The attendants and ladies in the palace were very busy with the banquet for receiving the envoys of various countries in the evening, but the little emperor, the host of the banquet, was missing. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Zhao Xu enjoyed a wonderful cooking competition, he was in a good mood, and since he left Guiyan Tower, he wandered around the West Market for a whole afternoon, until the sky was dark, and he was returned to the palace by Su Guilian crying.

Hurriedly bathing and changing clothes, Zhao Xu came to Daqing Palace.

Empress Dowager Gao knew what kind of temperament the little emperor was, she hadn't seen anyone all day, and it was estimated that she had sneaked out of the palace to play, and when she saw him coming in a hurry, she couldn't help but feel a little angry, but in front of the Manchu Dynasty and many envoys from various countries, she still pretended to be elegant and solemn.

The emperor was seated, and the banquet began with a drum music. After the drum music, one of the chief attendants of the palace began to read the Mid-Autumn Edict.

The edict was issued in the name of the emperor, in fact, the emperor did not know what was written in the edict at all, and over the years, his grandmother had the final say on all the major affairs in the court, even though he was fifteen years old, he was still a child in the eyes of most ministers.

The edict is nothing more than praise the Emperor of the Great Song Dynasty for ascending the throne at a young age, but he inherited the ancestral foundation very well, since the accession to the throne, the four seas have been leveled, and the eight directions have come to congratulate, since the emperor and below, the ministers have worked hard to make the Great Song Dynasty climb to another peak, and on the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the envoys of various countries are invited to show the emperor's grace.

Zhao Xu forced a smile on his face, but his teeth itched with hatred in his heart. He has been on the throne for six years, and he has inherited the inheritance of his ancestors, but unfortunately his contribution to the foundation of his ancestors is basically equal to zero.

His grandmother had made up his mind, big or small, and he was just an ornament sitting on a dragon chair. What is the current situation of Da Song, no matter how stupid he is, he knows that he will definitely not be able to talk about the peace of the four seas, and as for the congratulations from all directions, it is even more of a joke.

There are a lot of envoys from all over the world, and they are so happy that they are shaking their heads, and the words of the Great Song Dynasty are also interesting, but the performances of these envoys are too exaggerated, or people are too lazy to seriously accompany you to perform a good show from all over the world.

Empress Dowager Gao listened very satisfied, as if all this was her own credit. This made Zhao Xu even more sad, and he couldn't help but think of the story of Empress Lu in the Han Dynasty.

Zhao Xu thought about it and was unhappy, because he was not as good as the two young emperors of the Han Dynasty, at least they still had Zhou Bo and Chen Pingping, who were loyal to Lu, and he was now a courtier who could be trusted.

But whoever he summoned, within a few months, these ministers would be demoted out of the capital for all kinds of strange crimes, and later the court was even afraid of the king like a tiger, not afraid of the official family, but for fear of winning the official family, but had no future.

Let anyone say that this is simply a joke, the dignified king of a country deserves to be so aggrieved, no wonder Zhao Xu feels depressed in the palace.

The chamberlain finally finished singing the edict, and it was the turn of the envoys of various countries to enter the table.

The envoy of Da Liao recited an old saying that Zhao Xu was tired of listening to, ostensibly saying that Song and Liao were brothers, and the words were indeed reminding Da Song that this year's New Year's coins should be prepared early, and that the delivery should be delayed at the end of the year.

The Liao envoy is also a sleek person, although his purpose is not likable, but he is a wolf in sheep's clothing, guarding the envoys of various countries, and he speaks smartly, and the level of asking for money is also high, at least he does not make the ugly words clear and the face of the master is not good-looking.

But the Xixia envoys behind him didn't have the Tao of Liao, and they opened and closed their mouths with a smell of copper. Zhao Zhan, a household servant who was over the age of old, said three or four times that the imperial court would seriously consider it, so he sat back with a straight face.

The envoys also expressed their own demands, most of them offering some cheap specialties of their own country, doubling the value of the boast by one hundred and eighty times, and then asking for a return gift.

These people are also sweet-mouthed people, knowing that the queen mother who coaxed her to love face and the court bigwigs grinned, relieving the embarrassing atmosphere that the Western Xia envoys had messed up just now, and they must have received a lot of gifts in return.

When it was the turn of the envoys of the Wa Kingdom, the little envoy named De Yan Hachimaru finished offering the treasures of the Wa Kingdom, but did not say that he wanted to return the gift, but asked the Great Song Dynasty to expand the commercial exchanges between the Song and the Wa and open more ports for trade.

It is said that trade is a good thing, and it is good for both countries, but at this time, both the Queen Mother and the ministers have solemn faces, as if this is such an unreasonable request.

Han Wei, a scholar of the Senior Administration Palace, stood up and said, "Envoy De Stubborn Eight Pills, this is too much to ask, isn't it?" In recent years, the Great Song Dynasty has vigorously expanded the types and quotas of trade goods between the Song and the Japanese, so why is the Japanese still not satisfied? ”

Tokunayamaru replied suspiciously, "What did Master Han say about this?" How is it that the trade between the Song Dynasty and Goryeo and the Yue and Li dynasties has never been subject to trade quotas? Why do we have to impose restrictions in the country of the rising sun? ”

Han Wei smiled lightly and said: "Goryeo, the Yue Li Dynasty has already called my Great Song Dynasty a subordinate and a subordinate, so naturally there is no need to set a trade quota, if your country is willing to be a vassal to His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Song Dynasty, the law of such quotas should be abolished." ”

The two had an argument, and the crux of the matter was whether the Wa Kingdom was willing to be a vassal to the Great Song Dynasty.

Under the feudal etiquette of that time, since the Han and Tang dynasties, we have always regarded ourselves as the Celestial Empire, and all other surrounding countries were barbarians in the eyes of ancient Chinese kings and literati.

Our ancestors did establish a superpower standing in the east of the world, and they did have enough capital to be arrogant, and the kings regarded themselves as the kings of the country in the middle of the world.

Therefore, for the surrounding small countries, there is indeed the strength to ask for this, but later this kind of thing slowly turned into a kind of paranoid arrogance of the kings, and even developed into a kind of ideological shackles, since the Song Dynasty, the policy of closing the country has become a shackle that imprisons its own development.

For those who bowed down to the Great Song Dynasty, the Great Song Dynasty court was also quite generous to them, and returned the gift as if they were afraid that people would not know that they were rich.

Not only for Goryeo, but also for a neighborly country like Annam, a small country that can't even be called by name, and doesn't even know where the place is, as long as people are vassals, they send a few baskets of rotten broken fruits that they have never seen, and they also want jewelry and silk to return to the last two carts of gifts.

They don't care if the people can afford to eat pork, but their face in front of strangers in Fanbang must not only be lost, but also cheekily said that this is called the model of a great country.

In the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty, this kind of thing was even more bizarre, some small countries ran to the Great Song Dynasty three or four times a year, and turned the annual tribute into a Ji Gong, and even some Nanyang merchants, who occupied a small broken island where birds did not, and named themselves a country at will, in order to earn the reward of the master of the Great Song Dynasty, who was rich and stupid.