Song Gexing

Chapter 23 Situation
On the ninth day of September in the second year of Qingli, just as people were relaxing and going up to the heights to have a view, a clear children's voice sounded: "Sell newspapers! Sell newspapers! The Song Dynasty Weekly is freshly released."

"Five thousand copies will be given free of charge to the guests at the opening, first come first served, latecomers will have to pay. A newspaper costs two cents, fresh and interesting stories, the affairs of the court, and the secret history of the palace!"

"There are even more talented people, beauties, loyal ministers and good generals..."

Curiosity is always the unchanging nature of human beings. Even in war-torn times, when one does not know whether one will live or die tomorrow, people still retain curiosity.

Zhao Fang's slogan is enough to arouse the greatest curiosity among people in this era, especially the secret history of the palace, which makes many honest people widen their eyes in surprise.

"Who dares to be so bold as to make official family affairs public?"

"Let's go, take a look!"

……

Of course Zhao Fang will not write the secret history of the palace of the Song Dynasty. He still has to cover his butt tightly. My father may be furious, but basically he will not do anything, but I dare to do it.

Moreover, while others were beaten by one mother, he had two mothers who dared to beat him, and they did not dare to resist.

Of course, there are still gimmicks. Fortunately, China has been around for 5000 years, and there were so many dynasties before the Song Dynasty. There are as many emperors as there are emperors to arrange in the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.

In the next few days, newspapers became the source of people's high-spirited conversations after dinner. People are like this. When I listen to it, I want to read it myself.

Although the imperial court in the Song Dynasty was very poor in recent years, the people were wealthy. Many people could afford it with just two pennies, let alone the four capitals of the Song Dynasty.

The four capitals of the Northern Song Dynasty are called the four capitals of East, West, South and North. The real imperial capital is naturally Bianjing, also called Tokyo (Bianliang was called by later generations, and people in the Song Dynasty did not have this name. Later generations used Tokyo as a base to learn from the Northern Song Dynasty) of.)
Nanjing Yingtian Mansion is not the Jinling later, but the place of Longxing in the Song Dynasty, Songzhou in Henan, and the Shangqiu area in later generations. This is the place where Zhao Kuangyin was canonized in the later Zhou Dynasty. The name of the Song Dynasty originated from here.

The Henan Prefecture of Xijing was the city of Luoyang, but the Luoyang at this time was no longer the Luoyang of the Tang Dynasty. It was later rebuilt on the ruins, and the address was slightly shifted, but generally it was still there.

Daming Palace in Beijing was upgraded after Renzong ascended the throne in order to resist the Liao Kingdom. As a strategic material location on the front line, it was located at the junction of Hebei, Shandong, and Henan in later generations.

These four capitals are not only prosperous, but also strategically important. Later generations have always thought that Kaifeng Prefecture in Tokyo had poor defense capabilities and that the Song Dynasty's capital was a failure. In fact, this was not the case.

The freezing of the Yellow River did not freeze the entire river. The Kaifeng area did not freeze in this era, and the course of the Yellow River in this era was different from that of later generations.

At this time, the Yellow River had not yet come into contact with the Huaihe River. Although there were floods that invaded the south, they never posed a threat to the Huaihe River.

The mouth of the Yellow River has been changing from Hebei to Shandong. It was not until the Southern Song Dynasty that the Yellow River burst its banks and invaded the Huaihe River because the Jin Kingdom in the upper reaches did not control the floods.

Jin Shizong may have thought that the Yellow River's bursting of its banks would cause harm to the lower reaches and pose little threat to the Jin Kingdom, but he did not expect that it was this bursting of its banks that sounded the death knell of the Jin Kingdom's demise.

The Han people who had been accustomed to being ruled by the Jin Kingdom began to oppose the Jin Kingdom's rule, which greatly weakened the Jin Kingdom's combat effectiveness.

The successive rebellions left him no time to care about the northern grasslands, giving Temujin the opportunity to grow. Otherwise, according to the national policy set by the Jin Kingdom, he would keep a close eye on the grassland tribes at all times and would never allow them to grow up.

Being born into a nomadic tribe, Jin Guo knew very well what was happening on the grasslands. As long as they were given 20 years, a new strong ethnic group would be born.

In addition, the Yellow River in this era was not under the city of Kaifeng. In fact, it was hundreds of miles away from Kaifeng. And the hundreds of miles of land were densely covered with lakes and rivers, which were natural areas to resist cavalry.Otherwise, there would not have been several dynasties in history that established their capitals here. From the Xia Dynasty to the Later Zhou Dynasty, which was succeeded by the Northern Song Dynasty, there were as many as six capitals built here.

Even the later Jin Kingdom, after destroying the Northern Song Dynasty, also moved its capital to Kaifeng in the later period. Could it be that the Jin Kingdom had a broken head and did not know how to defend a place that could easily be conquered by itself.

The reason is naturally that the defense system in Kaifeng in the Northern Song Dynasty was perfect. It had five levels of defense, starting from the outside of the city with the construction of trenches, sheep and horse walls, and then the outer city wall.

Moreover, there are three gates in the Wengcheng alone. If you attack an Wengcheng, you will find that there is still an Wengcheng inside. This kind of deceptive layout can trap thousands of troops and horses in it.

What really caused the fall of Kaifeng was not that it was undefeated, but that Song Huizong, his father and son, and the officials at that time were as stupid as pigs.

Who has seen monarchs and ministers who believe that Taoist priests can defeat the enemy in war? Who has seen monarchs and ministers who believe that the enemy can be wiped out with dung?

Therefore, the demise of a regime does not depend on how powerful the enemy is, but on the self-destruction.

"These corrupt officials really deserve to die!"

"That's right, our official family is the best in history. It's all the bad things done by the people below."

"That's right, they won't let the officials change. I heard..."

"Yes, I've also heard about my neighbor's second aunt, her distant..."

In just one month, four weekly newspapers were published, and Zhao Fang quietly added some public opinion guidance to the newspaper to let people focus on punishing corrupt officials and reforming the land system.

At first, there were discussions among ordinary people, and gradually students from Taixue joined in, including many children from wealthy families, who also began to dislike the behavior of their elders.

Fortresses are often breached from the inside. Zhao Fang is very sure about this. He must win over the children of wealthy families. These young children are not used to treachery and retain the original passion of mankind.

On the tenth day of the twelfth lunar month, the ten-day meeting of the imperial court began. Ouyang Xiu, who served as the right advisor, was the first to go out: "Your Majesty! Today, some Tai students have jointly requested the imperial court to thoroughly investigate the household registrations of the world..."

The court suddenly became noisy, and Zhao Fang was very surprised. He obviously wanted to lead the investigation of corrupt officials to start operations, but why did these people skip this and directly attack this important matter.

"No, this matter has touched too many people, whose idea is this?"

Zhao Fang looked around at the courtiers, but he couldn't tell who was behind this incident, which made him embarrassed.

If it was okay if the reformists started it, it can only be said that they acted too hastily, but if it was intentional, then this matter would be serious.

What he was most worried about was that the interests of this matter not only involved officials, but also minor officials, as well as people like Li Zheng and Bao Jia in various villages.

If the imperial power does not go to the countryside, this kind of talent is the weapon used by the imperial court to control the countryside. If the weapon is forced back, it will only hurt the body.

(End of this chapter)