Song Gexing

Chapter 126 Gift from Champa State
"By the way, the kiln factory is built outside the city and needs to be guarded. Don't let others steal the technology. The four of you go to Huyan's house and ask the old general for help. His youngest son has no favor. Let him lead the guard."

When Gao Shilin heard this, he was about to say that he didn't need it, but Murong Ye grabbed him by the back of his shirt and signaled him not to object.

Gao Shilin looked at him in confusion. His family was the top martial artist in the Song Dynasty, second only to the Cao family, so there was no shortage of guards.

The two great martial arts families of the Song Dynasty, the Gao Huaide family who founded the country, have long been inferior to the Gao Qiong family. After all, Gao Huaide was a descendant of Taizu, and the later emperors were from the Taizong lineage.

Although Gao Huaide was also Zhao Guangyi's brother-in-law, he had a deeper relationship with Zhao Kuangyin, while Gao Qiong was Zhao Guangyi's direct confidant and was trusted completely differently.

"Cai Qing, my brother wants to show favor to the Huyan family. Can't you tell from this?"

After the matter was discussed, the four of them left the prince's residence, and Murong Ye whispered to Gao Shilin.

Only then did he suddenly realize, he patted his head and said in annoyance: "My brain, alas! No wonder my father said that I am not suitable for officialdom."

He later realized that he even felt embarrassed. Also, the elder sister and younger brother were excellent politicians, while the younger brother was an honest person. He didn't know why his father had two children. It was completely reversed.

Gao Shilin was actually full of knowledge. He had been eager to learn since he was a child, was familiar with Confucian classics, and had a clever mind. However, he had a straightforward personality, which should be said to be simple, which is extremely rare among noble families.

This is also the most important reason why Zhao Fang immediately promoted the matter when he knew that his sister Zhao Huirou liked him. Otherwise, a wealthy family like the Gao family would not be suitable to marry a princess.

The Murong family is also a martial artist, but their power is completely incomparable with that of the Gao family. In fact, the royal family is most afraid of marrying a wealthy family that is too powerful. There are too many unrest factors.

The Ming Dynasty gave up on this. After Zhu Di, emperors no longer married daughters of noble families, but instead turned to small gentry or even common people.

The days passed quickly, and in May of the third year of Huangyou, the Great Quyue Kingdom was destroyed.

This time, the Song army did not withdraw its troops after teaching the subordinate states a lesson as before. Instead, they stationed themselves and announced that the name of Jiaozhou would be restored and incorporated into the territory of the Song Dynasty.

However, the Song army did not continue to go south. Instead, they sent people to Champa State to announce the imperial court's will, appease the Champa State, and warned them that they must obey to respect the king and resist the barbarians.

When the Champa Kingdom heard that the Song Dynasty did not intend to destroy itself, they were overjoyed and prepared tributes. They already hated the Quyue Kingdom, so naturally they would not bear grudges against the Song Dynasty for them.

Although Vietnam in later generations was a country that unified the north and the south, in fact, the Champa Kingdom began to move south and always hated the kingdoms in the north.

After all, they are not the same nation. In this era, they even have different cultures. South of Champa State, Indian culture has always been dominant.

Of course it is not ancient India, and it is different from the Indian caste system, but they do believe in Brahmanism.

Moreover, most of the Nanyang area at this time, Indonesia, and the Malay Archipelago in later generations also believed in Brahmanism.

Brahmanism is not actually Hinduism. Hinduism is a new religion based on Brahmanism and fused with Buddhism.

This should be related to the fact that the Nanyang area and southern Vietnam are connected to the Indian Ocean, and Myanmar and Thailand are close to India, so culture can also be spread from land.

Since its establishment, the Great Quyue State has been suppressing the Champa State and has repeatedly encroached on the Champa State's land. The two sides have been fighting for many years.

For this reason, the Champa Kingdom was blocked by the Quyue Kingdom from the land route to pay tribute to the Song Dynasty. It also wrote to the Song Dynasty, asking for a decision.

However, the Song Dynasty has never substantively attacked the Quyue Kingdom. It has only issued decrees to reprimand it several times. Unexpectedly, it was so violent this time that it was destroyed directly.The Champa Kingdom was both happy and worried. They were happy that the feud was finally avenged, but they were worried that the Song Dynasty would take back the Champa Kingdom and prevent them from becoming independent.

You must know that the Champa Kingdom was also ruled by the Central Plains Dynasty in history, and it was the Rinan County of the Han Dynasty.

After receiving the imperial edict to maintain their independence, the king of Champa State burst into tears with excitement, and Zhao Zhen received the tribute a few months later.

Ten well-trained war elephants, a number of elephant slaves responsible for raising these war elephants, and several carts of ivory, rhinoceros horns and other treasures.

It can be seen that the Champa Kingdom has spent a lot of money this time. Renzong happily waved his hand and sent the war elephant and elephant slave to the prince's mansion.

Zhao Fang was confused. After asking his father, he found out that the old man actually looked down on the war elephant and thought it was useless.

The Song Dynasty also had elephants. Later generations thought that elephants were only found in southern Yunnan and Guangxi, but this was not the case.

Many records from the Song Dynasty mentioned that wild elephants injured people in Hangzhou, and wild elephants were also found in the Qinling Mountains.

This is related to the climate. In the Song Dynasty, the south of the Qinling Mountains was actually a warm zone, and even the Guanzhong Plain was very warm. Otherwise, the Qin, Han, Sui, and Tang Dynasties would not have established their capital in Shaanxi.

The first requirement for a dynasty's capital city is not that it is easy to defend and difficult to attack, but that it can support so many people in the capital. This is exactly why the Northern Song Dynasty made Bianliang its capital.

In other words, before the Tang Dynasty, at least the Guanzhong Plain could feed as many people as the capital. This shows that the climate of the Guanzhong Plain at that time was suitable for large-scale grain cultivation.

In fact, the climate change in the Song Dynasty was not that obvious. Shaanxi was no longer the capital because the destruction there was too tragic.

The Huangchao Rebellion at the end of the Tang Dynasty can be said to have completely destroyed Shaanxi. Coupled with the wars of previous dynasties and generations, the forest no longer exists, and soil erosion has caused irreversible damage.

Ancient wars required a large amount of wood, and siege equipment was basically made from local materials. During each siege, a large number of trees were cut down.

Coupled with the burning caused by the war and the burning of fires for cooking when the army crossed the border, it was not planned logging at all, and the Guanzhong Plain became a bare yellow land.

The real major climate change should have started in the Yuan Dynasty. The small glacier climate that lasted until the early Qing Dynasty dealt the most fatal blow to the northwest land.

Ningxia in the Song Dynasty was north of the Great Wall and south of the Yangtze River. There was no desert at all. The desert in Inner Mongolia did not extend to Ningxia, and even Xinjiang did not have such a large desert.

This can be seen from the fact that Loulan Kingdom, Wanguo City, etc. are all in the desert in later generations. If there is a desert, who has a bad brain and builds cities there.

Having said all this, I want to say that in the Song Dynasty, there were actually wild elephants in Henan. Although the population was not large, they existed.

Especially at the junction of Henan and Hubei, there are rolling mountains and lush vegetation. Whether it is Shennongjia or Wudang Mountains, they are excellent habitats for elephants.

Zhao Fang couldn't laugh or cry after knowing what his father was thinking. After taking over the war elephants and elephant slaves, he immediately ordered the capture of forty baby elephants, trained them and formed elephant soldiers.

After learning the news, Zhao Zhen immediately called him into the palace for questioning. In his opinion, it was not a matter of spending money, but a matter of worrying that his son would lose his ambition by playing with things.

(End of this chapter)