The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

After the Liao Kingdom was merged into the territory of the Song Dynasty, all the capital roads in the original Liao Kingdom were renamed roads, such as Shangjing Road to Shangjing Road, Tokyo Road to Tokyo Road, etc., and the jurisdiction remained unchanged; Granted the post of guarding the frontier, Fan Zhongyan went to Dongjin Road to recruit appeasement envoys, while Han Qi was stationed on Tokyo Road; on this matter, Zhao Zhen's attitude is clear, meritorious deeds can be rewarded, but the previous punishment cannot be ignored , can be a local official, but will never be allowed to enter Beijing as an official, let alone return to the center.

The generals of the Northwest Army led by Su Jin became the biggest winners. Jing Tai was promoted to be the Minister of the Ministry of War and also served as the envoy of Qinzhou Road. Pan Jiang was transferred to the post of Minister of the Ministry of Punishment. All other soldiers of the Northwest Army who came back alive were promoted and scattered into various armies as generals; the soldiers who died in battle also received generous pensions from the court.

Due to his meritorious service in pacifying Nong Zhigao and supporting Su Jin, Di Qing was appointed as the Deputy Privy Envoy. Some people objected, but Su Jin strongly recommended him. With Su Jin's influence at this time, he did not say a single word, but said a word. It is true that there are not many people who dare to blatantly disagree; the biggest obstacle for Di Qing to serve as the deputy privy envoy is the same as that encountered by Su Jin at the beginning. The reason is that Su Jin is not upset about this, so he supports Di Qing's superior position.

However, the appointment of Su Jin has not come down for a long time. Different versions are circulating, and there are many speculations in the folk circles. mystery.

Half a month later, the mystery was revealed. As most people expected, Du Yan was dismissed from the position of privy envoy and appointed as the prince's junior teacher and Qi Guogong. At the age of 24, Su Jin became the youngest in Song Dynasty. The privy envoy, Du Yanzai, was hesitant when discussing a counterattack against the Liao Kingdom, and almost missed the opportunity of the battle. His resignation was an inevitable result, which was completely expected by everyone.

But what most people didn't expect was that Zhang Yaozuo, the magistrate of Kaifeng Prefecture, was appointed as the deputy envoy of the Privy Council, Tongzhi Pingzhang. , Concubine Zhang's pillow style worked. Taking advantage of this major adjustment of the team, Zhao Zhen also played a trick. Taking advantage of the adjustment of personnel, Zhang Yaozuoan inserted into the center.

For this reason, Bao Zheng and other admonishers strongly opposed it. After a few days of verbal confrontation, it was Yan Shu who came forward to calm the anger of Bao Zheng and others by using the reason of not wanting to affect Su Jin's appointment as a reason for persuasion.

In order to find a balance, Zhao Zhen appointed Bao Zheng as the Governor of Kaifeng to succeed Zhang Yaozuo, and at the same time retain the position of Yushi Zhongcheng; Bao Zheng was indignant and refused to resign, Su Jin tried every means to persuade Bao Zheng to agree to take up the position. Weaken Zhang Yaozuo's power.

The appointment of Su Jin is more than that. In addition to the important position of Privy Envoy, Yan Shu also served as the Third Division Envoy in honor. However, he publicly expressed his lack of energy in the court, and the power of the Third Division was handed over to Su Jin, the deputy envoy of the Third Division. In view of Su Jin's contribution and methods in the fiscal and taxation of the Great Song Dynasty, Zhao Zhen was also very happy to let Su Jin accept the financial and recover from the post-war depression as soon as possible.

Su Jin understands that the top priority at the moment should be shifted from the military to production recovery and financial relief. The annexation of a large area of ​​land and population in the Liao Kingdom also brought a huge burden. The increase in the population of nearly 2000 million brought even more serious problems challenge, and the 2000 million people of the original Liao Kingdom are in a state of displacement.

Most of the cities of Shangjing Road and Tokyo Road were burned, and now they belong to the Song Dynasty, and these places need to be rebuilt.

Everything boils down to one thing, and that is the generation of financial income; in addition to actively implementing the development and reform department's land reclamation and self-retention policy, more sources of money are needed.

After handing over the Department of Development and Reform to Li Zhong, Li Zhong gave full play to his strengths. It was not easy to make a balance between the tight funds and a large number of projects. In order to alleviate all the contradictions and pressures , Su Jin decided to bear the pain and give up the big cake of overseas trade, dedicating it to the state.

When Su Ji opened up overseas trade and made a lot of money, all the major merchants in the Song Dynasty also focused on this cake. During the war, Su Ji only had time to send a fleet to sail again. Before returning, All major merchants have gathered hundreds of ships to follow Su Ji's fleet for the third voyage to the ocean.

Su Jin once again proposed the establishment of a shipping department to manage overseas trade. This time, Zhao Zhen readily agreed. He already knew that Su Ji had opened the waterway. Su Jin didn't agree to it. At the moment when Su Jin took the initiative to raise this matter, Zhao Zhen was also surprised and moved. He has always been in his impression that Su Jin is a capable official, but Su Jin's money-making is also Notoriously, he also made a lot of money under the banner of the imperial court. Zhao Zhen also used different methods to extract money from Su Jin's pocket. One of the tricks was to let Su Jin die on its own. .

But at this time, Su Jin's impression on him has changed a lot. From the moment Su Jin was willing to take the risk of bringing 20 horses to the hinterland of Liao Kingdom, Zhao Zhen had a new understanding of Su Jin. He was not only a capable official , not only a guy who loves money, but also a person who can stand up to the righteousness. This time he took the initiative to talk about nationalizing overseas trade, which made Zhao Zhen firm in his opinion.

Out of consideration for Su Jin's compensation, Zhao Zhen tentatively proposed to involve Su Ji, but Su Jin flatly refused, because Zhao Zhen completely misunderstood what he meant. Trade, this is exactly the opposite of the policy of encouraging merchants to enrich the people and the country. Su Jin just wants to establish and improve the city shipping department, open multiple ports, and encourage private merchants to trade, so as to collect tariffs for the import and export of commodities. This is the long-term future. The way of money; if the country organizes a fleet to go out to sea for trade, although it will be profitable in a short period of time, it will not be conducive to the overall economic vitality of the Song Dynasty in the long run.

After explaining for a long time, Zhao Zhen finally understood what Su Jin meant. He realized that the gap between himself and Su Jin was not 01:30. In order not to show his ignorance, he pretended to be generous and told Su Jin: " From now on, if Aiqing has an idea, all she needs to do is to play it out, and I won't refuse anything, and there is no need to explain to me, I just need to know that what you do is for the sake of Da Song."

This is what Su Jin wanted, and with Zhao Zhen's words at the bottom, he can unscrupulously implement all the thoughts in his heart.

Su Jin immediately ordered to set up shipping divisions in Guangzhou, Mingzhou, Quanzhou, Hangzhou, Mizhou, Huating and other places to comprehensively manage overseas trade. All imported and exported goods will be subject to one-tenth tariffs. Private merchants are interested in this , can be reported to the record, but if the smuggling is not guaranteed and the goods are confiscated, they must be punished in accordance with the newly added commercial penalty clauses of the Song Xingtong; Encourage them to take the initiative to do business with Dasong General Aviation, and tariffs will be included in the account between the exchanges.

In September of the second year of Huangyou alone, more than 530 ships sailed in and out of various ports. In this month, the Municipal Shipping Department imported more than 150 million yuan in tariffs, which shocked the officials of the third department and Zhao Zhen and others. .

The four national highways were nearing completion. In order to repay the issued national bonds, Li Zhong ordered toll booths to be set up every fifty miles, with a sign saying toll repayment, and to set up public cargo stations and a public transportation system for human transportation between intervals on the national highways.

Commercial tax revenues in various markets are also gradually increasing. By the end of the second year of Huangyou, the fiscal revenue of the Song Dynasty reached 7000 million guan. Although various expenditures reached 1000 million, there was still a deficit of 4000 million guan. This year, over time, the deficit will gradually be eliminated.

In April of the third year of Huangyou, Liang Shi, the head of the smelting department of the third division, successively discovered several large mines in Shanxi, Dongdong Road, Huainan East Road, and Hubei. , Su Jinzuo asked Zhao Zhen to lift the export ban on carbonaceous ironware, etc., and export a small amount of carboniferous ironware in exchange for strategic material reserves such as saltpeter and sulfur, which are prohibited from export by Fan countries. I don't have much to say.

During the two years between the second year of Huangyou and the third year of Huangyou, the territory of the Song Dynasty has changed a lot, with national highways running through, branch roads criss-crossing, wasteland reclamation, prosperous city entrances, urban population gathering, agricultural production technology innovation, and the popularization and use of iron and charcoal. To make people's lives more convenient, more and more state capitals have opened municipal facilities under the supervision and promotion of the Department of Development and Reform. Buses and carriages, streets around the city, and public entertainment venues continue to emerge.

The Pearl Newspaper spares no effort to promote the experience of various places. Every time there is a new weather, it will spread the praises of the Song Dynasty in a few days. It hints that they have more pursuits, rather than just spending a lot of time and money by going to casinos and brothels.

During this period, posterity has always talked about it, and it was once called "the rule of Huangyou" and also secretly called "the rule of Su Jin".