The six years of rejuvenation are destined to be the year of harvest for the Great Song Dynasty, and the military victories and economic recovery and the development of foreign trade in the past few years have made its influence increasingly strong, although it has not reached the peak of the Han and Tang dynasties, but it has already sat on the hegemon of East Asia.

The emperor's concubine was equivalent to finding a little wife, and there was no need to work hard to move the people, but the marriage was the lord of the Western Xia, and the ministers thought that this was a sign of the prosperity of the country, and it involved the old enemy of the Western Xia, which was a major event that showed the rise of the Great Song Dynasty to the world, so it was decided to do it for the emperor, spread the news, and invited all countries to watch the ceremony.

In the eyes of foreign vassals, this marriage was not only the Great Song Dynasty showing off its strength, but also the changes in the pattern of the world after the Song and Xia alliances, so the wedding envoys sent were all important ministers of the state and had a mission, and took the opportunity to launch a diplomatic battle without gunpowder. And now the most eye-catching thing is the old good Goryeo of the Great Song Dynasty......

Song and Goryeo established diplomatic relations as early as the founding of the country, because the two countries formed a very deep sense of identity on the basis of cultural homogeneity, and Song also considered Goryeo to be a country of gentlemen, and was willing to interact with it, and the two countries sent envoys to each other, and official and commercial exchanges were very frequent.

However, there were also quite twists and turns, the Song and Khitan lost the war, and the Liao State was in full swing, tightly controlling the surrounding countries, forcing Goryeo to sever relations with the Song and claim to be a vassal to it. After the alliance between Song and Liao, relations between Song and Liao eased, and the two sides resumed contacts. After Jin destroyed Liao, Song, Jin, and Goryeo once again formed a triangular relationship of mutual restraint and mutual influence, and any change in the relationship between the three countries would affect a third country, thus affecting the political pattern of East Asia, due to the disparity in Song's military strength. In the end, a political pattern was formed with Kim as the leader of the alliance.

Soon, with the Jin army moving south. The Song army was defeated and retreated, and had to cede the land and seek peace. Once again, this pattern has been broken. Under the circumstance that the decline of the Jin Dynasty and the Song Dynasty was a foregone conclusion, Goryeo naturally did not want to be an enemy of the Jin, and sent an envoy to decide on the matter of Jin, and politely refused the invitation of the Song Dynasty to unite against the Jin. The Jin State was the canonization of the Goryeo lord Wang Kai 'Kaifu Yi Tong Sansi, Sangju State, King of Goryeo', and Goryeo officially pursued the name of the Jin Emperor's reign, establishing the suzerain-vassal relationship with the Jin Dynasty.

After that, the relationship between Goryeo and the Song entered a low ebb again, and the correspondence with Jin became more frequent. Official diplomatic relations with Song were severed. However, with the succession of Zhao Ta to the throne and the repulsion of the Jin attack, the relationship between the three kingdoms underwent subtle changes again, and the relationship between Song and Goryeo eased somewhat, but the main thing was the restoration of economic and trade relations, and the official was still relatively cold. After the Song army recovered Yanyun and the troops were out of Dading, the decline of the Jin State was revealed, but the Song Dynasty rose again. So that Goryeo has to reconsider the relationship between the two countries under the new situation!

"Your Majesty, Goryeo sent an envoy who wants to pay tribute to our court, please give me the title and resume contacts. The envoy has arrived in Dengzhou, please show your majesty! "Today's court meeting was attended by officials from all ministries. Yang Shi, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, said after reporting on the preparations for the wedding.

"Well, what do you think?" Zhao Tan nodded. Ask all the people in the temple.

"Your Majesty, the minister thought that Goryeo and our court should agree to his request. If it is a subject country of the Song Dynasty, it can contain the Jurchens with its troops, and it can also be used as a flank, march together, and become the arm of the Great Song Dynasty! Li Gang said first.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that what Li Xiang said is true, when the gold is cut, our army can enter Goryeo by sea, and then attack the flank of the gold thief, and make friends with him to enjoy its benefits!" Zong Ze also agreed with what Li Gang said.

"Your Majesty, the ministers think it is impossible, Goryeo to Jin called Fan, its tribute to our dynasty, the states and counties through which it passes, the mountains and rivers, the road and the situation are dangerous, all into its eyes. If it is between the Jurchens, it will harm our dynasty and should be sent back to China as a gift. Since then, the Goryeo people want to buy the history books of the past dynasties, and they are not allowed to buy them, so as to prevent them from being scattered among the Jurchens! Zhang Xiaochun, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, disagreed with what the two ministers said, and said.

"Your Majesty, since the difficulty, the two ends of the Goryeo first rat, sitting and watching the success or failure, it is really difficult to trust, if Goryeo is allowed to call Tibet, and once Goryeo gets the gifts, most of them go to the Jurchens, it is really a move to steal grain through the soldiers." Sima Pu, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, spoke even more fiercely against it.

"Have you ever remembered that His Majesty wanted to pretend to go to Goryeo to welcome back the King of Liao that day, but he shirked it in every possible way, refused to agree, and put His Majesty's plan stillborn!" Zhang Shuye, the secretary of the military department, also said that he opposed the establishment of diplomatic relations with Goryeo.

Zhao Ta listened quietly, and he could only smile bitterly at what Zhang Shuye said, when he had just succeeded to the throne, rumors about his usurpation spread widely, mainly from the Emperor Taishang and others all escaped safely, but the emperor was taken away by the Jurchens to the north, and the legend is that Zhao Ta colluded with the Jurchens to do it intentionally. Therefore, Zhao Ta wanted to rescue Zhao Huan to break the rumors, but at that time, a large-scale northern expedition was impossible, and the only way to rescue him was to use a small force raid.

Later, when he found out that Zhao Huan and others were imprisoned in Wuguo City, which was in the hinterland of the Jin Kingdom, Zhao Ta formulated a rescue plan and prepared to send a special combat team to rescue them. But soon encountered a problem, at that time, Yanjing and other places had not been recovered, the two countries were far apart, and there were no helicopters at that time, so how to bring them back after rescuing them became the biggest difficulty. He thought of two plans, one was to use Ah Shu as a response to enter the area under their control, but the Jurchens were very strict against them, and there were heavy troops along the way, and the success rate was too small; Another option is to use the waterway to Goryeo, and then go to Wuguo City, after rescuing Zhao Huan and others, withdraw to Goryeo and return to China under the help of the navy.

At that time, everyone was inclined to use Goryeo, and at that time, they established diplomatic relations with Kim, and they were not strict in their precautions, and they had the best chance of success. Therefore, Zhao Ta specially repaired the book to the king of Goryeo in the hope that he could help, and Zhao Ta also offered a lot of money in return. However, Goryeo was very indifferent to Zhao's proposal, and found various excuses to refuse the request of "borrowing the way": first, the road from Goryeo to Jurchen was dangerous and could not be advanced; second, if Goryeo used the road to the Song, Jin might also send troops to attack the Song through this route; third, if Goryeo used the road to the Song, it might anger Jin and invite trouble.

In fact, Zhao Ta understood very well that Goryeo's reasons were difficult to stand, before the founding of the Jin State, they often relied on Goryeo tribute envoys to the Great Song Dynasty to pay tribute, which was feasible at that time, but now it is impossible to leave; Moreover, the Jurchens did not have a large-scale naval army, nor could they fight water battles, and attacking the Song Dynasty had always been a land route. The third point is true, compared to the national security at stake, those rewards for Song seem insignificant. In fact, they are just an excuse for refusing to use the word, and they are just high-sounding diplomatic rhetoric!

Uncle Zhang's revival of the old incident is to remind the emperor that Goryeo had been to the Great Song Dynasty when he was in danger, and now that the Great Song Dynasty is as strong as ever, and the Jurchens are in decline, they want to take advantage of the fire to rob, and they are doing villain behavior, and they should not befriend them. Now, because the Song Dynasty has strengthened the blockade of the land and sea trade routes of the Jin Kingdom, its foreign trade can only be pretended to be through Goryeo. The Song used this as an excuse to block Goryeo's access to the sea, so that their trade routes were limited to a standstill, and instead of making economic profits, they followed the melons. At the same time, under the military attack of the Song Dynasty, the Jurchens had no time to look eastward, which made them emboldened again and wanted to renew the 'friendship' between the two countries.

The attitude of the courtiers towards Goryeo can be found in two categories, one is in favor of Goryeo, and the other is against Goryeo. As far as national defense and strategic security are concerned, those who advocate the United Goryeo are based on the strength of Goryeo and the tradition of friendly relations between the two countries, and proceed from the ideal to unite with Goryeo to fight against the Jurchens; Those who opposed Goryeo thought that Goryeo was separated from Liao or Jin, and had an ambiguous attitude towards the Song, so they were very distrustful of them from the perspective of reality, and their attitude was naturally negative and cautious.

These two types of views seem to be-for-tat and inseparable, but they are both reactions of the Song people to the outside world under the actual situation, but they are only expressed in different forms due to different perspectives and positions on the issue. But Zhao Ta understands that there are no eternal friends in the world, only eternal interests, and morality is just a fig leaf that can be torn off at any time. If we consider the changes in the situation in East Asia, the change in Goryeo's attitude can be understood, and in Cho's view, this is exactly the change brought about by the change in the political landscape.

For more than 100 years, the Song Dynasty, unlike the Tang Dynasty, was unable to effectively dominate East Asia or impose China's secular order on the region. Not only that, but the Song also suffered from attacks from the minority regimes in the north from time to time. The sudden rise of the Liao, Western Xia, and Jin all required and was able to develop diplomatic relations with the Song Dynasty on an equal footing, and even the Liao and Jin also demanded that the Song pay tribute to them, which meant that they had an advantage in military strength, and the Song could not confront them, and a small country like Goryeo, which was trying to survive among the great powers, naturally had to adjust its foreign strategy from time to time.

In the face of powerful foreign enemies and the consideration of national security, the ruling class of the Song Dynasty was full of misgivings about Goryeo, which was subordinate to Liao and Jin, and fortified it in many ways. However, if this kind of misgiving, vigilance, and precaution are pushed to the extreme, and the doctrine of closing the door to the outside world is blindly adopted and all contacts with Goryeo are severed, it will be overkill and the suspicion of choking on food will be wasted.

Personally, Zhao was also very disgusted with Goryeo's capricious foreign policy, but he knew that Dao Dao was now a delicate juncture in the transfer of East Asian hegemony from the hands of the Jin State to the Great Song Dynasty, and although the two campaigns he launched laid the foundation for the re-emergence of the Song Dynasty, Kung Fu was not only in military affairs, but also in diplomatic contests.

The process of conquering countries one by one by one can be very long and dangerous, but geopolitics can make the impossible possible. Now is the time when the Jurchens are subjected to the pressure exerted on him by the Great Song and their allies through diplomacy, and the other allies feel that they will become insignificant and inactive without the support of the Great Song, so as to curb the re-emergence of the Jurchens, and Goryeo is an important link in this chain of interests, and Zhao Ta decided not to let go of this opportunity...... (To be continued......)