In the new year, Zhao Tan changed his habit of going out on patrol in the past few years, stayed in Bianjing honestly, and lived a busy life of listening to the government every day and asking the emperor and his wife to say goodbye sooner or later. In March, the emperor summoned the commander of the navy and the four commanders of the navy, and ordered them to train them on the voyage and draw charts. And gave them a strange task, that is, to erect the Great Song Dynasty sovereignty monument to the islands encountered by the warships wherever they were uninhabited or unoccupied, and mark them on the nautical chart to declare their sovereignty.

Everyone felt very surprised, there are countless large and small islands in the vast sea, but there are few human tracks, and they are not suitable for human habitation, and they cannot send troops to defend them, I don't know what the emperor wants these desert islands for? But Zhao Ta understands that due to the limitations of science and technology and navigation technology, countries do not know that the sea contains rich resources and military value, but for hundreds of years, when the world knows about it, they often fight for a reef and fight to the death.

And Zhao Ta knows this truth from the future, according to the accepted norms in the world in the future, whoever discovers and names the island first is whoever owns it. I am now the first to start, taking advantage of the opportunity of the current sea power awareness of various countries, to take all the islands around the Great Song Dynasty and further away into his arms, and leave ironclad evidence, the province's 'descendants' are still fighting for these things, for a few small islands for decades have been unable to hold each other, the lawsuit can not be won, and they have to be pickled by the birds, in the future, they can be regarded as doing a serious thing, and they are considered to have not worn a red scarf in their previous life......

In April, Ma Kuo sent news from Dali that the matter in Dali had been settled, and at the 'Dali Tribal Assembly', a motion was unanimously passed to return to the Song Dynasty, and the Gao and Dong families, who held opposing views, had been removed from the list under the blows of the Song army and the armed forces of various tribes, and the main culprits were punished. Master Jin Hyuk got his revenge. However, when it came to the subsequent implementation of Dali's policy to rule, Zhao Ta and several governors had disagreements and arguments.

According to the practice of the Great Song Dynasty in the past. The policy of restraint is often implemented in minority areas, the essence of which is that 'local officials govern the local people' and recognize the hereditary chieftain status of various ethnic groups. They were given official positions and titles, and the government exercised indirect rule, and the edicts of the central court were not actually implemented. Zhao Ta, on the other hand, insisted on one step, and the government sent a stream to directly implement the rule, and collected taxes, built cities, and set up schools in the same way as inland states and counties; At the same time, the original Tusi service system was abolished, and as in the mainland, taxes were levied according to the acres of land.

The two points of view were at odds for a while. After the founding of the Great Song Dynasty, the policy of restraint was implemented in this way for the ethnic groups living in the northwest and southwest, and it did indeed achieve good results under the historical conditions at that time, so that the territory of the Great Song Dynasty increased and the border defense was stable. In the early days of Zhao Tan's reign in the northwest, he also did the same for the newly acquired land. However, it is not without drawbacks, some local officials wantonly kill the people for hereditary reasons, and slaughter the Han people in order to trouble the border. encroachment on their land. Some tribes fought and fought within themselves because of the struggle for land or inheritance, and even surrendered to the enemy country, and in turn became enemies of the Great Song Dynasty.

In fact, the rulers of the Great Song Dynasty were not all fools, and they were also aware of the drawbacks. After that, they also wanted to bring the Confederacy under the government's management, but this often provoked strong opposition and even betrayal. In the end, only Linzhou in the northwest succeeded in nationalization. On the contrary, when Zhao Tan was in charge of the northwest, he asked the tribes of Fuzhou and the states in the river to give up the 'hereditary'. Sincerity to Song. Because of the lesson, everyone is worried that Dali has just been annexed. The seizure of power will cause rebellion, and it will also cause unrest among the tribes of the two roads of Fuzhou Road and the north and south of Guangxi, thus causing unrest.

Zhao Ta knew that the later Ming and Qing dynasties had also encountered a similar situation, but they successfully carried out the reform of the land and brought the land under the management of the government, of course, there were some twists and turns, but the reform was successful in the end. Now that the Great Song Dynasty is strong, internally stable, and some small turmoil can be completely suppressed, and now that the Dali State has disintegrated, and the biggest opposition force has also been eliminated, it is a good time to implement reforms, and we cannot give up lightly. In addition, the abolition of the hereditary system can reduce the factors of rebellion, strengthen the government's rule over the frontiers, and be conducive to the social and economic development of ethnic minority areas, which should be promoted.

After several arguments, everyone realized that time waits for no one, and Dali is still waiting for the opinions of the central government, so the two sides compromise with each other, each give a step, first try it out in Dali, and gradually implement the rest of the roads. So Zhao Ta issued an edict and Shangshu Province issued a policy on Dali:

Retain the king of Dali, Duan Heyu Wangjue, and allow one of his sons to attack the title, but not to open the government and retain the army, which is actually equivalent to leaving an honorary title. When the hereditary system of official status was abolished, the patriarchs themselves were treated differently according to their attitudes. For those who hand over the seal automatically, they will be rewarded as appropriate, or given to the worldly office, or to the current military office. Those who refused were punished, their property confiscated, and they were relocated to the inland provinces, where they were given a living in a farm. At the same time as the establishment of prefectures and the dispatch of officials, military institutions were added. In the areas where land has been reformed and returned, household registration has been checked, land has been measured, taxes have been collected, cities have been built, and schools have been established; At the same time, the original service system of Tusi was abolished, and the tax was levied according to the mu of land, as in the mainland, but certain preferential treatment could be enjoyed.

In order to solve the shortcomings of the long-standing Tusi division in other regions, two methods were adopted: one was to change the prefecture first and then the prefecture from the top down. The second is to seize a favorable opportunity to carry out, if there is a local official who has no heir, no successor, or a clan fights, he will send a liuguan to take over; The tribes fought against each other, and when they were pacified, they sent officials to take over; After some local officials committed crimes or were suppressed against the dynasty, they were dismissed for their crimes and replaced by rogue officials. If some of the people of Tibet applied to the government to change the land and return to the stream, they would follow the will of the people, remove the hereditary leader and change it to a liuguan. In short, as soon as there is an opportunity, immediately seize the opportunity to change the stream......

In May, there was good news that the new gunpowder developed by Genyuan was successfully trial-produced and solved many problems in mass production.

Zhao Ta personally went to watch the test explosion, and in addition to rewarding his merits, he ordered the workshop to immediately send someone to learn to take over the production. When Zhao Tan first 'tinkered' the recipe for black powder, he knew that this thing was still not enough for military power, but he was limited to his limited knowledge of other varieties of explosives and could not make it at all, at least the nitric acid used to produce nitro gunpowder himself knew how to make it in the real yàn room, and could not be used for mass production.

Zhao Ta knew that in the eighth century, Western alchemists could make nitric acid, and when he went on an expedition to Arabia, he invited these 'talents' to the Great Song Dynasty. At the same time, combined with his own knowledge, as long as the production of ammonium nitrate and then add diesel and wood chips, you can make 'earth gunpowder', which is definitely much worse than modern production, but much more powerful than black powder. But this is also an epoch-making progress.

Unfortunately, the quality of steel is not yet able to withstand the power of new gunpowder, which means that it cannot be used as a propellant, otherwise it will lead to the explosion of the gun and the tragedy of gun destruction and death. However, the new gunpowder is much more powerful than black gunpowder under the same weight, and can be used to load flowering shells, or make explosives packs, improve the lethality and destructive power of cannonballs, and become a new weapon for siege and siege.

Zhao Ta was happy that another sharp weapon was in his hands, but he was still a little worried about the issue of secrecy. Now all countries know that the reason why the Song army can be invincible and invincible is all because of the emperor's head and the sharpness of firearms, and one of the two can destroy the Great Song Dynasty. Therefore, from the time of the birth of firearms, secrecy has become the first priority, and Zhao has also made various arrangements to prevent leakage. But back then, he had less than 1,000 soldiers and no more than 10,000 guns, so he could keep a close eye on it to ensure that the secret would not be revealed.

But with the growth of the team, the number of weapons and the number of battles fought, the number of people familiar with weapons also increased by a hundredfold. Although Zhao repeatedly stressed the need to do a good job in the management of firearms, and used harsh military laws to restrain them, and paid attention to the collection of lost weapons and equipment after the war. But when the forest is big, there are all kinds of birds, and there are still people who take risks to steal guns in order to make huge profits. There are also foreign spies who try to collect firearms from battlefields and workshops, buy craftsmen, and try to crack the secrets......

"Your Majesty, the subordinates of those who have studied and come into contact with the new type of gunpowder have sent people to keep an eye on them, and anyone who has had contact with them has been recorded!" Li Jun told the Emperor that since the Arabs had entered the Gen Garden, the Emperor had given them to him, not only to be responsible for their security, but also to prevent them from communicating with outsiders and leaking secrets, although this was a small chance.

"Well, the others are okay to say, those two alchemists who study 'Rub Water' should be optimistic, as long as the secret of the Rub Water is not revealed, even if they get something, they can't make gunpowder." Zhao Ta nodded and said, this kind of secret related to national security is, of course, the fewer people who know, the better, and the materials and methods required to make the water are completely mastered by these two people and themselves, in fact, killing people is the best way, but Zhao Ta feels that these two people are still useful, so they just keep a strict guard.

"Yes, Your Majesty's idea is very clever, you have processed all the materials you need in different places, some of them are real and some are fake, and they are ground into powder, the color and weight are almost the same, and you can't tell the difference between non-professionals. And the manufacturing process is also a personal responsibility, they want to get the truth, unless they can turn all the people in the workshop against each other, they still can't get what they need! Li Jun said with a smile, he admired the emperor's method of dismantling the secret for safekeeping.

"Last time you reported that two gunsmiths in the workshop were missing, have you found out where they were?" Zhao Ta suddenly asked.

"Your Majesty, my subordinates have found out, those two guys are now in the capital of the Jin Kingdom, they were bought by the Jurchens with a lot of money to carry the collected firearm parts samples and absconded, and they crossed the border under the response of the spies on the Jin State side!" Li Jun reported...... (To be continued......)