If there were developed countries in the feudal agricultural society, then the Song Dynasty today should be the only developed country in the world.

In addition, the reporting work of various departments is also satisfactory.

The basic education program in the Song Dynasty has been underway for four years. Although the first batch of students has not yet successfully graduated, more and more students are being enrolled, and there will be more and more talents in science and engineering in the future.

Zhao Jun not only created a mathematical, physical and chemical science system, but also built a certain industrial system.

For example, there are strict regulations for the manufacture of artillery and muskets, and systematic specifications are made for the length of artillery, material thickness, quantity of muskets, shooting methods, etc.

In the future, when steam engines are mass-produced, assembly line operations will also appear simultaneously.

Commercial growth is also encouraging. After the commercial reform, commercial prosperity has been increasing, the domestic commodity economy has been circulating rapidly, the canal's carrying capacity has increased significantly, and blockages have occurred frequently.

To this end, the imperial court allocated a large amount of money to allow local officials to dredge and expand the section of the canal within their territory, which once again greatly increased the canal's carrying capacity.

Strictly speaking, the future direction of logistics development will definitely be trains. Outdated transportation methods like canals should no longer be of concern.

But after analysis, Zhao Jun found that the canal has not yet reached the point of being eliminated.

After all, it would be difficult to build railways across the country in a short period of time. The later emperors used the blood and shed the blood of countless Chinese workers to build more than 500,000 kilometers of railways in the fifty years from 1860 to 1910.

In 2021, the total railway mileage will be only 160,000 kilometers.

Therefore, Zhao Jun believes that the canal will be useful for at least another fifty years.

It would probably take fifty years for the railway to cover the entire country, so it would not be short-sighted to continue building the canal now.

In addition to development in various places, explosive growth in the military is particularly critical.

More than 1.2 million people were eliminated and only more than 600,000 remained. The generals stayed in the barracks for training on a daily basis, which greatly enhanced the combat effectiveness of the soldiers.

In addition, according to the instructions of the Constitutional Yuan, in the second half of last year, after the army was reorganized, a group of elite soldiers, about 30,000 people, were selected and began to be equipped with firearms. They have been training for more than two months and are quite large-scale.

In this way, the situation of the Song Dynasty's army became very clear.

Among them, the 80,000 firearms troops, taking the first army of 5,000 people as an example, have three artillery battalions. Each artillery battalion has ten heavy artillery pieces, each gun is equipped with 20 people, and 60 small steel guns, each gun is equipped with five people.

Thus, the entire army had 48 artillery battalions, 480 heavy guns, and nearly 3,000 small steel guns. At the same time, there was also a 56,000-man musket force, which provided ample firepower.

The only drawback is that the artillery is too heavy and needs to be pulled by a large carriage. Twenty artillery crew members must work together to operate the artillery.

But even so, they are basically invincible in field battles.

Once a 5,000-man firearms army is deployed in battle formation, with 3,500 musketeers covering the artillery positions behind them and occupying advantageous terrain, it will have no problem stopping the charge of tens of thousands of cavalry.

In addition to these 80,000 firearms troops, the remaining more than 400,000 people are also elite cold weapon troops. The weapons they use are all made of steel, and their armor has also been re-forged.

It can be said that the Song Dynasty’s army now has a very obvious equipment advantage when facing the Liao Kingdom and the Western Xia, whether it is firearms or cold weapons.

The only flaw is that there are relatively few cavalry. Among the entire army of more than 600,000 people, there are only 120,000 cavalry currently on duty. Among them, there are 16 firearms corps, 4 of which are cavalry corps that shoot on horseback, and the rest are infantry firearms corps.

This is also the result of the Song Dynasty being able to trade horses with the Liao Kingdom and Western Xia in recent years. Otherwise, with all the military supplies being resold before the military reform, the number of cavalry would have been even smaller.

At a time when the overall strength of the Song Dynasty was greatly improved in all aspects, the Political System Council sent a reply letter to Nong Zhigao, who was far away in Ande Prefecture, Guangnan West Road, at the end of January.

When this letter reached Nong Zhigao, it was actually almost the end of February.

At this time, the Song Dynasty was vigorously preparing to launch a new round of Qingli New Deals, which was already the fourth round.

The previous rounds of new policies laid a lot of groundwork, but only the third and fourth rounds were more dangerous, one to deal with redundant troops and the other to deal with land annexation.

However, the specific policy has not yet been formulated. Although Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan have discussed and produced a draft, it is still under discussion in the Political System Council. It is estimated that it may not be officially issued until March or April.

At this time, Nong Zhigao happily received news from the Song Dynasty.

Andezhou.

In the so-called palace of the king of the Southern Heaven Kingdom, Nong Zhigao, who just turned twenty years old this year, was discussing with his trusted subordinates Gao Huangwei, Huang Shimi, Nong Jianhou, Nong Zhizhong and others.

The palace was very simple, and was actually the house of a local wealthy family occupied by Nong Zhigao.

Moreover, this place is surrounded by mountains and hills. Although they are all small hills, the forests are extremely dense and wrapped in a vast primitive jungle. It is called a state, but it is more like a larger town.

Because in later generations this place was a town called Ande Town, located northwest of Jingxi City, Baise City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and southeast of Napo County.

In the Song Dynasty, it was one of the forty-eight vassal states of Guangnan West Road.

Unlike the prefectures on the mainland, which were slightly larger in area and governed several counties, the Song Dynasty's border prefectures were administratively similar to cities in later generations. Instead, they were closely connected and distributed along the border like villages.

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