People in the Song Dynasty are lawless. Chapter 279 of the main text: Just give it a try. In early August, the autumn wind started to blow in the northern frontier.
The gentle north wind blew across the Xiagans Plain, passed by Lake Olanggai Baikal, passed through the Liao Northwest Road Recruiting Office, and arrived at Xingqing Prefecture in Yinchuan.
On the vast plains, cattle and sheep can be seen in the grass as the wind blows. Groups of Dangxiang people drive their livestock towards Xiazhou in the southeast.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the grass and water are lush, which is the season for cattle and sheep to grow fat. It is also the time when cattle and sheep are the fattest and most valuable.
If in winter, cattle and sheep start to lose weight due to less food, or if the weather is too cold and the livestock freeze to death, then they will be worthless and no one will buy them.
Therefore, the herdsmen of Xingqing Prefecture will begin to gradually drive their cattle and sheep to the southeast this month, and they will reach the Song-Xia border by around September.
Now the Song people are buying it at high prices at the border.
They would drive the live cattle and sheep back to Shaanxi Road, and then transport them to Bianliang via Yellow River boats, giving their wool to the Song people as clothes, and their mutton and beef to their tables.
For the Song Dynasty, this was the best era.
After several years of recuperation, tax reduction, and labor service reduction, prices and wages have stabilized, living conditions have improved, and the variety of goods on the market has become more and more abundant.
For the Xixia and Liao people, the current time is also the best time.
Under peaceful development, the two sides trade with each other.
After the Xixia and Liao people sold their cattle and sheep, they would also purchase a lot of food, tea, pots and pans, and even books and handicrafts from the Song Dynasty to enrich their lives.
Everything was going well until one day it all came crashing down.
In the Western Xia Kingdom in Xingqing Prefecture, Li Yuanhao demoted himself to king because of his defeat in the war. He wore royal clothes and stood outside the palace looking into the distance to the east.
Although he could also be shameless and call himself king to the outside world and continue to be emperor at home.
But everyone has a sense of shame.
Li Yuanhao didn't want to be so unjust and be laughed at behind people's backs.
So he simply became the king of the Xixia people again, ruled the land in the name of the king, and led his people to move forward.
Since the defeat, Li Yuanhao was also unwilling to see the decline of Western Xia. While maintaining trade with the Song Dynasty, he also actively attacked the Western Regions, subdued many Western Region Uighurs, and connected the Silk Road.
In this way, merchants from the Western Regions who did not want to take the long detour to the Hehuang Corridor would return to the Hexi Corridor. The Western Xia bought the goods from the merchants and sold them to the Song Dynasty.
In this East Asian trade, the Liao people still needed to produce and export their own products, but they started to act as middlemen and also made a lot of money.
Everyone makes money, so who loses?
Except for Qingtang, where some of the interests of Western Region merchants were snatched away by Xixia, no one actually lost out.
Because Xixia and Liao were both selling their own domestic handicraft manufacturing products to the Song Dynasty, both sides had commodity trade needs for each other.
The only difference is that the Song Dynasty purchased slightly more raw materials than other countries.
Generally speaking, unless one of the three countries suddenly becomes an industrial country, it can use its strong productivity to launch a commodity dumping war and drain the gold, silver and copper mines of the other two countries.
Otherwise, in this agricultural country era, there would not be overwhelming commercial competition.
The Western Xia Kingdom was small, so its economy developed rapidly. It also controlled the Hexi Corridor. After the Song, Xia, and Liao dynasties fully relaxed controls on trade, it recovered the fastest.
Li Yuanhao continued to develop agriculture in the Yinchuan Plain. During the truce period, he mobilized the people and soldiers to dig a large number of canals on both sides of the Yellow River and introduce Champa rice and wheat. In autumn, the fertile fields stretched for thousands of miles, like the Jiangnan region on the Great Wall.
For a time, Western Xia achieved remarkable achievements in both economy and agriculture.
The only thing that lags behind is the military.
In recent years, the Song Dynasty has been developing firearms, the Liao Dynasty has been developing firearms, and the Western Xia Dynasty has also been making progress.
It can't be said to be a military competition, but both the Song Dynasty and the Liao Dynasty have this thing, and they can't do without it, otherwise they will be in a passive position.
But the problem is that the Liao Kingdom was able to purchase large quantities of sulfur from Song Dynasty merchants, but it was difficult for the Western Xia.
The Liao Kingdom had the Bohai Bay. Merchants from the Song Kingdom purchased sulfur from Japan and then sailed their ships into the Bohai Bay, allowing them to seamlessly engage in middleman transactions.
However, Western Xia was a landlocked country without any ports. If one wanted to buy sulfur, they had to cross many places including Shandong, Henan and Shaanxi to transport it.
Although theoretically there is a direct route to the Yellow River, the problem is that the cost of going upstream is too high, and Western Xia simply cannot afford it.
Therefore, they could only purchase small amounts of sulfur mined from Sichuan and other places at high prices, or buy some raw materials from the Liao Kingdom, which were purchased by Song Dynasty merchants from Japan and sold to the Liao Kingdom.
Even if the Liao Kingdom gave them the gunpowder formula, they would not be able to produce it on a large scale. Currently, there are only very small reserves, which made Li Yuanhao worried and felt sad.
At this moment, he was standing in the palace at the foot of the Helan Mountains and looking east, what he could see were countless cattle and sheep spread across the vast grassland like dense clouds.
The herdsmen drove them, and the whole grassland was full of vitality.
"Your Majesty has worked diligently to govern the country, and the people have lived and worked in peace and contentment. Our Great Xia nation is prosperous and strong, all because of your wisdom."
Minister Yang Su said flatteringly.
"There are herds of cattle and sheep at the foot of the mountain. Our Great Xia has not only regained its former glory, but has even reached a higher level."
"If this continues, the king will dominate the northwest and rule the world in no time."
"This is all the result of the king's years of wisdom and bravery."
Several civil officials also boasted about this.
No matter how many holes there are, the horse cannot be worn out. Li Yuanhao is a suspicious person, so it is never a bad thing to praise him more.
It's ironic to say the least.
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