In addition to the fact that these decrees were carefully considered by Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan, and were only implemented after mature discussions and unified deliberation by the Constitutional Council, they were also implemented to ensure that they would not cause large-scale opposition.

There is another important reason, which is that Zhao Jun unified the ideas of the Constitutional Court and forcibly brought together a camp of different parties, different opinions, and different ideas, which naturally made things much better.

Under official promotion, the Song Dynasty version of the vernacular movement was successfully launched. After that, the form of official documents would be changed from the original classical Chinese to a simplified version of classical Chinese, which was easier to understand.

In addition, there were other policies, such as opening up the private newspaper industry and allowing private businesses to participate in the news industry. This would allow new newspapers and publications to be published across the country, and the court's decrees would naturally be spread quickly.

Moreover, opening up the newspaper industry would make it easier for the court to control public opinion.

Because in the past, some private Hangzhou businessmen saw that the Bianliang Weekly was very popular on Jingji Road, so after returning to Hangzhou, they went to Bi Sheng to get a set of movable type printing technology and started publishing their own newspapers. As a result, their water meters were quickly checked and their printing factories were confiscated.

Now that the country has opened up, the court will naturally set up a Ministry of Press and Publication to influence and control the news to a certain extent, to prevent the spread of rumors and the study of journalism.

So, generally speaking, the first step of this year's new policies is simple: open up public opinion and emphasize vernacular language. We can't guarantee that government orders will reach the village level, but at least the people in counties, prefectures, and cities will begin to understand the policies and what the government intends to do this year.

This is an extremely rare thing for a feudal dynasty.

But as long as we persist, it may not be long before one-tenth of the nearly 100 million people in the Song Dynasty will read newspapers and learn about the court’s new policies. That would be a great victory!

(End of this chapter)