Nature is unfair. Some people are born in the cold northern regions, and they may be born in the dead of winter when there is no food in their tribe and they freeze to death.
Even if you are lucky enough to survive, you still have to constantly fight against the harsh environment.
Winters in the Central Plains are not unbearably cold and are not very long. There are also fields, so as long as you store up food before winter, things are generally not too bad.
However, there are lucky ones in this world.
In some places, there's no need to farm, nor to worry about being born and freezing to death.
Because there is never winter there, the vegetation is very lush, and the fruit on the trees is plentiful all year round.
Therefore, the people there are particularly lazy.
Lingyamen is a place like this.
The people here enjoy exceptionally abundant natural resources; there is no winter, and they rarely starve.
People who are lazy have no fighting spirit.
The pirates of Lingyamen reigned supreme in this area, but they had never seen a regular army or fought a single battle with one in their entire lives.
In their minds, this is what an army looks like, including the army of Srivijaya, which is pretty much the same.
So when they first saw the Song army's fighting style, they were terrified.
Zhao Yan turned and ran. When the others saw that even the city lord had fled, they naturally lost all will to fight.
They didn't even put up the most basic resistance; they were completely defeated.
Li Bao, on the other side, encountered virtually no resistance.
A chase ensued.
By evening, half of the pirates had been killed.
Zhao Yan hurriedly boarded a boat and fled, heading directly towards Srivijaya.
On this day, the Song army successfully occupied Lingya Gate.
After capturing Lingyamen, the Song army had a stronghold and no longer needed to worry about insufficient logistics due to the long battle lines.
Meanwhile, the Song army's advance began to overlook Srivijaya, which was across the sea.
Upon learning that Zhao Yan had escaped, Li Bao was not worried. He considered Zhao Yan to be nothing more than a coward and not worth worrying about.
However, the more than one hundred Song Dynasty merchants detained in Srivijaya must be rescued as soon as possible, as this is an imperial decree.
If they are not rescued, Song Dynasty merchants will always feel insecure when trading overseas, which is not what the court wants to see.
The next morning, Li Bao sent a letter to Srivijaya.
While the news of the Song army's victory at Lingyamen in the first battle of the South China Sea was still on its way, the emperor in Tokyo was already thinking about the third and fourth steps of the plan.
In May of the eighth year of the Jingkang era, the emperor summoned a man.
This was a spirited young man with high attainments in the field of modern learning, and he was the last student of Shi Ziming, a Hanlin scholar.
His name is Yu Yunwen!
In orthodox history, Yu Yunwen was the prime minister of Emperor Xiaozong of Song, Zhao Shen, and a pillar of the Southern Song Dynasty.
At that time, he was still a 23-year-old young man.
They are at an age when they have achieved academic success and are full of enthusiasm.
Just as his teacher presented the "Comprehensive Memorial on the World" to the emperor back then, he presented the "Four Strategies of the South China Sea" to the emperor: feudalism, education, paper money, and peacekeeping.
This paper elucidates the Song Dynasty's policies toward the countries in the South China Sea from four dimensions: political system, culture and education, finance and economy, and military.
The fact that the political system can be summarized as feudal is already quite obvious.
The peacekeeping operation directly points out that the Song Dynasty's army is to be stationed in the South China Sea, ostensibly to maintain peace among nations, but in reality to ensure that everything related to the Song Dynasty takes root there.
Some people privately accused Yu Yunwen of being as cunning and sycophantic as Shi Ziming.
Yu Yunwen's timely proposal of the "Four Strategies for the South China Sea" demonstrated his understanding of the emperor's intentions.
Since the emperor granted fiefdoms to the imperial clansmen in the two regions two years ago, the imperial clansmen in the capital have remained a thorn in the emperor's side.
The retired emperor had a total of 25 sons. Two of them were killed by the emperor. Excluding the emperor himself, there were 22 sons left.
There are still 22 kings in Tokyo.
Last year, after Consort Han gave birth to a prince, the political landscape shifted dramatically, and the issue of establishing a crown prince became a hot topic.
And among them, a prince was involved.
For example, Prince Yun, Zhao Kai, was very close to the current eldest son of the emperor.
The Prince of Yun also had the support of the retired emperor and the empress dowager.
Although the current emperor holds absolute power, and all the court officials follow his lead.
However, from a moral and etiquette perspective, it seems that the emperor couldn't openly retaliate if the retired emperor and empress dowager were to dance a few times.
Clearly, this is the opportunity.
Yu Yunwen seized this opportunity.
The Srivijaya in the South China Sea had just detained more than a hundred merchants from the Song Dynasty, which was unforgivable for the Song Dynasty, which was now experiencing unprecedented commercial prosperity.
The people were already furious. This not only infringed upon the interests of the Song Dynasty court, but also the interests of the people of the Song Dynasty.
Many radical businessmen expressed their willingness to raise funds to support the imperial court and launch a full-scale war against the South China Sea.
For example, Zhu Qing, who started his business as a grain merchant in Tokyo, had just completed his business plan for the next five years, one of which included transporting grain back from the countries of the South China Sea.
But the current situation in the South China Sea has made all of this uncertain.
He was a staunch advocate of war and also an absolute member of the royalist faction among the common people.
Furthermore, with the Song Dynasty achieving unprecedented victories in its foreign wars in recent years, the Song people's sense of national pride suddenly surged.
Voices advocating for war are growing louder.
Yu Yunwen was undoubtedly taking advantage of the situation to submit a memorial.
His "Four Strategies for the South China Sea" immediately won the emperor's favor.
The following day, the official gazette of the Song Dynasty published its stance on the South China Sea throughout the country.
In no time, Yu Yunwen became the most popular minister among merchants in the Song Dynasty, instantly gaining a surge in popularity.
Some people made no secret of their accusations that Shi Ziming was forming cliques for personal gain, using the power within the Song Dynasty to promote his own student to a higher position, and that his intentions were despicable!
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