Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1064 1059 [Eastern Rome wants to learn from the Song Dynasty? 】

"Selling winter furniture, selling winter furniture..."

On the streets of Luoyang, vendors carry their goods on their shoulders and sell them along the streets.

Aksuhe, who followed Li Yanxian back to Luoyang, was strolling around accompanied by Du Jushi.

Du Jushi suddenly shouted, "Weigh two catties of cold food!"

The vendor immediately quickened his pace and came over. He put down his load with a smile, took out the Sazi fried dough twist and put it on the scale: "Look, two catties of fried dough twist, sixteen cents for you."

Du Jushi did not bring any followers with him. He took out a copper coin from his pocket and threw it over.

This kind of copper coin was only issued in the last two years. It looks similar to the silver coin and is worth fifty cents per piece.

It is pressed by a steam engine and is extremely exquisitely made. It has a serrated anti-counterfeiting design on the outer edge and two circles of raised dots inside for anti-counterfeiting.

Without a steam coin minting machine, it would be difficult for ordinary people to counterfeit coins.

This type of copper coin has three denominations: 20 wen, 50 wen, and 100 wen. It not only makes small transactions more convenient for the people, but also alleviates the dilemma of the court's long-standing copper shortage.

The vendor quickly made up the thirty-four coins, strung them together with a hemp rope and handed them over: "Please keep this, sir."

Du Jushi was too lazy to count the copper coins, so he just put them in his pocket and handed out a ball of Sazi Mahua: "Try this."

Aksuhe took a bite and nodded in praise, "It's delicious."

Du Jushi was chewing Sazi Mahua himself, and handed two balls to Aksuhe's followers. He pointed to the front and said, "That's the stationery street. In addition to selling pens, inkstones, they also sell all kinds of books and collectibles. Further west is the ceramics street, with all kinds of pottery and porcelain. Go south from the ceramics street..."

Aksukh looked carefully and compared Luoyang with Constantinople.

Totally incomparable!
The previous two Eastern Roman emperors had failed in their reforms of the official system and tax system. Coupled with years of war, the Eastern Roman economy was becoming increasingly depressed, and the people were becoming increasingly poor due to war taxes.

The affluent life of ordinary people in Luoyang was unimaginable for the residents of Constantinople.

The two continued to walk along the street, when suddenly several people on horseback came running over, shouting along the way: "Get out of the way, get out of the way!"

Du Jushi turned his head and saw the imperial guards galloping on horseback, followed by doctors and assistants on horseback.

Which noble in the palace suddenly fell ill?
There are imperial doctors on duty in the imperial city every day, and doctors are generally not called from outside. In this case, famous doctors are mostly summoned for consultation.

Du Jushi let Aksuhe wander around by himself, and he quickly called a donkey cart to rush to Donghuamen.

Arriving outside Donghua Gate, Du Jushi handed over his official badge and casually asked, "A doctor just came in. Which official is sick?"

The guard kept silent.

Du Jushi entered the East Quarter of the Imperial City and finally found out what was going on in the waiting room.

Cabinet minister Qian Chen fainted and has been in a coma for a long time and has not yet woken up.

Qian Chen was fat before he joined Zhu Ming. He became more and more fat over the years and developed various related diseases. He even fainted once three years ago.

Du Jushi took the imperial carriage to the Hanlin Academy, where he slacked off until mid-afternoon and also had a working lunch.

We finally got some definite news in the afternoon.

Qian Chen has woken up, but... his face is paralyzed and his limbs are not working properly.

Du Jushi thought: Lord Qian is probably going to retire, and I don’t know who will replace him as a cabinet minister.

At this moment, in the lounge of the cabinet's side room, Zhu Ming came with the prince to visit in person, and many ministers from the cabinet and ministries also gathered outside the room.

The doctor said that there shouldn't be too many people in the room, as being too stuffy would be detrimental to the patient's recovery.

"Your Majesty, I am humbled..." Qian Chen struggled to stand up and greet him, his face was stiff and it was extremely difficult for him to speak.

Zhu Ming quickly pushed him back to lie down: "Qing, don't say too much, just rest and you will recover in a few days."

Qian Chen had no choice but to lie back down.

Zhu Ming comforted him for a while, asked the doctor to do his best to treat him, and left the prince to look after Qian Chen on his behalf.

Zhu Ming had reminded Qian Chen several times about his problem, asking him to eat less greasy food and exercise more often to stretch his muscles.

But it’s useless.

Qian Chen was not interested in gold, silver, treasures, antiques, calligraphy and paintings. Apart from his greed for power, his only hobbies were fine wine and delicious food.

Even the chefs in his house were famous chefs invited from various provinces. He spent a lot of money to hire seven or eight of them, who took turns cooking various dishes for him every day.

Zhu Ming has not replaced the cabinet ministers for the time being, so perhaps Qian Chen can recover.

...The next day, Du Jushi did not accompany Aksuhe shopping, but explained "Zizhi Tongjian" to the envoy.

This book has been translated into many languages ​​by scholars from various countries, including Arabic, Persian, Turkic, and Devanagari Sanskrit.

Aksuhe is not only a commander, but also a politician.

He witnessed the entire war between Ming Dynasty and Western Liao Dynasty last year. He was shocked by the firearms and tactics at first, but soon turned his attention to the military system, and then to the political system of Ming Dynasty.

In addition to studying "Zizhi Tongjian" on his own, he also asked Du Jushi about the Ming Dynasty system, and gradually focused the topic on the Song Dynasty.

Aksuhe was very interested in how the Song Dynasty took back military power and how it used civil officials to suppress military generals.

The institutional changes of the Eastern Roman Empire over the past few hundred years can be simply summarized as follows:

Initially, the military district system was similar to the military household system in the border towns of the Ming Dynasty, but it eventually collapsed due to the intensification of land annexation.

Then, the war group system. Recruiting soldiers, mercenaries, and private soldiers evolved into war groups, and mercenaries accounted for a large proportion, which was very similar to the situation of feudal lords in the late Tang Dynasty. There was even a thing similar to the family servants in the Ming Dynasty, which was a natural result of the collapse of the military district system.

Now, the fiefdom system. The war group was defeated by the Seljuks, Asia Minor fell, and the military leaders became feudal lords, and they were the core of resisting foreign tribes and recovering lost territory.

Thanks to the bloody fighting of the feudal lords, the Eastern Roman Empire survived.

At this time, the Eastern Roman Empire had only experienced changes of dynasties for a few decades.

The founder of the dynasty was a military leader.

He gradually grew stronger through marriage, and when he became emperor, he began to centralize power. The emperors who followed him continued to focus on centralizing power, all marrying foreign princesses and vigorously promoting foreign officials.

Even when the emperor went to war, he always kept the empress by his side, for fear that the foreign empress would be ambushed.

Moreover, the fiefdom system of the Eastern Roman Empire was different from that of Western Europe.

Although most lords passed the title from father to son, at least in name, the territory could only be governed by the noble himself for life, and could not be privately transferred or inherited.

Once the lord dies, the emperor has the right to take back the fiefdom - it depends on whether he can do so.

Aksukhti wrote:

"In the land of Taohuashi, before the Ming Dynasty was the Song Dynasty, and before the Song Dynasty was the Tang Dynasty."

"The military system in the early and middle Tang Dynasty was similar to the Roman military district system. The late Tang Dynasty was similar to the Roman legion system. Between the Tang and Song Dynasties, there was another Five Dynasties period, which was similar to the transition period from the Roman legion system to the prona system."

"The Song Dynasty in its early days was very similar to Rome today. There were a large number of military nobles who influenced the rule of the Song Dynasty emperors."

"The Song Emperor promoted civil officials and established new positions with real power, gradually weakening the old positions and successfully disintegrating the old military aristocracy."

"This dynasty has been marrying foreign queens and promoting officials from foreign countries and ethnic groups, but they are destined to be outsiders. Including myself, I was born a Turkic slave and have no roots in Rome. I cannot change the status quo of hereditary fiefdoms of military nobles. Therefore, Rome should learn from the Song Dynasty."

"First, reform education and integrate various schools such as philosophy, grammar and rhetoric. Add more loyalty to the emperor to schools, and constantly emphasize that the emperor is the defender of God and the real ruler and protector of the people. China has a 'respect the emperor and expel the barbarians' idea, which means that all people, including nobles and clergy, must be unconditionally loyal to the emperor, and the emperor protects the country and the people from foreign invasion."

"Second, rebuild the Roman Royal Guards, strengthen the strength of the central army, and find a suitable opportunity to take back the fiefdom..."

"Third, after taking back the fiefs, we can use the civil servants trained by the central government to govern them. Or, after a great victory, we can send a small number of civil servants to the noble fiefs with the power of victory. However, the premise for doing so is that the central army is strong enough..."

If Zhu Ming knew Aksuhe's political views, he would definitely be amused and confused.

He wanted the Eastern Roman Empire to stand up, block attacks from all sides, and curb the expansion of the two major religions of Catholicism and Desert.

But who could have imagined that Aksuhe would actually suggest that the Eastern Roman Emperor learn from the iron-blooded Song Dynasty!

Zhu Ming believed that the Crusaders and the Desert Religions were the number one enemies of the Eastern Roman Empire.

But actually?
For the Eastern Roman emperor, the noble lords who were members of the royal family and relatives by marriage were the number one enemy who could truly threaten his rule.

This is indeed the case. The current Eastern Roman Dynasty will be usurped by the royal family in a few decades.

A dynasty that seized power through marriage and military forces must first be on guard against people of its own kind.

Several consecutive generations of emperors refused to marry women from their own country as queens, and were particularly fond of employing foreign officials. These actions are enough to explain the problem.

Aksuhe regarded the "Zizhi Tongjian" as a treasure and planned to take it back and translate it into Latin.

He himself was born into a Turkic slave family, but he advocated the idea of ​​"respecting the king and expelling the barbarians".

The succession of the Eastern Roman emperor was extremely unstable. Even from a purely legal perspective, the emperor was not qualified to pass the throne to his descendants, which was a huge break with the current situation.

Aksukh believed that it was necessary to deepen the authority of the Eastern Roman emperor through ideological reform and give the emperor the concept of hereditary succession.

Aksukh continued to write: "If the central government cannot take back the fiefdom, the emperor can compromise with the nobles. That is, the emperor recognizes the hereditary legitimacy of the noble lords, and the noble lords recognize the hereditary legitimacy of the emperor. The emperor can no longer be deposed by the nobles, and any act of coveting the throne is regarded as rebellion. This concept is difficult for scholars and the people to accept, so when spreading it, they must be threatened with foreign races and pagans. Stable emperors and nobles can help the people resist foreign races and pagans. Publicize the brutality of foreign races and pagans, and buy some scholars to help promote it..."

(End of this chapter)