The canal is the most important passage between the north and the south in ancient times, and the canal can be said to be more important than the land transportation, and most of the goods and grain transshipment between the north and the south have to be undertaken by the canal.

Since the Song Dynasty, in order to communicate the convenience of the north-south canal traffic, the early Song Dynasty court vigorously excavated and repaired the canal, formed a large canal from Bianliang to Hangzhou through the north and south, known as the Bianhe River in history, the Bianhe River will communicate with the Yangtze River, the Huai River and the Yellow River, after the completion of the construction, form a vast river, the boats on the Bianhe River in the prosperous period are like weaving, the back and forth do not stop day and night, the land on both sides of the bank is fertile, the products are rich, the towns are numerous, constitute a special scenery of the Northern Song Dynasty.

However, since the Jin army went south to the Northern Song Dynasty and fell, the canal south of the Yangtze River was silted up, because in order to prevent the Jin State from using the canal to go south, after the defeat and retreat, the Bianhe River was silted up with sunken ships, and the river channel was dug up, and the river channel was filled with soil and rocks, and finally this big river was basically completely abandoned from the north of Chuzhou and no longer used.

After the establishment of the Southern Song Dynasty, although there were many northern expeditions, but in the end they were unsuccessful, not to mention the reasons for putting down the military, one of the important reasons is that after the north suffered a military disaster, the population was greatly reduced, the land was seriously abandoned, and the logistics supply of the Song army was not easy.

Gao Huaiyuan took the boat to the south, while listening to the people on the boat talk about the canal, for these things, he has studied some over the years, and has a deeper understanding.

Looking at the surging river, as well as the various boats that shuttle back and forth on the river, Gao Huaiyuan felt sorry for the rise and fall of the Bianhe River, how many eye-popping grand projects have been created in ancient China, and the projects like the Bianhe River have been exhausted, and in the end they have not left any traces, and the war has caused a great disaster to this troubled nation!

Over the years, he has been secretly pondering a thing, he knows that the fall of the Jin State is imminent, and for the Southern Song Dynasty, there is a very good opportunity to recover the Central Plains, if the Southern Song Dynasty plays a little better in the later war to destroy the Jin, maybe it can really recover the homeland of the Central Plains, and win a large piece of strategic defense depth for the Southern Song Dynasty, so that when confronting the Mongolian army in the future, it will not only be able to defend according to the river, and dare not say that it will be able to curb the southern invasion of the Mongolian army. At the very least, it can greatly slow down the process of the Mongols going south!

Now it seems that the Southern Song Dynasty has the hardships of the Southern Song Dynasty, in addition to the disadvantage of the generals, the Song army also seems to be facing an important problem, that is, the problem of logistical supply, after losing the convenience of water transportation and supply in the vertical and horizontal waterways, the army composed of pure infantry, the pressure on logistics is great, which he has not estimated too much before.

At present, if a soldier wants to maintain the battle, not to mention water transportation, at least three to five people must be provided with him, so the Song army's combat effectiveness will be very dependent on logistics supplies.

Compared with the Mongolian cavalry, the Song army did not need to fight, and it was already at an absolute disadvantage in terms of logistics and supply alone.

The Mongol army is different from the Song army, each of them has two or three war horses, and the mobility is super strong, and the Mongol army is to feed the war by war, often fighting on other people's land, without too many scruples, they can rob if they can, and they can maintain their combat effectiveness by plundering.

What's more, the cavalry of the Mongolian army has a very strong ability to endure hardships and stand hard work, they have lived in the grassland with an extremely harsh environment since they were young, everyone is accustomed to the harsh environment, and can rely on very little food to maintain their physical strength and combat effectiveness.

Even Gao Huaiyuan also considered the difference between the Song army and the Mongolian army from the food structure, the Mongols basically eat meat and dairy products as the staple food, these two things belong to high-protein, high-calorie food, and the unit calories that can be provided to people are relatively high, and these foods Mongolian soldiers can make mature food in advance, and they can eat without stopping to rest on the horse, so the Mongolian mobile combat ability, in this era, can be said to be invincible in the world, which is also an important reason why they swept almost all countries in the Western Regions, It's not that the armies of those countries are poor, it's that the Mongolian army is too perverted because of its strong mobility.

The common people and soldiers of the Han nationality rely on rice, flour and other things as their main source of food, these things are low in calories, a capable soldier, if he wants to maintain the physical strength of the battle, must eat at least one kilogram of food a day to maintain his physical strength, continue to fight, if the intake of food is too little, the nutrition obtained by the soldier will not be able to maintain his consumption, and the combat effectiveness will soon decline.

In addition, the food eaten by the Song people is also very troublesome in production, most of the things they eat are raw things, and they often need the army to stop and bury the pot to make rice, and then eat the raw materials after cooking, even if they eat two meals a day, it will take two hours at the earliest, and the army has to stop twice, so it is even more difficult to maintain mobility.

Otherwise, even in the early Han and Tang dynasties, before building a strong cavalry, they had no way to take the Huns and Turks in the north.

Gao Huaiyuan often has a little headache when he thinks of this matter, and he hasn't come up with any good way to solve this kind of problem until now, except for relying on crowd tactics to maintain the offensive ability of the Song army, he really can't think of any good way!

Maybe the canal is a way, if the Song army wants to make a difference in the Northern Expedition, while fighting, while restoring the function of the canal system, this can maintain the daily supply and transportation of the Song army, so Gao Huaiyuan has been on the boat these days, often secretly pondering about this matter of the canal.

The official ship went south all the way on the canal, passed through Zhenjiang, passed through Changzhou and arrived in Suzhou through Wuxi, Gao Huaiyuan did not let the ship stay too much in Suzhou, but added some needed things, then set sail again, and continued to sail along the Suzhou-Hangzhou Canal to Lin'an.

This trip is also a good experience for Gao Huaiyuan, he has been in this era for several years, but it is really the first time to take a boat all the way to a place like this, and he has seen all the good scenery along the way, and also tasted the delicious food on both sides of the strait.

In this way, it took them about ten days to complete the whole process, and finally arrived in Lin'an, Hangzhou three days earlier than the specified time.

When stepping on the solid land of Lin'an Wharf, Gao Huaiyuan didn't get used to this down-to-earth feeling for a long time, walking always felt a little deep and shallow, and the flickering feeling of taking the boat lasted for a long time, and the cerebellum finally adjusted this feeling.

Standing on the Lin'an wharf, looking at the boat mast on the canal, Gao Huaiyuan sighed slightly, ten days of good life, walked here, basically drew a comma, God knows what will happen to him in Lin'an in the future! So suddenly, he was quite nostalgic for the wonderful enjoyment of many days, but after turning his head and seeing the tall city wall of Lin'an, he had to return to reality.

Although he came to Hangzhou to take up his post this time, but a seven-grade sesame petty official like him, in a place like Lin'an, where there are so many big officials, will not attract anyone's attention at all, and if he wants to have an official person to pick him up, there is no door, everything can only rely on himself.

However, compared with others, Gao Huaiyuan still has his advantages, at least here, he has his own industry and personnel, so there will be no danger of not being able to find the north because of this.

After Gao Huaiyuan unloaded the carriage and horses from the official ship to the dock, the official ship was immediately driven away from the dock to make room for other ships.

"Young master, the little one has been waiting for the young master here for a long time!" At this time, the young man walked quickly in front of Gao Huaiyuan and took the reins of the horse from Li Ruohu's hands.

Gao Huaiyuan turned his head to see that it was Judge who came here to pick him up.

"Judge? How many days have you been here? Gao Huaiyuan asked Jia Qi with a smile.

"Young master, I set off ahead of you, hired a fast boat, arrived here ten days ago, and found Mr. Ji, and through Huang Zhen, I have found a place to live in Lin'an, and settled down temporarily, these days have basically * Lin'an City The situation is familiar, and it is estimated that the young master should also arrive in the past two days, so I came here to greet the young master!" Judge replied immediately.

Gao Huaiyuan looked at the bustling crowd around him, turned around and followed Jia Qi out of the dock, and asked as he walked, "What about Mr. Ji?" How is he now? Do you live together? ”

Jia Qi also looked around and didn't notice anyone paying attention to them, so he replied, "Mr. Ji is okay now!" It's just that he said that it was inconvenient to meet you, so he didn't come to pick up the young master this time, and he didn't let me live with him, so he found a small courtyard in the city alone and settled down, and rarely came out to walk around, so this time I asked me to pick up the young master, and he specially instructed the little one not to be too ostentatious, so even Uncle Huang didn't come to greet the young master!

In addition to finding a place to live by himself, the little one also found a clean courtyard for the young master near the Yiwang Mansion for the young master to live in after he arrived in Lin'an. ”

After Gao Huaiyuan thought for a while, he said as he walked: "It's good that you do this, the situation here is complicated, and the province is thought that my shelf is too big, I think it's better to go to the place you found me first!" As soon as I came here, it was not good to go straight to the Drunken Immortal Tower, so let's settle down first and report to the Yiwang Mansion for a while! ”

Jia Qi immediately agreed, let people lead the horse for Gao Huaiyuan, and invited Gao Huaiyuan to sit in the car, and walked towards Lin'an City, which is the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, and ordinary people are not allowed to ride horses in the city, so Gao Huaiyuan only has to take an honest ride.

When walking on the street of Lin'an, Gao Huaiyuan had an intuitive idea of the prosperity of Lin'an, he had long heard of how prosperous Lin'an City was, but after really entering the most prosperous city in the world today, he knew the grandeur of Lin'an City.

Speaking of which, Gao Huaiyuan has also walked a lot of cities in this era, such as Ezhou, Yangzhou, Shaoxing and other places, which are quite famous big cities in this era, but compared with the Lin'an City in front of him, those cities are simply not worth mentioning.

Not to mention the width of the streets here and the shops on both sides, the people here alone, there are so many scary, shoulder to shoulder is not enough to describe the degree of people here, now it is just after the morning, the crowd on the street is so many that it is not easy for their vehicles to drive, the shops everywhere are open early to welcome customers, all kinds of rare items are placed in a dazzling array of dazzling, dizzying.

And this is not the most prosperous street, according to Judge, once it is evening, Lin'an City is even more lively, especially the place of fireworks and wine shops, the flow of people is even more busy.

Gao Huaiyuan sighed, he looked at these people with a rich face on their faces, and couldn't help but think of a very famous ancient poem in history, this poem was written by Lin Sheng, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty during the Shaoxing period. The warm wind smokes the tourists drunk, and only takes Hangzhou as Bianzhou!

Although it is winter now, and the scenery everywhere still looks a little bleak, Gao Huaiyuan still can't help but want to read this poem again.

At this time, the city of Hangzhou, because it was already the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, had already formed the political and cultural center of the Southern Song Dynasty decades ago, and most of the emperors of the Southern Song Dynasty did not want to forge ahead, did not consider how to recover the Central Plains, but built a lot of construction in Hangzhou City, built palaces and gardens and other things, plus the powerful and wealthy families in the court also built gardens everywhere in Hangzhou City, Hangzhou City compared with the Northern Song Dynasty, the city expanded several times, forming two walls of the inner city and the outer city, so it was almost impossible to accommodate so many people in the city.

Gao Huaiyuan also learned through Jia Qi that the number of residents in Lin'an City has basically exceeded one million, which is really an astronomical number in this era!

In history, the scale of Chinese cities can be regarded as the largest in the Song Dynasty, and in ancient history, there are only two cities with a population of more than one million in this era, one is Tokyo Bianliang in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the other is Lin'an Hangzhou in this era!

Only a relatively loose system like the Song Dynasty can create such a huge city, for any dynasty, this is almost impossible, and the Song Dynasty city management is also very good, there are various occupations in the city, the city is clean and tidy, many streets even have special public toilets have special people responsible for cleaning, it can be seen that in this era, the social division of labor has reached a very fine level!

From the wharf to the Yiwang Mansion, you have to pass through the outer city and enter the inner city, only there is the core place of Lin'an, the powerful people in the city are concentrated in the inner city, and the people who can have an industry here are also a symbol of status.

Ordinary people or low-level officials can only live outside the city, and according to the system of the Song Dynasty, when officials are officials in Beijing, except for the palace of the emperor, ordinary people do not enjoy the treatment of public housing.

And an official of Gao Huaiyuan's level, now in the capital, is grabbing a lot of them, and wants the official to provide him with a three-bedroom house, hehe, don't even think about it.

So according to the usual practice, Gao Huaiyuan can only rent a house in Lin'an City by himself, it's not that he can't afford to buy a house, but now he doesn't know how he mixed up in Lin'an, and the other is a petty official like him, as soon as he arrives in Lin'an City, he spends a lot of money to buy a house, which will be too ostentatious, so the house arranged by Jia Qi for Gao Huaiyuan is only a small courtyard rented at the east gate of the inner city near the Yiwang Mansion, even if it is such a small courtyard, the rent is really expensive and scary.

Gao Huaiyuan followed Jia Qi for a long time, and it took almost an hour before he walked to his temporary residence, which shows how big Lin'an City is.

When Jia Qi stopped, Gao Huaiyuan withdrew his gaze from the car window, raised his legs and stepped out of the car, here is an alley, several courtyards are crowded together, far away from the downtown area, but it is also clean, it seems that Huang Zhen has put a lot of effort into finding this place for him.

After entering the small courtyard, the environment here is not bad, inside and outside, a total of less than ten rooms, all kinds of functional rooms are also complete, and even in the front yard there is a small open space, so that Gao Huaiyuan can dance when he is fine, move his legs and feet, and there are begonias, crape myrtles and other flowers and trees in the corner of the wall, which is also elegant.

Gao Huaiyuan expressed his satisfaction with this small courtyard, not ostentatious at all, and was living with a person of his status, at least with this courtyard, he could be regarded as having a place to settle in Lin'an, and settled the old nest first.

For Gao Huaiyuan's arrival, it can be said that in Lin'an City, there was no wave, as if there were not many people who were more than him, and there were many people who were less than him, but at this time, Zhao Guicheng of the Yiwang Mansion was almost eager to see through!

It has been almost two months since Zheng Qingzhi promised him to transfer Gao Huaiyuan to accompany him in the Yi Palace, and he has also learned that Zheng Qingzhi has done this for him, but Guicheng is waiting left and right, but he can't see Gao Huaiyuan's figure, and he can't help but be a little unintentional about going on with his studies!

"Teacher! Why hasn't Big Brother Gao come until today? Guicheng asked Zheng Qingzhi, who was teaching him to copy the thin gold body of Huizong, with some distraction.

Zheng Qingzhi put down the brush, looked at Guicheng who was a little unrelenting, pinched his fingers and counted the time, and then replied with a smile: "Young boy, this matter is not in a hurry, after all, Gao Huaiyuan is the acting magistrate of Daye County, even if he receives an order, he always needs time to hand over the matter at hand, not to mention that there are still some people in the family who have to explain before they can leave for Beijing!"

Moreover, Daye County is thousands of miles away from here, how can it be arrived in a moment and a half? I think the young boy is still at ease to study, wait a few days, then Gao Huaiyuan will come! ”

Guicheng was a little unimpressed, shook his head and felt that Gao Huaiyuan was really not a friend enough, didn't he know that he was going to die if he thought about it? I haven't been able to come back yet, but I didn't dare to keep Zheng Qingzhi's words, so I had to pick up the brush and prepare to start copying.

At this time, a royal servant suddenly ran in and reported: "Master Hou! Lord Zheng, a person surnamed Gao outside said that he was ordered to come to the palace to take up his post and ask to see the Hou Ye! ”

Before the officer's words landed, Zheng Qingzhi saw that there was an extra rolling brush on the ground, and then saw that Zhao Guicheng had already run out of the study at this time, so he shook his head slightly, and then said to himself with some curiosity: "What kind of person is this surnamed Gao, who can make Guicheng miss him so much, I also want to meet this person!" ”