When snowflakes covered every inch of Chang'an, the Tang Dynasty officially entered the first year of Zhenguan from the ninth year of Wude.
Sometimes, Li Zhiyun would boredly guess that perhaps due to fate, the Wude reign could only last nine years, and the Zhenguan reign also appeared again, perfectly matching the original history.
The difference is that when the Tang Dynasty entered the Zhenguan year, it no longer had to worry about Turkic invasions.
In the last court meeting of the Takenori Year, Li Zhiyun and the officials set the tone that within ten years there would not be another large-scale national war equivalent to the annihilation of the Turks.
Originally, the officials wanted to put the emperor's swords and guns into the treasury and release the horses to Nanshan, but Li Zhiyun strongly refused and had no choice but to change the policy.
In Li Zhiyun's view, the demise of the Turks does not mean the end of the war. On the contrary, for the expansion of the empire, war is inevitable.
The good news is that, except for the Turks who allowed the Tang Dynasty to go all out to fight national wars, the remaining small neighboring countries or foreign races did not have to spend so much time gathering food to fight the war.
In front of Changle Hall.
Princess Jinyang and several princes and princesses were having a snowball fight, and a few little guys ran around noisily, frightening the maids serving beside them.
Inside the palace.
Li Zhiyun accompanied the queen and the concubines, who were preparing something.
Spinning Jenny!
Empress Yang is also good at female beauty. After Li Zhiyun demonstrated it once, she quickly started to operate it. The cotton threads appeared one after another, which meant that the handicraft industry was greatly maturing.
"This shuttle is really powerful." Queen Yang said.
The corners of Li Zhiyun's mouth curled up slightly. In addition to the shuttle, he also made slight improvements on the Jenny.
"Wool is also a sharp weapon." Li Zhiyun sighed with emotion.
In the future, woolen trousers will sell well in the grasslands, and slaves of precious stones, gold and silver will not be asked for as much as they want.
As the saying goes, men farm and women weave.
Juntian has implemented almost all of it, and the rest is female weaving.
He planned to encourage self-sufficiency in weaving and selling among the people. At the same time, he planned to plunder foreign women and organize large factories to produce woolen fabrics.
In this way, it can be sold well at home and abroad and make a lot of money.
The income from sugar replenished Li Zhiyun's depleted internal funds, and there was no big problem in setting up a large factory.
Right now, what is lacking is manpower.
There is no need to think about foreign women for the time being, because there are none. Turkic women were all given to meritorious soldiers by Li Zhiyun.
Therefore, the first batch of female workers recruited could only be Han women.
"Your Majesty, put down the silkworm kiss ceremony, and I will do my best." Empress Yang said solemnly.
Li Zhiyun nodded.
The emperor plows the fields, and the queen cultivates silkworms.
This is an ancient system.
Concubine Wei asked: "Except for wool, I wonder if silk and other items can be woven on this loom?"
"Of course." Li Zhiyun replied.
He thought of cotton, which already existed. During the Han and Wei dynasties, cotton had been introduced to the Central Plains and was called 'Weaver', 'Jibei' or 'Kapok'.
At present, no one thinks that cotton can be used to weave cloth, and everyone regards it as an ornamental object.
The Central Plains and other places are suitable for growing cotton, but Li Zhiyun cannot let "cotton eat people". What the Tang Dynasty lacks now is food.
More than 80% of the land in the Central Plains must be used to grow food.
But the Western Region can be used to grow cotton.
Cotton cannot eat people from the Tang Dynasty, but it can eat people from the Western Regions. Just as Li Zhiyun thought, let 'sheep eat people from the prairie'.
How perfect.
What is capital?
I give you the raw materials and you buy my products.
Once this trade route was opened, the grassland people would sell wool to the Tang Dynasty, and then buy wool from the Tang Dynasty at a high price to keep out the cold.
Who can say no to a warm yet sophisticated wool sweater?
It is conceivable that in a few years, the grassland people will be crazy about raising sheep, and even use slaves to trade with the Tang Dynasty.
Whether the grassland people used slaves to raise sheep or the Tang Dynasty took over slave mining, there was essentially no difference.
It's all exploitation.
The difference is that the targets of exploitation are no longer Tang people, but Xueyantuo people, Tongluo people, Khitan people, Goguryeo people, and even people from the Western Regions.
The people of the Tang Dynasty sat and waited for resources to flow into Chang'an, then process them into commodities and sell them to the raw material-producing countries at hundreds of times the price.
By then, how rich will Li Zhiyun’s internal funds be?
Tsk, I don’t dare to think about it too much.
Gently touching the new loom, his eyes fell on the pedal, Li Zhiyun's thoughts were flying. After the popularization of small hand-made machines, water-powered spinning machines and other things must be built as soon as possible.
Although woolen cloth is not as comfortable as silk, it is the best choice for wearing outside single clothes as a layer to keep out the cold.
In March of the first year of Zhenguan, the emperor personally plowed an acre of land, and the queen led her concubines to hold a silkworm kissing ceremony to worship the silkworm god Luozu.
At the silkworm ceremony, Empress Yang took the lead in demonstrating a new loom, which aroused discussion between the government and the public.
Later, under the leadership of the Hundred Workers Supervisor, a large factory was built in the western suburbs, more than a hundred new looms were installed, and female workers were recruited.
In terms of wages, five social insurances and one housing fund are provided, and the wages are calculated monthly. The female workers are very happy that this can be used to supplement their family income.
Soon, the first batch of woolen cloth came out.
At first, everyone thought that the new loom was more efficient and was most suitable for weaving silk. However, they did not expect it to be rough woolen cloth, and everyone suddenly lost interest.
The big news about the loom has just passed, and bad news came from Hebei.
Severe drought!
Farming cannot be done without water. The drought in Hebei this year is particularly severe.
Because Li Zhiyun was prepared in advance, he sent Wei Zheng to Hebei to carry grain to provide relief. Most of the money for purchasing grain was taken out by Li Zhiyun from internal funds.
There was no way, the extermination of the Turks was too costly, and the foreign dynasty was in trouble, so Li Zhiyun had no choice but to buy food with his own blood.
Thanks to the publicity in Chang'an newspapers, the people all knew that the food for disaster relief was bought with the emperor's own money.
A conscientious emperor!
Li Zhiyun happily gained another group of people's hearts.
Anyway, he earned his money from soap, sugar and other items, and he didn't feel any pain when he took it out. Because he knew that this income would keep giving him money.
He is most comfortable if he can stabilize the world.
The disaster situation in Hebei has calmed down a bit, but as summer has just entered, more than 30 states in Shandong are experiencing severe drought again!
With no other choice, Li Zhiyun, in tears, took the money he had just earned from the treasury to buy food and sent it to Shandong to relieve the victims.
The Guanlong family laughed very happily because they made a lot of money.
Emperor Zhenguan treated them well and kept giving them money. How could they not be happy? Although they did not raise the price of grain, the court frequently engaged in big business of one hundred thousand dan and one hundred thousand dan. How could they make less money?
Soon, they stopped laughing.
The disaster in Shandong has not yet ended. As August enters, another round of bad news comes.
In August, frost damages autumn crops in Guandong, Henan, and Longyou prefectures.
When Li Zhiyun heard the news, he sighed, gritted his teeth and took out money to buy food for disaster relief.
So far, it's not over yet.
In the autumn of the first year of Zhenguan, the Guanzhong area was first flooded by heavy rain, followed by an overwhelming locust plague.
Li Zhiyun had to reluctantly take out the grain that had just been transported from the south and Bashu to implement "work-for-relief" in Guanzhong.
Even though he knew that these disasters would happen and made corresponding preparations, in this era, it was simply not feasible to resist the will of heaven with human power.
The losses are still huge.
The Guanlong family stopped laughing because 89% of the food they had was sold to the imperial court.
From the first month to September of the first year of Zhenguan, Li Zhiyun felt that he had done nothing. Every day when he opened his eyes, he saw disaster relief notices sent from the local government.
As a result, Datang's income was unable to make ends meet.
If he hadn't used internal funds to subsidize it, Datang's finance would have been doomed long ago.
If the disaster relief had not been timely, I am afraid someone would have shouted: The sky is dead, the yellow sky should be established.
In the first year of Zhenguan, the monarch, ministers and people were all very uncomfortable.