However, after the fiscal construction plan was fully launched in the middle of this year, the emperor changed the procedure of the morning briefing and asked his close ministers to summarize all the military and political news that would affect fiscal revenue and go over them to him. The person who received this honor was none other than Ren Baozhong, who was willing to work hard and already had a house in Jingyuan.
Of course, these news were just excerpts and summaries of official documents from public channels, and did not allow him to actually reach out to the intelligence agencies.
"The same thing." Zhao Jiu looked calm after listening to the report. "We should provide disaster relief and suppress bandits. We cannot give ship flags and seals to the Arabs, otherwise how can we show the superiority of Han merchants? There are also border disputes. We must retaliate when necessary. We cannot put the cart before the horse. We cannot save some money... But, Renshang, why did you bring the Tusi rebellion into this?"
"Let the emperor know that I am worried that the Dali copper mine transaction that I had agreed with Gao Mingqing would be affected by this incident." Ren Baozhong explained quickly.
At this time, Lu Benzhong couldn't help but interrupt: "Ren Sheren is overthinking... Dali's transportation with China is mainly through the Minjiang River. It is separated from Gongzhou by the Luo and Yang families, so it won't be a problem."
Zhao Jiu nodded immediately.
By the way, let me say a few more words here.
Gao Mingqing is one of the core members of the Gao family, a powerful family in Dali. He was an envoy sent by Dali after Zhao Jiu suddenly sent an envoy to Dali and proposed a diplomatic offensive of "regardless of etiquette, mutual exchange of what we have and what we don't have". Unlike the king Duan Heyu, he is a person who can call the shots.
In fact, the Gao family of Dali attached great importance to diplomacy with the Song Dynasty. Basically, the envoys who came to the Song Dynasty were all core members of the Gao family. The last envoy who came to the Song Dynasty was none other than the current head of the Gao family, Gao Taiyun, the ruler of Dali, and the ruler of Dali at that time was Gao Taiming, the father of Gao Mingqing.
As for Duan Heyu, whom Emperor Zhao could not forget, he could not even control the concubines in the harem... The Empress, who was from the Gao family, would often beat Concubine Mu and Concubine Wang De with a stick, and Duan Heyu could only endure it.
When Emperor Zhao thought about the fact that Wang Yuyan and Mu Wanqing would be beaten all day long after marrying Duan Yu, he suffered a huge mental shock. Naturally, he put aside all those messy thoughts and focused on winning over Gao Mingqing.
In the face of Emperor Zhao's favor, the Gao family behaved very appropriately and directly agreed to the special trade of tea and copper materials... But they also pointed out that Dali would suffer a great loss in this kind of trade, so they hoped to limit the period to five years and trade fairly in the future.
Emperor Zhao agreed to this immediately.
In fact, it was not just Dali, things were going well in Nanyue as well… The latter was now in a period of uncertainty over the country’s sovereignty, and its national power was declining. After being slightly threatened by Emperor Zhao, the envoys agreed to resume the so-called traditional transaction of ‘a foot of cloth and a bucket of rice’.
In other words, it was a direct trade for cloth and rice. The successful Guangzhou merchants would travel between the north and the south, and deliver the rice from South Vietnam directly to Jiaoxi, Mizhou (Jiaozhou Bay), and then to the reserve warehouses of the Right Army, the Front Army, and the Navy of the Imperial Camp.
All I can say is that everything depends on whether you can swallow your pride, and once you swallow your pride, there is always a way out... Even the closed Japan and the Goryeo Zhao official family, which had close relations with the Jurchens, could be controlled, let alone these two.
Turning back, Ren Baozhong was ready to withdraw, but Zhao Jiu thought about it and said again: "The two chieftains of the Yang and Luo families are said to have been very loyal. They have been separatist clans for hundreds of years, but they never pay taxes. Can we borrow some money from them?"
"Officials."
Ren Baozhong was shocked and stopped immediately, bowing his hands. "I think this is inappropriate... Although Yang and Luo are both Han officials, and Yang is the heir of the Yang family, they are independent chieftains after all, and are no different from the former Xixia Li Ni family in Xiazhou... Such people are docile and loyal only because the court does not threaten them. Once they are asked to do something, they may directly agree to it, but they may also despise the court and rebel."
Zhao Jiu thought about it and nodded directly, but then looked at Yang Yizhong: "Zhengfu, please contact your family more often..."
Yang Yi Zhong could only bow and say yes, then took a few steps back... This puzzled many people for a moment, because the next step was Yang Yi Zhong's report time, or it could be said that Emperor Zhao originally wanted him to speak, but he said it casually because he remembered that the Yang family of Bozhou and Yang Yi Zhong were theoretically from the same clan.
But soon, everyone's doubts became even greater - Yang Yizhong took a few steps back, took a box from a squad leader behind him, opened it in public, and actually took out a court report from it, a standard printed court report, and then carefully presented it to Emperor Zhao.
Emperor Zhao just took one look and burst out laughing: "Have the Jurchens already done this?"
Several core ministers around were shocked for a moment, but they didn't know that the official report was actually printed by the Jin Dynasty. However, the summary of intelligence in the morning had always been very particular and avoided, so they couldn't go forward to see what the official report looked like.
"That's right, Your Majesty." Yang Yizhong had already begun to report seriously. "This first official report is divided into 16 pages, with a total of more than 3,000 copies printed. All the officials in the Jin Kingdom can get it..."
"The Jin Kingdom is still able to adapt to local conditions." Emperor Zhao looked at the court report in front of him and shook his head with emotion. "They are not short of money, nor are they short of good craftsmen... Unlike us, we spent many years to come up with printing by plate, and finally broke through the printing cost and achieved one plate every ten days, but what about them?"
The people around looked at each other in bewilderment. Firstly, they didn't want to interrupt, and secondly, they also knew that the official was telling the truth... It seemed that the Jurchens were richer?
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