Chapter 786 Shen Kuo’s Diplomacy

The government of the Song Dynasty is certainly no more sinister than the smugglers who lick blood with their swords. Therefore, the two countries will definitely gain greater economic benefits than before in the exchange.

But similarly, the scale of trade that the Song Dynasty government was able to organize was not as small as the smuggling merchants.

So to put it bluntly, this is naked economic aggression. However, given that the two countries are still very backward, this kind of aggression has brought considerable benefits to both countries.

In this kind of trade, the Song Dynasty will greatly strengthen its control over the two countries and turn them into commodity dumping grounds. It must also carefully control the surplus. It must first support the two small countries and increase the happiness of its citizens.

sense and increase their consumption power, otherwise it will be impossible to exploit them even if they want to.

This is the essence of the matter and the reason why both countries are so grateful.

Suyou is so miserable. Not only do we have to worry about the country, we also have to worry about overseas. In order to do business, we must first cultivate trading partners. It's like a ghost.

Taira Masamori had no intention of going home. He just came here to deliver the letter because he was bored. He handed over Shao Bowen's letter: "Mr. Xiao Shao said that Ryukyu also has such a request."

Ping Zhengsheng is now a big fan of Shao Bowen. Who is Shao Bowen? Without the help of science and engineering, they are all people who know astronomy and geography. In later generations, five out of ten fortune tellers on the street use his signature!

To deceive a simple Japanese boy who dreams of building a career like Momotaro, you don't even have to open your mouth a few times.

Momotaro... Suyou felt that his nose was a little itchy, and the Heike's family crest turned into a butterfly resting on the peach.

Opening the letter, it was sent from Maluka two months ago. The observation team and the merchant fleet separated here, recruited local indigenous people, and sailed southwest along the archipelago.

The scientific research ship was loaded with a large amount of supplies, medicines, weapons and ammunition, fishing nets, ropes, construction tools, and various precision instruments, including sextants, compasses, huge telescopes, and even a state-of-the-art navigation clock.

In addition, it is also equipped with a large number of goods used to build good relations with the local indigenous people.

The fleet is equipped with fifty people, including navy soldiers, charcoal painters, astronomers, mineralogists, experienced farmers, doctors, accounting personnel, statistical talents... respectively from Si Tianjian, Sitong Trading Company, Hanlin

Courtyard, Taichang Temple.

There were even two reporters from Chao Bao and Liangzhe Newspaper.

The requirements are very high, and everyone must be a multi-talented expert to be qualified to board the ship.

Although Shao Bowen is young, he is the leader of this voyage, because this child is an all-rounder trained by Su Song, Chen Zhaoming and Su You.

If you can't do it with your hands, you can't do it with your brain.

In the letter, Shao Bowen was full of confidence in this voyage, saying that he had discovered that among the crops that the locals used as food, in addition to yam and taro, there was also an interesting thing, which was starch extracted from the heart of a palm plant.

I have sent a large package back.

There is also coconut. According to the method taught by the teacher, a beautiful oil-coconut oil can be easily extracted.

Su You learned about the local method of producing coconut oil from a later biography of a local entrepreneur in Bashu. Nawa and his girlfriend once played on a desert island for fifty days, and finally managed to interpret half of the history of Chinese civilization.

Su You felt that if Li Erpi from the ravine had crossed over, he might have done no worse than him.

It's a pity that I have already traveled through time and met such an expert and missed him. What a pity...

In short, being able to obtain starch and oil from the local area, plus fish protein, life can basically be sustainable. This is the origin of Shao Bowen's confidence.

The letter also said that he heard from the guide that there were cannibals and headhunters in the area, and he had a slight headache. The rest seemed to be fine so far.

The starry sky is obviously different from that in the northern hemisphere, but the fleet is moving and there is no fixed observation. It only divides the general constellations. The latest star map is also enclosed with the letter.

The letter ended here. Ping Zhengsheng asked: "Did Mr. Xiao Shao say when he would be back?"

Su You smacked his mouth: "Ximi Lu, what a good thing... ah? I don't know, I will be out there, and I will not accept your life, and he may not listen to my words."

Taira Masamori was dumbfounded: "Then when will we go back to Japan to catch ghosts?"

Su You patted his shoulder: "Pingwa, ghosts are all in people's hearts. If you want to catch ghosts, you have to drive them out of people's hearts. Just wait a little longer. It won't take more than this year."

Year."

Ping Zhengsheng: "..."

Bianjing, Shen Kuo finally came back.

This child was originally sent by Zhao Xu to inspect Hebei. As a result, the Liao State sent Xiao Xi to negotiate the ownership of the Huangwei land in Hedong. Zhao Xu ordered Han Zhen to be responsible for the reception. The two sides often argued until late at night.

Xiao Xi insisted on using the Huangwei Mountain watershed as the boundary between the two countries, but Lai refused to leave at the embassy and told Zhao Xu: "We will not go back until our requirements are met."

Zhao Xu had no choice but to call Shen Kuo back. You are one of the top map experts in the Song Dynasty. You should join the negotiating delegation.

Shen Kuo did not start with a map. Instead, he went to the Privy Council to consult old documents and collected documents related to territorial negotiations between the Song Dynasty and the Liao Kingdom over the years. Finally, he discovered that the border between Song and Liao had always been divided by the ancient Great Wall!

Now the Huangwei Mountain that the two countries are fighting over is more than thirty miles south of the Great Wall, which makes no sense at all.

Zhao Xu was overjoyed and praised Shen Kuo: "The minister did not pay attention to the root cause, and he made several mistakes in state affairs."

So he ordered Shen Kuo to draw a picture and show it to Xiao Xi. Xiao Xi finally had nothing to say.

Seeing that things were progressing, Zhao Xu simply left the two masters alone and gave Shen Kuo a thousand taels of platinum and asked him to go on a mission to the Liao Kingdom to express the Song Dynasty's opinions to the senior officials of the Liao Kingdom.

After Shen Kuo arrived in the Liao Kingdom, Yang Zunxu, the deputy privy envoy of the Liao Kingdom, was responsible for contacting him. Shen Kuo had made full preparations beforehand. He compiled dozens of records of local lawsuits over the years and asked each of his followers to recite a few of them.

At this time, Yang Zunxu asked something, and Shen Kuo only needed to look at him, and his attendants came out and answered with documents.

It would be too much to expect the Liao Kingdom to keep documents as well as the Song Dynasty. After Yang Zunxu returned to the Privy Council, he was furious. The document left in his country could not be found!

So we could only do repeated random checks, and the results of the Song Dynasty were all consistent. Yang Zunxu couldn't deal with it, so he had to play tricks like Xiao Xi: "You cherish the land for miles and miles, and you are reluctant to give it to us, but you are willing to abandon the alliance between the two countries, okay?"

I'm afraid it will be detrimental to your country..."

Shen Kuo replied: "The direct teacher is the strong one, and the weak one is the old one. Today, the Liao Kingdom has abandoned the great faith of your ancestors and used its power to use its own people. I am afraid this will not be detrimental to our country, but only to your country."

The talks were held six times, and Shen Kuo was reasonable every time. The Liao State was unreasonable. In the end, they had to abandon Huangwei Mountain and asked Tianchi further north to be the national border. Shen Kuo then returned with the Liao State's wishes.

This boy inherited the fine tradition of his brother from the Su Song clan. Along the way, he blatantly surveyed the geography of the Liao Kingdom and drew dangerous and tortuous shapes of mountains and rivers, but the Liao people didn't care!

Well, it's not that I don't care. After checking it several times, Shen Kuo opened the record album. It was full of strange numbers. I really couldn't understand it!

It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I can’t control it!

That would be even better. Shen Kuo became more and more unscrupulous. In the end, he even sent his followers directly to inspect the folk customs, human relations, the scale of the local economy, and finally even the number of garrison troops.

The team moved slower and slower, and the Liao people couldn't stand it anymore, so they sent two cavalrymen to trap the Song envoy and "send them out of the country with gifts."

After returning to the Song Dynasty, Shen Kuo immediately went to Si Tianjian and drew the "Picture of Envoys to Khitan". He also used wood ash clay and imitated the sand table method to make a topographic map of the mountains and rivers of the Liao Kingdom.

Zhao Xu issued an edict to worship Shen Kuo as a Hanlin scholar and Quan as the third envoy.

When Su You received the news, he was extremely happy and said to Zhang Dun: "If all the diplomatic envoys of the Song Dynasty were as shameless as Shen Cunzhong, then I would be relieved."

In March, Shen Qi, the magistrate of Guizhou, plotted to capture Jiaozhi. Claiming to have received a secret order from Zhao Xu, he sent officials to Xidong to gather native soldiers to serve as security guards. He was given formation plans and made to study every year.

Then he ordered people to use the excuse of supervising the transportation of sea salt to gather the boatmen and teach water warfare. He also ordered people to trade with the prefectures and counties, and prohibited all trade.

Zhang Fangping went to Qingzhou as the envoy of Xuanhui Beiyuan. Before leaving, the emperor asked Fangping about his ancestors' strategy to control the army. Zhang Fangping replied: "In recent years, the border ministers have proposed to open up the country. They are all people who take risks for the sake of luck. They want to keep the world safe." Give it a try and throw it. If it succeeds, you will benefit from it. If it fails, your majesty will let you suffer. Don't listen to it."
Chapter completed!