Chapter 379: History changes quietly

At the end of the year in the early 12th century, the Nanyang Affairs Bureau of the Song Dynasty mentioned that Zhao Xing presented a map to the court. This map of Nanyang included more than a dozen newly occupied islands, plus the Jaffna Peninsula where the South China Ocean traveled with the throat. With the experience of bonito, the Song Dynasty's handling of overseas enclaves gradually matured. This time, the lightning movement of the candidates of the managers, seeking the position of overseas governor, which quickly cut off the newly occupied overseas territory. These new officials hurried south to Hangzhou with the notices issued by the Ministry of Personnel and reported to the Overseas Affairs Bureau. When they arrived in Hangzhou, they were not Zhao Xing, the head of the Nanyang Affairs Bureau, but the dereliction of duty, Wan Qi Yong.

"The Taiwei has gone to Xiuzhou. If you want to be the Taiwei, you must wait until the winter solstice." Wanqi Yong raised his face and replied: "During this period, you can choose to go to Guangzhou, where there is a Colonial Affairs Department established by the Nanyang Affairs Bureau. There are some training subjects that you must know. Of course, if you are unwilling to stay in Guangzhou, the Affairs Department also has some textbooks for everyone to learn."

These new governors in Nanyang heard that the rank of governors is profitable, and they specially spent a lot of money to buy new officials. They were not afraid of the difficulties and harsh climate conditions in Nanyang, and dared to spend money to buy this official. In the best way, they were to expand territory and defend the Song Dynasty, and in the worst way, these were all corrupt officials with a merchant temperament. When they went to Nanyang, they thought that most of the new territory in Nanyang was on the road of trade and were trade free zones. Guangdong was the first, and every governor made a fortune, so they specially moved to seize this official position.

This is the first time that the Nanyang Affairs Bureau has selected officials from the court. Many officials thought that the living conditions in Nanyang were worse than those in Guangdong, and the phenomenon that the demoted officials in Guangdong passed away one after another made them hesitate. Most officials have not woken up yet and understand that those who have come here are smart people, and some of the families are involved in business. So they are reluctant to stay in Guangzhou and waste time. Many people are hesitating. One of them is a bold person who bows to the truth: "Mr. Wanqi, I heard that Nanyang has a difficult journey. Although there is a navy escort, it is best to have a boat at home in the deep island country... I wonder what the current price of the ship in Hangzhou is?"

It takes a lot of intelligence to understand the words between literati. This person actually means asking: As the governor of Nanyang, we happen to be on the trade route, can we own our own fleet?

Of course, with their own fleet, they will inevitably hire sailors from China. After all, it is still worthy of trust among the Song Dynasty. What these Song Dynasty sailors are most familiar with is to operate ships produced in their own country. If these officials want to work on their own ships, they will not have time to study at the Guangnan Colonial Affairs Department...

Wan Qiyong replied: "Oh, the ship price in Hangzhou has risen sharply recently, and a ship has risen to around 100,000 yuan. As for sailors... I advise you to hire them from Fujian. Perhaps there are some remaining sailors in Guangzhou, but the price is already outrageous. As for Hangzhou, the shipyard shipbuilding orders have been fully booked within this year, and the sailors have no spare time."

The Song Dynasty originally had two types of ships, one was a Guangzhou ship made in Guangzhou, and the other was a Fu Ship made in Quanzhou, Fujian. Among them, the Guang Ship had a little Arabic flavor, but like the Fu Ship, they were both hard sailboats. And there was no rudder wheel, and the anchor was not made of iron, but stone, which was called "mountain stone". However, with a slight change in history, the Song Dynasty's ship shape had another school of ships - a completely three-masted soft sailboat.

The first place of this type of ship was Hainan, but because Hangzhou is adjacent to the Central Plains and is at the starting point of the Grand Canal, although its annual shipbuilding volume is far less than that of Hainan Island. However, people still named this type of ship "Hangzhou Ship".

Originally, Fu Ship and Guang Ship were stacked with wooden boards and connected with the boards by tying. This kind of ship was more suitable for sailing nearshore. However, when entering the Indian Ocean, the huge waves in the Indian Ocean made it sinking rate higher. Modern salvagers gathered in the South China Sea and called the South China Sea a golden salvage route because the number of shipwrecks on this route was huge, and it was loaded with Song Dynasty porcelain and cargo.

At present, Hangzhou ships are the only suitable ship to enter the Indian Ocean, which also makes the ships produced by the Hainan and Hangzhou Shipbuilding Bureaus controlled by Zhao Xing in short supply. These new officials are all active and broad-minded. After they got their official positions, they rushed to Hangzhou all the way to buy new ships and hire sailors.

Just now, Wan Qi Yong's words were equivalent to agreeing to these new masters and servants to form their own fleets. This behavior violated the laws of the court in the Song Dynasty, and the court did not allow officials to participate in maritime trade. In addition, the organization of these officials themselves would affect the trade volume of ordinary merchants. There was even a possibility of corruption and abuse of power, which happened to be something Zhao Xing tried his best to eliminate in China. However, he opened this opening on his post as the governor of the foreign country.

Wanqiyong once specifically asked Zhao Xing about this issue. Zhao Xing's answer was - "There is a difference between inside and outside. Overseas hardships, why did I implement the rule of the Song Dynasty overseas? It is only beneficial. Besides, when they go overseas, they exploited the land of foreigners, and the money they exploited was transported back to the Song Dynasty to enjoy. During this period, they still have to pay taxes on my Song Dynasty. Why should I worry about the happiness of the foreigners? Let them be greedy, and it is best to move the wealth of the foreigners back to the Song Dynasty."

It is said that after Zhao Xing finished speaking, the officials present were speechless, which also made Wan Qi Yong's meaning vague when answering the words of the new governor, but the encouragement and indulgence in it could be smelled with his nose.

These new governors were overjoyed. After bowing away, they immediately rushed to the Hangzhou Shipbuilding Bureau and spent a lot of money to make a boat on their own... It seems that now, under the management of the Nanyang Affairs Bureau, there is no threshold for sea trade. You can buy a boat or shrimp to go south. Therefore, the price of Hangzhou ships has been astonishingly high.

At the same time, Zhao Xing was leading Li Jie to inspect Xiuzhou. Xiuzhou in the Song Dynasty was not a prosperous city. Due to the previous trade controls, it was not a county where the Maritime Bureau was located, and there was no right to trade land. The land on the seaside was severely salinized and was not suitable for farming. Therefore, the population of coastal cities was not large. The population was small, and the income was small. In addition, the land near the sea was often affected by typhoons, so most people could not stand their feet, and only some salt farmers could survive.

Originally, Xiuzhou had a prosperous salt industry and still had a little population, but after Zhao Xing opened the salt market in Guangdong, ordinary people could also operate salt trade. This phenomenon caused Xiuzhou's salt industry to shrink sharply, and Huating, a small county near the sea, had a sparse population, which seemed to be increasingly deteriorating.

With broken walls, gray-yellow earthen houses, bumpy roads, yellow-faced and thin people, and blind eyes like walking corpses, Zhao Xing looked at everything in front of him and sighed. Su Dun, the magistrate of Huating beside him, also sighed. Li Jie followed, "What a pity. It's a piece of lying on the ground."

In the bleak autumn sunshine, Zhao Xing squinted his eyes and looked at the people of Huating, shook his head in despair and said, "There is insufficient popularity! The desert is doing people's business, and the population base here is not enough to support a large market. If you want to develop Huating, it will take ten years. This time is longer than conquering a Liao Kingdom."

Su Dun sighed disappointed. Li Jie said regretfully: "This place is adjacent to the estuary of the Yangtze River, which is better than Hangzhou. Hangzhou has Qiantang tide and cannot be navigated for several months every year, and it can be navigated all year round. And when it is stored here, you can reach Yangzhou from the estuary of the Yangtze River. In terms of convenience, there is no better place than here."

Zhao Xing looked at the nearby street scene and said slowly: "Then, we will build a free trade port without city walls. I am going to move the Navy yamen here and then build a deep-water wharf here. I believe that Huating Maritime Shipping Service will surpass Hangzhou in the future and become the largest port in the world."

Li Jie interrupted slowly: "This may take a hundred years of construction."

"In terms of geographical advantages, industry advantages, and in terms of ability to communicate with the mainland, Huating is unique. Let's do it. Instead of sitting and talking about the truth, it is better to get up and do it..." Zhao Xing made up his mind resolutely.

In this year, the Clark ship officially appeared, and the European navigation industry transitioned to a land load capacity of 500 tons, which is the era of a thousand-material sea ship in the Song Dynasty. In this year, Europe's navigation ability caught up with the Song Dynasty. Because of this innovative ability of the Europeans, the European navy achieved overwhelming new advantages against Arab warships.

This year, Hainan Shipbuilding Bureau finally made a breakthrough and created a 1,500-stock warship. This load capacity has reached the era when Columbus sailed to the Americas. This new type of warship is known as the "Sea Wolf" class. Sea Wolf is the name of the Song people for sharks.

After inspecting Huating County, Zhao Xing led Chao Buzhi to board the Seawolf warship moored outside Huating. The warship was even larger in size, with five floors above the water surface. Zhao Xing followed the captain of the Seawolf land and inspected the new warship layer by layer, and praised: "I checked it. Two-story gun cabins, each of our warships can be loaded with 146 guns. That's great. With these warships, I don't have to worry about the Arabs."

Chao Buzhi asked curiously: "Li Ren, you have been in Southeast Asia for more than half a year. Haven't you ever fought with the Arabs - did you go there with this idea?"

Zhao Xing casually stroked a steel cannon and replied: "We went to Nanyang and were only intimidated by the Three Buddhas. Then the country transferred the Sri Lanka's sovereignty to us. I know they were dissatisfied, but they gathered their strength to fight me. It would take at least one year, let's go, we have food to eat slowly.

In Sri Lanka, we occupied Jaffna, and the southern line had cut off the retreat of the invading army of Zhunian. I visited the temple with great fanfare in Colombo. After Zhunian found out, he immediately withdrew from Lanka. At this moment, Sri Lanka was unified. With this small island in the Indian Ocean, our route to Africa was unobstructed, but the Arabs were not willing to give up. The most powerful part of the Arab navy was on the southern line. Because the white people occupied most of the fertile land on the northern line, the Arabs could not find good wood to build ships, so their navy was not strong, and that route went to the Mediterranean without any ocean treks, so their sailors were not as experienced as those of the southern sailors.

The south is located in the tropical zone, and there is a large amount of high-quality wood for shipbuilding. Moreover, the sect leader of the southern route was in the Song Dynasty. Therefore, the skilled sailors of the Arabs' southern route were ten times that of the northern route, and their local naval forces were ten times that of the northern route.

We are not a good time to challenge the Arabs now. At least we have to wait until they gather all their strength so that we can fight a war with them. Otherwise, the war will continue for years and I will not have so much spare time to waste with them. So I asked Chen Buqun and the Arab merchants to sign an agreement in Colombo and returned.

The agreement stipulated that our Song merchant ship sailed to Jaffna, and the west of Colombo was run by the Arabs. This agreement must be true, and we have barely opened up the route to Africa. My commitment to the merchants in Guangzhou has been fulfilled.

The Arabs have dominated the Southeast Asian countries for thousands of years, and suddenly they have a share of the Song merchants. They must be reluctant in their hearts. I guess those Arab merchants will fan the flames in private. In less than three to five years, we will eventually fight the Arabs."

Chao Buzhi was puzzled: "Didn't you sign an agreement with them? Will they take the lead in tearing up the agreement?"

Zhao Xing shook his head gently: "You don't know the habits of the Arabs. In their habits, the agreements reached with the enemy need not be kept, and the promises to the enemy are not promises. As long as he regards you as an enemy in his heart, he will immediately tear up the agreement with confidence. The next moment of tearing the agreement. If he decides that you are a friend again, he will immediately ask you to abide by the agreement with confidence."

Chao Buzhi said: "It turns out that the agreement is just a piece of waste paper."

"Before the agreement is torn, it is still an agreement," Zhao Xing patted the cannon body and continued: "During this period, the Arabs will definitely actively prepare for war, and we must continue to create new warships and new weapons, which can guarantee our voice. Arabia is not a small country, and its northern fleet also needs the entire Europe to gather strength to compete. Therefore, during this period, I also need to gather all the forces in the Nanyang Affairs Bureau."

Chao Buzhi looked at the warship in front of him. After pondering for a while, he said: "According to current technology, such a large warship can sail to the extreme north sea - you have said that more than a hundred years ago, some people in Europe arrived in the extreme north continent and found a land that was more than ten times larger than the entire Song Dynasty. The land was fertile and rich in resources, right?"

The reason why Columbus arrived on the American continent with a 700-ton Clark warship was because the cargo capacity of this kind of warship could be maintained for several months. Navigation in the sea is no more than land. All supplies need to be carried with the ship, and each crew member needs at least five kilograms of fresh water every day. In addition to a few foods, each person's supply is roughly calculated based on ten kilograms a day. One hundred people a ship needs to consume one ton of load capacity every day. Only a 700-ton warship can allow the crew to find the next supply point in the vast sea. Therefore, the world recognizes that the load capacity of a ship reaches 700 tons is a threshold, which crosses this threshold. It means that the era of navigation has arrived.

In the time and space without Zhao Xing, the warships of the Song Dynasty have been hovering around 500 tons. Even if warships with larger loads occur by chance, due to their unstable reliability, the Song Shangs cannot achieve the goal of large-scale navigation. Now, a new era has arrived, the era of large-scale navigation.

That's right, the Song Dynasty is now rampant with corrupt officials. Under the unspoken rules, 100% of the officials are corrupt officials, who more or less put state funds into their pockets. At the same time, the Song Dynasty struggled hard on the road of commercial civilization, and the pursuit of commercial civilization is fairness and justice, which is called the "contract spirit".

Without Zhao Xing, the rise of the Hu people in the north and the decay of fiscal revenue and expenditure led the Song Dynasty to fall into the abyss of decline. Now, Zhao Xing's actions have prevented the Song Dynasty from affecting tax revenue due to the war of the Crusaders. Therefore, the only hidden danger encountered by the Song Dynasty was the strong enemy in the north.

In this year, under the strategy of Zhao Xing's past, the northern part of the Song Dynasty planted trees widely, and the forests on the Shaanxi-Gansu grassland gradually recovered. After obtaining two thousand Vermilion Bird Army, Fan Chuncui was braver than normal history. He was in power and did not make people frequently harass Xixia, causing the envoys who complained to Xixia to continue on the road one after another.

Because of the existence of Zhao Xing, Song Huizong did not be particularly humble to the people of Xixia like in normal history, and only seek peace. The continuous expansion of the territory of the Nanyang Ocean and the stable financial growth of newly opened market departments in various places made him particularly brave. Fan Chuncui's humiliation of Xixia was nothing in his opinion, because he had not transferred the tiger of the Song Dynasty back to Huanqing, so he disagreed with the Privy Council and allowed the Privy Council to torture and ravage the envoys of Xixia.

The Privy Council's attitude towards the envoys of the Western Xia was also different from that of normal history. In normal history, the old party gained power and became one of the old party's representatives. In order to show their benevolence and righteousness, the old party, which had won absolute voice, was tolerant of the people of the Western Xia and even overly accommodating. But now, with the support of Zhao Xing, the new party has not been completely cleaned up.

A group of eyebrow opponents stared at it, and the old party in charge of the Privy Council did not dare to do too much. Under the compromise of the various parties, the Privy Council's attitude towards Xixia was also cold and tried to adopt a procrastination attitude. On the one hand, it turned a blind eye to the other and allowed Fan Chun to torture the people of Xixia, and on the other hand, it began to store a large amount of gunpowder.

Because of Zhao Xing's insistence, the military weapon supervisor lowered his head for the first time and allowed commercial factors to participate in the production of ordnance. They adopted the bidding system for gunpowder. Although the winner was still the firearm production bureau under Chen Yiyi's name, as soon as this opening opened, the people began to study firearm manufacturing.

The wheels of history are moving slowly. In general, it begins to move towards a positive direction. Because the new and old parties in the North Korea coexist, and after hearing Zhao Xing's words, the young emperor no longer attacked the one-sided faction due to differences in speech and policy propositions, so the party struggle had to turn to anti-corruption. Corruption and bribery became a weapon in the hands of both parties. It was used to attack the other party's capable officials and backbone of the party.

Because of this, the division of the court gradually changed. Corruption was not as unscrupulous as when a party was in power. Officials in the world were cautious, fearing that they would be caught by their political enemies... As a result, this year, the political arena of the Song Dynasty seemed particularly honest, and even many unspoken rules gradually stopped.

At the end of this year, Zhao Xing continued to inspect the areas under his jurisdiction. He began to vigorously promote the Lantian Township Agreement and support local fellow villagers to supervise officials. This move won the great favor of Luoxue and Guanxue in Shaanxi. The newly won Jinshi in the court sought official positions in various places under Zhao Xing and performed hard in local offices. In order to win Zhao Xing's attention and recommendation, immediately afterwards, thanks to the praise and praise of these two major schools, the "Guangxue" founded by Zhao Xing, or "Hangxue", gradually became one of the important schools of the Song Dynasty, and even became a local academic in the southeast.

Gradually, history changes became increasingly greater, and the storm caused by the flapping of the wings of butterflies gradually formed. In the Song Dynasty, scholars no longer became a taboo in business, and Tong Guan's selling of official positions inadvertently allowed merchants to find a new way - from business to scholars. Relying on their own wealth, they bought an official and became a gentry class... But now, their status as a gentry is useless.

Originally, the greatest interest of the gentry class was tax exemption, but after Zhao Xing introduced the "Gentlemen's Integrated Tax Payment Order", they no longer enjoyed the power of tax exemption. Although the development of maritime trade made their profits more abundant, and their real estate did not need to pay taxes as before. This made their resistance not strong, but after depriving the privilege of paying taxes, the only benefit of gentry in coastal provinces and cities was equality, and equality in the process of interacting with officials.

The "Gentlemen's Tax Payment Order" brought about the increase in taxes. Song Huizong saw it. This young monarch who likes to be glamorous and enjoys is willing to promote the Gentlemen's Tax Payment Order in the Mainland. However, because the mainland gentry did not have the convenience of maritime trade, they tried their best to oppose the promotion of this decree. As a result, the entire Song Dynasty showed a situation of one country, two systems. The coastal areas, especially the southern coastal areas, were implemented south of the Yangtze River. The supporting measures included the "Sacred Contract Order", the "Sacred Contract Order", and the "Patent Law" promoted by the "Copyright Law"...

At the same time, the inland areas also implemented a semi-serfdom and semi-commercial social system in which gentry enjoyed privileges.

In this year, in addition to salt and tea tax, 80% of the world's taxes came from the coast. This also made the officials in the Jinglu area no longer the highest-level officials of the Song Dynasty. Many scholars could not enter the court after the imperial examination, and did not seek officials from the Jinglu area. Instead, the officials in the southern coastal areas became the most popular. Of course, due to the implementation of the Blue Sky Convention for the People's Political Consultation of the People in the Southern Coast, these areas welcomed the disciples of Guanxue, Luoxue and Guangxue the most.

The atmosphere of the Song Dynasty was changing, and the weapons were also changing. At the end of that year, 12,000 Guangjie troops moved to Hangzhou began to change their clothes. The newly redesigned musket was completely the same as the modern rifle. The only regret was that it was equipped with a smoothbore gun, using a fixed shell gunpowder, and the firing rate could be increased to ten rounds per minute.

Unlike the Ming Dynasty, all weapons were collected and put into warehouses. The Song Dynasty was soldier's weapons were distributed to the hands. In some places, there were even traces of the Tang Dynasty's military system, such as the use of weapons, armor and war horses. This made the old-style muskets that Zhao Xing had eliminated after the first few rounds of gear replacements. With the major changes in the past year, the hunters of the Song Dynasty also threw away the crossbows and began to equip muskets. This action was slowly advancing. At the beginning, the family members of the utility first used muskets and grenades, and then, ordinary hunters also had the ability to buy old-style muskets. An era of gunpowder has really come.

With armed forces among the people, conquering such a country is no longer easy. However, when the villagers discuss politics, the clans come forward to conduct vertical management, and the people's wishes have been expressed. This makes them rarely think of picking up guns to fight against powerful governments. Public security cases in various places have dropped sharply. Originally, in small counties, fifteen archers could not completely suppress the riots in the county, but now, the burdens of those archers have become much lighter, because the clans have spontaneously participated in county government management.

The changes in 1100 years were great. In this year, the land of the earth also changed greatly. Countless countries were established, countless countries were destroyed, countless national reforms, and countless inventions and creations were established. In the first year of the twelfth century, the world's Song Dynasty was the biggest change. When later generations talked about this year, they often said that the beginning of the twelfth century was the first candle of the New Year by the Song Dynasty in Asia.

The first candle of the New Year was not lit by Zhao Xing, but by Zhang Yi. This slave-born and self-taught great scholar of the Song Dynasty specially accompanied a group of Guanxue disciples to the south and lit the first beacon of Wansong Academy in Hangzhou. At this time, Su Shi's second son Su Ding had already fallen under Guanxue and studied with Zhang Yi.

A slave became a master of contemporary scholarship, which was unimaginable in other dynasties, and could only be realized in the Song Dynasty. Because under the order of the Heavenly Saint, except for the Qingzhou slaves, the other slaves in the Song Dynasty were all employed slaves, that is, workers in the modern sense. When Zhang Yi was a slave, he did not enter the slave in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Therefore, after the employment period expired, he left as a free person. In other words, even when he was a slave, he was still a free person. Therefore, the scholars present did not underestimate this slave.

Zhang Yi lit the beacon, turned around and smiled and bowed to Zhao Xing: "Zhao Zong is humble, let me ignite this beacon, I am very ashamed. In terms of knowledge, I am not as good as Zhao Zong. Every time Zhao Zong governs a place, he makes the people rich, and makes farmers walk on silk shoes, mulberry women wear silk clothes, and Zhao Zong lit gold hands. He is famous in the Song Dynasty. The theory of unity of knowledge and action is admired by the nobles. It is rare that Zhao Zong still maintains a humble heart today. He is far inferior to you, and he is very regretful!"

What Zhang Yi said was that there was once a chance that Zhao Xing could stand at the top of the court, but he would rather retire and manage the place; Zhao Xing's poems were famous in the Song Dynasty, but he only wanted to be quiet in trivial government affairs every day. Compared to Zhao Xing, Zhang Yi was only a slave, never participated in the imperial examination, and was not even a tribute scholar. However, Zhao Xing asked him to ignite the bright light of the academy. This honor and humility alone made Zhang Yi admire him.

Zhang Yi didn't know that he was the star Zhao Xing looked up to in later generations. It was precisely because of this psychology that Zhao Xing was particularly humble to the celebrities of the Song Dynasty and did not care about the fame he left in the Song Dynasty - all of them were famous by plagiarism. Compared with the brilliance created by the Song people themselves, what is there to be proud of?
Chapter completed!