A few years ago, when Zhao Shu was still alive, because of Jiaozhi's active provocation, he was almost killed by the Western Xia army sent by the Great Song Dynasty, and then it was a reparation and a land cut, which kept the national foundation, but Jiaozhi was not willing to be defeated, and in recent years, he has been secretly accumulating strength, and even contacting foreign aid to enhance his strength, preparing for a shame, this year's indemnity is two months later than last year, Zhao Yan guessed that Jiaozhi may have accumulated some strength, and is slowly testing the reaction of the Great Song Dynasty.

Zhao Yan saw the change in Jiaozhi, but he didn't pay much attention to it, after all, he is now coming to the south to sit in charge in person, if Jiaozhi dares to have any bad intentions, he will be the first to take Jiaozhi to open the knife, speaking of which, the last time Guo Kui beat it was quite enjoyable, Zhao Yan also wanted to try the feeling of riding a horse and whipping into the enemy's capital.

However, although Zhao Yan did not put Jiaozhi in his eyes, he also always paid attention to the situation of Jiaozhi, which is mainly because of the deep-water port, the port that was ceded to the Great Song Dynasty is in a good location, and it is an excellent natural port, so since it became the territory of the Great Song Dynasty, Princess Chen Guo and his wife personally went there to direct the construction of the port, and Zhao Yan also proposed a lot of novel construction of this port, after several years of hard work and development, now the deep-water port is no longer the dilapidated old port in the hands of the Jiaozhi people. It is a vibrant new port, and although the annual cargo throughput is not as good as that of Guangzhou, it is also very amazing.

It is precisely because he knows the situation of the deep-water port, so Zhao Yan is very interested in this port, because in his opinion, the maritime trade of the Great Song Dynasty is focused on the South Seas, so the footsteps of the Great Song Dynasty maritime merchants will definitely go south step by step, and it just so happens that the deep-water port is the first step of the Great Song Dynasty to the south, so he must also see the situation of the deep-water port with his own eyes.

Regarding Zhao Yan's preparation to go to the deep-water port, Princess Chen Guo and his wife did not agree with it at first, because the deep-water port is not only far away from Guangzhou. In addition, the climate there is hot and plague is rampant, and if you are not careful, you may be infected with the epidemic, which they also deeply experienced at the beginning, so from the safety of Zhao Yan, they did not agree with Zhao Yan personally going to the deep-water port.

However, Zhao Yan has his own reasons this time, on the one hand, because of the special status of the deep-water port. So he wanted to go and see it in person, and the other thing was that he had to go to Qiongzhou in person, that is, Hainan Island in the future, which was not far from the deep-water port, so since he went to Qiongzhou, it was better to run a little more to the deep-water port to see.

For Zhao Yan's abundant reasons, Princess Chen Guo and his wife were not easy to stop, and in the end, the two discussed it and decided that Princess Chen Guo would stay to accompany Cao Ying and Princess Shu and others. Then Wang Shiyue personally led Zhao Yan and Xu Yuan and others to the deep-water port, it was the late autumn season, but the temperature in the southern sea area was very high, and the summer wind had finally passed, it was a good time to go to the South Seas, Guangzhou's sea trade line just organized a fleet to go to the South Seas, just Zhao Yan They could go south with this fleet, which was safer.

Speaking of which, the shipbuilding industry of the Great Song Dynasty was very developed. Seagoing vessels are also largely capable of ocean voyages, although this may be due to habits and safety considerations. The fleet of the Great Song Dynasty also still followed the rules of offshore navigation, and the fleet sailed south from Guangzhou to the coastline, and generally did not leave the continental shelf too far.

The advantage of such offshore navigation is that in the event of danger, especially in the event of a sudden storm at sea, the fleet can dock in time to avoid it, and there are fewer pirates close to the coast. Although the ships of the Great Song Dynasty can now withstand ordinary storms, and the pirates have almost been wiped out, the fleet is still accustomed to approaching the sea. Of course, there is also an obvious disadvantage of offshore sailing, that is, it can be reached in a straight line, but there are many detours. This increases the distance a lot, sometimes even several times at most, greatly increasing the sailing time.

Zhao Yan had already taken a sea boat from Quanzhou before, and when they first came to the sea, they were also excited for a while, but now they found that sailing on the sea is actually very boring, so Zhao Yan had to take out mahjong and cards, and then a group of people played mahjong on the deck every day, making the whole ship like a gambling ship in later generations.

Because the size of the fleet is very large, so the speed of the voyage is not fast, but Zhao Yan they are not very anxious, after nearly half a month of sailing, the fleet finally came to Qiongzhou, but compared to Hainan Island, which is famous for tourism in later generations, Qiongzhou is now a real poor mountain and bad water, most of the islands are local Li people, the number of Han people is not much, which also makes the development process on the island very low, and the living conditions can be described as very bad, and the Great Song Dynasty has always regarded this place as a place for criminals. It is said that being sent to Hainan Island is only a lighter crime than the extermination of the family, which shows the harsh conditions on Hainan Island.

After arriving in Qiongzhou, Zhao Yan and his fleet broke away from the large fleet, because he was going to land on Qiongzhou Island to visit a person, and Qiongzhou was not far from the deep-water port, and it could be reached as long as it passed through the Qiongzhou Strait, so there was no need to sail with the large fleet anymore.

"Is this the legendary Qiongzhou, and it doesn't look particularly desolate?" After Zhao Yan and their ship docked at a simple wharf in Qiongzhou, Li Gonglin was the first to jump down, and then looked around the wharf and muttered to himself. I saw that although this wharf is a little simple, there are also many stalls on the wharf that are selling, which seems to be not much different from some ordinary small ports along the coast of the Great Song Dynasty.

"Hehe, Brother Bo Shi doesn't know, this is Qiongshan County, which is subordinate to Qiongzhou, the only medium-sized county in the entire Qiongzhou, and it is also the station of the Yamen of the entire Qiongzhou Zhizhou, and the whole Qiongzhou is the most prosperous here, but you look at this port, where does it look like a city?" At this time, Zhao Yan also stepped down from the boat, and then looked around the port, he had been to Hainan in the future, and the deepest impression of this place was the outrageous expensive housing prices, but now look at the surrounding situation, it is estimated that no one wants the land here to give to others.

"Haha~, although Qiongzhou is sparsely populated, but you see this green mountains and green waters, flowers and trees are flourishing, if I am old in the future, I can buy a few acres of land here and build a bamboo house for the elderly." At this time, Su Shi also walked down from the boat, looking at the surrounding scenery as he walked, and his face was full of admiration.

However, Zhao Yan pouted when he heard Su Shi's words, Su Shi did come to Hainan in history, and he was exiled here in his sixties, and finally almost died here, but Su Shi made a lot of contributions to the people of Qiongzhou, and there are many legends about Su Shi in Hainan in later generations.

"Let's go, let's go and see how Su Zhizhou is doing here, and enjoy the scenery of Qiongzhou by the way!" At this time, Zhao Yan saw that Xu Yuan and Wang Shiyue in the back also got off the boat, so he said, the reason why he came to Qiongzhou this time was actually to visit Su Zhizhou in his mouth, that is, Su Song, Su Shi's old boss in the past, who was in charge of the weapons superintendent.

Speaking of which, after Su Song took over Shen Kuo in charge of the weapons prison, he did a very good job, Zhao Shu and Zhao Ji were very satisfied with him, but since the change of the law, Su Song is not very optimistic about the new law, and later the new party will reach out to the military weapons prison, which makes Su Song even more dissatisfied, for which there were several conflicts with the new party, but it still could not prevent the new party from inserting people in the weapons prison, and finally Su Song was angry and asked Zhao Ji to leave Beijing.

Originally, after Su Song left Beijing, he did not serve in Qiongzhou, but served as the chief of Chen Liu near the capital, but he had just taken office, but Zhao Ji recalled him back to the capital, and after appeasing him, he was appointed as the intellectual edict, responsible for the drafting of the edict, and he was regarded as a close person around the emperor, and he had a bright future for promotion in the future.

However, not long after Su Song served as the edict of the Zhizhi system, a major event happened, that is, Zhao Wei listened to Wang Anshi's Jianyi, and was ready to promote Li Ding to the crown prince Zhongyun and the right to supervise the imperial history.

However, Li Ding's qualifications in the court are average, he was only the lord of a county before, but this time he was appointed to supervise the imperial history in one step, which can be described as unprecedented in the officialdom of the Great Song Dynasty, and Li Ding's reputation is not very good, it is said that there is unfilial piety, so for his appointment, the ministers in the court are also very dissatisfied, among which Su Song, Song Minqiu, and Li Dalin are all intellectuals, and they jointly refused to draft the edict for Li Ding's promotion, and Zhao Ji ordered them to write three times, but they refused three times, which made Zhao Ji very annoyed, in a fit of anger, the three of them were demoted out of the capital, and as a result, Su Song was demoted to the governor of Qiongzhou, and he walked on the road for nearly half a year before coming here.

For Su Song, a great scientist who is not worse than Shen Kuo in the history of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Yan also attaches great importance to it, the last time he visited the shipyard, he felt that the theory he knew could not be applied to shipbuilding technology, so he wanted to find someone who knew how to build a ship, and he must be able to communicate with himself, but such a person is not easy to find, there are many people who know how to build a ship, and the shipyard is full of craftsmen who are proficient in shipbuilding, and some are still masters of shipbuilding, but they only know skills, but they don't know theory, Not to mention the knowledge of physics and arithmetic.

Fortunately, Su Shi and Su Song are colleagues, and the friendship is also good, he knows that Su Song astronomical machinery manufacturing, and also has some experience in shipbuilding, Zhao Yan knew that after inquiring about Su Song's recent situation, he decided to come to Qiongzhou in person, hoping to use Su Song's ability to apply his theory to shipbuilding technology. (To be continued......)