Seeing that Zhao Yan made it clear that he didn't want to take care of this matter, the two Goryeo envoys were all a little panicked, and at that moment, they saw that Yin Qian immediately spoke: "Your Highness, if it is not our Goryeo who is unwilling to take care of it, it is really beyond our country's strength, especially the great drought this year, which has greatly damaged our country's vitality, and in desperation, I can only ask the Great Song Dynasty to uphold justice for my Goryeo!" ”

Yin Qian is worthy of being a Jinshi, and his acting ability is also first-class, and the words are extremely sad, and he deliberately raised the Great Song Dynasty, and even tears flowed down, it seems that they Gaoli has really tried their best, if they are ordinary Song officials, I am afraid they will be moved by Yin Qiang.

However, Zhao Yan was unmoved, because he knew that this was the consistent trick of the Koreans, when they faced the strong, they would deliberately dress themselves up as a weak person, so as to take advantage of them everywhere, but if they became stronger, or found a stronger support, they would immediately show a villainous face, which Zhao Yan had seen many times in the two small Korean countries in later generations.

Thinking of the above, I saw Zhao Yan smile coldly and said: "Envoy Yin, this king is also quite sympathetic to the situation of Goryeo, but unfortunately this matter is really not for this king to call the shots, so please ask the two of you to see the queen mother, please make the queen mother for you!" ”

Zhao Yan said and picked up the teacup, this is already the meaning of sending off guests, Yin Qian and Zhao Gui have been in the Great Song Dynasty for so long, they naturally understand what this means, and the two of them also smiled helplessly at the moment, so they could only stand up and say goodbye to Zhao Yan, and Zhao Yan did not get up, after all, they were not qualified enough to let themselves send each other in person.

After Yin Qian and Zhao Gui left, Zhao Yan did not go back to the inner house, but sat there and thought about it for a while, and finally asked someone to call Steward Xu, who was in charge of the business of the southern fleet. As the year approaches, the managers of all localities need to return to Beijing to report on the business situation they are responsible for. The quality of business is also related to the status of this steward, and this steward Xu only returned to the capital three days ago.

After waiting for a while, I saw a middle-aged man with a cane walk into the living room, he was the same Xu steward who led the fleet to rob the Jurchens before, and immediately saluted after he came in: "See Your Highness!" ”

"No need to be polite!" After Zhao Yan finished speaking, he motioned for Steward Xu to sit down, and then spoke. "Steward Xu, just now the envoy from Goryeo came to me and said that many merchants went to Goryeo to buy and sell people, and then transported them to Nanyang, I don't know if there is such a thing?"

Hearing Zhao Yan suddenly ask about this matter, Manager Xu couldn't help but be stunned, but then reacted and said: "Your Highness Qiqi, there is indeed such a thing, although this business is not very glorious. But the profit is extremely rich, a Goryeo woman only needs to buy it with consistent money, and then transport it to Nanyang as soon as it changes hands is more than ten times, or even dozens of times the profit, so many people are very angry about this, during this time, there are often fleets running to the north, and almost all of the people who are transported back are Goryeo women. ”

When he said this, Steward Xu suddenly hesitated. It seemed that there was something to say, but there was something to say. But in the end, he finally gritted his teeth and said: "Your Highness, about the sale of the Koreans, the villain still has something to report!" ”

"Oh? What's up? Zhao Yan thought about the possible impact of buying and selling Koreans, and then asked a little casually.

"Your Highness, the matter of buying and selling human beings is actually related to villains, and I ask Your Highness to forgive me!" Steward Xu finally gritted his teeth and said. He knew that he might be punished for speaking out about it, but if he didn't say it, it would be even more disadvantageous for him to be found out in the future, so it was better to confess and be lenient.

"What? Are you involved in human trafficking? Zhao Yan couldn't help but be a little annoyed when he heard this, he didn't let his subordinates sell human beings. Anyway, those are just Koreans, but this kind of thing is not good to say after all, and if it spreads, it will definitely cause a blow to his reputation, so even if Steward Xu wants to do it, he must pass his consent in advance.

"No, no~" Hearing Zhao Yan's words, Steward Xu hurriedly waved his hand and denied, "Your Highness, the villain also knows the severity, so he naturally doesn't dare to participate in such a big matter, but the cause of this matter has something to do with the villain, a few months ago, the villain was ordered by His Highness to lead the fleet to the Jurchens, accompanied by many other businessmen......"

As he spoke, Steward Xu told the story of the fact that they had come back from the Jurchens and passed through Goryeo, and then the butcher shopkeeper known as the fat butcher had bought and sold the Goryeo people, and even he and several other people in the fleet had bought a Goryeo woman as a concubine.

Hearing that Steward Xu only helped the shopkeeper transport a group of people out of affection, Zhao Yan breathed a sigh of relief, as long as his own people did not participate in this matter, as for other businessmen, he couldn't control it, and these people transported Goryeo women to Nanyang, but they could also reassure some overseas immigrants, after all, he also knew about the imbalance between men and women among overseas immigrants, and as for Steward Xu's acceptance of Goryeo concubines, he didn't take it to heart.

"This is the best, let's not interfere in this matter, the people of the Yue Wangfu must not interfere, the Koreans have already come to complain to the imperial court, although it is impossible for the imperial court to put an end to those merchants buying and selling people, but at least we must do something like this." Zhao Yan commanded again.

"Yes! The villain understands that our royal fleet is doing legitimate business, and it will definitely not lose a big deal because of a small one! Steward Xu also immediately spoke, with his back to the Yue Wangfu, there are so many ways for their fleet to make money, and there is no need to do such a thing as buying and selling people.

Seeing that Steward Xu understood things so well, Zhao Yan also nodded with satisfaction, and then asked him about the specific situation of selling Goryeo people, until then Zhao Yan knew that it turned out that just a few months ago, no one had noticed this business, all because the butcher shopkeeper transported a group of Goryeo women to Nanyang, and as a result, he made a windfall all of a sudden, which attracted many people to follow suit, and Goryeo suffered another disaster, and human life was as cheap as mustard, so the business of buying and selling human beings was so popular.

"They are so blatant in buying and selling people, even if Goryeo doesn't want to offend our Great Song Dynasty, I'm afraid they won't care, right?" When Zhao Yan heard this, he suddenly asked, The massive loss of population is not a trivial matter for any country, so there should be something to be done on the Goryeo side.

"Hehe, Your Highness doesn't know, at the beginning, the Goryeo side was indeed very angry, and the king of Goryeo personally issued an edict prohibiting the sale of human beings, but those traffickers are really hand-eyed, on the one hand, they united to block the trade with Goryeo, especially the grain urgently needed by Goryeo, and not a single grain was allowed to be shipped over, on the other hand, they bribed the nobles and officials of Goryeo, so that many people in the Goryeo court were speaking for them, so that the king of Goryeo was also under great pressure, and finally had to compromise, But now it seems that the king of Goryeo is still unwilling, so he came to our Great Song Dynasty for help. Although Steward Xu was not involved in the sale of human beings, he was also very concerned about this matter because of the shopkeeper.

"I didn't expect that a group of small human traffickers could force Goryeo to bow his head, so we can see how terrible the power of merchants is, but unfortunately none of the ministers in the court will believe it." Zhao Yan couldn't help but say with some emotion when he heard this.

With the development of the past few years, the commerce of the Great Song Dynasty has become more and more prosperous, and then the influence of the merchants has become stronger and stronger, although the business of those traffickers is not very glorious, but they are also businessmen, they can now force Goryeo to submit, if other merchants unite in the future, it may not be possible to make the Great Song Dynasty succumb, but unfortunately the Great Song Dynasty has not yet noticed this change, if this kind of words are spoken, they will only be treated as a joke.

In the next period of time, Zhao Yan secretly asked people to follow the two Goryeo envoys, it is estimated that the king of Goryeo gave them a death order, so they did not dare to go back if they did not solve this matter, so after leaving Zhao Yan, they went to visit several other important ministers of the imperial court, but unfortunately these people either did not have time to see them, or after knowing the reason for the matter, although they were full of righteous indignation, they did not give actual promises, because they also knew that although this matter seemed small, it was actually very tricky, In particular, the matter of sea trade was promoted by Zhao Yan, the king of Yue, so it is best to solve this matter by Zhao Yan himself.

As a result, Yin Qian and Zhao Gui went around the city of Tokyo countless times, but still failed to find a solution, and finally the two gritted their teeth and decided to go directly to visit several prime ministers of the Great Song Dynasty, and if they wanted to find someone who could call the shots, so the two of them set their sights on the two of the oldest and most respected prime ministers, that is, Sima Guang and Lu Gong.

Originally, Yin Qian wanted to go directly to Sima Guang, although he was also the prime minister, but Sima Guang was definitely the first person under the Empress Dowager Gao, but when they arrived at Sima Guang's mansion, they found that because of the Chinese New Year, there were too many people who came to visit Sima Guang, and they couldn't squeeze in at all.

In desperation, Yin Qian and Zhao Gui had to visit Lu Gongzhu first, but what they never expected was that they had just arrived at the door of Lu Mansion, but they heard a cry from the house, and then the subordinates of Lu Mansion came out and began to hang white silk in front of the mansion.

Yin Qian and Zhao Gui heard that Lu Gongzhu was dead, which made them only consider themselves unlucky, and then the two discussed for a long time, and finally decided to go directly to Sima Guang, so the two came to Sima Guang's mansion again, and they had been queuing for several days, seeing that it was about to be their turn, but what they never expected was that news suddenly came from Sima Guang's mansion, Sima Guang suddenly fell ill, and he didn't know whether he was alive or dead! (To be continued......)