On this day, Zhao Huan brought a large group of imperial chefs to the Academy of Sciences, where he prepared top-quality delicacies to entertain the people of the Academy.
At the banquet, Han Gonglian presented something.
This was something Zhao Huan specifically requested, and the people at the Academy of Sciences naturally made it according to the emperor's wishes.
This object is called a telescope. When the Academy of Sciences made the telescope, it not only completed its mission, but also benefited greatly from it.
Zhao Huan took the telescope, which is the telescope of later times, and tried it out himself. It was indeed a telescope.
Zhao Huan handed the item to Zong Ze and said, "Lord Zong, take a look at this."
Zong Ze curiously took it and, imitating Zhao Huan, looked at it with one eye. He was immediately taken aback by what he saw.
He stared at the emperor in shock: "Your Majesty, this thing is..."
Zhao Huan laughed and said, "This thing is a telescope; it can see everything beyond 500 meters."
Zong Ze couldn't help but exclaim, "This is truly a wonderful item!"
Zhao Huan said, "Lord Han, there is still room for improvement in this product."
"Your Majesty, rest assured, I will spend more time perfecting it."
Zhao Huan nodded in satisfaction. It was already quite impressive that the Academy of Sciences had managed to build the telescope.
In fact, strictly speaking, a telescope cannot be said to see how far, but rather how many times it can be magnified.
For example, later military binoculars could magnify the image by about eight times.
Zhao Huan's demands were not high; five times was already very good.
In this way, many unnecessary troubles can be avoided when marching and fighting.
No wonder Zong Ze was so happy; after this thing was put into service in the army, the generals were truly blessed.
Upon returning from the Academy of Sciences, the Emperor received news that Japan had gone completely mad.
The idea of closing the country off from the world no longer exists. Many nobles, upon hearing that the Song Dynasty was buying cloth at high prices, have begun to arrange for their serfs to work day and night in temporary workshops.
Out of consideration for the Emperor, the nobles did not do this openly, but secretly they had already found someone to carry it out.
Zhao Huan had already anticipated this outcome.
So he simply added fuel to the fire.
Only fabrics belonging to Taira no Tadamori are permitted to be collected!
This undoubtedly put Taira no Tadamori in the spotlight, making him a target of criticism within Japan.
However, not everyone attacked Taira no Tadamori. At least the emerging samurai groups chose to join his camp because of his ever-growing wealth.
Furthermore, in Japan, Taira no Tadamori also chose Shirakawa as the political representative of the Imperial Family.
In many ways, the internal conflicts within Japan had already been thoroughly exploited by the Song Dynasty.
Only a large-scale war can alleviate this.
On the eve of this war, Japan was frantically exporting fabric to the Song Dynasty.
Once Taira no Tadamori's power touched a nerve with certain old nobles, war broke out completely.
In late July, Zhao Huan was enjoying himself by the lake, eating fruit, drinking chilled sake, and fishing with his daughter.
News has arrived from Japan: war has broken out!
Nothing could be more joyful than this.
In the later era in which Zhao Huan lived, the United States operated in this very way.
However, what annoyed Zhao Huan was that Song Dynasty merchant ships had been hijacked by pirates at sea more than once.
These pirates who traveled between the Song Dynasty and Japan were extremely rampant and had no fear of the Song Dynasty's power.
In their minds, the Song Dynasty was indeed very powerful, but that power was only on land.
In the sea, they are the kings, and even the emperor cannot subdue them.
Clearly, the pirates' arrogance touched a nerve with Zhao Huan.
He had recently been very concerned about how Li Bao's naval training was going, and he often wrote to Prince Kang, asking him to submit more military equipment requests to the navy.
Although the national treasury was depleted after the conquest of the Tanguts, the court would not be stingy when it came to military equipment.
Aside from the fact that things in Japan were progressing as Zhao Huan had hoped, Marshal Zhong Shidao also returned to the capital from Xingqing Prefecture.
As for the allocation and management of the northwestern frontier, in the past six months, the Privy Council has mobilized a large amount of manpower and resources, and has re-established new routes within the territory of the Tangut people.
The Song Dynasty pushed its frontiers all the way to the northwest, taking back the entire Hexi Corridor area, leaving only the grasslands to the north.
There are various tribes of the grasslands there, and the neighboring Jin Kingdom.
Therefore, the Song Dynasty once again rebuilt its fortified city on the border.
Zhao Huan did not ask many questions about this matter and left it to Xu Churen and Li Gang to handle.
After all, with so many troops stationed in the Northwest, the Northwest has certainly stabilized; it just needs time to be organized.
The most pressing and acute issue right now is the national treasury.
Zhao Huan's current sources of revenue for the national treasury are taxes and self-operated income.
The bulk of the tax revenue came from commercial taxes, while agricultural taxes had been reduced to a very low level.
In addition to commercial taxes, merchants also incur tolls at each checkpoint they pass through.
Furthermore, during the large-scale development of Hangzhou, the Hangzhou government acquired vast tracts of land, and merchants from the southeast flocked to buy land, allowing the imperial court to profit once again.
As a result, land sales also occurred in Jiangling Prefecture, Jiangning Prefecture, Chengdu Prefecture, Yingtian Prefecture, and other places.
These were all major commercial cities of the Song Dynasty, and under the call of the imperial court, they began to expand.
As for self-operated income, it comes from government agencies like the Bureau of Arts and Crafts.
The key to all of this is agriculture!
Only when you are well-fed can you have the energy and mind to develop other things.
After shifting his attention from the Northwest and Japan back to domestic agriculture, Zhao Huan also received Chen Gou.
After two years of effort, Jiangling Prefecture has achieved great success in its agricultural ecology program, which has been fully implemented along Jinghu Road.
Furthermore, the State Council has already issued task targets to all regions in the south and has begun to mobilize all prefectures to follow the agricultural model of Jiangling Prefecture.
However, it is also necessary to adapt to local conditions.
Jiangling Prefecture has many ponds and lakes, but Yingtian Prefecture, which is further north, has very few lakes.
Chen Gou also considered other solutions, such as developing new products for irrigation facilities.
With Tokyo as the center, the slogan of "everyone working hard" spread throughout the country thanks to the tireless promotion by the Song Dynasty's official gazette.
Zhao Huan also ordered the State Council to promote and regulate plans for agricultural development in various prefectures and cities.
In short, the emperor attached great importance to it and kept a close eye on the tasks and progress every day.
In that year, agriculture was given particular attention, and all officials were tasked with shouldering heavy responsibilities for agriculture; those who failed to meet their targets were dismissed.
Under such a simple and crude management approach, once it was put into practice, it did indeed blossom and bear fruit.
When autumn came, the emperor personally went to take a look at the official fields in the capital region.
It was indeed the harvest season; the wheat had all turned golden, gleaming under the clear blue sky of autumn.
The dogs under the big tree at the village entrance slept even more soundly, and cheerful children's songs were being sung in the haystack.
As long as there is no war and the imperial court does not impose heavy taxes on farmers, agriculture in the countryside can recover quickly.
At least far fewer people starved to death.
The grain transported back from the twelve provinces of Jiaoyun also greatly made up for the shortage of supplies in the capital city of Tokyo.
Under the autumn sun in September, the price of rice in Tokyo was driven down to two strings of cash per shi (a unit of dry measure).
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