Chapter 422: Bring Another Dish to the Table of Da Song

In the small meeting room of the Constitutional Court, today, contrary to normal, the prime ministers did not study the direction of national development, but fell into silence.

A pile of information was placed in front of everyone, and these old men wore reading glasses and bowed their heads to study.

In fact, the news of Li Yuanhao's death had already been heard in the middle of last month.

This kind of thing must be reported to the central government as an urgent report as soon as possible, so Zhao Jun got the news soon after he learned the news.

However, at that time, they only got a rough overview of the situation. They didn't know how Li Yuanhao died specifically and what happened inside Xixia.

Now all kinds of spies, secret agents, and spies inside Xixia have passed on the news and compiled it into complete information, so everyone knows what happened.

Since May of the sixth year of the Qingli period, when Li Yuanhao led the army to raid Qingtang and successfully defeated Zuo Siluo, Li Yuanhao's momentum has soared.

The dispute between Qingtang and Xixia has a long history. The two sides can be said to be feuds. Taking Qingtang means that Li Yuanhao has once again established his position and prestige in the country.

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

He originally hoped to attack the east with a feint to the west, using Qingtang as bait, and leading the main force at home to raid the Song Dynasty's side.

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

Because although Ren Fu in the east was repelled, Zhang Kang, Jingtai and other troops in the west had already gone north, seriously threatening the Xixia capital Xingqing Prefecture.

For this reason, Li Yuanhao had to run around and turned back to rush to help, but was defeated by the Song army, so he ended up fleeing north in a hurry.

The loss of Zhuo Luo and Nan not only meant the loss of Xixia territory, but also meant that the Song army had the ability to directly threaten Xingqing Prefecture, so that Li Yuanhao was trapped inside and outside and fell into an extremely embarrassing situation.

This situation became more and more serious with the end of the Liao-Song War.

Xixia was not a monolithic country. For example, Li Yuanhao's uncle Shan Yuweiliang was a pro-Song faction. He left Xixia during the Baoyuan period and fled to the Song Dynasty, where he was protected by the Song Dynasty.

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

If Li Yuanhao had chosen the right way, such as personally going to the Song Dynasty to apologize, or abdicating to thank the world, and then obtaining the forgiveness of the Song Dynasty, it might not have come to this.

However, he has always been stubborn and self-righteous. The successive failures made him completely lose his mind, and he actually made a stupid move and killed the brothers Yeli Yuqi and Yeli Wangrong.

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

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

The gap in weapons between the Song army and the Western Xia was too big. It was good enough that they could hold out for half a month. It was obviously unfair to put all the blame on the two.

Therefore, the killing of the two caused an uproar. Both the army and the people were indignant, which made the Western Xia, which was already dissatisfied with Yuan Hao, even more turbulent.

Many leaders of the Tangut tribes of the Western Xia withdrew from the sequence of the Western Xia army with their tribes, and the huge Western Xia fell apart overnight.

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

It was not until this time that Li Yuanhao realized that something was wrong and hurriedly led the army that was still loyal to him to fight.

However, the war was in full swing in the Western Xia, and the rebellion continued. It was no longer under his control. Even many other ethnic groups that he had conquered in his early years had large-scale uprisings.

By the end of May this year, Li Yuanhao, who had been running around for his life, was finally defeated and fled from Xingqing Prefecture in a panic. On the way to Dingzhou, he was caught up by the rebels and finally drowned in the Yellow River. Even his body disappeared.

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

After reading the information, everyone was moved.

Fan Zhongyan knew this old opponent well, shook his head and said: "Li Yuanhao was stubborn and self-righteous, and this ending was also normal."

"In the final analysis, the previous Song Dynasty was too weak. Li Yuanhao was not a wise god. Wasn't it that he could establish a country just to complement his peers?"

Zhao Jun spread his hands and told this cruel fact mercilessly.

Everyone has long been accustomed to it.

Song Shou said: "In history, Yuanhao died of fear after his son cut off his nose. Now he has a decent end."

"The most urgent task now is how our Song Dynasty should respond."

Cai Qi said: "Wei Ge Ningling has succeeded to the throne. If he continues to coordinate the Dangxiang, the northwest will eventually be in trouble."

Wei Ge Ningling is not Li Yuanhao's son Li Ningling's brother, but his cousin.

Dangxiang internal rebellion this time, various forces competed, Li Yuanhao was betrayed by his relatives and friends, and many internal contradictions were highlighted.

Among them, Wei Ge Ningling joined forces with Nuoyi Shangdu, Maiyi Xiangre, Weiming Langbu, Yemei Langluo and other generals and leaders to launch a crusade against Li Yuanhao.

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

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

"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."

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."

"only."

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

"What's wrong?"

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

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

Xia Song spread his hands and said: "If you weren't in charge of the Ministry of Finance, Zhiyuan, you wouldn't know that domestic construction now costs more than 100 million yuan a year. Although the annual revenue is about the same every year, the proportion of foreign trade revenue has declined in the past few years. Quite often, the court sometimes had to borrow money to survive.”

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.

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 large amounts 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 grand 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 the Song Dynasty.

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

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 a few tens of millions to hundreds of millions of guan. Calculated by tax rates, it brings about 30 to 40 million guan 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.

"To protect finances, there are nothing more than two ways to increase revenue and reduce expenditures."

Zhao Jun mused: "Some unnecessary financial expenditures have already been reduced. If we continue to cut back on food and clothing, it is unnecessary 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 domestic people's livelihood 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 curse 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 lies a world map.

"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?

Now.

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