After all, Dong Zhong was the first Song person to arrive in Europe, and he lived there for several years, so he was very familiar with the situation in Europe, and he was also a great navigator, familiar with the route from the Great Song Dynasty to Europe, and if he accompanied him, it would greatly reduce the risk of their journey.

However, Dong Zhong has been adrift overseas for so many years, and he has just been rescued, and his health is also problematic, so for him, he must be very eager to go back to reunite with his family, so Zhao Jia was embarrassed to speak for a while, but now Dong Zhong actually took the initiative to accompany them to Europe, which made Zhao Jia naturally unable to ask for it, and immediately agreed excitedly.

After returning to Niutou Port, after nearly ten days of rest and preparation, Zhao Jia finally led the fleet out of Niutou Port, only this time in addition to twenty warships behind him, there was also a huge supply fleet, this huge fleet after leaving Niutou Port, mightily sailed towards the southernmost tip of Africa.

After a few days of driving, Zhao Jia and they finally came to the first checkpoint of the expedition to Europe, that is, the southernmost Cape of Good Hope in Africa, the Cape of Good Hope is the name brought by Zhao Yan from later generations, and the world map of the Great Song Dynasty is marked with the name of the Cape of Good Hope, but Dong Zhong, who has passed here twice, prefers to call it the Cape of Storm, because the storms here are continuous all year round, and there are often huge waves, which is a great threat to the ship.

However, it was Dong Zhong who passed through the Cape of Good Hope twice and was very familiar with the sea conditions here, and even he already knew how to avoid the wind and waves here, so when Zhao Jia and his huge fleet passed here, they did not suffer much loss, and only a few transport ships behind were hit into the ship by the waves. Some of the supplies got into the water, but it wasn't serious.

"Your Highness, the storms here at the Cape of Good Hope are particularly violent in winter, so it is best not to pass through here in the winter unless you have to, when I first passed through here. It was in the winter that a boat and dozens of men were lost. After passing through the Cape of Good Hope, Dong Zhong once told Zhao Jiadao very seriously that this was also the experience he had gained with the lives of a boatload of people, and Zhao Jia also recorded this in the logbook.

After passing the Cape of Good Hope, Zhao Jia and the others began to travel north along the coastline on the west side of Africa, and when they passed through some places, Dong Zhong would stop the fleet and investigate the place. Almost all of these places are natural excellent ports, and they are also the places marked on Dong Zhong's sand table as suitable as ports, for these places, as long as the problem is not big, they will be recorded by Zhao Jia, and will be sent to General Xu in the future, so that they can be used as a reference for the construction of new ports.

At the same time, the Great Song Dynasty was in the city of Tokyo. Zhao Xu hurriedly left the palace and came to the Yue Palace, where he saw Zhao Yan, who had just returned from Guangzhou. Immediately said anxiously: "Third uncle, there is news from the Western Regions that Yeluchun did not die in the desert, but fled to the Eastern Qarakhanid in the Western Regions, and launched an attack on the Eastern Qarakhanid, and now he has occupied a lot of territory. It seems that it will soon gain a foothold in the Western Regions, and it is even likely that it will be established again. ”

Compared with Zhao Xu's anxiety, Zhao Yan smiled calmly when he heard this, and said without seeming to care: "If I remember correctly, it doesn't seem that the Eastern Qarakhanid borders the territory of our Great Song Dynasty, right?" ”

"Yes. There is also a Gaochang Uighur between the Eastern Qarakhanid and our Great Song Dynasty, but the Gaochang Uighurs have always been very close to the Liao State, and it is said that this time Yeluchun sent troops in the Western Regions, and he also got the support of the Gaochang Uighurs behind him, so I am worried that after Yeluchun has gained a foothold in the Western Regions, he will unite with the Gaochang Uighurs to attack my country! Zhao Xu said anxiously again at this time.

"Yeluchun fled to the Western Regions like a lost dog, it is not easy to gain a foothold there, it will take at least a few years to develop and grow, in this case, then we will destroy their allies before he grows, just a Gaochang Uighur, and destroying him can just make our control of the Western Regions go further!" Zhao Yan said calmly again, since Yeluchun fled into the desert, he felt that the other party would not die in the desert so easily, so he had already prepared for the other party to make a comeback.

"Destroy the Uighurs of Gaochang?" Zhao Xu was a little hesitant when he heard this, and only after a moment did he speak, "Third Uncle, you also know the situation in the Western Regions, the relationship between various large and small forces is complicated, and it affects the whole body, our policy towards the Western Regions has always been relatively peaceful, and we rarely use troops against the forces in the Western Regions. ”

Hearing Zhao Xu's words, Zhao Yan laughed and said: "Xu'er, in the past, our main enemy was still the Liao State in the north, and it was difficult to draw troops to deal with the Western Regions, but now that the Liao State has been destroyed, and the Jin State established by the Jurchens has also been trapped in the Huanglong Mansion by us, in this way, there is almost nothing around us that can threaten our enemies, so there is no need to maintain the original peace policy towards the Western Regions. ”

When he said this, he saw Zhao Yan pause for a moment and then said: "In addition, Sima Fa has a cloud: although the country is big, the war will be destroyed, although the world is peaceful, forget the war will die." Although our Great Song Dynasty is not warlike, but we must not forget to fight, the army must always maintain a strong combat effectiveness, just the Western Regions there is a good whetstone, the army wants to be strong, training alone is not enough, must go through brutal actual combat, so every year to mobilize a group of troops to attack the Western Regions, that is, you can expand the territory, but also can hone the army, it can be said to kill two birds with one stone. ”

Hearing Zhao Yan's words, Zhao Xu pondered for a long time but was still a little puzzled and said: "Third uncle, although the Western Regions are all small countries, but the war is together, no one knows what will happen, in case we fall into the quagmire of this war, won't it consume a lot of our national strength, in case something happens to our side, I'm afraid it will make the situation even worse?" ”

It is actually normal for Zhao Xu to have such thoughts, because the people of the Central Plains, who are deeply influenced by Confucianism, will have an attitude of awe in war, unless they are threatened, they will generally not take the initiative to start a war, for example, the reason why they launched a war against the Western Xia and Liao before was because the two countries were the old enemies of the Great Song Dynasty, and for many years the Great Song Dynasty was unable to sleep and eat, so they concentrated their efforts to destroy the two countries in one fell swoop, but now Yeluchun has fled to the Western Regions, although it may pose a threat to the Great Song Dynasty in the future, but it is only possible, As for the Gaochang Uighurs, they had never provoked the Great Song Dynasty, and had even paid tribute to the Great Song Dynasty before, so Zhao Xu was a little hesitant to attack the Gaochang Uighurs.

In fact, a considerable part of the land of the Uighurs in Gaochang belonged to the Xinjiang region of later generations, and the Uighurs of Gaochang were inhabited by Hu and Han, and thanks to the blessing of the Tang Dynasty, there were many Han people living there, so in Zhao Yan's view, the Uighurs of Gaochang should have been the land of the Great Song Dynasty, which was also one of the main reasons why he advocated attacking the Uighurs of Gaochang.

Of course, it was impossible for Zhao Yan to convince Zhao Xu for the above reasons, but he had other reasons, so he took a long breath and said, "Xu'er, how is the treasury income of my Great Song Dynasty this year?" ”

"Huh?" Zhao Xu was also stunned for a moment when he heard this, and he didn't understand that the third uncle was still discussing the issue of the Gaochang Uighurs just now, but now he suddenly transferred it to the treasury revenue? However, he still replied honestly, "In recent years, with the development of industry and commerce, especially the application of new inventions and technologies such as steam engines, our textile, steel and other industries in the Great Song Dynasty have developed rapidly, which has also led to a great increase in our treasury income, almost every year is a leap forward, but I have discussed with several ministers and found that this growth is also limited, affected by various raw materials and population and other factors, it is estimated that in a few years, this growth will be stable." ”

Zhao Yan nodded heavily when he heard this, and then suddenly sighed and said: "Yes, the strong development of industry and commerce has made our Great Song Dynasty's treasury sufficient, and it is precisely because of this that we dare to carry out large-scale infrastructure construction in China, such as railways, water conservancy and other large-scale projects, which require a lot of money and resources, but when the domestic economic growth stagnates, the construction of these projects will definitely be affected, and even industry and commerce will also be hit hard. At that time, it will inevitably affect the stability of the Great Song Dynasty, are you prepared for this? ”

"This ......" Zhao Xu was also stunned when he heard this, then shook his head with a wry smile and said, "Not yet, but even if the country is affected, it will not cause too much chaos, with the current strength of our Great Song Dynasty, it should be able to calm down quickly." ”

"Big mistake!" Zhao Yan heard this but said loudly with a serious expression, "Xu'er, do you remember what I told you about capitalism, our Great Song Dynasty attaches great importance to industry and commerce, and the productivity was low before, so the development of industry and commerce has been restricted, but now more and more new processes and technologies are applied to industry and commerce, which has greatly developed industry and commerce, which has released the monster of capital, and capital has been full of blood since its birth, and our Great Song Dynasty must meet its requirements if we want to control this monster. For example, population, resources, land, etc., if you can't meet it, you will only let this monster hurt yourself, but now relying on the strength of our Great Song Dynasty itself, it has gradually been unable to satisfy this monster, so you can only control this monster to devour the resources of other countries, do you understand? (To be continued.) )