Yu Wencui is not old-fashioned, and when he saw that I did not pursue Cai Jing and Wang Hao, he saw my thoughts, that is, to reopen the canal, stop the Huashi Gang, and reuse the previously well-received transfer method. And what I thought was told in a factual way through his tirade, and during this time, Taizu and Taizong were brought out, so that they would be impeccable, and at the same time they could gain my favor without offending their ministers. It can be said that it kills multiple birds with one stone and seizes the opportunity.

I also acquiesced in my heart to what Yu Wencui said, and the other ministers also agreed very much at this time, and they all thought that his statement had both facts and precedents, and was completely feasible, so under the unanimous consent of everyone, I concluded: What Yuwen Aiqing said is extremely true, the smooth canal is indeed the national fortune of the Great Song Empire, and I have made a decision, and I will restore the canal sectional transportation law, cancel the direct navigation law, and discuss the abolition of salt banknotes, and re-set up granaries in Zhenzhou and other places. In addition, the project will be completely suspended from now on, and no one shall be allowed to resume it, and once the offender is punished with a three-thousand li's exile for treason. After announcing the holy will, all the ministers bowed their hands and said: The emperor is shengming!

People often call the Song Dynasty "poor and weak", but there is a very simple fact that has been ignored intentionally or unintentionally, that is, how can the so-called "poor" Great Song Dynasty afford huge official expenses and huge military expenditures? How could he take out 100,000 taels of silver and 200,000 horses of silk every year after the "Alliance of the Yuanyuan", and later give 72,000 taels of silver, 153,000 horses of silk, and 30,000 catties of tea to the Western Xia every year? There is also the profligacy of the emperors of the past dynasties on civil engineering projects, if it is said that it is all by exploiting the people, it may be unfair, in fact, behind the strong economic vitality of the Great Song Dynasty and the importance of the monarchs of the Great Song Dynasty to make money surpassing the monarchs of the previous dynasties, although the Great Song Dynasty is a weak country militarily, but economically it is a strong country without a huai, a rich country.

In order to test the basic economic knowledge of Wang Di and others, and to further enhance their influence among the courtiers, I named and said: What are Wang Jinglue's views on the agricultural economy of the imperial court to appease the envoys? Perhaps it was the first time that he was named by the emperor on such an important occasion, but he saw Wang Di's body slightly stunned, and he didn't expect that the emperor would be named at this time, so after a little thought, he replied: Your Majesty, about the development of agriculture, the lower officials still talked about it in the past. Seeing that I smiled and nodded with interest, all the ministers also focused their eyes on him at this time, Wang Di deserved to be the descendant of Wang Anshi, and after adjusting his emotions slightly, he continued aloud:

In ancient times, China's economic center of gravity was in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in the early days, and in the later period, it shifted to the delta of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. And the critical period of its turning point occurred in the riots from the Five Generations. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the economy of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River was far ahead in the country. At that time, cattle farming was already widely practiced in agriculture, and the land was basically developed. In the Warring States period of the "Shangshu. In Yu Gong", the land use situation of the country at that time was divided into nine classes, of which the first to sixth classes are Yong, Xu, Qing, Henan, Hebei, and Yan, all of which are concentrated in this region, especially the Guanzhong region where the Qin State is located and the Shandong Peninsula where the Qi State is located, and the economy is quite developed. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the economy of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River developed further. Sima Qian wrote in his Historical Records. The date is recorded in the "Biography of the Goods Colony": "The land of Guanzhong is one-third of the world, and the people are only two, but the amount of its wealth is six", and "Qi with mountains and seas, thousands of miles of plastering soil, Yisang hemp, the people are multi-literate and colorful, cloth, silk, fish and salt". According to statistics, in the first two years of Emperor Ping of the Western Han Dynasty (2 years), there were more than 12 million households, more than 59 million people, and more than 8 million hectares of cultivated land, most of which were distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. There was also a marked increase in grain production, from 100,000 stone transported by the government in the early Han Dynasty from the lower reaches of the Yellow River to Guanzhong, and by 122 BC, it had increased to 6 million stone. On the other hand, in the south at that time, except for the western part of the Sichuan Basin, most of the real estate was sparsely populated, the economy was backward, the production technology was primitive and extensive, and the economic development led to political and cultural advantages.

However, since the Wei and Jin dynasties, the economy of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River has gradually shown a downward trend, while the south, especially the southern part of the Yangtze River, has been gradually developed. This is mainly caused by two factors: one is related to natural conditions. The Yellow River Basin is located in the temperate zone, with four distinct seasons, vast plains and loose soil, while the southern region has a humid climate with abundant rainfall, many hills and solid soil. In ancient times, due to the low level of productivity, agriculture was not only easier but more necessary in the Yellow River basin than in the south, and the population in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River was relatively concentrated at that time, so this area first became the economic center of gravity in ancient China. However, the natural conditions in the south of our country are actually better than those in the north, and although the land in the south is not as flat as in the north, the abundant water and heat resources are very conducive to the development of planting industry, and the south can get more returns under the same level of productivity and the same amount of labor and capital investment. Moreover, due to the abundant rainfall, widespread crop failures are rare, and the incidence of famines is significantly lower than in the north.

Second, it is related to the migration of populations. The north was the political center of our country in ancient times, and most of the north was the main battlefield, whether it was a war within the rulers or a peasant war. More importantly, the northern region is close to the northwest region of China, and has become the main battlefield for the southward invasion of the horse-riding peoples and the resistance of the main dynasty of the Central Plains. Since the Wei and Jin dynasties, the Yellow River City has been in constant war for many years, which on the one hand has caused great damage to the social production in this area, and on the other hand, it has also forced a large number of people in the Central Plains to flee to the southeast. The migration of a large number of people to the south also brought advanced production technology, coupled with the superior natural conditions of the south, so the economy of the south began to leap forward since the Wei and Jin dynasties. The second largest wave of population migration to the south in China's feudal era, the "Yongjia Rebellion" at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty and the "Anshi Rebellion" in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, led to a large number of people moving to the south.

After the opening of the Great Song Empire, due to the political unification of the country, it provided a relatively stable environment for the recovery and development of the social economy, and the policy of "guarding the interior" provided favorable conditions for further optimizing this environment. Whether it is agriculture, handicrafts, domestic commerce, or foreign trade, the Great Song Dynasty has made great progress. Since the Tang Dynasty, the economic development of the south of China has been ahead of the north, and by the time of the Great Song Dynasty, the sustained economic development of the south has far surpassed that of the north. At that time, the most economically developed areas were in the southeast, namely the Yangtze River Delta and the Ningshao Plain, where the economic development situation had reached a point where it could affect the economic situation of the whole country.

In the early years of this dynasty, the displaced people migrated and the land was barren, not to mention the remote areas, that is, the land within a radius of several thousand miles around Gyeonggi, only 2 or 30% of the land was reclaimed and used. The situation in the south is better, but it is not entirely free of displaced people and abandoned land. In order to stabilize the rule and increase tax revenue, the imperial court took a number of measures to restore agricultural production, and the settlement of displaced people and wasteland was the core of these measures. During this period, Taizu and Taizong issued edicts many times to dissuade exiles, recruit exiles, and reward reclamation.

At the beginning of the dynasty, according to the traditional practice, local prefectures and counties often sent people to the villages to inspect and register the wasteland opened by the peasants, and then immediately levied taxes on all the wasteland, which seriously hurt the peasants' enthusiasm for reclamation, and caused many wastelands that were easy to be cultivated also left uncultivated for a long time. After Taizu discovered this problem, he issued the "Edict on Persuading Planting and Reclamation" in the fourth year of Qiande (966): From now on, if the people can plant mulberry dates and reclaim wasteland, they will only pay the old rent and never pass the inspection. It was announced that only the peasants would be taxed on ripe cultivated land, and that the land reclaimed would never be checked for registration and taxed, which stimulated the peasants' enthusiasm for land reclamation.

The level of enthusiasm of agricultural laborers is an important factor affecting whether agricultural production can recover rapidly and develop sustainably. The peasants who cleared the land became independent yeoman peasants, and their production enthusiasm was not only higher than that of the vassal peasants under the original land equalization system, but also higher than that of the tenant farmers who rented land from the landlords. An important indicator of the development of agricultural production is the increase in the quantity and quality of cultivated land. If the increase in arable land in the north is mainly reflected in land reclamation, then in the south, it is mainly in the development of polders. The polder is the enclosed field, which is the farmland enclosed on the tidal flats in the south of the Yangtze River, which appeared as early as the Tang Dynasty. Originally a method of reclamation used by landless peasants in the south of the Yangtze River in desperation, it later became the main way to increase farmland in the Jiangnan Plain, and even the state participated in it (Guanwei).

The improvement in the quality of cultivated land is marked by an increase in paddy fields and irrigated land. Our dynasty is a dynasty of great development of farmland irrigation and water conservancy projects in the past dynasties, and both the number and scale of canals and weirs and the area of farmland irrigation far exceed those of the previous dynasty. The imperial court has always had a very clear understanding of the importance of farmland water conservancy construction.

In terms of paddy field construction, the natural conditions in the north are not as good as those in the south, but on the basis of realizing the superiority of paddy fields, everyone still tried hard. At the beginning of this dynasty, Hebei flooded into a disaster, Cangzhou Jiedu deputy envoy He Chengju suggested that because of its potential, the great development of tuntian, planting rice to feed enough, at that time many people did not think so, but Taizong expressed support, in the fourth year of Chunhua (993) appointed him as the envoy of the border of the north of the river, let him bring 1,800 soldiers to the states of Hebei to build paddy fields. In the first year, the paddy field was built, but the rice planted was not harvested due to the early frost in Hebei, and the second year, he changed to early rice (Champong rice) imported from the south of the Yangtze River, and finally succeeded.

In the first year of the Dao Dynasty (995), Chen Yaosuo and Liang Ding, the judges of the Du Branch, jointly wrote a letter, pointing out that the key to doing a good job in agriculture is to care about the system of cultivating fields and building water methods, and that paddy fields are better than dry fields, and the system of paddy fields is cultivated by manpower, and the land can be fully utilized, and the damage of insect plagues is less than that of land fields. Taizong appreciated this note very much, and quickly sent two officials to various states to inspect the water conservancy construction. This shows how much importance the monarchs attached to agriculture.