(I originally wanted to write a few more chapters yesterday to make up for the debt I owed before, but it happened to be the opening festival of a Dai friend's house, so I had to find an opportunity to make up for it later!) ）

Before dawn is always the darkest time.

Even Yu Cheng quietly looked at the tall city walls of Daxing City not far away, before dawn it was also the lowest temperature of the day, if it was summer, it would feel cool, but now it is winter.

However, the morning star has already risen, and the sky is about to dawn, so even Yu Cheng is not too anxious.

During the Sui and Tang dynasties, China was still in a warm climate, and according to historical records, the Guanzhong area, where Chang'an City is located, could even grow many subtropical fruit trees, but the dawn in the middle of winter outside Chang'an in November was still cold.

Limited to the strict rule that the city gate can only be opened at dawn, the open space 100 steps outside the south gate of Daxing City, the new capital of the Great Sui Empire, has been crowded with people waiting to enter the city.

Although the contradiction between man and land after the unification of the Sui Empire was not too acute, there were still a large number of landless people within the country, especially Guanzhong, which was the most densely populated place in the Sui Empire, and there were not a few ordinary people who lost their land.

In order to make a living, many of these landless people went to the Qinling Mountains or other mountains around Guanzhong to cut down a large number of fine timber, and then burned this wood into high-quality charcoal, so as to provide the income of the wealthy families in Chang'an City.

Lian Yucheng looked at these charcoal burners all dressed thinly and shivering in the cold wind before dawn in winter, but not only did they not complain, but they looked at the gloomy weather with joy, after all, only when the weather is cold, and even snows heavily, the charcoal they worked so hard to burn before can be sold at a good price.

If Wang Ze is here, I am afraid that he will have to mumble again, 'sell charcoal, cut down and burn charcoal in the southern mountains', and he will inevitably mumble that he doesn't know how to protect the environment, after all, these high-quality charcoal need good wood, and ordinary wood is not qualified.

Although even Yu Cheng also received a lot of education in the Xia Kingdom to protect the environment, it is obvious that the Great Sui, which had just completed the unification, did not have such a high spiritual realm, and even the government issued a decree to encourage the reclamation of wasteland, which further stimulated agricultural production in the Guanzhong region, and the destruction of mountainous areas also intensified.

At this time, after hundreds of years of war in the late Han Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the environment has been restored very well because of the sharp decline in population in the past, which is enough to support the development and construction of a hundred years.

In the cold wind, Lian Yucheng was wrapped tightly all over his body, and the material on his body was obviously a fur made of fine fur, and the soft and airtight fur coat allowed people's body temperature to be kept warm to the greatest extent, and it would not look bulky.

He was followed by more than a dozen young men who were obviously dressed as merchants, and these outfits were obviously classic merchant attire, but all the people around him didn't know that this crowd of people who were ostensibly ordinary caravans was actually a fine work of the Xia State stationed in the Great Sui, led by Lian Yucheng, who was doing intelligence work in Goguryeo.

At the beginning, in order to deal with Goguryeo, the overlord of the East China Sea, Wang Ze was responsible for the intelligence work of the Comfort City, Pyongyang City, and Liaodong City with Jian Yu, Bo Yutu, and Lian Yucheng in Goguryeo, and these three people also provided a lot of information for the Xia army at that time.

After the fall of Goguryeo, Jian Yu, the eldest of the three, was nearly sixty years old and no longer suitable for lurking behind enemy lines, so he began to set up an intelligence analysis room under Wang Ze's orders, and he began to be responsible for part of the overseas intelligence work alone, while Bo Haotu was ordered to lurk in Jiangnan.

And Lian Yucheng is younger, so ambitious he directly infiltrated the Sui Empire's power center Daxing City, so far he has successfully lurked in this country for nearly ten years, the young man in his prime, has now become a middle-aged man of nearly fifty years old.

Although he has been waiting patiently for ten years, Xia Guo has no intention of attacking the Great Sui so far, and even Yu Cheng is a little anxious to wait, but he knows that the comprehensive national strength of the Sui Empire is indeed extremely strong, and the longer he waits, the greater the advantage of Xia Guo.

While waiting for dawn, even Yu Cheng didn't say anything, didn't do anything, he just quietly listened to the talk of the people of the Sui Empire around him.

Charcoal burners are talking about today's carbon price, although not far away there are vendors selling spicy soup with a burden, as long as a copper coin can drink a big bowl of deliciousness, but they are still reluctant, many of them carry their own crockpots to fill the hot soup to replenish their body temperature.

Although they are very short of money, and many of these charcoal workers do not even have warm clothes, they are very confident in their conversations, all of which are based on the premise of rapid social and economic development, and the howling of pigs, cattle and sheep waiting to be transported into the city can be heard not far away.

In addition to those low-level people, even the Sui Empire merchants around Yu Cheng were talking about whether to participate in the trade route trade from the Hexi Corridor to the west through Yumen Pass, and it could be seen that these merchants had great confidence in the future of the Sui Empire.

Although a great war broke out between the Great Sui and the Western Turks, under the strong threat of the Xia State, the long-sleeved and dancing Changsun Sheng had already turned the Western Turks into a friendly ally of the Great Sui, but unfortunately this benevolent brother had a bad life, and he had a serious illness not long ago, and he would be bedridden. Bashan loves

In the Sui Empire over the years, Lian Yucheng clearly knew that after the Great Sui Empire unified Southern Chen, under the propaganda of the imperial court, it seemed that the entire world except for the mountains east of Changguang County was also entrenched by a group of insignificant bandits, and all other places had been singing and dancing.

Under the rule of Yang Jian, the wise and martial Emperor Wen of Sui, after the unification of the entire Sui Empire, the country's economy prospered rapidly, not only did the eastern capital Luoyang once again become the economic center of the whole world, Luoyang's population approached the million mark, and even Chengdu in Yizhou and Yangzhou in Jiangbei quickly became super cities with a population of hundreds of thousands.

Thinking of this, Lian Yucheng had to sigh the profound potential of the Central Plains, as long as the reunification was completed, it would only take about ten years to have such a scale, and his Majesty Wang Ze had worked hard to establish the Xia Kingdom for decades, and now the population of Zhenhai has not yet reached one million.

After the Great Sui unified the world, the population was only more than 30 million, and today, ten years later, the population of the entire Sui Empire is approaching 40 million.

Since ancient times, it has been extremely difficult to start a business, and it is no wonder that Chinese people have liked to kill and kill themselves for 2,000 years, but they do not like to open up territory and create a larger foundation.

Although Lian Yucheng didn't know that the Sui Empire was much richer than the original historical period, he knew that the Sui Empire was able to recover quickly from the trauma of the war, and a big reason was related to Wang Ze.

Whether it was the large amount of fertile land vacated by Wang Yong, Wang Ze and his sons, the migration of millions of people from various counties in the Central Plains to the East China Sea, or the new farming methods that were inadvertently spread through various means, and the use of a large number of new agricultural tools, all this made the Sui Empire more powerful than the original history.

Because the number of ordinary people in the Kwantung region was relatively reduced, this allowed every Sui Imperial soldier in the Northern Zhou Dynasty to be allocated sufficient fertile land, and the densely populated areas in the Great Sui could also evacuate a large number of excess populations.

In this way, the Sui Empire was much smaller than the original historical period, and at the same time, the area of cultivated land did not change much, but the country's grain production increased a lot, thus feeding more people.

Thinking of this, Lian Yucheng couldn't help but sigh, His Majesty tried his best to support the Nanchen regime at the beginning, the purpose was to make the Southern Dynasty stronger, so that the Central Plains could continue to maintain the situation of confrontation between the north and the south, and the Xia Kingdom could get more time for development.

But I don't want people to be counted as good as heaven, after Chen Ji came to power, Nan Chen and Xia Guo had a comprehensive relationship, so that Xia Guo no longer supported Nan Chen, not only did Nan Chen not hold on for more time, but because of Chen Shubao's misdeeds, it was clear that the national strength was relatively strong and still perished rapidly.

The sudden demise of Nan Chen greatly benefited the Sui Empire.

Not only did the huge wealth accumulated by Nanchen fall into the pockets of the Sui Empire, but the national strength of Nanchen, which increased greatly compared with the same period in history, increased the economic strength of the Sui Empire by more than forty percent out of thin air.

In particular, Wang Ze supported Nanchen's large-scale development of Lingnan Jiaoguang and Guangzhou, so that the economy along the south of the Yangtze River was greatly developed hundreds of years in advance, especially the great development of Lingnan made the economic development here almost advanced by nearly a thousand years, which brought infinite benefits to the Sui Empire.

At the same time of economic development and multiplication, the Sui Empire produced three commercial cities represented by Luoyang, Yangzhou and Yizhou, which became more and more prosperous in the trade exchanges between various places, and a scene of peace and prosperity emerged spontaneously.

Under such circumstances, many ministers and generals of the Sui Empire secretly let their relatives and domestic slaves open a lot of businesses, and they gradually became involved in the commercial and economic circle of the Xia Kingdom unconsciously, and gradually became a supplement to the Xia Kingdom's economy.

Because of Wang Ze's previous policy of keeping a distance from the Sui Empire, many people in the entire Sui Empire still do not feel threatened, in their opinion, the Xia State is just a remote and small country, even if the Xia Army defeated the Turks and the Sui Army one after another, there are still many people who stubbornly believe that the Xia State is not as strong as the Sui Empire.

Lian Yu Cheng knew from the mouths of many people of the Great Sui that the Sui army of 300,000 soldiers who had conquered Liao before was unexpectedly wiped out, and these people only thought that it was just the luck of the Xia Kingdom, and if this army was safe and sound, it would definitely fight and draw Liaodong under the leadership of Yang Shuang, the king of Wei.

Lian Yucheng, who knew the details, of course knew that things would not be so simple, and the people of the Sui Empire would not know that while they were enjoying the peaceful and prosperous times, fierce battles were constantly taking place in the Beihai in the far north that they could not see or understand at all, as well as in the places further south and west of the South Ocean.

The tug-of-war between the Xia Kingdom and the Turks, and the fierce siege battles between the Xia Kingdom and the Nanyang and Western countries, caused the once prosperous cities and powerful tribes to continue to fall, and the countries and tribes that once had a glorious history dissipated into history.

Although the Sui Empire in front of them is still extremely powerful, but they only pay attention to themselves and rarely look at the world, they are afraid that sooner or later they will become the prey of the Xia Kingdom, and Lian Yucheng has no doubt about this.

Thinking of the information he sent out, it was likely that a powerful super empire would be destroyed in the near future, and Lian Yucheng felt a burst of excitement in his heart.

With the third rooster crowing gradually brightened, along with the morning bell of the city, the huge city gate was finally opened by dozens of Sui soldiers in a squeak, and the Chang'an New City called Daxing City was displayed in front of Lian Yucheng.