I traveled with them to the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 326 Moving the Capital to Beijing and Establishing the Forbidden City: The Jurchens Take a Risky Move to Survive

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As Zhao Yu renamed Yanjing to "Beijing," officially establishing it as the new capital of the Song Dynasty, and adopted Zhang Chun's suggestion to rename the new imperial palace "Forbidden City," a large number of Han people chose to move north.

They included officials of the Song Dynasty, craftsmen, laborers, astute merchants, members of prominent families who paved the way for their clans, and so on.

Under the mediation of these Han people, the Yan-Yun region was no longer dominated by non-Han peoples, but was gradually occupied by genuine Han people.

Of course, this is not a bad thing for the original inhabitants of the Yanyun region.

The influx of Han Chinese into Beijing brought tremendous business opportunities to the locals.

Putting aside everything else, the price of their accommodations alone has increased many times over.

They could live a life of comfort for generations simply by selling their original residence.

The new Beijing was not built on the site of the original Yanjing city, but rather on a much larger area to the north of the original Yanjing city, encompassing the original Yanjing city and making it part of the new Beijing city.

Specifically:

First, officials from the Ministry of Works carefully surveyed the area surrounding Yanjing City, studying its topography, landforms, and hydrogeology.

The selection of a new site for Beijing is of paramount importance, requiring consideration of numerous factors such as defense, feng shui, transportation, and future urban development.

They consulted numerous ancient books and referenced the experience of selecting capital cities throughout history, ultimately choosing the Yongding River alluvial fan plain, where the terrain is high in the northwest and low in the southeast, thus avoiding the threat of floods and facilitating drainage.

With mountains to the north providing a natural barrier, an open area to the south facilitating urban expansion, and the Gaoliang River and Jinshui River flowing through the east and west sides, the area boasts abundant water resources and convenient water transportation, making it an ideal location for establishing a capital.

Furthermore, as a capital city under the Confucian ritual system, its planning strictly adhered to the principles of "harmony between heaven and man" and "the centrality of imperial power."
After the site is determined, the planning and design phase begins.

The Ministry of Works convened the nation's top architects and skilled craftsmen to create detailed blueprints for the new city of Beijing and the Forbidden City.

The layout of the new Beijing followed the traditional capital city regulations, being square and symmetrical, with a central axis running north-south as its core, dividing the city into east and west sections. The city's roads crisscrossed, with wide, flat main roads capable of accommodating seventy horse-drawn carriages side-by-side, while secondary roads and alleyways closely connected the various areas of the city.

Furthermore, the construction of the new Beijing city took feng shui into full consideration, namely:

With the Forbidden City at its core, the central axis extends from Yongding Gate to the Bell Tower, with all important buildings symmetrically distributed along the axis, highlighting the "central" and "supreme" imperial power;
Backed by the Yanshan Mountains, with the Yongding River to the left and the Chaobai River to the right, the city is bordered by Nanyuan to the south and the Bell and Drum Towers to the north, forming a traditional feng shui "four guardians" pattern.

The Imperial City encloses the Forbidden City, the Inner City encloses the Imperial City, and the Outer City protects the south, forming a hierarchical structure of "city within city" that reflects the hierarchical order of "layers of imperial power protecting each other".

The design of the Forbidden City was of paramount importance.

Unlike traditional wooden structures, both the new Beijing city and the Forbidden City were built using the most advanced and mature reinforced concrete structures available at the time.

This structure is sturdy and durable, with excellent fire resistance, and its defensive capabilities far exceed those of wooden buildings.

To ensure quality, the Ministry of Works sent people to various parts of the Song Dynasty to select the highest quality steel bars and cement at the very beginning of the city's construction. The steel bars needed to be high in strength and toughness, while the cement was required to set quickly and have high hardness.

Because Zhao Yu demanded not only quality but also speed, the Ministry of Works proposed a construction plan involving 500,000 craftsmen and 3 million laborers working simultaneously and in a collaborative manner.

It is worth mentioning that the new Beijing city will adopt the water supply and drainage system proposed by Zhang Chun and his five daughters for later generations.

To this end, Ma Xiaojiao also invented bathroom equipment such as tap water, faucets, shower heads, flushing toilets, bathroom fixtures, washbasins, flushing valves, valve cores, bathroom accessories, and bathtubs.

In fact, the earliest tap water system in China was designed by Su Shi. Twenty years earlier, during his exile to Huizhou, he proposed a plan to bring spring water from the Dripping Rock of Pujian Mountain into the city through bamboo pipes, addressing the problem of high alkalinity and bitterness in the drinking water of Guangzhou residents. He also drew up detailed construction plans. The project was completed two years later, becoming the earliest tap water system in ancient China.

Of course, what Zhang Chun and the five women created was not such a simple tap water project, but a very advanced water supply and drainage system.

To add to that, the reason Zhang Chun and the other five women went to such lengths to do this was simply for their own convenience.

In fact, they were already working on this system when Yanfu Palace was being built, but it wasn't very mature at the time.

After more than ten years of research and development and improvement, this system is now very mature.

It is worth mentioning that the main material of the water supply and drainage system developed by Zhang Chun and his five daughters was not steel, but ceramic.

The five women didn't not want to use steel, but the current steelmaking technology was still lacking and couldn't produce very durable steel pipes.

But ceramics are different.

In fact, ceramic pipes were widely used in China as early as the Qin and Han dynasties (such as the ceramic drainage pipes in Chang'an City during the Han dynasty), and the technology was even more advanced in the Song dynasty.

Of course, ceramic pipes also have their limitations (such as high brittleness and poor resistance to severe impacts), but for scenarios where they are buried underground and mainly transport liquids, these disadvantages have little impact and can even be ignored.

It must be noted that when planning the new city of Beijing, the five women even reserved areas for power transmission.

This is because Ma Xiaojiao has recently invented direct current and an arc lamp.

It is believed that in just a few years, the new Beijing will be able to enter the electric lighting era.

In short, the new Beijing is both a massive reinforced concrete fortress with super strong defenses and a paradise on earth that blends advanced technology with traditional wisdom, showcasing prosperity and comfort.

As the new blueprint for Beijing was gradually implemented, 500,000 craftsmen and 3 million laborers flooded into this land. With clear division of labor and tacit cooperation, and under the meticulous organization and supervision of the Ministry of Works, the construction of the new Beijing and the Forbidden City proceeded in an orderly manner...

Incidentally, because he changed Yanjing to Beijing of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Yu simply changed the names of the other capitals as well.

Tokyo hasn't changed; it's still Kaifeng.

The capital city of Xijing was moved from Luoyang to Chang'an.

Nanjing, on the other hand, changed its name from Shangqiu to Jiangning.

At the same time, Zhao Yu ordered that Xijing and Nanjing also accelerate their construction so that the court could better control the west and south. With the construction projects in Beijing, Xijing, and Nanjing underway, as well as the advancement of infrastructure construction such as water conservancy, post roads, and bridges throughout the country, the labor market in the Song Dynasty became unprecedentedly active.

During the off-season, people were no longer confined to the countryside. They would either bring their families to the construction site or work in groups of three or five to repair the post roads. With their physical strength, they could earn more substantial wages than farming. The imperial court paid all the laborers according to market prices, provided two full meals a day, and set up uniform shacks on the construction site for accommodation. Even the most ordinary laborers could save one or two strings of copper coins a month, enough to supplement their household income, and even buy new clothes for their children or get good medicine for their elderly.

All of this confidence stemmed primarily from Zhao Yu's implementation of the "Gentlemen Paying Grain as One" and the "Equalization of Land Tax and Labor Tax," Yuan Qingcheng's promotion of advanced agricultural technology and research on cold-resistant, flood-resistant, and high-yield grains, as well as the agricultural tools and machinery invented by Ma Xiaojiao.

Zhao Yu's two new policies broke the old order, making it so that both gentry and ordinary people paid taxes based on the amount of land they owned, and corvée labor was converted into money and incorporated into the land tax. People were no longer bound to a fixed area. Thanks to the advanced agricultural techniques promoted by Yuan Qingcheng, and the improved, cold-resistant, flood-resistant, and high-yield rice varieties, yields per mu (unit of land area) more than tripled. Meanwhile, Ma Xiaojiao's various farm tools and machinery expanded the arable land of a single farming family by three to five times. As a result, the burden on people's shoulders was greatly lightened, and the pressure of food and clothing was relieved. During the off-season, they could go out to work and earn money to supplement their household income.

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, all sorts of factories, such as textile mills, machine shops, and ceramic factories, sprang up like mushrooms after rain.

Ma Xiaojiao's improved water-powered spinning machine only required a few female workers to operate, and could produce in a day what dozens of people used to do in a month. As a result, Suzhou and Hangzhou in the Jiangnan region became textile centers, with the sound of looms echoing from morning till night. The cotton cloth and silk fabrics produced were not only used for domestic clothing, but were also exported overseas via the Maritime Silk Road and the Silk Road.

The machinery factory was even more novel, with steam-powered water pumps, cranes, steamships, bicycles, wooden bicycles, rickshaws, sewing machines, mechanical watches, and various agricultural implements already entering the lives of thousands of households.

The changes in ceramic factories were particularly significant. In addition to firing water supply and drainage pipes, artisans also used molds to mass-produce bowls, plates, and pottery jars. Now, even ordinary farmers can afford smooth white porcelain. The official kilns, which were exclusively for the imperial court and for export, mixed fine sand into the porcelain body to enhance its toughness. The resulting porcelain was as thin as paper and as hard as a rock. Merchants could exchange these Song porcelains for spices and gemstones that cost ten times their price.

The rise of factories gave people more choices for their livelihoods. Farm women no longer had to stay at their looms; they could work in textile factories and earn 30% more per month than when weaving at home. Resourceful young people flocked to the emerging industrial wave, learning all sorts of new technologies, becoming craftsmen, and joining the ranks of high-income earners. Even children could help in factories sorting cotton and moving small parts to supplement the family income.

With the advancement of the Industrial Revolution, the goods in the markets of the Song Dynasty became increasingly dazzling. From various machine-made fabrics, enamelware, and glass products, to canned goods, biscuits, soap, and matches, to iron nails, wire, small mechanical parts, and even clocks, lamps, and new agricultural tools... the variety of goods for food, clothing, daily necessities, and production needs was vast and endless.

These goods were distributed from cities to towns and villages, and exported from the interior to overseas, resulting in numerous shops of all sizes, bustling markets every day, and a constant flow of caravans.

Goods flowed freely between the north and south, and maritime and land trade flourished.

As a result, commerce in the Song Dynasty experienced unprecedented prosperity.

Meanwhile, the imperial court amassed a growing treasury by levying commercial taxes and customs duties.

This allowed Zhao Yu to continue investing in infrastructure while also reducing agricultural taxes, easing tensions among the people, and consolidating his rule. The abundance of the national treasury was like a source of fresh water, nourishing the towering tree of the Song Dynasty, making it flourish and grow ever stronger.

By this time, the Song Dynasty was no longer a purely agricultural empire. From the towering steel frames on the construction sites of Beijing to the fragrant cotton fabrics wafting from the textile factories of Nanjing; from the roar of machinery from the mines of Xijing to the modern factories of Bianjing, a new dynasty that blended traditional etiquette with industrial power was rising vigorously in the East.

Standing atop the unfinished corner tower of the Forbidden City, Zhao Yu gazed at the bustling construction site and the rising smoke from the factories in the distance, knowing that this was not only the rise of a city, but also the transformation of an era.

'Give me a few more years of development, and maybe I can sweep across the grasslands in three years and conquer the world in twenty!'

……

Just as Zhao Yu was leading the Song Dynasty to rapid development, Wanyan Aguda did not obediently wait for death, especially after he realized that it was impossible to negotiate peace with the Song Dynasty.

In an effort to save himself, Wanyan Aguda made a decision that no one expected—to launch a war against Goryeo, the Jurchen's archenemy.

As early as the beginning of the founding of Goryeo, some Jurchen tribes (such as the Changbai Mountain Jurchen and the Yalu River Jurchen) were distributed in the northeastern border of Goryeo. They briefly submitted to Goryeo, paid tribute, and accepted Goryeo's titles. There was trade between the two sides (such as the Jurchen exchanging furs and horses for Goryeo's ironware and textiles).

As the Jurchen tribes grew stronger, conflicts with Goryeo over territory (especially the Yalu River basin) and resources intensified.

As a result, Goryeo repeatedly sent troops to attack the Jurchen tribes in an attempt to control the border; the Jurchens, in turn, frequently raided the Goryeo border, and the two sides were constantly at war.

At that time, the Jurchen people were not a unified ethnic group. The various tribes had different attitudes towards Goryeo. Some tribes cooperated with Goryeo, while others were long-term adversaries. Goryeo used the "tributary" policy to win over some Jurchen tribes in order to restrain other forces and form a complex geopolitical balance.

Overall, the early relationship between the two was centered on border games, with both economic and cultural exchanges and frequent conflicts due to territory and spheres of influence, and no stable subordinate or alliance relationship was formed.

Helandian was the ancestral homeland of the Jurchen people, bordering the Sea of ​​Japan to the east and the Great Wall of Goryeo to the south. During the process of unifying the various Jurchen tribes, the Wanyan clan gradually infiltrated this region, causing unease in Goryeo.

Goryeo had always harbored territorial ambitions towards Helandian. When it discovered that the Jurchen tribes in Helandian were inclined to submit to the Wanyan clan, it sent people to stop them. For example, Wanyan Yingge once sent envoys to Helandian to pacify the local tribes, but Goryeo tried to obstruct them, thus creating friction between the two sides.

This led to border disputes such as the detention of envoys. Some Goryeo officials believed that "the Jurchens are weak and not to be feared. If we do not take advantage of them now, they will surely cause trouble later," and encouraged the deployment of troops.

Thus, ten years ago, Goryeo crossed the Great Wall and launched an attack on Helandian, officially beginning the war.

Initially, Goryeo took the initiative to send troops to Helandian to attack tribes that had submitted to Wanyan Jurchen, and achieved a brief victory.
Subsequently, the Jurchen leader Wanyan Wuyashu sent troops to counterattack, and defeated the Goryeo army in Helandian, recovering the lost territory;
Seven years ago, Goryeo once again sent a large army to attack, and at one point occupied some areas and built a city.

Six years ago, the Jurchen army launched a counterattack, severely damaging the Goryeo army and recovering all lost territory, forcing Goryeo to withdraw its troops.

Ultimately, Goryeo recognized the Jurchens' control over Helandian, and the two sides demarcated their borders. Through this battle, the Jurchens consolidated their unity over the eastern tribes, strengthened their power, and laid the foundation for the later establishment of the Jin Dynasty. Goryeo, on the other hand, was severely weakened and subsequently adopted a defensive posture towards the Jurchens.

Shortly after that, the Jurchen rebellion against the Liao Dynasty began.

If everything goes smoothly, Wanyan Aguda, who has the goal of completely destroying the Liao Dynasty, will most likely be too preoccupied with his arch-enemy Goryeo, just like in history, and will have neither the mood nor the time to seek revenge against Goryeo.

The current situation is that the Song Dynasty has dealt a heavy blow to the Jin Dynasty, yet it is unwilling to negotiate peace with the Jin Dynasty and has adopted a posture of being determined to destroy the Jin Dynasty. Wanyan Aguda, who has come to this point due to his decision-making errors, is in a precarious position on the throne, and even the leadership of the Wanyan tribe in the Jurchen alliance is unstable.

To put it simply, if the war hadn't continued and Wanyan Aguda hadn't been holding considerable military power at the front lines negotiating with the Song-Liao allied forces, the Jurchen nobles might have already impeached Emperor Wanyan Aguda.

In order to retain his throne, Wanyan Aguda had to produce results.

Wanyan Aguda had no chance of achieving anything against the militarily powerful Song Dynasty, at least not in the short term.

If Wanyan Aguda could achieve some success against Goryeo, a country that even the original Jurchen alliance couldn't defeat, he would be quite confident.

Crucially, Goryeo had a population of two million, an army of one to two hundred thousand, and a large amount of wealth and food. If Goryeo could be conquered, it would be a huge boost to the Jin Dynasty.

Wanyan Aguda could have secured his throne based on such merits.

Therefore, given that the Song Dynasty would not provide the Jin Dynasty with food for the winter, and after Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Zongwang suggested raiding Goryeo for grain and supplies, Wanyan Aguda, after careful consideration, agreed to take this risky step...

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(End of this chapter)