Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan discussed the content of the new policy for several days, but the matter of sending troops to the Li Dynasty in Vietnam was raised in the regular meeting of the Chongzheng Palace in the afternoon on the same day.

The destruction of the Li Dynasty was not just to take their land, but had many demands.

First of all, it can deter the southwest, like Southeast Asia, when Vietnam was still very strong, especially during the Li Yue period.

Although the Li Yue Dynasty only occupied the northern part of Vietnam, the Li clan conquered the city in the south, attacked Dali in the north, Zhenla in the west, and took the Song State in the east, so it can be said that there was a war on all sides.

Moreover, before the Xining War of Song Shenzong, Li Yue was the victor.

For example, Li Taizu Shuntian fought with Dali's Jinhuabu in five years, beheaded more than 10,000 people, and captured a large number of soldiers and horses.

Li Taizong Ming Dao three years, and the Cham country of the south bank of the Wupu River in a battle, the Cham king was killed, the army killed more than 30,000 people, more than 5,000 captured, 60 war elephants died.

In addition, the Vietnamese army marched to the capital of the Cham kingdom and plundered the royal palace and returned, resulting in the end of the Eighth Cham Dynasty and almost destroying the Cham country.

As for the fact that there were few wars between the two sides of Zhenla, but the "History of the Song Dynasty" recorded that Zhenla was harassed by Li Yue all the year round, and the people on the border were miserable, so during the Xining War later, Zhenla and Cham both sent troops to help the Song Dynasty.

It was precisely the Li Yue Dynasty that made enemies on all sides at that time, but was able to win on all sides, which gave them the confidence and ambition to invade the southwest border of the Song Dynasty from time to time, and even vainly try to get involved in the Great Song Dynasty, Guangxi, and Guangdong.

Therefore, if the Great Song Dynasty eliminated Li Yue, then according to Li Yue's subduing of several small Southeast Asian countries around him, and the Great Song Dynasty destroyed Li Yue, demonstrating the strong situation of the Great Song Dynasty, I am afraid that these small Southeast Asian countries will immediately follow the Great Song Dynasty, and it will also facilitate the layout of the Great Song Dynasty in Southeast Asia.

The second is that Vietnam has an outlet to the sea, and for a long time in the future, the Great Song Dynasty will have to plan for the planting of rubber trees and cinchona trees, so it is logical to control the entire Southeast Asian region such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia through the outlets of Vietnam and Guangdong.

These places are not only rich in grain production and mineral resources, but also suitable for planting rubber, cinchona, fruits, and even oil and natural gas.

Therefore, based on various considerations, and with such an excuse, it is imperative to eliminate the Ly Dynasty in Vietnam.

In the Chongzheng Palace, a charcoal fire is lit.

Although spring began in January, the weather was still cold, the snow had not melted for a few days, and the cold wind could swish into the neck.

However, Fan Zhongyan was sweating, and those who had never eaten chili peppers really couldn't withstand the spicy attack.

Zhao Zhen saw that he wiped the sweat on his forehead from time to time, and said strangely: "Xiwen Gong, this is?" ”

"Chili. It's spicy. ”

Fan Zhongyan still has a hot taste in his mouth.

"So spicy? I'll try it next time. ”

Zhao Zhen was extremely curious.

Zhao Jun smiled: "Then next time I'll pack a copy for the official family and come back." ”

"Let's get down to business."

Lao Fan said.

Since King Lu Yi and Jian were not present, the rhythm was controlled by Zhao Jun.

He asked Li Di and Jiang Tang to report on last year's situation.

At the end, he said: "The harvest of last year is still very large, the country is much richer and stronger, and it finally has the appearance of a prosperous era." ”

"But we can't be too complacent, at the end of last year, we beat Li Yuanhao, although the prestige of the country, Goryeo and Dali also celebrated for the first time, but the Liao side will definitely not give up."

Zhao Jun looked at everyone and continued: "They will inevitably find a way to develop muskets as well, so our next task is to continue to maintain the first-mover advantage and carry out a great integration at home and abroad, otherwise once the military lags behind the Liao State, there will still be danger." ”

"Can't we defeat the Liao State now?"

Zhao Zhen worried.

"Victory is victory, but winning is also very reluctant, wounding a thousand enemies and losing eight hundred."

Zhao Jun explained: "There are internal ghosts in our army, and the Liao Kingdom has obtained the cannons sold by the internal ghosts and copied them, and the current situation is similar to that of the late Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin. It's just that we are stronger than the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the Liao State is also stronger than the Later Jin. ”

"Wouldn't we be able to win a decisive victory against them if we went to war before they developed muskets?"

Zhao Zhen asked.

"What a bold decision."

Zhao Jun laughed.

"Really? I also feel very bold, this is a war with the Liao State. ”

Zhao Zhen was surprised, and then complacent.

"When the time comes, we will start a tug-of-war with the Liao State, prices will rise, the economy will collapse, and even if we win the final battle, the Great Song Dynasty will face the danger of imminent destruction."

Zhao Jun was bluffed and frightened together, making Zhao Zhen panic enough.

He hurriedly asked, "Why?" ”

"Because muskets are only effective in field battles, people have arranged so many artillery pieces in so many cities in Yanyun, the range is similar to ours, and there is also the advantage of the city wall, how to fight?"

Zhao Jun spread his hands and said: "Our artillery does not have an absolutely crushing situation, and the musket siege war is of little use, and at that time, the most it will be to fight a protracted siege war." ”

"Does that mean that once a fight starts, you can't tell the winner in a short time?"

Li Di asked.

"Yes."

Zhao Jun nodded: "Not only will we not be able to tell the winner, but our casualties will be very large." Therefore, science and technology must be advanced, and technology must be crushed to the end, so as to continue to suppress Liao. ”

In fact, the artillery of the Great Song Dynasty now far exceeds that of the Liao State in terms of range and power, and it is only necessary to replace ordinary gunpowder with granular gunpowder.

But Zhao Jun will not tell the truth, he will only coax and deceive Zhao Zhen together.

And he blamed the Song Dynasty army for Liao's current possession of artillery, but in fact he could also vaguely guess that the army was corrupted, which might cause Liao to obtain artillery technology in the future, so that Liao would also have artillery.

However, Zhao Jun was powerless to stop it when he came, and he couldn't attack the army when he needed to fight. Second, it was vaguely deliberate to engage in an arms race with the Liao State, consume the strength of the Liao State, and increase the national strength of the Great Song Dynasty.

The third and most important point is to improve the military capability of the Liao State to a certain extent, and it can also make Zhao Zhen and the Constitutional Yuan full of a sense of crisis, so that Zhao Jun has been leading by the nose.

In general, this set of rhetoric is actually the tone of the Western exaggeration of the threat theory of the big hairy bear in later generations.

In fact, with the ability of the big hairy bear, it is already difficult to break through NATO, but the Western media need to fool the people and increase this sense of crisis in order to achieve their own goals.

Zhao Jun has also grown a lot over the years, and knows that politics is far from being as simple as imagined, if you want to completely take power and reach his deep thoughts in the future, then you must not say it explicitly, but use various means to drive, just like now.

Really.

Zhao Zhen heard that their military superiority in Liao was not as great as he imagined, so he immediately died down and said worriedly: "What should I do?" ”

"We need a period of peace for high-speed development, and this is the right time."

Zhao Jun said: "This year, our fleet has made sufficient preparations, we spent more than 3 million yuan for this trip, which is three times that of that year, and there should be no problem in bringing back rubber and cinchona cream next year." ”

"After the arrival of rubber and cinchona, the power of the steam engine provided a strong productive force, first to solve domestic demand, and then to expand externally, gradually forming a hegemon-level powerful empire in East Asia."

"Of course, it is still a long way to go, and I estimate that it will take decades just to solve domestic demand. It is impossible to build large-scale infrastructure, highways, and railways without 30 years. ”

"So we have to think about starting to prepare for the future."

He looked around and set the tone: "I'm going to make an eight-year plan, and everyone listens to it and tells us what they think. ”

"Eight-year plan?"

Zhao Zhen wondered: "Why eight years?" Didn't you say that you had a five-year plan before? ”

"Five years is more than enough to achieve and achieve future productivity, but this is in ancient times, eight years is short, and it may not be possible to complete it in ten years."

Zhao Jun shook his head.

"Okay, let's talk about it."

Zhao Zhen said.

"The first is infrastructure."

Zhao Jun looked at Fan Zhongyan, Yan Shu, Song Shou, Cai Qi, Jiang Tang, Zhang Shixun, Jia Changchao and others on the field, and slowly said: "Roads, bridges, canals, and canals will be built in all aspects, and in the next ten years, I want the Great Song Dynasty to enter the construction stage everywhere." ”

"It's not a small cost."

Cai Qi frowned and said: "In the case of comprehensive construction, I am afraid that the imperial court will spend an unknown amount of money every year." ”

"The budget is definitely very high, and the Ministry of Finance will calculate it when the time comes."

Zhao Jun said: "But now that our army has been restructured, the national defense budget has been reduced by half, plus the redundancy has been reduced, and 30 million yuan can be saved every year, which should be enough." ”

At this time, the price of grain in the Great Song Dynasty was getting cheaper and cheaper, only about 210 Wen was needed to calculate it, and it was always 770 Wen Yuan, which was almost able to buy 3.6 stones, which was equivalent to 349.2 kilograms of rice and wheat.

According to the price of 2 yuan and 1 catty of rice in later generations, the money is almost equal to 1,400 yuan, and the purchasing power of one penny is about 1.8 yuan.

In this way, 30 million guan is equivalent to 42 billion, which is a very huge price.

It's just that productivity is different, and it's still difficult to compare.

After all, when the Song Dynasty also had 35 yuan a pound of pork, it was impossible for future generations to have 63 yuan a pound of pork. So this comparison is limited to the necessities of basic survival, such as the price of rice, wheat, salt, food, and so on.

But on the whole, the Song Dynasty has always had no problem meeting the basic needs of a commoner for a year, even if it is a large project such as recruiting 300,000 people to repair the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, with a basic salary of 120 wen per day, plus other expenses, it will only cost 20 million yuan a year.

What's more, the overall project of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was basically completed in the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the Song Dynasty did not need to rebuild a canal connecting Beijing to Hangzhou like the Yuan Dynasty, but only needed to build a few more canals from other important economic regions to Bianliang, and the amount of work was much less.

Therefore, to sum up, the 30 million guan of the Great Song Dynasty is enough to hire 500,000 people to work 365 days a year every year.

Moreover, now the Great Song Dynasty is separated from the local and national finances, and about 30% of the annual tax is withheld by the local government for development, and the local wages may not be as high as Bianliang, and the expenses are not so large.

At that time, the number of people employed by the government will reach millions every year, and the imperial court will also stipulate that only poor tenants must be employed, and those who have permanent jobs and land will not be employed, or those who are on the poverty line.

In the next ten years, the landlords and tenants of the Great Song Dynasty will be cleared out and become migrant workers or tenants of the imperial court, so the land will be recovered, which is basically a certainty.

However, Zhao Jun did not say the deep-seated plan here, but just talked about the superficial plan, that is, the large infrastructure.

And the idea of big infrastructure construction is to grab people from the landlords, and then reclaim the land, he intends to hide it and complete it as a hidden task, and he can't tell everyone openly.

Otherwise, if it spreads, the landlords will know about the insidious scheme of the imperial court, and they will naturally try to avoid it, which is not good.

"Well, it's not a good thing that there's too much money, it has to be spent."

Everyone agrees on that.

In recent years, the financial revenue of the Great Song Dynasty has generally been on a downward trend.

Because since the second year of Qingli, the burden on the whole country has been greatly reduced, whether it is commercial tax or agricultural tax, the revenue has been much less.

But with the start of trade, tax revenues have risen year by year, and now they have risen to more than 80 million.

And with the increase in trade throughput, it is only a matter of time before this number exceeds 100 million in the next two or three years.

Sounds like a good thing.

However, last year, the Great Song Dynasty army was restructured, and Fan Zhongyan presided over the clean-up of redundant expenses, saving more than 20 million yuan in military spending alone every year.

The redundant expenses are mainly Zhao Zhen's court expenses, in the past, Guangdong and Fujian could buy two hairy crabs for a penny, but in Zhao Zhen's palace budget, it was one for a thousand yuan.

Although there are freight considerations, the cost will increase, but this exaggeration to two thousand times is also very unreasonable.

In the end, Fan Zhongyan found out a lot of huge greed from the palace, and even implicated Wang Shouzhong, but Wang Shouzhong was loyal after all, and he was greedy when he was greedy, and he was saved by Zhao Zhen.

Therefore, after the reform, there were more than 40 million guan left in the state treasury last year alone, plus the previous accumulation, as well as the profits that the current state-owned enterprises such as steel, textile, and maritime trade pay to Zhao Zhen's internal money every year, and the state treasury plus Zhao Zhen's internal treasury, there are still nearly 200 million yuan.

Of course, not all of them are copper coins, but all kinds of gold and silver jewelry, antique calligraphy and paintings, precious and rare things.

But even if you only count copper coins, there are still 100 million yuan.

Throwing so much money in the treasury will only rot and will not give full play to its value.

In the concept of national finance in later generations, the healthiest fiscal expenditure is that it is best to have a certain proportion of fiscal deficit every year, otherwise there will be insufficient consumption and overcapacity, which will lead to deflation, and the economy will continue to decline and fall into a vicious circle.

So too much money is actually a bad thing.

Zhao Jun had already told everyone about this, and when they heard that Zhao Jun was going to spend a lot of money, they had no objections.

Seeing that everyone agreed, Zhao Zhen nodded and said, "Well, that's good, we will build a big infrastructure this year." ”

"In addition to the big infrastructure, the taxes of the rich landlords should also be mentioned, these people save the money they make, or buy a lot of land, which will only cause harm to the country."

Zhao Jun suggested: "We should increase their tax ratio and increase the tax on land sales and transactions, so that they can spend all their money, otherwise everyone will save money and not spend it, the country will be deflationary, and it is useless to build productive forces." ”

"Then mention it."

Zhao Zhen didn't have the slightest opinion, and even eagerly said: "How about mentioning the previous ratio?" ”

"It's worthy of being an ancestor and grandson, brother, you are more ruthless than me."

Zhao Jun sighed.

If in the Ming Dynasty, when it came to collecting taxes from the landlords and wealthy households, from the emperor to the ministers, it would have to be noisy.

But not in the Song Dynasty.

Because the Song Dynasty has always been very fair - whether you are a rich landlord or a poor commoner, the court must empty your pockets.

The three-foot tax that scrapes the ground, let alone the people, the landlords and rich households can't bear it.

Therefore, there was little resistance to raising taxes in front of the emperor and ministers, which they had done before.

"Any other plans?"

Zhao Zhen asked again.

He didn't care about the deep-seated problems of big infrastructure and raising taxes, this kind of thing is not something that can be thought of by thinking about it, but needs to be carefully analyzed, Zhao Jun does not analyze, and none of them will consider the consequences.

"That's naturally for the future, rubber and cinchona trees can only be planted in the tropics and subtropics, and Southeast Asia is the best place."

Zhao Jun said: "I think we can attack Vietnam, wipe out the Li Viet Dynasty, we occupy the Hanoi Plain, organize agricultural production there, and in the future, rubber and cinchona trees will take root in Vietnam, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hainan and other places, so as to provide us with resources." ”

"Why do you have to fight Vietnam?"

"Because we have to occupy Vietnam, radiate the whole of Southeast Asia. The strategy of the Great Song Dynasty should be to control Southeast Asia first, actively try to develop, and bring maritime trade to the Middle East, Africa and Europe, and the importance of the shipping route does not need to be explained by me. ”

"Good!"

Zhao Zhen patted the case and said: "I have long been tired of the ambitions of the wolf son of the Li Dynasty, Great Song, send troops to attack Vietnam." ”

"Understood!"

Zhao Jun arched his hand and laughed.

This time, the two requirements have basically been met, and there is no resistance, and the new reform, the eight-year plan, is about to begin.

I had a cold and fever, and I felt delirious myself, and I didn't know what I was writing, but then it was a new reform and a war, and I had already taken medicine, and I hoped to recover in the next two days.

(End of chapter)