Zhao Kuo and Ah Shande talked for a while and said some scenes to each other.

Because of the jealousy of the other party's strength, both sides were very restrained, behaved very politely, and had a good conversation.

After all, in addition to the competition in strength, the Zhao State and the Mauryan Dynasty complemented each other in many ways, and the Mauryan Dynasty was very much in need of Zhao's silk, porcelain, paper, and so on.

The state of Zhao also needed grain and cotton from the Mauryan Empire.

As for spices, jade or something, Zhao Kuo actually can't look down on them, one of these two things is because they are scarce and expensive, and the other is essentially a stone, which is praised because it is good-looking, and it is more of an IQ tax. The real value is not much, and it cannot be compared with grain and cotton.

However, everyone is willing to buy it at a high price, and Zhao Kuo is also happy to see it, anyway, the imperial court can make money from it, and it will not lose anything.

"I heard that there was a country in the west of the Mauryan Empire called the Seleucid Empire? Will the messenger speak to the widow?" Zhao Kuo asked.

When Ah Shande heard this, he was suddenly a little vigilant in his heart, in the past two years, the Mauryan Dynasty resold the silk of Zhao to the Seleucid Empire, but it made a lot of money, this is because the trade route from Zhao to the Peacock Dynasty has just been developed, and it has not really formed a scale, otherwise the Peacock Dynasty will be able to make more money.

If Zhao bypassed the Mauryan Empire and sold silk directly to the Seleucid Empire, the Mauryan Empire would make a lot less money.

"King Zhao, the Seleucid Empire is indeed in the west of my Mauryan Empire, but the people there are not as friendly as the people of my Mauryan Dynasty, full of bandits and thieves, who like to plunder other people's property, and for a long time, our country refuses to associate with each other." Ashander said.

Zhao Kuo smiled, he didn't know what the Seleucid Empire was like, but he knew that Ashande's words could not be trusted.

However, from Zhao to the Seleucid Empire, it is not necessary to take the Mauryan Dynasty, whether it is by land or sea, it can be bypassed, but now that the trade route has just been opened, Zhao is not familiar with the environment there, and there is no army stationed, so that the Mauryan Dynasty can make more money, and it is also a kind of protection for the merchants of Zhao State.

"I, the Zhao Kingdom, plan to establish long-term and stable trade exchanges with the Mauryan Empire, what does the envoy think?" Zhao Kuo said.

"It's an honor for me to the Mauryan Empire." Ashander said.

Traditionally, the court meeting is followed by a banquet.

Ah Shande is very much looking forward to this, Zhao Guolian makes the dishes in the street restaurants are so delicious, and the food made by the palace chef can be imagined.

However, after all, Ah Shande is from an aristocratic background, representing the entire Peacock Dynasty, and it is impossible to be impatient in this matter, but to learn from the people of Zhao and eat slowly, but Ah Shande does not know how to use chopsticks, but uses spoons and forks.

Everyone has eaten almost, a beautiful dancing girl walked in from outside the hall, whether it is the Zhao people or the people of the Peacock Dynasty, they are very good at singing and dancing, many ministers have got up, dancing in the center of the hall, the envoy of the Peacock Dynasty saw this, and also began to participate in it, the scene was very lively and cheerful.

The banquet lasted until the evening, and after everyone had had their heart's content, the Mauryan envoy was sent back to the official residence.

The next thing is the formal negotiation between Zhao and the Mauryan Dynasty about the trade between the two sides, because Zhao Mu knows the Mauryan Dynasty best, so he is the chief envoy, and Lu Zhonglian is the deputy envoy.

Because it was the first time for both sides and there was little experience, the negotiations lasted three days before all the details were finalized.

However, because the grain and cotton that Zhao needed most could not be transported by land in large quantities, it was necessary to wait until Yuan Hua opened the Maritime Silk Road.

At the same time that the Zhao State and the Mauryan Empire established commercial contacts, the Qin State was not willing to be lonely, sent people to contact the King of Chu, and proposed to marry the State of Chu and marry his daughter to the King of Chu.

At the same time, Qin Wangzhu also sent people to ask for marriage in Korea, asking King Han to marry his daughter to the crown prince, wanting to use marriage to break the alliance of the Three Jins.

But God doesn't seem to favor the Qin State.

In April, Qin Wangzhu, who had only been in office for a few months, died, and was nicknamed King Qin Xiaowen.

The crown prince Chu succeeded to the throne.

Due to the death of the monarch, Qin Wangzhu could not marry, so he could only suspend the marriage.

Qin

The country suffered great defeats one after another, and lost two monarchs in a row, God seemed to warn the Qin State to decline, and the court was gloomy, and the courtiers could not raise their spirits.

Although Zichu succeeded in becoming the king of Qin, he couldn't be happy anyway, and the war reparations left by his grandfather had not been repaid. The war that lasted for many years has left the Qin State full of holes, the people dare not speak out in anger, the prestige of the imperial court has been greatly reduced, the administrative efficiency has been reduced, and there have been incidents of people fleeing in many places.

At this time, the Qin State can be described as internal and external troubles, if he can't solve this mess, the Qin State will be in danger of extinction.

"Great King, the Qin State has fought one war after another, and has repeatedly increased taxes and forced labor, and the people have suffered unspeakably. The minister thinks that our Qin State should now reduce taxes and reduce labor to reduce the burden on the people." Lu Buwei clenched his fists and said.

After Fan Ju's death, he also succeeded in becoming the prime minister of Qin.

However, Qin Wangzhu and Qin Prince Chu did not trust him as before, but were a little estranged, and Zichu did not share the Qin State with him as promised in the Zhao State.

Later, Lü Buwei learned that in the harem of Qin Wangzhu and Zichu, some people said bad things about him.

That is, Lu Buwei's ability is big enough, so that Qin Wangzhu and Zichu can't do without his help, but if they change people, it may not be as simple as estrangement.

"What Xiang Guo said lightly, tax reduction, the pressure on the people of the country has indeed been reduced, what will my Qin State use to compensate Zhao State and Qi State for the two million stone grain every year. What will be used to distribute money to the officials, and what will be used to train the army? If you don't train the army, when Zhao State comes over again, what will my Qin State do?" Wang Jian said in a deep voice.

Since the last time the Longxi cavalry was almost wiped out, it has not completed the replenishment until now.

Longxi County, the source of the Longxi cavalry, has fallen into the hands of Zhao State, and the only one who can replenish the troops is Beidi County, but Beidi County is sparsely populated, and there are even fewer soldiers who meet the conditions of Longxi cavalry.

At the same time, war horses are also a problem, when Longxi County and Hexi Corridor are in hand, Qin State does not need to worry about war horses, but now only Beidi County is left, and war horses have become a big problem.

In addition, raising so many war horses and soldiers is also a huge pressure for the Qin State.

The territory of the Qin State has shrunk significantly, and the annual taxes have removed the compensation to the Zhao State and the Qi State, and there is not much left, and every penny has to be broken in half to spend.

It was supposed to be distributed at the beginning of the year, but it has not been issued until now.

The ministers in the court did not say anything, but many local officials were already complaining.

Those *** have a lot of land, which is not bad, but they, the grassroots officials, are just waiting for this bit of rice to go to the pot.

The imperial court does not issue money, what do they use to feed the family?

The current situation of the imperial court is obvious to all, and Wang Jian also knows that the imperial court is not happy, but even if it is not good, it cannot delay the army.

Without an army, it's not a question of whether it's good or bad.

It's a question of the country's demise.

Then there was another quarrel in the court, and in the end no one was convinced.

Prince Chu of Qin waved his hand helplessly and announced the dispersal of the dynasty.

He had seen such a scene many times.

In May, it was supposed to be the joy of a bumper harvest, but I don't know if it was because of the catastrophe that would have occurred after the Great War, and this year's harvest in various parts of the Central Plains was not very good.

Drought occurred in Wei and Korea, and in the northern Huaibei region of Chu, and the same was true in the southern part of Zhao, which was slightly better than Wei.

After five years of reclamation, the Hetao has turned into 100,000 hectares of fertile land, the traffic of Qianmo, the chickens and dogs smell each other, the river canals are vertical and horizontal, just like a plug on the Central Plains.

Everyone's hearts are full of pride, this fertile soil is built by them from scratch, and every place is condensed with their hard work.

The five-year tax reduction and exemption has ended, and without waiting for the government to collect taxes, everyone has already carried the grain to the ground and waited for the officials to come and collect it.

While discussing the harvest with everyone, the little official calculated the tax for everyone, and after writing it down, he took out two slips of paper, on which he wrote the name of the head of the household, how many people in the family, how many acres of land, and how many paddy fields

, how much dry land, how much upper field, how much middle field, how much lower field, how much tax should be collected, and how much tax should be collected.

After verifying that there is no problem, the head of the household signs the slip of paper, and if he cannot write, he prints it in duplicate.

If the head of the household conceals the report, he will be fined or even confiscated after being found out by the government.

If a petty official collects more or less money, he will be suspended from his post at least or his house will be raided in serious cases.

If the head of the household finds a problem, he can report it to the government, but if the government should not, he will report it to the township school, and the township school will directly report it to Zhao Sheng. The township school does not care, but it can also be reported to the lieutenant from the army through the soldiers of the township.

Generally speaking, to this extent, at least the entire county will be thoroughly investigated, but if there is a problem, no one can escape.

Although it is impossible to completely prevent such a thing as a sharp kick, under the existing conditions, Zhao has minimized the possibility of indiscriminate tax collection.

Under the harvest, Yandi quickly recovered its vitality, and the acres of land have been re-counted, Zhao Guoke does not care whether you are powerful or not, all the land must be measured and registered.

Zhao built several ports and salted fish processing factories in eastern and western Liaoning, as well as shipyards, salt works, and other seafood processing plants. Recruit local people to work.

For the nobles who did not work against the Zhao State, the imperial court would also sell them boats and let them fish.

Zhao Kuo had no hatred towards the nobles, but only if they obeyed the laws of the Zhao State.

After the farm was over, everyone went to dig the river to repair the road, or went to work in the factory, and the salary for road repair has risen from 10 to 15 yuan, and the construction site is in charge of a lunch.

Zheng Guo also implemented an incentive policy to reduce the length of time that prisoners who behave well, up to half, that is, they can return home in two and a half years.

This is undoubtedly good news for the captives.

With the joint efforts of everyone, the development speed of the Liaohe Plain has been significantly improved, almost every day.

According to Zheng Guo's prediction, if this continues, the transformation of the Liaohe Plain can be completed in ten years at most, and this is because the captives can only work for five years, otherwise the time can be shortened a little more.

Of course, ten years is already a short time for a country.

The drought in the south of Zhao is still continuing, everyone is trying to find a way to irrigate, many canals have no water, and the niushou water silt outside Handan City is outside, and the bottom of the river can be seen clearly, and it may be cut off at any time.

The water level of the water in Fushui and Zhangshui also dropped greatly, and the people were sad.

Zhao Kuo ordered that prices must be stabilized in all localities, and the price of grain, salt and other necessities should be prohibited, and a grain of grain should be prohibited from flowing out of the border of Zhao.

At the same time, organize the people to dig the river and dredge the river, in the past, it was very troublesome to dredge the river, and you can only wait until autumn and winter, when the water falls out, the river is dredged, and the weather is already cold at this time, and it cannot last too long.

Now that there is no water in the various rivers due to drought, it is a good time to dredge.

The situation in Zhao was quite good, the drought in Han and Wei and the northern part of Chu was even more serious, and the monarchs of the three kingdoms publicly sacrificed heaven and earth for rain many times, but to no avail.

Zhao Kuo also led the people of Zhao State outside Handan City, using Jiuding as a ritual weapon to worship heaven and earth, but this time there was no vision of heaven and earth, not to mention rain, not even wind.

"I know this thing is unreliable." Zhao Kuo patted Jiuding and said dissatisfiedly.

Putting aside the factors of the times and cultural inheritance, no matter how you look at it, they are just ordinary bronze objects, even if they are detected with spiritual power, there is nothing strange about them.

However, the last sacrifice, Jiuding did shine. And everyone said that King Qin Wu was killed by the backlash.

Zhao Kuo didn't dare to be too presumptuous, and he only dared to say anything in his heart.

"There wasn't even a cloud in the sky, not even artificial rain." Lin Xiangru sighed. The premise for strategists to use spiritual power to rain down is that there is water vapor, and now there is no water vapor in the sky at all, even if all the strategists in Zhao Kingdom are added together, don't think about the next drop of rain.

"Your Zhao Kingdom is not as good as our Peacock Dynasty in this regard, although we also have deserts, most of the areas have plenty of rain

The soil is fertile, there is never a drought, and the seeds are sown and harvested, and they can be planted twice a year, and in a few areas they can be planted for three crops."

Ashande returned to China, but left a deputy envoy stationed in Handan, and after Yuan Hua returned to China, he followed Yuan Hua back to the Mauryan Dynasty by sea.

During this time, as the deputy envoy's understanding of Zhao Guo became deeper and deeper, he was even more surprised in his heart, and Zhao Guo seemed to be stronger than the Mauryan Dynasty.

But now, he finally discovered that Zhao was not as good as the Peacock Dynasty: this land is not good!

Rumble!

The terrifying mental pressure erupted from Xunzi's body, sweeping away like a raging storm. Xunzi's face was no longer as gentle as before, two essences shot out of his eyes, and he tried to lower his voice: "What the messenger said is true?"

"Of course." The Mauryan envoy raised his face and said, "Our country has never worried about food."

"Has no one starved to death in your country?" Xunzi asked.

"Of course there are, but they're all Shudras and untouchables. It doesn't matter if you're dead." The messenger said unconcernedly, the lower strata of the caste system were not human beings to them at all.

When the envoy left, Xunzi's face suddenly sank, walked up to Zhao Kuo, and said solemnly: "King, the land that is ripe three times a year, even if you pour out the strength of the whole country, you must defeat it. If we don't fight it, our children and grandchildren will blame us in the future."