I studied in modern times

Chapter 1038 All expenses will be paid by Young Master Yelü!

As Zhao Xu pondered, the Tiger Wing Army's performance was nearing its end.

In addition to the dragon boats and tiger-head boats, two more exquisitely painted boats joined the Tiger Wing Army's performance.

Twenty or thirty boats, sometimes lined up like geese in a row, sometimes like a flock of birds soaring in formation, floated on Jinming Pond.

This drew cheers from the spectators on the shore.

The ministers and nobles who witnessed the ceremony in the Shuixin Hall also praised it highly.

Upon seeing this, Zhao Xu gave an order to Tong Guan to continue scattering coins.

Anyway...

Zhao Xu glanced at Yelü Ju, the Liao envoy present.

He thought to himself, "Today, the entire bill will be paid by Young Master Yelü!"

Liaoning people have once again placed a large procurement order worth millions of strings of cash.

Moreover, they are all luxury goods!

Icing sugar, Shu brocade, Suzhou embroidery, Ding ware, Ru ware...

Especially icing sugar and cane sugar, they're selling like hotcakes in Liaoning!

The upper-class nobles of the Liao Kingdom, like the civil and military nobles in Bianjing, now can't live without sugar!

In other words, the people of Liaodong were short of money and couldn't afford to buy too many.

Fortunately, the Liao people must have already discovered the gold and silver mines in Japan and started mining them.

Anyone who has worked in capitalism knows the importance of consumer countries to capital!
Especially in consumer countries with commodity money/gold and silver standard systems.

That's a living bodhisattva who saves the suffering people of the producing country!
Thinking this way, Zhao Xu felt even more delighted throwing money around!

The later it goes, the more often, more frequently, and in greater quantities the money is distributed!

Thus, in just over an hour, tens of thousands of strings of cash, tens of thousands of bolts of cloth, and thousands of bolts of cotton cloth were distributed.

And it just won't stop!
With such a generous reward, the eyes of all the officers and soldiers in Jinming Pond turned bloodshot.

One after another, they performed incredibly difficult moves, creating a series of beautiful and spectacular collaborations on Jinming Pond.

This gave the audience inside and outside Jinming Pond a visual feast, and they were all completely captivated.

Cheers and exclamations filled the air.

In particular, when the huge dragon boat, which had been towed to the dry dock for repairs since last year, was pulled from the dry dock into Kimmyeong Pond.

Everyone craned their necks, staring intently at the lake.

The appearance of this dragon boat from that year signifies the start of this year's competition for the Jinming Pond.

Strive for the championship!

This annual event, a favorite among the people of Bianjing, is about to truly begin.

On Jinming Pond, the soldiers on the dragon boats, painted boats, tiger-head boats, small boats, and dugout canoes squinted their eyes, their tiger-like eyes gleaming with a ferocious light that seemed ready to devour people!
The emperor was generous in rewarding even the simple talent show performances that were just for warming up the crowd!

If you win the competition, what reward will the government give you?
Just thinking about it, all that could be heard on the ships of the Tiger Wing Army, Crane Control Army, Divine Guard, Dragon Guard, and other armies was the sound of heavy breathing.

Their gazes toward the sailors on the other ships began to turn hostile.

Although in the past, we were all comrades-in-arms, family friends, and even relatives.

but……

Generous rewards are in store...

All I can say is: I'm so sorry, brother! I'll apologize to you after I win the championship!
Some people with dark minds even lick their lips and shake their heads, as if they regard those who used to drink and make merry with them in brothels and theaters and call them brothers as stepping stones for their advancement!

……

Zhao Xu sat upright, quietly watching the enormous dragon boat that was sliding out of the inner palace.

This boat has a history of over a hundred years and is a sacred relic passed down through five generations of the Zhao imperial family.

It is over thirty or forty feet long and more than four feet wide, with a dragon head and tail. The ship has three pavilions and terraces built on its body, all of which are exquisitely crafted and beautiful.

Such a massive ship was a marvel of the Middle Ages!
What's even more surprising is that this ship, after more than a hundred years, is still usable and remains the main attraction in the competition at Jinming Pond!

Besides these things, this giant ship also has a technological buff—during the Xining era, this ship, which was once the most dazzling in Jinming Pond, was in danger of being completely destroyed due to years of neglect.

Zhao Xu's father immediately became anxious—if there were no such boats in Jinming Pond, wouldn't it lose its luster?
no! Absolutely not!
So they offered a reward to anyone who could repair the boat.

The courtier Huang Huaixin took down the imperial edict and presented the method of the "Great Inner Chamber". He proposed to carve out a room for storing boats north of Jinming Pond, with wooden pillars at the bottom and huge logs as beams. Then, water was poured into the Great Inner Chamber, and the buoyancy of the water was used to float the dragon boats to the wooden beams. Then the water was drained, and then the workers entered the site to begin repairing, maintaining and painting.

Thus, the world's first dry dock was invented at the request of the royal family.

After Zhao Xu ascended the throne, he began to vigorously develop maritime trade and build large shipyards.

Back then, Huang Huaixin's blueprints for repairing dragon boats were sent to Dengzhou, Mingzhou, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Hangzhou, and other places after Zhao Xu's personal approval. They became standard equipment for hundreds of shipyards.

Along with Ooku, many inventions and creations, such as vernier calipers, cloth measuring tapes, planes, pig bristle brushes, eucommia glue, and nautical compasses, were also scattered to various shipyards.

This directly saved the Song Dynasty's shipbuilding/repair and navigation technologies from at least a century of detours.

Thus, more than a decade later, Huang Huaixin, the eunuch who invented the method of the Great Inner Palace, was specially promoted to the position of Dongtou Gongfengguan by imperial decree. He was also recalled from his post in Luzhou and appointed as the acting ship repair commissioner of Dengzhou and the chief ship repair and construction commissioner of the East China Sea Fleet.

no way!
There were very few eunuchs who knew how to build ships.

This is probably the only one with relevant experience and engineering organization skills.

The only option was to push him to the front, to go to Jingdong Road, to act as Zhao Xu's eyes and ears, keeping an eye on the Donghai Navy construction, which was about to begin in earnest.

The enormous dragon boat, towed by dozens of smaller boats, slowly arrived in front of the Water Heart Palace, gently docked at the palace's pier, and then dropped its anchor.

The officers on the giant ship, all dressed in mountain-patterned armor and holding maces, bowed and knelt facing the Water Heart Hall where Zhao Xu was located, saying, "The auspicious time has arrived. We, your humble servants, respectfully request Your Majesty to ride the dragon boat to watch our brave warriors compete!"

Zhao Xu listened, smiled and stood up, saying to those around him, "Gentlemen, please follow me onto the ancestral dragon boat to watch the brave warriors compete!"

"only!"

Thus, Zhao Xu, surrounded by the guards of the Imperial Guard led by the Yan brothers, led the civil and military officials out of the Water Heart Hall and along the corridor toward the imperial dock.

At this moment, fireworks began to be set off on the artificial island behind the Water Heart Palace.

One after another, colorful fireworks soared into the sky and bloomed above Jinming Pond.

At the same time, the musicians of the Xianshao Music Troupe on the giant ship began to play music.

Amidst the sounds of drums and music, Zhao Xu, escorted by the Yan brothers, slowly walked up the steps lowered from the ship to the deck of the giant ship that had been presented by the Wu-Yue Kingdom.

He raised his head slightly and saw a dragon and water screen standing on the platform, which was decorated with gold ornaments and engraved with dragons and phoenixes.

That's the throne!

The throne of Zhao Guan's family!

Since Emperor Taizong, five Zhao emperors have sat on that throne in Jinming Pond to watch the armies compete for the championship, and then generously fed the people, bestowing wine and rice upon them.

In this way, we can share joy with the people and in this way, we can awe all around us.

but……

"Give me wine? Give me rice?"

"That's too stingy!"
"I am the radiant sun! I shall bestow its warmth upon all people!"

So he turned to Tong Guan behind him and asked, "Tong Guan, have all the cotton and silk cloths that I ordered the treasury to allocate arrived?"

"Reporting to everyone, Commander Liu has led his troops to escort the cloth to Qionglin Garden. They are just waiting for your arrival so that the cloth can be delivered immediately!"

"Excellent!" Zhao Xu nodded: "I should be like Yao and Shun!"

When it comes to throwing money around, you have to be extravagant!

Anyway, Young Master Yelü will foot the bill!

Therefore, Zhao Xu had already decided that today, the first time he would personally visit Jinming Pond to celebrate with the people after his first imperial examination since ascending the throne.

We should not only reward the three armies handsomely!
We must also bestow generously upon the people!

Let the whole world know that under the leadership of this emperor, the Song Dynasty has gone from one victory to another!
And when it comes to making people believe something, there's no more impactful propaganda method than throwing money around!
Therefore, Zhao Xu issued an imperial decree—all people present today, regardless of status or gender, would be given a bolt of cotton cloth.

If the person is over seventy years old, he will be given half a bolt of cotton cloth!
Children under the age of thirteen were instead given a bolt of silk cloth.

Zhao Xu did this not because he had money to burn.

Rather, it was to cultivate the market and foster the habit among ordinary people, especially those at the bottom of society, of wearing new clothes.

While we're at it, we're also clearing out excess inventory—last year, textile workshops in Bianjing produced far too much cotton fabric.

As a result, the market in Kaifeng Prefecture was simply unable to absorb it!

Zhao Xu was worried that if the cotton cloth were transported to other counties for sale, the massive amount of cotton cloth dumped there might directly destroy the local small-scale agricultural economy and cause the sheep to devour people prematurely.

However, cloth is something that can easily spoil if not stored properly.

The problem is that the price of cotton cloth is too low—the market price is only six hundred coins per bolt!

If this is stored for three to five years, the cost of warehouse management might be enough to buy half a bolt of new cloth.

Add in losses and depreciation, and it's like the more you store it, the more you lose money!

Under such circumstances, Zhao Xu did not want to learn from the capitalists who poured milk.

There was no other way but to use it as a favor, to lend money out of gratitude, and to gain a reputation as a benevolent and virtuous ruler.

(End of this chapter)