After the restructuring of the Privy Council, the addition of two military generals and deputy envoys, the promotion of the status of the military and a comprehensive understanding of the economy and finance of the Great Song Dynasty, began to understand and deal with diplomatic affairs, the so-called weak country has no diplomacy, I also know that without a strong military and economic background, the current diplomatic situation must be facing many difficulties and resistance. However, it is still necessary to attach importance to the cause of diplomacy, because after all, this is related to the face of the country, the superiority of public opinion, and it is the standard configuration of major powers in the future. So on June 12, the sixth year of Xuanhe (1124 AD), Ma Kuo and Zhao Liangsi were summoned in the Funing Palace.

After they knelt down and saluted, I looked at the two of them with a smile and said: I have heard the names of the two for a long time, especially in the diplomatic career of the imperial court, I have won a lot of interests for our country, and it takes a lot of courage and courage to fight for these interests in front of the aggressive Jin people. The two of them saw the new emperor for the first time, and their hearts were already excited, plus my full affirmation of them, they were even more flattered, and then they thanked them more than once, and then Zhao Liangsi first said: Emperor Qiqi, the lower official is the first year of Zhenghe September, when Tong Taiwei went to Liao, he met with Tong Taiwei near Lugou, and the lower official proposed to Tong Taiwei at that time to use the contradiction between Jin and Liao to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun, the hometown of the Great Song Dynasty, which was recognized and affirmed by Tong Taiwei and the emperor.

Xiaguan's original name was Ma Zhi, so he was given the surname Zhao by the Emperor Taishang, so he was renamed Zhao Liangsi, although the sixteen states of Yanyun at that time after more than 100 years of rule by Liao, the people in Youzhou were still eagerly looking forward to being recovered by the Great Song Dynasty, and for the Liao State, at this time there was no ability to rule the people under its rule, and all the energy was focused on the infighting in the imperial court. At that time, Xia Guan suggested that the imperial court send envoys to cross the Bohai Sea by boat from Laizhou, and then land on the Liaodong Peninsula to go to the Jurchens, get in touch with them, form an alliance to deal with the Liao State, and attack the north and south, so as to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun. Due to the opposition of many ministers of the imperial court at that time, the proposal of the lower officials was shelved.

At this time, Ma Kuo continued: Emperor Qiyu, in the first year of Chonghe (1118 AD), the imperial court sent the first envoy to the Jurchen mission, when the lower officials just passed the palace examination of the martial arts in the spring examination, and was awarded the Chengjielang and the samurai teachings of the Jingbei Road. He followed his father Ma Zheng and other seven generals and eighty soldiers to travel, and the two who led the way for this envoy were Gao Yaoshi and Cao Xiaocai.

We received the order on the 18th of February, and the date of our departure was the 6th of September. As soon as the mission arrived on the northern shore of the Bohai Sea, it was seized by patrolmen. Since Jin Bing had never heard of the envoys of the Great Song Dynasty, he took away all the belongings and tried to kill us several times, but his father Ma Zheng kept explaining to make the soldiers believe that we were envoys. The Jin soldiers tied us up, and the escorts traveled through a dozen states to the banks of the Lailiu River on the Azhi River, where Akuta was located, which was already 3,000 miles away from our starting point.

In fact, as early as the year before our mission to the end, the Jin people and the Liao people were already negotiating, at first the Liao sent Yelu Nuge as a peace envoy, and did not dare to mention canonization, but at this time Yelu Nuge already knew that the so-called "canonization" was not a courtier asking the monarch for a reward, but a new monarch let another old monarch crown himself and recognize his dominant position. This can be seen from the request made by Aguta, who demanded that the emperor of the Liao State must call Aguta his brother, and at the same time, hand over the Shangjing, Zhongjing, and Xingzhong Mansion of the Liao State to the Jin State, and then send the princes, princesses, concubines, and ministers as hostages, and return the previous letters, correspondence and other items with hierarchical characteristics to the Jin State, so that peace can be negotiated. Don't mention other requirements, just look at the requirements of Jin Guo for land. If the Liao State really ceded Shangjing, Zhongjing, and Xingzhongfu (now Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province), it would mean that the Liao State would lose the entire northeast and the northern grasslands, and all that remained was the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun and the desert region in the northwest, turning into a small country sandwiched between the Song and Jin dynasties, and would be destroyed at any time. Such conditions were equivalent to the complete surrender of the Liao State to the Jin State.

Yelunuge traveled back and forth between Liao and Jin, and brought Hu Tugon, the envoy of Jin, to Liao. Aguta put forward a new condition: this time there was no need for hostages, and there was no longer a need for the two places of Shangjing and Xingzhongfu, and at the same time, the Liao State's worship of the Jurchens was also reduced. However, the Liao Emperor had to call Akuda his elder brother and canonize the Jin Emperor with Han Chinese etiquette. For Emperor Tianqi of Liao, such conditions were still too harsh, and the two sides were therefore in a stalemate.

At that time, we asked Song and Kim to establish contact with each other, but we did not set specific goals. Aguda promised to unite us to attack Liao, then the purpose of our mission was achieved. This was followed by the exchange of envoys between the two sides to formulate specific terms of cooperation. At the end of the fourth year of Jin Taejo's receiving, Aguta left six members of our mission as hostages, and sent three people, Li Shanqing, a native of Bohai, Zhen Sandu, and a raw girl, Zhen Boda, to return with our envoy with gifts.

On the third day of December, the mission arrived in Dengzhou. In the first month of spring in the first year of Xuanhe (1119 AD), the mission returned to the capital. The envoys of the Jin State stayed for more than ten days, and finally the imperial court discussed and decided to jointly attack the Liao State with the Jin State. When the mission was about to return, the imperial court learned that the Jin State and the Liao State were also negotiating peace, and then the delegation sent the Jin State again to be suppressed by the imperial court, and at this time, the Liao and Jin States went through many rounds of negotiations, and the negotiations eventually broke down due to communication problems.

Ma Kuo said this, Zhao Liangsi continued: Your Majesty, on the fourth day of the second month of February in the second year of Xuanhe (1120), the imperial court sent a delegation again, this time it was the lower official who led the team to the Jin country, before leaving, the imperial court gave the right to act cheaply, on March 26, the lower official went to sea from Dengzhou, passed through several small islands, and arrived at Suzhou Pass on April 14. When Xia Guan went, it happened to be the time when the Jurchen soldiers attacked the Liao State in three ways and went to Beijing. Xiaguan set out from Weizhou, and met with Aguta at Qingniu Mountain outside Shangjing, and watched the attack on Shangjing with the Jurchen army. Also with them was Xiao Xinilie, the envoy of the Liao State.

Emperor Tianzuo of the Liao State was hunting in Hutu Baishan in the north, and after hearing that the Jin people were attacking Shangjing, he sent Yelu Baisi and others to lead 3,000 soldiers and horses to help. But Aguta did not regard this as a big deal, and he said to me and the envoys of the Liao State: You first see how I fight, and then decide what to do.

On the thirteenth day of May, the Jurchen attack began at dawn and ended by the time it was already (between nine and eleven o'clock in the morning), and the general Yan Mu first conquered the outer city, and the defender of the inner city, Tzu Buye, saw that the big thing was not good, and immediately surrendered.

Since Yanyun and other places are the old land of the Han people, after the destruction of Liao, when the two sides distribute the land of Liao, the principle that should be followed is that the land of Shangjing, Zhongjing and Tokyo of Liao, which are outside Yanshan, should belong to the Jin State, while Nanjing Xijin Mansion and Xijing Datong Mansion, as well as the attached prefectures and counties, should belong to the Great Song Dynasty. At that time, after many negotiations and consultations, Aguta agreed to the request of the lower officials. Because the court heard that the Jurchens were going to negotiate peace with the Liao State last time, they suppressed the summons of the Ma Zheng Mission. In order to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents, the lower officials specifically requested that neither the Jin State nor the Northern Song Dynasty negotiate peace with the Liao State alone. Xiaguan did this at that time, which was actually a defense against the Jin State's practice.

In the gap between the negotiations, the two sides had dinner and toured Shangjing Mansion together and visited the palace of the Liao State. Ah Guda and Xia Guan rode side by side from the west gate to enter, passed through the major halls, and finally drank wine in Yanhe Tower. At the wine table, we continued to negotiate, mainly on the issue of the year's coins, and the lower officials proposed to give the Jin country 300,000 yuan in exchange for peaceful coexistence with the Jin country. Aguta said: The Liao State did not cede the land of Yanyun, and the Great Song Dynasty had to pay them 500,000 yuan every year, and the Jin State could only get 300,000 yuan if they returned Yanyun to the Great Song Dynasty, which was very unfair. After bargaining, it was finally decided to give Jin 500,000 coins, including 200,000 taels of silver and 300,000 horses of silk per year, which was equivalent to transferring the old coins previously given to Liao to Jin.

Before Xia Guan left, he made an agreement with Aguta: the Jurchen army began to attack Xijing on the ninth day of August of that year, and the Great Song Dynasty was also attacking Nanjing at the same time, and if the Great Song needed the help of the Jin State to attack Nanjing, then the Jin State should choose the route from Pingzhou Songlin to Gubeikou in the northeast of Nanjing, while the Great Song chose the offensive route from Xiongzhou near the Song-Liao border to Baigou. The two sides also agreed that the peace treaty would only be established if the Song army arrived on time and cooperated with the flanking attack, otherwise the peace treaty would be null and void.

Ma Kuo then added: At the end of October of the second year of Xuanhe (1120), Xia Guan arrived at the camp of Aguta with the mission, and personally witnessed their nomadic life and the daily life of advocating force. At this time, there was a rebellion in the south of the country, and Tong Taiwei led the army to the south to quell the rebellion, but he failed to go to the Jin people in time to attack the Liao State with him. It was not until the fourth year of Xuanhe (1122) that the imperial court appointed Tong Taiwei to go north to attack the Liao State with the Jin army, and the facts behind it are well known.

After listening carefully to the statements of the two, I have a better understanding of the iron-blooded truth that a weak country has no diplomacy, and at the same time, I also admire the courage of the two to argue on the basis of reason. Then he said to them: I know very well that it is not easy for the two of us to negotiate in the Golden Kingdom, because behind the diplomacy is actually the competitive negotiation of comprehensive national strength, without a strong military and a strong economy, all diplomacy is very humble and helpless, so we must be ashamed and brave, I have made up my mind to reform and develop armaments, revitalize the economy, and provide a solid foundation for the diplomatic cause, do you have the confidence to continue to engage in the glorious and arduous diplomatic cause?

The two replied without hesitation: Xia Guan is willing! Looking at their firm attitude and resolute eyes, I nodded heartily and said: Very good, I have decided to establish a new Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Shangshu Province, Ma Kuo will be the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Zhao Liangsi will be the squire of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the two of them heard the reward, they immediately knelt down to thank them, and I said: Turn the previous grievances into the driving force for future progress, I hope that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can open up a new situation under the leadership of you and the others, and go to Shangshu Province to report. The two knelt down again and thanked them, then got up and walked out of the hall under the guidance of the chamberlain.