then connecting the four words and pondering carefully, it vaguely seemed to have another profound meaning......

Shang Cheng did not explain what national security was, he continued: "You should remember that at the beginning of the founding of our dynasty, when Taizu and Taizong were in power, we fought with Tubo in the northwest for several years in succession. Those battles also hurt the vitality of the Tibetan people, and they did not dare to covet us for decades after that. But at present, the Southern Zhao State is instigating bureaucrats to make rebellion in the southwest, and I dare to say that there is a shadow of the Tubo people behind them. Last year, we also had a conflict with the Dongwu State in Rongzhou, and the local garrison said that it was the Dongwu people who provoked the first one by one, I just want to ask, just by virtue of the slap-sized place in the East Ukraine, where did he come from to dare to provoke our Da Zhao? There is also Buyeo in the northeast. From the time of Taizong, the Buyeyu people took advantage of the fact that we were inseparable from the Tuqi people, and provoked trouble in Bohaiwei three times and twice, and there were two large-scale southward marches of 10,000 horsemen during the time of Gaozong, until the battle of Huanggangling in Danzhou in the tenth year of Taijia, and the Buyeo people were killed and captured by 20,000 or 30,000 people, and finally stopped for thirty or forty years. But I recently read the news of Bohaiwei in the military newspaper, and they are ready to move again......"

People don't quite understand what he means by suddenly mentioning these old things. The old qualified right attendant of the household department said: "Uncle Shang, are your words a little alarmist? We just defeated the Turks last year, and we also set foot in the ancestral court of the Turks, and the country's military might was greatly boosted. Such a big victory, even if Nanzhao and Tubo have not received news because of the road, the Buyeo people should always know, right? They dare to brush our tiger whiskers at this time? ”

Shang Cheng drooped his eyelids and was silent for a moment before saying, "Failure is not necessarily bad news, and victory is not necessarily good news. ”

This is inexplicable, but most people know very well in their hearts that this is Shang Cheng showing mercy to the Prime Minister's office. According to the final summary of the battle of Yanshan at the beginning of the year, although there was a brilliant record of breaking Heishui City and leveling the ancestral court of Tuqici, but during the entire war, the main force of the left wing of Tuqi did not suffer a fatal blow, so in terms of military affairs, Dazhao can only be said to be a small victory. What's worse is that after the battle, Shang Cheng, who had paid a lot for the entire war, was suddenly transferred, which had a very bad impact on Yanshanwei. The new Admiral Zhuxu sent by the imperial court to Yanshan to replace Shang Cheng was not enough to serve the locality, and his merit was not enough to serve the soldiers, and he was completely hollowed out in less than three months after taking office, and all kinds of decisions he made, whether it was related to military affairs or government affairs, whether it was right or wrong, anyway, as long as he left the Admiral's Mansion, no one would listen to him at all. There was also a small news circulating in the Yushitai before, and the Yushi Yiwen stationed in Yanshan informed Shangjing that in mid-February, Zhuxu vomited blood one after another, and he was already sick and could not ask questions.

Shang Cheng also heard about the matter of Zhuxu. But Zhu Xu's vomiting of blood has nothing to do with him, and he is unlikely to have the opportunity to return to Yanshan again, so he doesn't bother to ask who will go to Yanshan after Zhu Xu. He continued: "Last year, neither Yanshanwei nor Bohaiwei could wait for an opportunity to annihilate the main force of the left wing of the Tuchuci, which indicates that from now on, the two Wei towns of Yanshan and Bohai need to maintain a high degree of vigilance against the Tuchuci people and closely guard against the retaliation of the king of Donglugu; This will undoubtedly involve a lot of their energy and troops. This is the opportunity for Buyeo. I would like to draw attention to the fact that we have no way of knowing for sure whether this was a solitary act by the Buyeongites or if they had some kind of tacit agreement with the Turks. ”

This terrible prophecy caused people to feel a wave of heart palpitations. What made them even more frightened was that this was most likely not just Shang Cheng's speculation, but a fact that had already happened. Think about it, in the north are Tuqi and Buyeo, in the northwest are Tuqi and Xiwutong and Tubo and Dongwubang, in the southwest are Tubo and Nanzhao, and in the northeast there is a Goryeo that faces Dazhao across the sea but does not border...... It can be said that in addition to Da Yue and Zhenla in the south, the current Da Zhao is completely embattled by the enemy from all directions!

Now, everyone seems to understand a little why Shang Yanshan mentioned Da Zhao's "national security". In such a sinister situation, in such a difficult situation, where is there any security for the country and the family?

However, Shang Cheng's words were not finished.

"Think about it, why are we in this situation? Goryeo, a regime-in-exile on the peninsula that claimed to be of Tang descendants, how could they dare to be unfriendly to us, was the place larger than ours, or the population larger than ours? Why are they arrogant enough to dare to call the emperor a small country, are their soldiers better than our soldiers, or are they taller than us? Nanzhao, a group of savages who don't even have words; Wu Zheng, the remnant of the Tuyuhun horse breeder; And Tubo, those small Hu countries in the Western Regions, and Tujici, why do they dare to come and bully us again and again? Anyone dares to bully us, anyone dares to come up and bite us? Why are they? Why are you bullying us? Do they feel that our swords are not sharp enough, that they are blunt, and that they cannot cut off their heads? ”

The Hanyuan Hall once again fell into a deathly silence.

Shang Cheng roared angrily:

"The reason why they dare to do this is very simple, it is because we haven't fought for a long time, we haven't cut people for a long time, we haven't bullied them for a long time, they have forgotten how we cut people, and they are not afraid of us anymore! What we have to do now is to let them know that our knives are as fast as they used to be, our swords are as sharp as they were in the past, and that we are still as ruthless as we were in the past! Let's take the Fujiwara clan of the East Wa to sacrifice the sword first. If Goryeo is sensible, forget it; If they are disobedient, they will be cut together. Do they think that the country of Korea does not border with us, and there is a Buyeo in between, so they can sit back and relax? Dream! We have sea ships, we have sailors, and all the coastlines of Goryeo from the south to the north can become battlefields! This is just the beginning, far from the end! ”

…… After Shang Cheng finished expressing his "opinion", the ministers of the Great Zhao in the Hanyuan Palace quickly reached a resolution and sent troops to the East. This matter was led by the Ministry of War, presided over by Lang Zhenqian, the left attendant of the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Industry respectively dispatched competent officials to assist, and all matters were directly responsible to the Prime Minister's Office.

In addition, Shangzhu Guoshang Cheng, the monarch lost his honor and roared in the palace, fined for three months, and grounded for 20 days......