Qu Duan and Yue Fei walked out of the Donghua Gate of Huaqing Palace together. Outside the Tung Wah Gate is not a bustling street market, but a large grassland. When the two of them went out, there was a team of knights on the right shift in front of the palace who were training in equestrianism and queues.

Qu Duan and Yue Fei's entourage were waiting outside, and when they saw the two coming out, they hurriedly brought them mounts.

Both of their mounts were of the finest Hequ horses, not from Hequ, but from Guanzhong and Jingchu.

Now the horse administration of the Western Song Dynasty is very small, and it can only supply imperial horses, but it does not feel a shortage of horses. Even if it was not imported from Xiliang, relying on the manors of the soldiers in Guanlong, Shuofang and Jingchu alone would be enough to meet the needs of the huge Western Song army for horses.

Qu Duan rode a four-foot-six-inch dragon stallion (the best of the river meandering horses), which was produced in his own manor in Lintong.

And Yue Fei rode a Hequ horse with a shoulder height of four feet and five and a half inches, which was from Yuejiazhuang of the Jingmen Army.

Not only Qu Duan and Yue Fei have good horses to ride, but also the entourage that follows them, everyone has horses, and they are all good horses!

Qu Duan and Yue Fei both have the highest level of pacification envoys, and the number of granges they own is 3,000 acres!

The other two have been in power with troops all year round, and there is always some extra income. With such a net worth, of course, he can afford to raise more than a dozen followers.

Therefore, the two of them can take their fully armed family members to the Huaqing Palace to go to the court or go to the government office to work!

And such a scene was unimaginable in the era of Kaifeng Mansion, the capital of the Great Song Dynasty! But in today's Western Song Dynasty, it is also commonplace. And it's not too domineering, after all, the location of Huaqing Palace is remote, and there is Lishan Mountain nearby, and there are often thieves infested, if you don't bring enough guards, what should you do if you encounter a thief?

What the? At the feet of the Son of Heaven, there are bandits?

Absolutely! I don't know how many contradictions arose in the process of land reform in the Western Song Dynasty, and tens of thousands of people were killed and exiled. There are still many thieves who have not been caught, and even around Chang'an, they are not very calm.

However, around the Huaqing Palace, there are not many thieves in the official offices and official residences of the Western Song Dynasty. But now the officials of the Western Song Dynasty don't have much entertainment, that is, they go to Lishan to hunt or something, and sometimes they really bump into bandits......

Qu Duan and Yue Fei walked along the official road outside the Huaqing Palace.

This area is not in the city, and there are no tall walls around it. However, including the Huaqing Palace and various government offices, as well as the mansions of various officials, are protected by high walls. Among them, Huaqing Palace is simply a fortress!

Once there is a change, all the people in the surrounding official offices and mansions can be withdrawn into the Huaqing Palace!

In addition, the county seat of Lintong is not very far from Huaqing Palace. This small town is the only commercial town near Huaqing Palace, and it is not very prosperous. It's just four or five markets, and there are some shops, restaurants, brothels and so on.

A guest house of the Western Song Dynasty is located in Lintong County. Therefore, Qu Duan and Yue Fei left Huaqing Palace today and went to Lintong County together.

They were going to the State Guest House in Lintong to meet Han Shizhong.

The two soon entered the county seat, which was not very lively, there were not many customers in the large and small shops along the street, and the consumption was all merchants and citizens, and there were basically no officials in sight.

The status of merchants in the Western Song Dynasty was very low, and they could not be compared with the Zhou State and the Eastern Song Dynasty at all, and they were the real end of the four people! They are not allowed to wear silk, gold and silver, carriages, and their children are not allowed to participate in the imperial examinations, so they are not from a good family!

The status of the artisan is slightly higher than that of the merchant, and he is considered to be from a good family, and he can wear silk. However, in order to maintain the status of artisan households, it is necessary to provide craftsmen to government-run factories. Otherwise, they will be demoted from artisans to merchants - by the way, there is no clear boundary between craftsmen and merchants, such as blacksmiths are counted as craftsmen and merchants? Don't you make money by selling ironware? Keep it for yourself?

Therefore, the government of the Western Song Dynasty set such a standard - as long as a merchant provides skilled craftsmen to serve in the official service, it is considered a craftsman. If you can't provide it, it's a merchant.

Artisans have room to rise, and they can serve the country from the military. And the merchant can only stay at the bottom all the time.

However, no matter whether it is a merchant or a craftsman, they can't have too much contact with high-ranking officials like Qu Duan and Yue Fei.

Because of the Western Song Dynasty's "prohibition of the people's two industries", officials were not allowed to do business, industry and commerce were not allowed to be officials (the children of artisan households could be officials, but the head of the household could not), and farmers were also not allowed to enter the market to do business. To enter the market to do business, you must have a city registration (both industry and commerce have a city registration)...... High-ranking officials such as Yue Fei and Qu Duan are not even allowed to spend money in shops and restaurants in the town, and it is also illegal to buy a cooking cake from a vendor!

Of course, they also have to consume it at home, and they can't take everything out of their hometown's manor. However, it is not up to the officials to come forward to negotiate business with the merchants, but only for the family to negotiate with the merchants.

In short, the Western Song Dynasty was extremely strict in the management of commercial activities, and all kinds of regulations were not to facilitate transactions, but to make transactions inconvenient.

And this method of managing commerce was not invented by the Western Song Dynasty itself, but came from the experience of the previous dynasties before the Song Dynasty. At the same time, he also copied a lot of decrees from Xiliang - Xiliang Zhangli has a lot of experience in how to manage a feudal country.

In his opinion, the more business activity, the more corrosive it is to the military class! So it must be completely stifled!

And this view was very popular in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, called "Profit out of a hole, drive the peasants back to war", "Guanzi. "National Accumulation" says: Those who benefit from a hole are invincible in their country; Those who come out of the two holes will not be able to fight their soldiers; Those who come out of the three holes are not allowed to raise troops; Whoever comes out of the four holes will perish his kingdom.

This means that the country cannot have too many upward channels, and it is better to have one channel - agricultural warfare! That is, the peasants can only rise if they become soldiers and fight!

If you can't make one hole, then take a back seat and choose two holes. If you get to the third or fourth hole, then the country is probably doomed.

The current Western Song Dynasty is to make two holes, in addition to agricultural warfare, there is also a way out of farming. But the agricultural war is the top, and the ploughing is the bottom. Whether it is the imperial examination in Bashu or the university halls in Guanlong and Jingchu, the civil officials produced must be inferior to the martial arts.

As for the New Zhou and Eastern Song Dynasty, in the eyes of the rulers of the Western Song Dynasty and Western Liang, they were too degenerate.

Because there are too many passages for these two countries to rise! There was not only a well-developed industry and commerce, but also a large number of academic circles, a variety of literary and artistic circles, and a whole bunch of colonies to make a fortune from.

Therefore, these two countries obviously have the financial resources and military technology to overwhelm the Western Song Dynasty, but they cannot fight a war with one mind. Now it has degenerated to the point of conquering the world...... Can conquering the world be more important than dominating the world?

And this is the opportunity of the Western Song Dynasty!

The Western Song Dynasty could take advantage of the opportunity of the Eastern Song Dynasty and the New Zhou Dynasty to conquer the world and squeeze the Xiliang behind the ass a little farther, thus greatly expanding the number of military manors - the more military manors there were, the stronger the military power of the Western Song Dynasty would be.

With a strong military force and a safe rear, the Western Song Dynasty was able to move eastward with one mind, repeating the story of the Qin State annexing the six countries and dominating the world in history.

……

"Good minister, the official's mind has been decided!"

"Yes, don't they all say how rich the land of the Western Regions is? Both Yelu Dashi and Zhao Qianshun made a fortune in the west. Is King Xiliang really willing to live in Liangzhou for a lifetime in that place where birds don't? ”

"Good minister, the imperial court will not let Xiliang send troops alone...... The imperial court will send reinforcements, and will also provide Xiliang with guns and gunpowder. With the help of the imperial court, it is impossible not to win. ”

"It's going to win...... Now there are only Eastern Thieves and East Sea Pirates in the whole world who can fight with my Great Song Dynasty. But now that they are degenerating, there is no future for them in the long run. ”

In the pavilion, Qu Duan and Yue Fei sang and harmonized, and they were fooling Han Shizhong, a scholar of Renai Pavilion in Xiliang Kingdom.

Han Shizhong is a vulgar martial artist, but at this time, he is a Confucian and a scholar, sitting there, holding a tea bowl, frowning and speechless.

Of course he knows about the richness of the West! But the knights of Xiliang have been settled for many years, and they are used to being poor and poor, and they are always a little uneasy when they want to go to the Western Regions to make a fortune all of a sudden.

But the Great Song Dynasty is determined to do the following, I'm afraid it won't work if you don't go, right? If you don't go, the army of people will press over, and you won't be able to go if you want to.

As for defeating the Western Song Dynasty, that is something that I can't even think of...... The Western Song Dynasty is now out of the two holes, and its soldiers are no longer good.

Although Xiliang is a hole, its population is less than one-fifteenth of that of the Western Song Dynasty, because it is separated by the Western Song Dynasty, and the speed of absorbing oriental science and technology is relatively slow.

Therefore, it could not compete with the Western Song Dynasty in terms of military strength.

However, their strength is more than enough to conquer the territory of Yelu Dashi in the west. After all, Dashi's focus was on Persia, and there were few soldiers in the Land of the Seven Rivers.

"I wonder how many reinforcements the imperial court is going to send?" After a while, Han Shizhong asked.

"Two divisions, is that enough?" Yue Fei said.

Two divisions armed with heavy smoothbore guns and field artillery are nothing on the battlefield in the Central Plains, but they are invincible in the West.

Moreover, if the Xiliang Kingdom marches westward, it will not be a problem to pull out 50,000 cavalry.

50,000 cavalry, two infantry divisions, more than 70,000 guns, how can there be an enemy in the Western Regions?

Therefore, the western expedition of the Western Liang Kingdom is really just a reseal......

Han Shizhong sighed and smiled bitterly: "I thought I could be comfortable, but I didn't expect to have to move my nest at a great age." But it's also good to move to a richer territory! I heard that now Dashi and Jurchen Jin Kingdom are all bigger. It's also our turn to make a fortune! ”

Qu Duan smiled: "If King Liang also nods, how long will it take for the Western Liang Kingdom to be ready?" ”

Han Shizhong thought for a while, "Two years! After all, we are not nomads, and we have to prepare for two years. After three to four years, they will be able to occupy the land of the Seven Rivers and Kipchak. It will take a few years to suppress the ground, and it will take ten years to settle down! When the time comes, I Han Shizhong will really have to retire. ”