In the Song Dynasty, there was no law or order.

Zhao Zhen was about to ask him how the tea law reform was going, so he called him in.

Soon Li Zi came in and said to Zhao Zhen: "Your Majesty."

"Prime Minister Li, how is it?"

Zhao Zhen asked: "Is the reform of the new law going smoothly?"

Li Zi's face was slightly pale, and he coughed twice and said: "Thanks to your majesty's blessing, we have reached cooperation with many major tea merchants in the past few days. They will more than double the amount of grain and grass transported to the border every year in the future, which will greatly increase the border grain storage."

"Oh?"

Zhao Zhen was very happy and said: "That's great."

"But."

Li Zi's face was hesitant.

Zhao Zhen wondered: "But what?"

"But it is still far from what expected, and it may even delay the transportation of grain."

"Why?"

"Because some merchants not only colluded with officials at the border, wantonly embezzled the coins and tea permits given by the court, but also planned to unite to resist the implementation of the new law."

Li Zi said: "Your Majesty, do you still remember the cash law implemented in the Tiansheng year, and how those merchants resisted it?"

Zhao Zhen frowned.

At that time, Liu E was still in power. The cash payment law seriously damaged the interests of merchants and officials who relied on the blood of the court, causing them to boycott and stop transporting grain to the border the next year.

The result was that the border troops were short of food. The court was panicked and quickly demoted Li Zi and abolished the cash payment law, which calmed down the boycott.

The other party now seems to be planning to do the same thing again.

"What do you think, Prime Minister Li?"

Zhao Zhen asked.

Li Zi said: "We should kill one person to warn the hundred, and we must not be merciful."

Hearing this, Zhao Zhen hesitated.

He is indeed a soft-hearted person. He never ordered anyone to be killed during the reign of Emperor Renzong.

For example, in the eighth year of Qingli, he was assassinated in the palace. After the assassin was silenced, he did not order the murderer to be tracked down. It was outrageous that he just let it go.

If Zhu Yuanzhang encountered such a thing, regardless of whether he participated or not, he would have exterminated dozens of families and killed tens of thousands of people to help cheer him up?

Now he was hesitant to order severe punishment for those illegal vendors.

After a while, Zhao Zhen said, "Of course they need to be punished, but they should be punished according to the law. This is not a capital crime. They should be sentenced to the law according to the law they violated. It must not be too severe, and it is better to be as light as possible."

"Yes."

Li Zi responded helplessly, and then said, "There is one more thing."

"What is it?"

"The tea merchants we are dealing with now are just some tea merchants with no background. There are also many merchants who are backed by officials in the court or retired officials. They also embezzle the court treasury. It is inconvenient for me to deal with them one by one."

"Is that so."

Zhao Zhen thought about it and said, "Then let the Imperial City Department list the names first, and then talk about it later."

"Yes."

Li Zi agreed.

Zhao Zhen was actually quite helpless about this matter.

The Song Dynasty only restricted officials from doing business, but did not restrict their relatives from doing business.

So the business style of officials in the Song Dynasty was extremely prevalent. Tax evasion was just a routine operation. There were also those who used their official status to do evil and bully the market.

For example, Sun Mian, while serving as the governor of Hangzhou, allowed his subordinates to do business openly and made a lot of money.

But Zhao Zhen was not easy to deal with. First, he did follow the ancestral system of treating scholars well. Second, he was soft-hearted and could not do it. Third, and most importantly, if he really cracked down on officials doing business, the benefits would be greater than cracking down on redundant officials and soldiers. He did not have the courage to make up his mind to reform.

Therefore, he could only put it aside for the time being and wait for Zhao Jun's eyes to recover and see what he could do.

The main reason was that Zhao Zhen was no longer very worried about the border issue.

Now that the treasury has a surplus, Zhao Zhen plans to promote it nationwide next year if the pilot project of Jiaozi is successful, and absorb a large amount of money.

At that time, when the grain price is low, the grain and grass will be stored and transported to the border.

Although Zhao Jun only said that Li Yuanhao would provoke a war in the northwest border next year and the year after, he did not say that because of the war, the grain price in the whole Song Dynasty would soar and the people would suffer.

But not all of Zhao Zhen's prime ministers were good-for-nothings. Lü Yijian and Wang Zeng quickly analyzed that if Li Yuanhao really wanted to go to war as Zhao Jun said, the court would have to mobilize troops in the northwest and withdraw a large amount of grain, causing fluctuations in grain prices.

So they planned to make preparations in advance, secretly buy up while the grain price is low, and reserve some old grain first. When Li Yuanhao really wants to go to war next year or the year after, releasing the old grain can at least stabilize the grain price.

It's just that before, they suffered from the lack of money in the treasury, and the fiscal deficit squeezed more than 30 million guan. There was really no way to store grain, so even if they analyzed these things, they were helpless.

But now that there is Jiaozi, there is money to be embezzled temporarily, and it is completely possible to get grain first, so that there will be no shortage of grain on the border, and the people will not lack grain.

At that time, even if Li Zi asked merchants to stop sending grain to the border in a short period of time, there would not be any major mistakes.

After all, the state-owned tea business has not been abolished yet. It has just changed to selling state-owned tea to selected tea merchants. Those who are not selected still have to transport grain to the border to exchange for tea permits. After one or two years, those tea merchants without tea permits will not obey them.

Li Zi reported the matter quickly and left. Zhao Zhen was very happy to learn that the affairs of Jiaozi and Jianqian Law were going smoothly. He also handled some other government affairs. In the morning, Yan Shu came back.

Yan Shu asked the palace gate to meet His Majesty, and after receiving Zhao Zhen's permission, he quickly entered the palace. He had not been in the palace in the past few days, but he looked a little haggard.

"Mr. Yan, how is Mrs. Julu County?"

Zhao Zhen asked.

Yan Shu's first wife, Mrs. Li, died early, and his current wife is Xu Xian, the daughter of Meng Xuzhou, a foreign minister in the field, who was given the title of Lady of Julu County.

Historically, Meng did not accompany Yan Shu until the end, and eventually died of illness.

But now Yan Shu's face is slightly haggard, but he is in good spirits. He said with a smile: "Thanks to the official family's great fortune, my wife has turned the corner and is now recovering."

"Turn the danger around?"

When Zhao Zhen heard this, he wanted to nod his head to express his congratulations to Yan Shu, but when he heard the next sentence, he couldn't believe it and said, "Mr. Yan, what did you say? In just a few days, Mrs. Julu County's health Already recovered?"

You must know that Mrs. Meng suffered from lung fever. Modern bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung abscess are all types of lung fever. In ancient times, they were not completely terminal illnesses. They needed to be treated with appropriate medicines, such as Qianjin Wei Jie Decoction, Coix Seed and Aconite Baijiang Powder, and Rhubarb. Mudan decoction can treat it.

However, to treat this kind of disease, firstly, the symptoms need to be met, and secondly, the patient's body must be able to bear it. Otherwise, the traditional Chinese medicine will be slower to take effect, and the patient will have to return to the west. Therefore, lung fever was still a disease with a relatively high fatality rate in ancient times. Even if it could be cured, the body would be extremely weak and would not recover within a few days.

That's why Zhao Zhen was extremely shocked when he heard Yan Shu say that Mrs. Meng's body had completely recovered.

Yan Shu smiled and said: "Yes, I only took two pills of amoxicillin. The imperial doctor said that the properties of the medicine were not yet certain, and he didn't know whether it could treat the symptoms. He couldn't take too much. Seeing that my wife was seriously ill, I gave her a dose first. I didn’t expect to get better soon. I took another pill the day before yesterday. Now I can get out of bed and walk around freely. However, I have eaten less during this period and my body is slightly weak.”

"This medicine is so miraculous."

Zhao Zhen was surprised, and then said: "Can the imperial doctor extract the medicinal properties from it?"

Yan Shu shook his head and said: "If it is medicine dregs, the imperial doctor will know the taste even if he smells it, but it is white powder inside, and he has no idea what it is. It must be the chemical synthesis that Zhao Jun said."

"That would be a shame."

Zhao Zhen was disappointed at first, and then said happily: "But there are still many miracle medicines from his future generations, which is a good thing."

Yan Shu said: "Yes, Your Majesty, if you can keep these medicines, you may be able to rely on these medicines to deduce new medicines in the future. The most urgent task now is to steal from Zhao Jun. Well, take some and keep some of all his medicines." ”

"In that case, let's go see Zhao Jun."

Zhao Zhen said.