People in the Song Dynasty were lawless. Chapter 266 of the main text: The third year of the Qingli period has arrived. After the first year of the Qingli period, the Song Dynasty officially entered a period of recuperation.

The imperial court reduced labor service and taxes, relaxed commercial policies, abolished the monopoly system, and enabled agriculture and commerce to develop rapidly.

At the same time, the imperial court lavished money, allowing local governments to retain 30% of taxes for development and construction. It also established schools, confiscated land from illegal landlords and rented it to the people, abolished iron coins, repaired rivers, built water conservancy facilities, and so on.

For example, in the second year of Baoyuan, Zhao Jun ordered Wang Yao, the transport commissioner of Jinghu South Road, and Fan Shidao, the transport commissioner of Guangnan East Road, to cooperate in dredging and expanding the Lingqu Canal. The first round of construction was completed in the first year of Kangding.

The project involved 2,000 civilian laborers, 60,850 laborers, and over 50,000 strings of cash. All materials and labor were provided by the three counties of Xing'an, Lingui, and Lingchuan. Using the method of "burning rocks to attack, both guiding and clearing the canal," the canal was cleared of obstructing boats, and the number of steep gates in the Lingqu Canal was increased to 36.

Construction began again in the first year of the Qingli period. The court allocated more than 500,000 strings of cash, mobilized more than 8,000 civilians, and employed more than 300,000 workers to expand the Lingqu River and reinforce more than 100 miles of embankments along the coast. The flood discharge and shipping volume increased greatly, connecting Hunan and Guangdong and laying the foundation for trade activities between Guangdong, Hunan and Hubei.

In addition, in the first year of the Kangding reign, the imperial court repaired the Bian Canal again and mobilized the people along the river to participate. In order to consolidate the embankment and use the Bian River water to flush the accumulated sand in the river, 600 miles of wooden pillars and piles were laid on both sides of the Bian Canal to narrow the Bian Canal to the point where the sand could be flushed away, preparing to "use water to attack sand."

In fact, although there were still seven years before the Yellow River burst its banks, the Song Dynasty government had already begun preparations. Starting from the fourth year of Jingyou, the court gradually allocated funds to clear sand from the tributaries on both sides of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.

The problem of the Yellow River is actually soil erosion in the upper reaches, which leads to too much sand in the water and the gradual blockage of various tributaries. Once a flood occurs, the Yellow River will burst its banks in an instant. Due to the accumulation of silt, the water will break through the river channel, spreading and flooding, and eventually turning the middle and lower reaches into a swamp.

Therefore, in ancient times, there was a saying that to control the Yellow River, one must first control the sand.

At present, Zhao Jun plans to take three measures. Taking advantage of the fact that the war is going smoothly now, unlike in history when it took five or six years to cause the Song Dynasty's treasury to be empty, he will first sort out the various canals in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and dredge all the tributaries.

This task is much easier than clearing the silt from the Yellow River and digging a few new drainage channels. Moreover, the silt cleared out can be used as arable soil for the fields on both sides of the river.

Then, wooden pillars and piles were installed in the downstream areas of the Bian River and the Yellow River. When a season with less water flow came, dams were built on large rivers such as the Yellow River and the Bian River to store water. After the dams were built, gunpowder was used to blow up the dams and suddenly release water to flush out the sand.

The last solution is naturally to dig and build a flood discharge channel. These three methods will be used together to ensure that the Yellow River flows smoothly.

But it costs money!

These three methods are the most cost-effective.

However, according to the budget estimate of the Ministry of Finance, hundreds of thousands of laborers would have to be mobilized, the project would be huge, and it would probably cost tens of millions of strings of cash.

Although this little money can save some military expenditure, unfortunately "five out of six things in the world go to maintaining the military."

Even Zhao Jun has not yet taken action against the money-eating beast that is the Rong Army, let alone saving military expenditure.

Therefore, for now, we are still just doing the preliminary preparations as we did before the New Qingli Deal actually started, spending some relatively small amounts of money first, and then taking it step by step.

At least now the Yellow River has given them seven years, which is enough time to do a lot of things.

At the end of August, Cao Miaoxin gave birth to a big fat boy.

Zhao Zhen was very happy and named him Zhao Tan, and he was accepted by Zhao Jun.

This is a sun character, the same as Zhao Fang and others.

After getting the name approved, Zhao Zhen became even happier. He was so happy that he got carried away and even proposed to adopt him as his adopted son during the daily meeting in Chongzheng Hall, which almost made Zhao Jun roll his eyes.

Good job.

His generation is probably more than 30 generations lower in the family tree. If his son is adopted by Zhao Zhen, he will be of the same generation as Song Yingzong Zhao Shu, which is simply the opposite of the order.

Later, Zhao Zhen remembered this matter after being reminded by Yan Shu, and quickly said with regret that it seemed that adopting him as a son would not work.

But logically speaking, Zhao Jun's son is the nephew of Empress Cao, which means he is also the nephew of Zhao Zhen, which makes the generations a bit confusing.

Fortunately, this nephew was his cousin, but even so, Zhao Zhen was very excited. In the end, he went against the majority opinion and conferred him the title of Marquis of Xiangfu County. This shocked all the officials in the court, and they wrote letters to dissuade him.

Many people think that there were no titles in the Song Dynasty, but in fact there were. For example, prime ministers and envoys were often given the title of duke. Even if they were not given the title during their lifetime, they would often be posthumously given the title. Some were even posthumously given the title of king. For example, Cao Cong's brother Cao Qi was posthumously given the title of King of Wu.

However, it is true that most people think that the Northern Song Dynasty did not grant titles very often. A large number of titles were granted mainly in the early Northern Song Dynasty and during the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song. During the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, only prime ministers were granted titles.

Even the fact that Zhao Jun was conferred the title of Duke of Song was shocking, although it was normal for him to be conferred the title of Duke since he was the head of the prime ministers.

But first of all, none of the officials knew him before and had no idea who he was.

Secondly, this is the Duke of Song.

If he was just an ordinary duke like the Duke of Qi or the Duke of Wei, it would be easier to imagine.

Ordinary officials and royal family members were generally not granted titles such as marquis, earl, viscount, and baron, which were almost extinct before Emperor Huizong of Song.

Now suddenly conferring a title on Zhao Jun's son would of course cause everyone's opposition.

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!