People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 422: Bring another dish to Da Song’s table
In the small conference room of the Constitutional Yuan, today was unusual. Instead of studying the direction of the country's development, the prime ministers fell silent.

Piles of information were placed in front of everyone. The old men wore reading glasses and lowered their heads to read.

In fact, the news of Li Yuanhao's death came as early as the middle of last month.

This kind of thing must be conveyed to the central government as an emergency report as soon as possible, so not long after Zhao Jun learned the news, the court also got the news.

However, what they got at that time was a rough general situation. They still didn't know exactly how Li Yuanhao died and what happened inside Xixia.

Now various agents, spies, and spies within Xixia have passed on the news and compiled it into complete information, so that everyone knows what is going on.

Since Li Yuanhao led an army to raid Qingtang in May of the sixth year of Qingli and successfully defeated Xi Siluo, Li Yuanhao's momentum has greatly increased.

The dispute between Qingtang and Xixia has been going on for a long time. The two sides can be said to be feuds. Taking Qingtang means that Li Yuanhao has once again established his domestic status and prestige.

However, this situation only lasted for less than a few months. As the Song Dynasty sent troops in August, things took a turn for the worse, causing Li Yuanhao to fall to the bottom.

He originally hoped to attack the east from the west, using Qingtang as bait, while he led the main domestic force to raid the Song Dynasty's flanks.

"only."

The loss of Zhuoluo and Nan not only meant the loss of Xixia territory, but also meant that the Song army had the ability to directly threaten Xingqing Mansion, so that Li Yuanhao was beleaguered internally and externally and fell into an extremely embarrassing situation.

"what happened?"

"In the final analysis, the Song Dynasty was still too good. Li Yuanhao was not a wise god in the first place. Isn't being able to establish a country just a foil for his peers?"

Everyone looked at each other, and even Xia Song, who had always supported Zhao Jun, was hesitant.

This time there was an internal rebellion within the party, with various forces competing, Li Yuanhao betrayed his relatives, and many internal contradictions were highlighted.

Everyone has long been accustomed to it.

"Wei Ge Ningling will probably send someone to surrender to us soon. At this time, there is no need to hesitate. I have decided to send troops."

But the problem is that the Yeli brothers have always been loyal to him, and they have high prestige in the military. This failure cannot be attributed to them.

Seeing that Li Yuanhao was going further and further on the road against the Song Dynasty, and the power of the Song Dynasty was also frightening, the opposition voices in Xixia naturally became louder and louder.

Under such circumstances, many people supported Wei Ge Ningling, so he succeeded to the throne in early June and became the leader of Xixia.

After reading the information, everyone was filled with emotion.

Xia Song spread his hands and said, "You don't know if you are not in charge of the Ministry of Finance. Now the domestic construction costs more than 100 million guan a year. Although the annual revenue is about the same, the proportion of foreign trade income has declined a lot in recent years. Sometimes the court has to borrow money to survive."

Many leaders of the Xixia Dangxiang tribes and their tribes withdrew from the Xixia army, and the great Xixia fell apart overnight.

Zhao Jun spread his hands and told this cruel fact without mercy.

Because in his opinion, it was the rapid failure of the Yeli brothers in Qingtang that led to such a defeat.

Cai Qi said: "Wei Ge Ning Ling has succeeded to the throne. If he is allowed to continue to coordinate party affairs, the northwest will eventually be plagued by border troubles."

Among them, Wei Ge Ningling united with the generals and leaders of Nuo Yishoudu, Mi Yixiangre, Weiming Langbu, Ye Nilangluo and other ministries to launch a crusade against Li Yuanhao.

Since the end of the seventh year of Qingli, there have been rebellions among tribes, and even Li Yuanhao's own Weiming tribe has experienced turmoil.

The weapon generation difference between the Song Army and Xixia was really too big. It was good that they could persist for half a month. It was obviously not fair to put all the blame on the two of them.

However, he had always been stubborn, and his repeated failures made him completely lose his mind. He actually made a stupid move and killed brothers Yeli Yuqi and Yeli Wangrong.

Only then did Li Yuanhao realize that something was wrong, and hurriedly led the troops who were still loyal to him to fight.

The country of Xixia was not monolithic. For example, Li Yuanhao's uncle Shan Yuweiliang was a pro-Song faction. During the Baoyuan period, he broke away from Xixia and fled to the Song Dynasty, where he was protected by the Song Dynasty.

"I didn't expect that Li Yuanhao was also the founding emperor of Xixia in history, and he could be considered a hero of his generation. I didn't expect that the ending would be such a death."

"Not only do we have no money, we are so poor that the national treasury is running wild."

As a result, the two men were killed, causing an uproar. Both the army and the people were indignant, which made Xixia, which was already dissatisfied with Yuan Hao, even more turbulent.

By the end of May this year, Li Yuanhao, who was tired of running for his life, was finally defeated and escaped from Xingqing Mansion in embarrassment. On the way to Dingzhou, he was overtaken by the rebels and finally drowned in the Yellow River, with his body missing from the capital.

National bonds are a concept that Zhao Jun proposed very early. They were not officially issued until last year and were sold by Jiao Ziwu.

Because although Ren Fu in the east was repulsed, Zhang Kang, Jingtai and other troops in the west had already marched northward, seriously threatening Xingqing Mansion, the capital of Xixia.

However, the war in Xixia was raging and rebellions continued, which was beyond his control. Even many other ethnic groups that he conquered in the early years also had large-scale uprisings.

After Li Yuanhao's demise, only Wei Ge Ningling was the strongest among the remaining forces, with more than 20,000 troops and tens of thousands of tribal followers.

"The top priority now is how I, the Song Dynasty, should deal with it."

For this reason, Li Yuanhao had to run exhausted, and turned back to rush for help, but was defeated by the Song army, and ended up fleeing north in panic.

Song Shou said: "Historically, Yuan Hao died of fear after his son cut off his nose. Now he ends up like this, which can be regarded as a loss of dignity."

Fan Zhongyan knew this old rival well, shook his head and said: "Li Yuanhao is headstrong and willful, so this ending is normal."

Originally, if Li Yuanhao had chosen the right method, such as going to the Song Dynasty in person to plead guilty, or abdicating the throne to thank the world, and then obtain the Song Dynasty's forgiveness, it might not have come to this point.

Zhao Jun said calmly: "Destroy Xixia in one fell swoop. There is no need for any political power in the northwest. It has been Han territory since ancient times. There are only two outcomes for the Dangxiang tribe, either they will become Han people or they will be exterminated."

Zhao Jun looked at everyone's expressions, and then after thinking for a moment, he asked tentatively: "The court has no money?"

Wei Ge Ning Ling is not Li Yuanhao's son Li Ning Ling, but his cousin.

This situation intensified with the end of the Liao-Song War.

But he never expected that the Xixia army guarding Qingtang would be defeated so quickly. This made it impossible for Li Yuanhao to save the situation even if he repelled the feign attack troops sent by the Song army to the east.

However, this incident did not cause much controversy among the people.

Even in later generations, things like national debt are very far away for ordinary people, let alone in ancient times.

Those who can do business with Jiao Ziwu are often big bosses. It is normal to buy government bonds for investment. Even if ordinary people have some spare money, they have few information channels or willingness to invest.

There are now many wealthy people in the Song Dynasty, and almost all the national bonds issued every year have been bought up, allowing the Song Dynasty to maintain a certain fiscal deficit every year.

This phenomenon is also an important part of stimulating economic growth in economics.

"Hanlong, do I think we have taken too big a step? Now that the three redundancies have been solved, military spending has been reduced by more than half, but it costs money to build roads, build schools, and build infrastructure."

Yan Shu asked tentatively: "The annual cost is huge. Often, just after the taxes are paid, they have to be allocated again soon. I'm afraid this won't last long."

Zhao Jun pondered for a moment, then looked at Xia Song and said, "Xia Xiang just said that foreign trade revenue is declining. It must be because of the Liao Kingdom and Xixia." "Yes."

Xia Song sighed: "In the past, Liao and Xixia imported a large amount of our stuff every year, such as sulfur and the like. They could import hundreds of thousands of kilograms a year, and countless other tea, silk, ironware, clothing, etc. Now."

Now with the defeat of the Liao Kingdom and the disintegration of Xixia, the flourishing trade that existed between the Song, Xia, and Song and Liao has long since disappeared.

Although there are still many border herdsmen who trade with the Song Dynasty, the trade volume has naturally dropped significantly due to the lack of state-controlled imports and official large-scale procurement of strategic materials.

This leads to the fact that although the Song Dynasty currently has abundant strategic reserve resources such as sulfur, steel, and bronze, it cannot find buyers, which is also a strange thing.

After all, if these things were from before, they would have been banned from export.

"Alas, my industrial revolution has just begun, and it has already begun to lose its market."

Zhao Jun also raised his eyebrows when he heard this.

The importance of the market to capital is self-evident. If there is no market, it will obviously not be a good thing for Song Dynasty.

"In my opinion, how about putting some major infrastructure projects on hold first and saving money for the war?"

Song Shou said.

"No, these projects are all set, how can they be changed overnight?"

Zhao Jun shook his head.

Then he frowned again.

The problem now is simple and clear, it is unable to make ends meet.

In the past, there were three reasons for the financial health of the Song Dynasty. First, it solved the problem of redundancy, especially the redundancy of soldiers, and saved a large amount of financial expenditure.

The second is to reform taxation, which is no longer the kind of taxation that digs deep into the ground, to ensure a stable and continuous source of taxation.

The third and most important point is to actively explore foreign trade and develop industries with neighboring countries, the Middle East and even the West.

Especially the last point, the foreign trade volume of the Song Dynasty has now increased from only tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. Calculated by tax rates, it brings about 30 to 40 million dollars of fiscal revenue to the Song Dynasty every year.

It can be said that foreign trade has been one of the most important sources of fiscal revenue in the Song Dynasty.

Among them, trade with the Liao Kingdom and Xixia was very important. The annual trade volume was about 100 million guan, which continuously brought more than 10 million guan in revenue to the Song Dynasty. It was a quite huge market.

But as the Liao Kingdom and Xixia became what they are now, the market fell apart, which would naturally affect the foreign trade volume of the Song Dynasty.

"There are two ways to protect finances: increase revenue and reduce expenditure."

Zhao Jun pondered: "Some unnecessary financial expenditures have already been reduced. If we continue to cut back on food and clothing, there is no need and nothing will be saved. Therefore, if we want to make money, we still have to open up more sources."

"There are only two ways to open up capital in the industrial era. One is to expand overseas and plunder the wealth of the colonies."

He continued: "The second is to use agriculture to subsidize industry. When industrial capacity is increased, the reproduced goods will be dumped abroad, thereby quickly accumulating wealth."

"The latter is definitely not possible. The people's livelihood in the country has just been improved, and the people have just lived a life without worries about food and clothing. If we immediately raise taxes to squeeze the people, the people will definitely scold us to death."

"But now we are short of money to fight the war. It is a pity that our domestic market is not yet saturated and has just started. As long as banknotes and silver dollars are sold, the domestic market and trade volume will definitely reach a higher level, and tax revenue will also skyrocket."

"Although Japan has convinced them, in this era of wooden ships, the upper limit caused by traffic can only be so high, unless we can iterate immediately and make steam ships completely popular."

"However, it will take several years for rubber trees to mature and then be used in industry. It is estimated that it is still unrealistic to popularize steam ships within the next ten years."

"Other countries such as Dali, Goryeo, and Vietnam cannot support such a large trade volume with their small population and resources."

Zhao Jun was almost talking to himself.

Because now is an important moment in the development of the country, money will definitely be needed to fight the war.

But now, except for daily necessary expenses, such as official salaries and military salaries, all the Song Dynasty's money is used for development, and even borrows money for development.

Once a war breaks out, if no additional money is spent, the deficit gap will be huge given the fiscal deficit itself.

Maintaining a certain fiscal deficit every year is conducive to economic growth, but if the fiscal deficit suddenly skyrockets, the country will have big problems.

Therefore, caution should be exercised in this matter.

Mainly because after the defeat of Liao and Xixia, Zhao Jun concentrated on domestic development. He invested all his money this year, thinking of solving Xixia next year.

I really didn't expect that Li Yuanhao died suddenly. Now there was an excellent opportunity to destroy Xixia and regain Gansu, Ningxia and other regions in later generations, so something unplanned happened.

"Well, this opportunity to regain Xixia must not be missed."

Zhao Jun finally made up his mind, glanced around, and said to everyone: "Many of our current plans may take a long time to yield benefits, such as banknotes and silver dollars that will increase trade volume, continue to tap Japan's minerals, etc. Basically, we won’t see significant benefits until next year at the earliest.”

"But we can't not do it just because the benefits are slow. At least I think that after destroying Xixia, taking back the Hexi Corridor will make us more closely connected with the Western Regions, thereby revitalizing the commercial development of the Silk Road."

He said: "Even if we continue to expand the fiscal deficit, this battle must be fought, and it is not just about destroying Xixia. We have to fight all the way west and take back a large area of ​​​​the Yumen Pass area, so that we can better expand the influence of the Song Dynasty. Strengthen trade cooperation with the Middle East, as for money matters."

Zhao Jun thought about it. He originally wanted to say that he could continue to issue more national debt, increase the fiscal deficit, and support the military in fighting.

But his eyes suddenly caught a glimpse of the corner of the bookshelf next to the conference room.

There is a world map lying there.

"Quick, bring me the map, I've got an idea."

Zhao Jun's eyes suddenly opened, and his mind suddenly became enlightened.

Yes.

He is still too conservative.

I just want to manage my own one-third of an acre of land first, and then grow the country's strength.

But forgot.

If we want to strengthen our national power, how can we avoid eating at the table?

just now.

It's time to add another dish to Da Song's dining table.

(End of this chapter)