The Liao State was destroyed, and the threat to the north was eliminated, and then it was the question of how to rule, which was complicated and cumbersome, but had to be done, and the rule of the north was also related to the future national fortunes of the Great Song Dynasty.

It is precisely because he knows the above, so after conquering the Liao State, Li Zhang did not care about the previous plan not to participate in the government politics, but personally helped Zhao Zhen formulate some policies to govern various parts of the north, and he also got the cement out to speed up the construction of roads and cities in the grassland and Liaodong in the Great Song Dynasty.

A few years later, Liaodong and the grassland gradually stabilized, and even the Han people in the northwest and Hebei began to migrate to the north, and the grassland people and the Khitan people were also firmly controlled by the Great Song Dynasty.

It is worth mentioning that since the Great Song Dynasty destroyed the Liao State, it has carried out an uninterrupted attack on the Jurchens, and it is still the old way of attacking the Liao State back then, the Great Song Dynasty relied on its own strong national strength, and constantly sent troops to clean up the Jurchens, the reason is that they helped the Liao State to resist the heavenly soldiers of the Great Song Dynasty, and did not accept the surrender of the Jurchens, and even in order to destroy the Jurchens, the Great Song Dynasty did not hesitate to set fire to the mountains several times, the mountains and forests are the foundation of the Jurchens, even if they can't burn them, they can also burn the animals and plants in the mountains and forests, As a result, the Jurchens starved to death without food and fur.

Under this cruel blow, in just a few years, the mature Jurchens who had mastered some techniques disappeared completely, and if the savage-like Jurchens also suffered heavy casualties, in order to avoid the pursuit of the Song people, they had to flee to the tundra farther north, and now the Jurchens are rarely seen on the northern border of the Great Song Dynasty, and maybe these Jurchens may evolve into Eskimos in the future.

While stabilizing the north, the Great Song Dynasty has also been slowly and firmly marching to the Western Regions, and at the same time contacting several small countries in the Western Regions, at first to eliminate the threat of the party, but Li Yuanhao did not give the Great Song Dynasty a chance at all, he directly passed through Central Asia and began to march towards the Seljuk Empire, although the Seljuk Empire is very strong, but their control of the border is still very weak, and Li Yuanhao is not a vegetarian, so he actually gnawed off a large piece of the northeast border of the Seljuk Empire.

Li Zhang didn't expect Li Yuanhao to have such courage, in order to avoid the Great Song Dynasty, he did not hesitate to be the enemy of the powerful Seljuk Empire, which made him even admire Li Yuanhao a little, and finally he even sent Li Yuanhao a gift, that is, a world map, so that he knew how big the world was.

Of course, this gift from Li Zhang actually has another purpose, that is, to tell Li Yuanhao that this world is very big, as long as he keeps expanding westward and no longer touches the borders of the Great Song Dynasty, the Great Song Dynasty will no longer pursue him, and Li Yuanhao is also a smart person, and after getting the map, he expanded westward again, and a few years later, he became a big trouble for the Sayerzhu Empire.

Compared with the north and the Western Regions, what really worries Li Zhang is the sea trade, although the South Seas have been included in the jurisdiction of the Great Song Dynasty, but this is only in name, there are countless islands in the South Seas, there are four super large islands alone, and the real control of the Great Song Dynasty is less than one-tenth, and the rest are still in the undeveloped primitive area, and the natives are the real masters there.

If the Great Song Dynasty wants to develop maritime trade, it must control the South Seas, and if you want to completely control the South Seas, there is only one way, that is, immigration, when the Song people in the South Seas occupy the majority, the laws of the Great Song Dynasty can pass, and this place can truly become the land of the Great Song Dynasty.

In fact, not only the South Seas, the homeland of the Liao State in the north, and the expansion of the Western Regions and other places, also need to migrate the Song people to the past, the Great Song Dynasty always felt that there were more people and less land, especially under the land annexation, many people lost their land and could only be beggars and refugees, but now the territory is getting bigger and bigger, and the population is insufficient.

However, because the problem of food has been solved, coupled with the great development of medicine, the fertility rate of the Great Song Dynasty has been quite high, and the population is also growing rapidly.

Although it will take decades to fill up the South Sea, this does not prevent the expansion of the Great Song Dynasty's maritime trade, especially after controlling the Buddha Strait, that is, the Strait of Malacca in later generations, the maritime merchants of the Great Song Dynasty also began to enter the Tianzhu Sea and even the West Asian Sea, some of them also reached Africa, and some people abandoned ships in the Western Regions to reach Europe, so it can be said that the footprints of the Song people are everywhere in the world.

However, there is still a continent in this world that has not been patronized by the Song people, that is, the distant North and South America, which is too far away from the Great Song Dynasty and must cross the Pacific Ocean to reach it.

Although the Americas are far away, Li Zhang has never given up looking for a route to the Americas, but in the past, the routes in Nanyang and other places alone were too busy, and the Americas were too far away, and there were no mature countries in the Americas, so all kinds of resources were very rich, but the risks were still too great, so the exploration of the Americas had been on paper.

However, with the passage of time, especially with the development of maritime trade, navigation on the sea has become more and more mature, sea ships and various tools have become more and more perfect, and the exploration of the Americas has also been put on the agenda by Li Zhang.

In the second year of the Great Song Dynasty, Zhao Zhen was just forty years old, and Li Zhang was forty-two years old.

At first, Li Zhang even wanted them to circle the earth, but then thought about it and felt that it was inappropriate, the circumnavigation was just to prove that the earth was spherical, but he already knew it, so there was no need to waste manpower and material resources to sail around the world, so he only needed to let them reach the Americas and open up the route to the Americas.

Li Zhang also attached great importance to this exploration of the Americas, and even after not leaving the capital for many years, he came to Dengzhou in person, and feasted everyone in the exploration fleet, and waited until three days later, this fleet of twenty large ships finally set sail.

Li Zhang stood at the dock in Dengzhou to personally see off these warriors, for this exploration, no one dares to guarantee that it will succeed, maybe they will succeed, maybe they will fail, but no matter what, the pace of the Great Song Dynasty's external exploration will never stop!