Seeing that it was the middle of October, the emperor had no intention of returning to Beijing, and the governor Li Gang and the right minister Chen Yu came to Luoyang to welcome the emperor back to Beijing. Both of them have not been to Xijing for many years, and when they came to the city, they couldn't help but exclaim, although they haven't gotten a full picture at the moment, but they can also see that the scope of Luoyang City is larger than that of the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

Five dynasties when the city has been abandoned several times, after Taizu ascended the throne for Xijing to repair, but only hastily built a more than a foot high outer city wall, and later in the Jurchen southward when the two armies fought for destruction. And now the city wall is five zhang high, the city foundation is all a stone barrier, and the city head has built a towering tower, a moat that is up to fifteen zhang wide, and three arch bridges have been erected on it, once the enemy army arrives, as long as the bridge is demolished, it becomes an insurmountable moat.

The defense measures of the city are also very complete, the sheep and horse city, the urn city, the horse face, the corner tower, etc. are all available, and the forts are built on the city, and the bunkers of different sizes are built. They knew that these fortifications could store ammunition in peacetime and facilitate the officers and soldiers on duty, and the battle became a strong fortress, and even if the enemy went up to the wall, the road would be blocked by fierce machine-gun fire. In addition, they heard that there were hidden passages in the city wall, which could be used to hide and transport troops, and there were shooting holes in the middle of the city wall, but now they were all hidden in it, and it was difficult to see the whole picture.

Luoyang City is divided into two cities, south and north, the north city is the palace city since the beginning of the city, and the south city has been used as the square urban area. At this time, after receiving the news of the arrival of the two rulers of the dynasty, Xu Hong, who stayed behind in Luoyang, hurriedly led the crowd to meet them and brought them into the city. Li Gang and the others were shocked by the sturdiness of Xijing's defense at first, but when they entered through the south gate, they couldn't help but sigh, and the first thing that caught their eyes was a road thirty zhang wide. Under the city is a 20 zhang wide ring road, and in Guocheng, a number of square or rectangular lanes are divided by vertically intersecting roads.

"Lord Xu. This Luoyang South City is said to be eighty-one squares and two cities in the Tang Dynasty, and it seems that its appearance is not inferior to that of the Tang Dynasty! Li Gang asked as he walked.

"Li Xiang. The fang cities in the south of the city have been re-planned, and there are hundreds of large and small squares, and two cities have also been rebuilt on the south bank of Luoshui, and the scale exceeds that of the Tang Dynasty! Xu Hong replied respectfully.

"Lord Xu, this city is dense, did you demolish many households when the city was built?" Right Prime Minister Chen Yu asked.

Chen Xiang may not know that when Luoyang City was invaded by the Jurchens, the two armies fought here several times, and the houses were destroyed, and the people either fled or died. Even captured by the Jurchens, the population is less than two or three of the previous days, the outer city was almost razed to the ground, becoming the home of foxes, rats, birds and beasts, the city is no different from reconstruction, where is there still disturbance to the people! Xu Hong said with a wry smile that he had served as a left-behind guard at the beginning of the recovery of Luoyang, and he knew the tragic situation of that day.

"It's hard to imagine the prosperity of today!" Chen Yu sighed, looking at the bustling crowd. The ears were filled with the shouts of the south and the north, and the eyes were full of wine flags and guises, who would have thought that this place had been destroyed by war.

"Your Excellency is right, when His Majesty ordered the reconstruction of Luoyang City, he ordered the city to be built first and then the city, and the roads were built first. Dredging the canal, focusing on the construction and development of Lijiafang City in the south of Luoshui, and collecting the fleeing people. Recruit displaced people to give preferential treatment and reclaim the fields. Water conservancy. Xu Hong said, "And Luoyang has been the main road connecting the northwest and the Central Plains since ancient times. There is also the convenience of the canal, and it took a few years for commerce to gradually recover here, and then the tax revenue was used to build the city, and now the city is full of workshops and shops, which can be described as hard to find! ”

"Your Majesty's consideration is really far-reaching, before the city was built first and then there was a city, but Your Majesty did the opposite, and set a precedent!" Chen Yu couldn't help but praise.

"Lord Xu, how many people are in this city?" Li Gang asked as he walked.

"Li Xiang, now there are 150,000 households in the city, plus the garrison, officials and family members are nearly 700,000, which has not yet reached the number of one million in the Tang Dynasty!" Xu Hong replied without thinking about it, it can be seen that he is very competent as a left-behind guard, and he knows the situation in the city very well.

"Lord Xu, the population of 700,000 is not a small number, does the grain also need to be transported from the south of the Yangtze River, this transportation is the most important thing!" Li Gang nodded and said, the cost of feeding such a large population is huge, for example, Bianjing needs to transport a large amount of grain from the southeast every year, and the lack of transportation for two months will lead to a shortage of food in the city.

"Li Xiang is extremely worried, but in recent years, Luoyang has basically been self-sufficient in grain, and there is no need to transfer a large number of goods from other cities!" Xu Hong said with a smile, "When the city was built, His Majesty had recruited a large number of scattered and landless farmers in the southeast to the nearby states and counties here, and there are many rivers around Luoyang, the water network is dense, there are advantages of irrigation, and there are many wastelands that can be reclaimed. ”

"Oh, now that Luoyang has been able to achieve self-sufficiency in grain, won't it save a lot of manpower and material resources and get rid of the suffering of luck!" Li Gang said with some disbelief.

It is well aware that Kaifeng is the supply center of the canal, and the main source of food and materials for the government is the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The Song government invested a lot of manpower and material resources every year in order to keep the Bianhe River flowing. The first is the mouth of the Yellow River, because the main water of the Yellow River swings, it needs to be easier to meet the water potential. The river below the Bianhe River is difficult to navigate due to the turbidity of the water flow, and it is difficult to navigate without frequent dredging. During the period of Dazhong Xiangfu, it was stipulated that every three or five years was dredged, and the riverbed was still inevitably silted up every year, and the above-ground river was gradually formed.

During the Huangyou period, it was decided that "from the estuary of the river, the year is normal", Biankou is closed in winter and opens in spring, and the Bianhe River is only more than 200 days a year. Even so, in the Xining period, in the area of Yongqiu and Xiangyi in the east of Kaifeng, the bottom of the Bianhe River is more than one zhang and two feet above the flat land outside the embankment, and the dwellings are overlooked from the bottom of the embankment, such as in the deep valley. In order to solve the problem of the source of sediment in the Bianhe River, Yuanfeng three years, once opened a canal for 50 miles on the beach of the Yellow River at the northern foot of Guangwu Mountain between the mouth of the Shagukou in Rencun of Gongxian County and the mouth of Biankou in Heyin County, diverted the water of Yi and Luo into the river, blocked the old Biankou, and avoided the turbidity of the Yellow River. Because the water of Luo is relatively clear, the history calls the river that leads Luo into the river as Qingbian. In the fifth year of Yuanyou, due to the lack of water sources, the Yellow River was restored as the source, and the Bianhe River was still shallow.

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River were densely populated and economically developed, but since becoming the main source of food and materials for the capital division, its development has been seriously affected, and most of the wealth in the world is concentrated in Kaifeng, while other places are becoming more and more impoverished, which is exactly what Zhao Kuangyin fears. He predicted: "In less than a hundred years, the people of the world will be strong!" Unfortunately, less than a hundred years later, the people's power was almost exhausted, and the economic development of the rich lower reaches of the Yangtze River was stagnant, so that the government often could not make ends meet, and the huge military expenditure overwhelmed the government and the people, and the financial poverty and military weakness became irreversible. This is all caused by the suffering of Cao Yun.

"Oh, is this Miyagi rebuilt on the same site?" The group got on the bridge with the efforts of the officials and their entourage, and the boats under the bridge were like shuttles, and Miyagi was already in front of them, Chen Yu looked at it and asked.

"Miyagi was built on the original old city, but it was the location of the yamen, Taixue and martial arts of various ministries, and the mansions of ministers and clans were also mostly in it, occupying most of the area, and only a small part was where the lifang and the military supervision workshop were located. However, the Zodiac Bridge, Tianjin Bridge, Xingjin Bridge and the new and old two middle bridges built in the Tang Dynasty on Luoshui were all rebuilt on the original site, so that the two cities were connected and there was no inconvenience! Xu Hong introduced.

"Isn't there a forbidden army on duty in Miyagi?" Li Gang frowned and asked as he listened to the introduction.

"Oh, Lee Sang-like this!" Xu Hong hurriedly replied, "The peacetime of the outer city of Xijing is handed over to the state army, and the leopard generals stationed here are all stationed in the Dongduyuan in the past, and the Miyagi guards are sent by their subordinates, and a brigade is rotated every quarter, and the rest is stationed in the Dongduyuan military camp. On weekdays, the Imperial City is garrisoned by a commander sent by the Forbidden Army and the State Army, and when the Emperor moves to the palace, the Guards take over the defense of the Imperial City! ”

"Okay, the East Capital Garden has a vast area, and the old things are more than 200 miles extensive, you can train soldiers on weekdays, and Your Majesty can go hunting and rest in your spare time, Lord Xu is really a talent of the country!" Li Gang stroked his beard and praised.

"Li Xiang praised it, and the lower officials didn't dare to take credit!" Xu Hong said with a smile, "The construction of Xijing is planned and guided by His Majesty, and in terms of military garrison, the former Lord Jiang Fei is responsible for supervising the construction arrangements, and the imperial city and the palace city are the work of His Royal Highness King Yin Jing, and the lower officials are just sitting back and enjoying their success!" ”

"In more than ten years, Xijing City has been rebuilt, and with such a scale, it has cost a lot, and Lord Xu is also strong in fundraising, I remember that the household department does not seem to have allocated the amount needed to build the city, but only a million yuan!" Chen Yu has been serving in the Ministry of Officials, and he still has an impression of this, at that time, Xu Hong was in charge of Xijing affairs and supervised the construction of the city as a waiter, and how could it be possible to build a new big city.

"Hehe, this official is even more panicked, the funds used to rebuild Xijing were all raised by His Majesty!" Xu Hong said again and again.

"Your Majesty? Isn't the inner library already empty! Li Gang said in surprise, he knew that the emperor had spent a lot of money on building an ocean-going fleet and maintaining the clan, and the old man had let the Jurchens rob a lot, and the emperor was crying poor every day, so how did he raise so much reconstruction funds, could it be that the emperor really had the ability to turn stone into gold?

"Li Xiang is right, but the emperor is not an ordinary person, he just relied on the funds allocated by the household department and the millions of yuan he borrowed to build Xijing City!" Xu Hong whispered in the ears of the two, "I heard that Your Majesty not only did not post money, but also made a small profit, and built a palace for the queen and several imperial concubines in the mountains, so that they could go to leisure ......" (to be continued......)