Last year, Mongolia and Song Dynasty jointly attacked Qi, which ended with the Southern Song Dynasty losing 300,000 Song troops and the land of Huainan.

The Southern Song Dynasty thought that after the war last year, the world would be peaceful for a while.

Unexpectedly, Mongolia, which suffered no losses last year, actually launched another attack on Qi after the Southern Song Dynasty negotiated peace with Qi.

The Southern Song Dynasty had just signed the contract and saw Meng Qi fighting again, and his thoughts became active again.

The Southern Song Dynasty actually wanted to participate, but their strength did not allow it.

When Wokuotai besieged Langshan and the Mongolian army looted Hebei, the Southern Song Dynasty learned that Meng and Qi were fighting again, and Zhao Yun began to ask ministers whether the Song army could take the opportunity to take back Huainan.

Zhao Yun dared to ask this, mainly because the court officials of the Southern Song Dynasty were gradually recovering from the tragic defeat in Pizhou.

Many people began to feel that the defeat of the 300,000 Song army was unjust, they failed to show their strength and failed inexplicably.

Some people think that if it happens again, the Song Army may not lose.

At this time, as Song and Qi negotiated peace, a large number of forbidden troops were released by Qi, and the Southern Song Dynasty stabilized the Yangtze River defense line.

As soon as the defense line was stabilized and Meng Qi started fighting in Hebei, Zhao Yun immediately regained his composure. When he looked at the terms of the peace negotiations between Song and Qi, he became increasingly dissatisfied.

Now that the Qi army has occupied Huainan, it shares the Yangtze River natural moat with the Southern Song Dynasty, making it difficult for Zhao Yun and the Southern Song Dynasty monarchs and ministers to sleep and eat.

In addition, Qi State put forward many novel clauses in the clauses. The military officials of the Southern Song Dynasty did not understand their meaning at first and thought they were irrelevant. However, when they really understood it, they discovered that Qi State had buried a big hole in them.

Not to mention anything else, let me just talk about one of them: when goods from Qi State enter the Southern Song Dynasty, the Southern Song Dynasty needs to negotiate with Qi State as to how much tax they need to collect. However, when goods from Song State enter Qi State, Qi State can charge as much tax as they want, which is very unusual.

unreasonable.

After the signing of this agreement, it aroused dissatisfaction among the gentry and merchants in the south of the Yangtze River, and their emotions soon spread to the Southern Song Dynasty court.

After Zhao Yun learned about it, he immediately sent someone to find out. Only then did he learn that within three months of the signing of the peace agreement, there were several businesses. In order to maintain the market in Huainan, they set up workshops in Qi State to maintain their products.

, in terms of price, it cannot be compared with Qi merchants.

At the same time, when the goods they produced in Qi entered the Song Dynasty, the taxes they paid were actually cheaper than those produced in the Song Dynasty.

After Zhao Yun discovered this, he realized that this would directly shake the Song Dynasty's finances. He felt extremely dissatisfied and wanted to revise the peace agreement.

When Meng Qi started the war, Zhao Yun saw an opportunity and felt that he could threaten Zhao Tai and ask Zhao Tai to renegotiate.

Unexpectedly, before the Southern Song Dynasty took any action, Wokuotai had been defeated by the Qi army over there.

This shocked and frightened the Southern Song Dynasty, and also made Zhao Yun feel a huge crisis.

After Duan Ping failed to enter Luo, Zhao Yun originally chose to lie down. He no longer had the ambition to recover and wanted to be a mediocre king who was content with the status quo and enjoyed life.

Now with the rise of Qi, Zhao Yun had to pay attention to government affairs again and decided to work hard to govern.

This was not because Zhao Yun had the intention to compete with Qi Meng for hegemony and unify the world again, but because he was worried that if he continued to lie down, Zhao Tai would have to cross the river to handle government affairs for him.

Recently, Zhao Yunlao remembered the story of Empress Li and Empress Xiao Zhou.

At present, Zhao Tai has defeated the Southern Song Dynasty and Mongolia one after another, and the momentum of his rise is too rapid.

If this rate continues, Zhao Yun thinks that within ten years, Zhao Tai will be able to unify the north and then go south to destroy the Song Dynasty.

Ten years later, Zhao Yun was only in his forties and still had a long time to live.

Zhao Yun shuddered when he thought that he would be the king of subjugation in the future.

All this forced Zhao Yun to pick himself up again and protect his old life.

There have been great changes in the political arena of the Southern Song Dynasty in the past few years. First, the powerful minister Shi Miyuan was dismissed, then Zheng Qingzhi, Zhao Kui, and Zhao Fan were demoted, and then Shi Songzhi was captured. As a result, the powerful ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty withdrew from the core of the court one after another.

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Because these ministers left and Zhao Yun took over power again, the whole process was very smooth.

After regaining power, Zhao Yun immediately appointed a group of young ministers.

Among these people were Meng Cong and Yu Jie, and among these people, the most important one was Jia Sidao.

Jia Sidao signed a peace agreement with Zhao Tai. When he returned to Lin'an, he was attacked by hundreds of officials, who believed that he had colluded with Zhao Tai and betrayed the Song Dynasty.

Faced with the turbulent public opinion, Jia Sidao could only submit a letter to resign, taking on the responsibility of signing the peace agreement.

Zhao Yun was very moved by Jia Sidao's courage to take responsibility.

Because Zhao Yun knew very well that Jia Sidao was scolded on his behalf, and it was he who was frightened by Zhao Tai. After urging him several times, Jia Sidao hurriedly signed a contract with Zhao Tai.

Those terms were all reviewed by Zhao Yun, and only after Zhao Yun approved them did Jia Sidao not argue with Qi.

After Zhao Yun regained his strength and determined to work hard, he quickly re-enabled Jia Sidao.

In order to deal with Qi and regain Huainan, Jia Sidao quickly decided on three strategies with a group of ministers.

The first step is to select elites, innovate equipment, plan to restore the Song army to 500,000, and try to imitate Qi's muskets and artillery.

Jia Sidao believed that the scale of the smelting and casting industry in the Southern Song Dynasty originally exceeded that of the Qi State. What the Qi State could produce could certainly be produced in the Southern Song Dynasty. Moreover, the Song Army was not as brave as the Northern Army, so it should pay more attention to the use of firearms.

The second is to reform finance and try to collect more taxes to train troops and fight wars.

In a battle last year, the Southern Song Dynasty lost 300,000 troops and also lost Huainan.

Afterwards, in order to redeem the captured imperial troops, the Southern Song Dynasty spent a large amount of money and directly brought the Southern Song Dynasty, the richest among the Three Kingdoms, to the point of almost bankruptcy.

Now the Southern Song Dynasty had to re-recruit the army and manufacture ordnance, which cost money for everything. After the Southern Song Dynasty lost Huainan, it suffered huge tax losses, which made the Song court's finances begin to make ends meet.

There were many places to spend money and few places to fight for money, so the Southern Song Dynasty could only carry out financial reforms.

However, when Jia Sidao mentioned the reform, he encountered opposition from the officials and gentry. In the end, Zhao Yun had no choice but to compromise and not implement the reform in Jiangnan. He would first conduct a pilot project on the remote Guangnan Road. If the effect was good, he could then promote it nationwide.

The last strategy was that the Song Dynasty should not only care about things within the Song Dynasty, but also care about news from the north.

Zhao Yun immediately ordered Jia Sidao to set up an intelligence network in Qi and Mongolia to spy on the intelligence of the two countries.

Jia Sidao and Zhao Tai started a business partnership together. At first, he was surprised by the tricks Zhao Tai had achieved, but after a while, he found that they were too vulgar.

In the land south of the Yangtze River, there are many beautiful women, and there are also many talented women.

Jia Sidao spent a lot of money to recruit some prostitutes and asked them to go to Qi State to spy on intelligence.

By October, the autumn harvest in Qi State had been completed. Zhao Tai had captured Hebei and Lianghuai, and held two large granaries in his hands. Qi State was finally able to be self-sufficient in food, and there was still a surplus of grain.

If you have food, you won’t panic.
Chapter completed!