Although the Great Song Dynasty implemented restrictive measures on some commodities such as salt, iron, and grain, this practice only had a certain effect a few decades ago, and the current effect is better than nothing.

After decades of continuous study, they have long learned the mining and smelting technology of iron ore from the Great Song Dynasty, and the embargo of iron tools and grain has lost its original restrictive effect on the Khitans.

As for salt, the Liao State also developed salt pans at the mouth of the Liao River, plus the original salt mine salt, they no longer lack salt, but because their refining technology is slightly worse, the purity of salt is poorer.

In fact, the amount of salt, iron and grain that the Liao State purchased from the Great Song Dynasty every year because of actual demand also decreased year after year, and the most important commodities imported from the Great Song Dynasty gradually became tea, porcelain, handicrafts, paper, silk and cloth and other high-end goods.

Most of what they sold to the Great Song Dynasty were furs, timber, cattle and sheep. To put it more bluntly, the Khitans made a lot of profit from these trades.

For they themselves were not short of goods such as furs, cattle, sheep and livestock, but they used their rule to make huge profits by using a method of reselling trade.

The Khitan people sold their cattle and sheep to the Great Song Dynasty, although the Song people felt that it was cheaper than buying these meat products in the Great Song Dynasty, but in the eyes of the Khitan people, the selling price was high.

Because they sold their cattle and sheep, and used coercion to buy new cattle and sheep at low prices from others, such as the Mongols, so that the number of cattle and sheep not only did not decrease, but they made a lot of money from it.

However, compared to the Great Song Dynasty, the Khitans are not rich, and the rich Khitans on the grassland are still a minority, and while the tribal leaders and nobles are rich, the ordinary Khitans are still living an ordinary life.

Moreover, the money of the Khitan people is not reflected in gold and silver, but in the number of cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock, the rich may have thousands of cattle and sheep, and the poor do not even have cattle and sheep, and can only live by grazing for the rich.

Yang Huairen asked again, "What special customs do the Khitan people have, which are different from our Song people?" ”

Old Xiao replied, "Yes, there are many more." However, most of them are irrelevant, and there is only one thing that is more important, and it has a lot to do with our Song people, that is, the bowl. ”

"That'...... Wave? What do you mean? ”

"Bowling is a custom that almost all nomads have in the north, and to put it bluntly, it is a habit of migrating and hunting in all seasons every year.

The Khitan people are the same, they live in pursuit of water and grass, spring, summer and autumn, there will be different pastures, where the grass grows early in spring, where the grass is fertile in summer, and where the grass withers late in autumn, they all know, so they have developed the habit of migrating with the seasons according to the pasture.

In winter, when the pastures are yellow and covered in snow, they will hunt animals that are slow due to lack of winter food to supplement their winter food.

In fact, that was before, and later, the Khitans went directly south to the Song-Liao border and plundered the grain of the Song people in our border areas, which gradually replaced the relatively hard hunting behavior.

Now that the living environment is better, the bowl has gradually changed from a nomadic survival habit to a custom, especially the Khitan people who have changed from herdsmen to farmers, and the bowl has evolved into a festival worth celebrating in the four seasons of the year.

For example, if there is anything to celebrate in life, it will be held around the time of the Bowl Festival, such as marriage, etc., all of which are held on the Bowl Festival.

The Khitan royal family still maintains the habit of making bowls, and they will still return to the pastures near Shangjing every summer to hunt, perhaps because the Liao Emperor forgot the duties of the Khitans in order to prevent those high-ranking nobles from living too comfortably. ”

Yang Huairen nodded and thought for a while, this information about the Khitans seemed to be useful, but he didn't know how to use it to achieve his goal of delaying the Khitans and ensuring that they would not send troops to Western Xia.

"Then, what are the special weaknesses of the Khitans?"

Xiao Lao'er's face was a little embarrassed, "As for the weakness of the Khitan people, Lao Qi'er can't say it well, they are stronger than our Song people, and they are more brave in battle, and their nature is like this, they advocate force, worship the strong, and have no sympathy for the weak."

In the past, we Song people thought that the Khitan people were just more than powerful and lacking in wisdom, in fact, this view is not correct, the old man has come into contact with countless Khitan people over the years, but these Khitan people are really not as stupid as we imagined.

It's just that because they are very arrogant and arrogant a lot of the time, they seem to have no scheming, in fact, many Khitan people, especially those Khitan nobles, they are very thoughtful, we must not underestimate them. ”

Yang Huairen recognized what Xiao Lao'er said, although he didn't have many Khitan people, but it also confirmed Lao Qi'er's words, the Khitan people are not stupid, and they are very scheming.

Like Yeludidi's father and son, they are very scheming, and they opened a family garden last year to work against themselves, if it weren't for Yang Huairen's already existing beef source, he might have really lost in that competition.

On the other hand, the arrogance of the Khitans may be their biggest shortcoming, and at the moment they do not take the Mongols and Jurchens into account, perhaps it is the biggest mistake they made because of their arrogance.

In the future, after these two tribes developed and grew, they successively replaced the Khitans and became the overlords.

Yang Huairen felt that another shortcoming of the Khitans also came from their interior, although the Liao State was a country dominated by the Khitans, there were many tribes and forces both externally and within the Khitans.

Now it seems that the Khitan family is dominant, but in fact, many forces are ready to move, not to mention the outside for the time being, but they are not so united internally.

The entanglement between various tribes or families is very complicated, and it is only because Yelu Hongji is too strong that the internal problems are not revealed, but this old emperor has gradually lost his former style and strength because he has become old year by year.

Above the court of Liao, calm is only a superficial phenomenon, as long as Yelu Hongji dies, even if he is only physically ill and fades out of the core of power, it will inevitably lead to a bloody battle in the court of Liao.

Yang Huairen seemed to see a glimmer of light, and now it is not realistic to expect the Mongols and Jurchens to become strong immediately, and to create a certain amount of trouble for the Khitans.

Then if Yang Huairen wants to achieve the goal of this trip, he can only find a breakthrough in the complex relationship within them, let them mess up within themselves first, let them hurt each other, and then have no time to take care of the Song and Xia wars in the west.