"If the Mongols come back, will you go back?" Zhao An felt that the old emperor was a little bragging, but he didn't care, but asked another question.

"Come back? Hahaha, they may not be able to come back. Although this is still a border now, it will be the capital of the Song Dynasty in a few years. I will let my son ascend the throne here again and become the emperor of a huge empire. Mongols, Liao people, Jin people, Goryeo, and Japanese people will all become citizens of the Song Dynasty. If anyone doesn't want to do so, I will nail him to the city wall. Are you a Song or a Jin person?" Hong Tao immediately laughed after hearing Zhao An's words. This guy was inquiring about his own background, not for anything else, but for his own choice of side. He wanted to see that there was more reliable place there, just be a person there.

"Of course, it's a Song Dynasty person, my mother is a Song Dynasty person! She fled from the south. Really, my mother's tombstone had the name of her hometown engraved on her tombstone. She wanted to go back to her hometown before she died. Unfortunately, the villain was not capable of taking her back!" Zhao An was frightened when he saw Hong Tao's smiling face. It turned out that someone could laugh so terriblely. In order not to let him be nailed to the city wall first, he quickly carried his mother out, and it was well documented.

"That's good. Are there any lakes and rivers in the north of the city? Take me to see." Hong Tao put away the smile of looking at the dead, and did not intend to talk to him more. His mother's tombstone may have the name of his hometown, but his father's tombstone may also have the place name from Liaodong engraved. Such people who have been ruled by several dynasties and whoever comes will always have a way out, and they will not be able to survive without this.

The Jin people's Zhongdu City cannot be borrowed, but Beijing City still needs to be built. Wherever it is built, Hong Tao needs to find the ground markers that existed in this era and remained until later generations. The area of ​​Beijing City is a plain, without specific mountains, and it is impossible to recognize whether it is. He can only try rivers and lakes first. If nothing can be found, Hong Tao can only roughly calculate based on the current location of Zhongdu City. The error is larger, and there is no way.

Hong Tao took more than a thousand people and more than a dozen local guides to turn around the ruins of Zhongdu City, and then explored several kilometers northeastwards. It took half a month to end the exploration. It was really not in vain. Hong Tao found more than one place he was familiar with, not only the name was the same, but the location should not be wrong.

The first one is the lotus pond. There is a lake behind the Beijing West Railway Station in later generations called the lotus pond. At this time, outside the west wall of Zhongdu City, there was also a lake full of lotus flowers, also called the lotus pond. It is said that it was planted by the Emperor Wanyan Liang of the Jin Dynasty. If the lotus can survive, it will be built here. If it cannot survive, it will have to look for a new place south.

Just a lake and a same name, Hong Tao would not easily confirm that this was the Lotus Pond of the later generations. But when he walked under the nearby north city wall and saw the nameplate on the damaged city tower, he immediately felt that this was the Lotus Pond of the later generations. Because this city gate is called Huicheng Gate, and on the Lotus Pond East Road in later generations, there is a bridge also called Huicheng Gate Bridge, which is located similarly, which should not be a coincidence.

If these two place names cannot fully confirm the exact location, Hong Tao found a city gate in the southwest corner of Zhongdu City, its name is Lize Gate. By chance, there was an overpass called Lize Bridge on the southwest Third Ring Road in Beijing in later generations. Hong Tao used cavalry to roughly estimate that the orientation of the two bridges in later generations was basically the same as the orientation of the two city gates now, with an error of no more than 500 meters. With a lotus pond and three parties to apply for the enlistment, the location relationship between Zhongdu City and Beijing City in later generations was basically clear.

Its western city wall is on the east bank of Lianhuachi, and the northern end of the east city wall is a little south of Zhongnanhai in later generations. According to Hong Tao's memory, the southern end is almost near Yongdingmen Railway Station. In other words, this Zhongdu city in the Jin Dynasty should be painted a square with a side length of about four kilometers close to the southwest corner of the Third Ring Road in later generations. If calculated based on the area within the Third Ring Road, it is almost a quarter of the Beijing City in later generations.

In addition to these two city gates and a lotus pond, Hong Tao also had a big discovery, that is, there was a lake less than 300 meters outside the northeast corner of Zhongdu City. At first, Hong Tao did not realize what the meaning of this lake was, but after walking a few miles north along the lakeside, he soon discovered that the lake had a long north-south span, not wide from east to west, and it stretched from south to north, almost six kilometers.

"I must study history well in the future. Isn't this the Jishui Pond, Shichahai, Beihai and Zhongnanhai!" When I drew this lake on the map, Hong Tao immediately became uneasy. Originally, he thought that the four seas in Beijing were all dug by hand when the imperial city was built during the Ming and Qing dynasties. They are now available, and their locations and shapes are not much different.

"It is called Taining Haizi, which is the old river channel left after the Lugou River is diverted. Before the Emperor of Jin built the city here, he artificially built a small island in the middle of the lake and built the palace on the island. The Jin people like to live by the water. They called all the beautiful lakes Haizi, and the palace was called Taining Palace, and this lake was called along with the palace." Hearing Hong Tao's words with different names, and none of them were correct, Zhao An felt that Hong Tao's ancestors should have sent the information about their hometown incorrectly and rushed to correct it.

"From today on, it will not be called Daning Haizi. It will be divided into four parts from the north, and it will be called Jishuitan, Shichahai, Beihai and Zhongnanhai. My yamen is built on the coast of Zhongnan Coast, and then the city will be built with this as the center! By the way, where is the Taining Palace you mentioned?" Hong Tao decided not to look for it anywhere, and there is no need to build the city according to the location of Beijing City in later generations. So, Zhongnanhai is the center point of the city and slowly expand outward. Although this place is still deserted now, it is good to have trees and water. If there is another ready-made Jin Dynasty palace to live in, it would be even better.

"Let the Mongols burn it." Zhao An reached out and pointed to the north.

"Spendulous things, burn whatever you see! When I can free my hands one day, I will rush to the Arctic Ocean for you!" I looked in the direction of Zhao An's finger and saw nothing. When I thought of myself, I would have to sleep in the open for a long time in the future, Hong Tao felt a little disgusted with the Mongolians. The Zhongdu City was burned, and it can be said that the Jin people fought to the death, which hurt many soldiers. A palace was also burned, so I was full!

The place was found, but Hong Tao was not busy building the city. He just asked someone to lay a stone tablet on the west coast of Zhongnanhai with a line of words engraved on it: The center point of Beijing City. It was established on April 7, 1255, Hong Tao!

It is not the time to build a capital city. The whole north is in ruins. Just repairing canals, building new roads, factories, and water conservancy facilities is enough for the new imperial court of the Song Dynasty and the Jinhe Empire to work for several years. They can't make any new city at all. It is enough to have a Tianjin Port as the fulcrum of the north.

In early May, as the weather in the north warmed up, fleets of ships frequently appeared in the northwest corner of the Bohai Bay like the small insects crawled out of the land after Jingzhe. The destinations were all, the former Zhiguzhai and now Tianjin Port.

Most of these long-distance sailing ships come from Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Fuzhou, and are all private ships of southern maritime merchants. They were the first investors to sign a cooperation agreement with the new government of Dasong. They came here with technology, funds, materials and manpower to follow Hong Tao, trying to continue the glory of the former Strait Company.

Hong Tao's reputation was considered a celebrity in the inland Song Dynasty, but it was still a false name. No one believed it. However, in the southern coastal port city, it was synonymous with God of Wealth. Even if this generation of young maritime merchants were not very familiar with it, their fathers would use kidnaps to rush their children and grandchildren to go north with sufficient resources. If they go late, they would not be able to catch up with fat.

Hong Tao's ability to do business has been mythology by them. Most of the maritime merchants who were in the Straits Company were still alive. As long as they think about how they made their fortunes when they were young, they couldn't help but want their children and grandchildren to continue to follow Emperor Hong to open up territory. Not to mention that Hong Tao is now the prime minister of the Song Dynasty, even if he is a pirate, these businessmen would not doubt that their investment would be wasted.

The remaining ships were basically from the Jinhe Empire. In the words of later generations, this is foreign investors. They have a longer-term vision and care about not whether they make a fortune or not, but the returns after a few years or even more than ten years. Therefore, the investment directions of these Jinhe Empire merchants are obviously different from those of the Southern Maritime Merchants in the Song Dynasty. They basically invest their funds in various infrastructure construction, and the amount of funds is very large.

This is not because the Song Dynasty's Haishang has no commercial vision and cannot see that the long-term benefits of these projects are higher than those of the short term. The reason why they dare not invest huge amounts of money in these major projects is that they are worried. It is not because they do not believe in Hong Tao's ability, but because they are not at ease with the credit of the Song Dynasty court.

On the contrary, the merchants from the Jinhe Empire did not have this concern. They have become accustomed to cooperating with the government in their own country and do not think that there is anything unsafe to cooperate with the government. If everything is done according to the contract, the government will also compensate them for their losses if they violate the terms. As for what to do if the foreign government does not do things according to the imperial laws, it is easy to do. Go to the imperial court to sue them.

As long as you can win the lawsuit, the Royal Navy's warships will be shipped. Not only will you have to pay the money, but you will also have to compensate the Royal Navy's military expenses. It's okay if you can't afford it. Sign an agreement with the Imperial Government and give up part of the country's interests. The Imperial Government will naturally help compensate the losses to the Imperial merchants. The reason why the Imperial Government is so enthusiastic is not that it is purely supportive of the Imperial residents, and it will also gain considerable benefits from it. No one suffers, and the only one who suffers is the other government that does not abide by the contract.

To be continued.
Chapter completed!