Prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 90 The Emperor's Dissatisfaction

For more than a hour, Zhao Kuangyin and others kept their eyes on the map drawn by Ye Chen, and they would discuss with each other to confirm it.But because they had never seen such a complete and detailed map, after referring to what they knew in their minds, many doubts arose in their hearts.

"It's so big, it can't be the whole world map, right?" Zhao Pu asked a little uncertainly.

Ye Chen froze for a moment, nodded in agreement.

"Okay! Very good! Ye Chen! That master of yours is indeed a strange person, and he is familiar with the geography, mountains and rivers of the whole world. You are also good, you have learned these things from your master. This is my great fortune. Hmm...here, and here are too simple to draw, such as the vicinity of Kaifeng, can you draw more details." Zhao Kuangyin looked at the map with glowing eyes, he knew the value of the map drawn by Ye Chen better than anyone else.

You know, since ancient times, when marching and fighting, because of unfamiliar terrain, how many generals have gray hair because of some terrain?

Because the terrain is unfamiliar, the army delays military aircraft, cannot advance quickly, and requires a lot of manpower and material resources to detect, and it is not necessarily accurate and complete.For example, recently, Zhao Kuangyin is preparing to send a large number of spies to the front of the Southern Han Dynasty to scout the terrain for the next year's conquest of the Southern Han Dynasty.

But now with this map, there is no need to do these things. Da Song not only has the upper hand, but also doesn't have to worry about spies being exposed.This has an inestimable effect on the outcome of a war.

Ye Chen looked strange, and said to Zhao Kuangyin: "Your Majesty, I have drawn in detail the locations of my Song, Khitan, Southern Han, Southern Tang, Dali and other countries, as well as the Dangxiang, Western Regions, and Tubo tribes. Those places are all farther away, and these places have almost no intersection with my Song Dynasty, and there is no need to draw them."

"What! Ye Chen, you circled me, Da Song, and marked all the states." Zhao Kuangyin said in surprise.

Ye Chen thought to himself that it was thanks to the fact that he spent a lot of money to collect a lot of current maps when he was in the border city of Yongle and studied them carefully. Later, in the city of Jinyang, he saw various military maps from Cao Bin, and put the current names of some important cities. I remembered it all, and it was confirmed with the geographical names of later cities at that time. Otherwise, even if he can draw a map now, but he can't name some roads, states, and prefectures, it would be ridiculous.

After half a stick of incense, Zhao Kuangyin squatted and looked at it for a long time, pointing to the small piece of land in the east with an unbelievable face and asked Ye Chen: "My Da Song is only this big? My Da Song has fifteen roads, nearly two hundred Junzhou, 820 nine counties, spanning thousands of miles, is it so big?" Looking at the world map, Zhao Kuangyin was very, very dissatisfied with the fact that Song Dynasty only occupied a small area. Maybe it is not as big as Khitan now, but it is also the center of the whole world, and its territory should account for at least one-seventh or eighth of the whole world!
"I've heard of this Persian country. It turns out that this place is indeed far away from the Great Song Dynasty, but this damned country called Tianzhu is bigger than the Great Song Dynasty and Khitan? I have never heard of this damned Great Food Kingdom." , Are they really that big? Also, the Byzantine Empire occupies a large territory in the far west. However, the Kievan Rus Kingdom has a large land area, but just looking at the map, it can be seen that it is in a bitterly cold place in the north, with an estimated population Not much." Zhao Kuangyin's expression was solemn and unbelievable.

As the founding emperor who has always regarded the Song Dynasty as the center of the world and considered himself the largest country in the world, Zhao Kuangyin was dissatisfied with the division of the world to the limit, and a series of questions roared from his mouth, every sentence was naked of jealousy.Since becoming emperor, Zhao Kuangyin hasn't lost his composure for a long time.

Zhao Pu, Luo Gongming and the other four were actually not much better, but because Zhao Kuangyin lost his composure first, they were startled instead, and they dared not say anything more for a while, so as not to irritate the emperor.It's just that from their ugly faces, it can be seen that their thoughts at this time are similar to Zhao Kuangyin's.

"Oh! Of these countries in the west, the Persians have the longest history. The master said that the Great Food Kingdom will not last long and will soon be divided. The Kievan Rus Kingdom is indeed as His Majesty said. Although it is large in size, it is all in The population of the bitterly cold place in the north should be less than one-tenth of our Great Song Dynasty." Ye Chen said.

When Ye Chen said this, he sighed secretly in his heart. He never thought that drawing the Eurasian continent would bring such a big stimulus to the emperors and ministers of the Song Dynasty. Otherwise, I'm afraid it will be even more irritating to these soil turtles in front of me.

"Hey! I won't talk about places that are too far away. Just take the surrounding area of ​​Song Dynasty as an example, let's forget about the Western Regions. I have heard of the vastness of the four fields. This Tubo is now divided into pieces, but why is it occupying such a large territory?" As expected of the founding emperor, Zhao Kuangyin quickly regained his composure, focused on the surrounding areas of the Song Dynasty, pointed to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and asked a few times.

Ye Chen said: "Your Majesty does not know. This land looks huge, but most of it is high above sea level, and the climate is cold and dry. Nearly one-third of the land is covered with snow all the year round. The living environment is extremely harsh, so Tubo The combined population is equivalent to the population of an ordinary state in Song Dynasty. And the actual land is less than one-tenth of the map."

Zhao Kuangyin nodded, obviously he knew something about the situation in Tubo, but he didn't expect the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to be so vast.

Next, Zhao Kuangyin took a detailed look at the Khitan and Dangxiang ministries in the north for a while, and finally fixed his gaze on the lands of Southern Tang, Southern Han, Dali, and Wuyue.He said bitterly: "I will turn these four countries into my Great Song Dynasty within five years."

Zhao Pu and others nodded in agreement with red eyes.

After a while, Zhao Kuangyin looked at Ye Chen, pointed at the European territory, and asked, "Your master told you about the topography of these places, and I don't know how your master knew these things? My Great Song has never been familiar with the distant west. There are only a few words, and what you said seems to be true, at least I believe it, because so far, you have never lied to me, and what you said finally became true."

The words of the emperor are implicit, but the meaning of inquiry is not obvious, and this is also a common problem of emperors in the past dynasties-suspiciousness.After calming down, you will instinctively doubt anything.

Ye Chen had no choice but to continue to lie: "My master... As far as I know, he has lived for at least 200 years. He once spent a whole hundred years traveling around the world, and he has passed on some from my master's masters from generation to generation, so he gradually I have figured out the general appearance of our world, um! Although it is not precise, the general range is not wrong."

In fact, the landforms of some places on this map are still different from the present, such as the mouth of the Yellow River and the mouth of the Yangtze River. Ye Chen carefully compared it with the current map he had seen, and then added the approximate shape of the world. Became what it is now.

Next, the six monarchs and ministers discussed the entanglement of gnashing their teeth around the map for more than an hour.Only then did we return to the topic again, and began to discuss and discuss the management of the Yellow River this year before the autumn flood.

Of course, no one will doubt the method of building the reservoir that Ye Chen said before, and the usual suitable place in the state and county corresponding to the place marked by Ye Chen to build the reservoir.What is being discussed now is only further refinement and division of labor, such as how many labors to transfer, what season is suitable for construction, how much money will be spent, who will be responsible for it, how the imperial order will be issued, and so on.

After the above matters were finalized, Yu Yueze said: "It will take at least next year for the reservoir method to be successful, but this year's autumn flood prevention, the most urgent task is to recruit labor and raise the existing river embankment."

"However, it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain soil for building embankments around the Yellow River. Kaifeng's terrain is far lower than the Yellow River embankment. It is no longer possible to take too much earth and stone from counties and towns under the jurisdiction of Kaifeng to raise the river embankment. The cost of manpower, material and financial resources to fetch stones will inevitably increase compared with last year." Luo Gongming knew that raising the embankment was inevitable, and he was responsible for the specific use of money for this matter, so he first laid out the difficulties in general.

"That's right! The terrain of Kaifeng...is lower than the bed of the Yellow River." Ye Chen thought to himself, he couldn't help remembering a historical record that later generations had read in his mind, and recalled it vaguely.

"I remember that in historical records, in the early Northern Song Dynasty, the Yellow River broke its embankment in Baima County, Kaifeng, and the scale and intensity was the largest in hundreds of years. More than 20 counties near Kaifeng and Zhengzhou were affected by the disaster, and the city walls of Kaifeng were almost washed away. , also since that incident, Zhao Kuangyin has always wanted to move the capital to Luoyang. As a result, he died in a daze before the matter was completed. But in what year did this happen?" Ye Chen frowned and pondered.Zhao Kuangyin and others discussed how to raise the embankment, but he didn't hear it.

"Ah..." Ye Chen suddenly remembered a historical record. In October of the second year of Kaibao (AD 969), the Yellow River burst through Baima County under the jurisdiction of Kaifeng, flooding Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Huazhou and other states, nearly 200 million people. People were affected, and more than 100 million people were trapped in Kaifeng City for more than 20 days, because the Song Dynasty attacked the Northern Han Dynasty a few months ago.The grain storage in Kaifeng city was not enough, countless people starved to death in Kaifeng city, and the plague broke out, and countless people died of illness.This flood is also considered to be the largest eruption of the Yellow River in hundreds of years.

Thinking of this, Ye Chen couldn't help screaming.

Zhao Kuangyin and the others, who were discussing the raising of the embankment of the Yellow River and the dispatch of labor and money, were alarmed and looked at Ye Chen.Zhao Pu frowned even more, and reprimanded with some dissatisfaction: "It's not proper to shout and scream in front of the emperor."

Including Luo Gongming, the other three ministers also looked at Ye Chen with reproach.On the contrary, Zhao Kuangyin was going to scold him at first, but when he saw the panic on Ye Chen's face, he felt a little bit in his heart, and suddenly felt something was wrong.

(End of this chapter)