Lawless in Great Song

In the third year of Jingyou, during Emperor Renzong's reign of the Song Dynasty, an unruly young man fell into the back garden of the Great Song Imperial Palace, thus beginning a life that wou...

Chapter 60: Song Renzong is a softie

The rest of the people were in deep thought.

Today's content is arguably the most explosive in recent days. Before, they didn't dare to discuss it too deeply, and they were cautious and tentative every time, fearing that Zhao Jun would find out the clues.

But now Zhao Jun's eyes have recovered quickly, and today, he no longer has to hide his feelings and can ask questions openly.

This was extremely eye-opening for the rulers and ministers of the Song Dynasty. Seeing that Zhao Jun was about to regain his power and discover the truth, if they didn't ask him when he finally told the truth, then when should they ask him?

However, even so, Zhao Jun's words still shocked them.

From the total value of social wealth, to productivity and production relations, and finally to the current situation of Sanyi Huihe, an unprecedented perspective was presented to the public, allowing their knowledge and cognition to grow rapidly.

More importantly, Zhao Jun mentioned the essential core of the feudal dynasty. Does that mean that if what Zhao Jun said is true, as long as productivity continues to improve and the cake is made big enough, this regime will remain stable and will not collapse for thousands of years?

Yan Shu said, "In the final analysis, the reason why the Song Dynasty couldn't repair the river was because it lacked money."

"Yes and no."

Zhao Jun sneered, "Lack of money is only one excuse. The root cause lies in the cowardice and incompetence of the Zhao Kingdom. Being beaten by the Liao Kingdom is bad enough, but they can't even defeat the Xixia Kingdom, which is isolated in the northwest. In order to stop the Liao Kingdom's attack, they wantonly slaughtered the people. Such a garbage country does not deserve to survive. It is better to destroy it as soon as possible."

Zhao Zhen was silent for a long time before he asked in a hoarse voice, "What if? I mean what if. If the Song Dynasty had experienced an industrial revolution and improved productivity, could it have defeated the Western Xia and Liao dynasties, repaired the great rivers, and survived?"

"Are you kidding me?"

Zhao Jun said in disbelief: "Productivity is indeed related to production relations, but to be honest, the productivity of the Song Dynasty was much stronger than that of the Liao, Jin, and Western Xia dynasties, and we didn't see the Song Dynasty destroy them."

"Why?"

"Because in the era of cold weapons, the impact of comprehensive national strength was far less significant than it is today. Unless we can reform hot weapons, it will be difficult to overwhelm the Liao, Jin, and Mongolia. In addition, there is the institutional problem I mentioned earlier."

“Why is it related to institutional issues again?”

"Weren't those cowardly Song Dynasty emperors terrified of foreign enemies? Even if firearms appeared, they wouldn't dare develop them on a large scale. They were cowards, more concerned with defending themselves internally than externally, fearing that if they armed the army, it would turn around and overthrow their rule. How could such idiots possibly carry out such reforms?"

"I don't think you're right."

Hearing Zhao Jun start to say that the emperors of the Song Dynasty were all mentally retarded, Zhao Zhen decided to refute him and said, "The other emperors were indeed mentally retarded, but Song Renzong was a very good emperor. If he had heard what you said, he would definitely seek advice humbly, work hard to improve productivity, and strengthen his country."

"oh?"

Zhao Jun didn't even raise his eyelids when he heard the argumentative Wazamuguo's words. He asked lazily, "How can you be so sure that he will be willing to learn from you? Has he done anything resolute in history? Or anything else worthy of praise?"

"Forehead"

Zhao Zhen was choked for a moment, because he didn't know what he had done in history.

Anyway, I only heard Zhao Jun say that he was a barely qualified emperor of the Song Dynasty in terms of civil and administrative skills, followed by a series of words like "old pervert", "old pervert", "idiot", "cheap bastard", "stupid donkey", and "big coward".

How would he know what he had done specifically?

So he hesitated for a moment and said, "During the Jingyou period, Li Zi implemented the "pay-on-demand" system. Tea merchants gathered in dissatisfaction and refused to buy grain from the emperor. It was Emperor Renzong of Song who solved the problem."

"Is that true?"

Zhao Jun scratched his head and said, "Forget it. I haven't read much of the History of the Song Dynasty, so there should be something there. It's not a big deal. Besides, didn't our teacher say that the Jianqian Law came to an end quickly with Li Zi's death? Isn't that nonsense?"

Li Xiang is dead?

Zhao Zhen opened his eyes wide, and the others looked at each other in confusion.

In fact, they have also asked curiously these days, such as when Zhao Zhen, Yan Shu, and Lu Yijian died.

After all, people always have concerns about this.

But Zhao Jun liked the history of the Han and Tang dynasties. He didn't even know when Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Taizong of Tang died, let alone Zhao Zhen, Yan Shu, Lu Yijian and others.

The main course in the history department of university is called "Ancient Chinese History". This course does not specifically talk about which great figures died and when. At most, it will talk about the date of birth and death. Students will not deliberately remember them. It just briefly talks about the history from primitive society in China to the Qing Dynasty.

The content is the same as high school history, talking about the political system, important events, national characteristics, cultural influences, etc. of each dynasty.

If you want to study a certain dynasty specifically and do a more thorough study, you have to take elective courses. There is an elective course called "Selected Historical Materials" in the History Department of Renmin University, where students can specifically look for historical materials of that dynasty and study them in detail.

Anyway, Zhao Jun did not take this course. He chose "Political History" and "Cultural History".

It is worth mentioning that among these elective courses, there are also "History of Women", "History of Song and Dance", "History of Beggars" and "History of Prostitutes".

The reason why Zhao Jun knew Li Zi was because when he was taking the elective course "Cultural History", the teacher talked about tea culture and mentioned the tea law reforms triggered by tea culture in various dynasties, and then talked about Li Zi.

At that time, the teacher mentioned that Li Zi had introduced the second method of paying for tea, but it ended not long after because Li Zi died of illness. So when Zhao Zhen boasted to him that Song Renzong had settled the tea merchants, wasn't it still useless?

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