"Your Majesty, this earth is indeed much larger than the previous estimates of Qingcheng Academy... The circumference must be more than 80,000 miles!"

Western Song Dynasty, Chang'an Prefecture, Huaqing Palace.

Zhao Huan summoned Li Qingzhao, a lieutenant of Qingcheng Academy, in the newly completed Digong Hall of the Palace.

The current Chang'an City is not the golden city of Shenjing left behind by the Tang Dynasty, but a small city built after it was reduced on the basis of the original Chang'an City in the late Tang Dynasty in the early Five Dynasties. It was very cramped inside and there was no place to build a larger palace for Zhao Huan to live in.

So Zhao Huan simply built the Ligong Huaqing Palace on the old Huaqing Palace in the Tang Dynasty east of Chang'an Prefecture as the place where he governed the government.

Li Qingzhao is now widowed, and her husband Zhao Mingcheng died of illness two years ago. After Zhao Mingcheng's death, the position of Siye in Qingcheng Academy was taken over by the great mathematician Li Qingzhao.

In addition, Zhao Ji's fifth son, Zhao Shu, the Prince of Ceylon, was ordered to preside over the academy with Li Qingzhao.

By the way, Zhao Shu's Ceylon Prince was granted before the First Central Plains War. Zhao Ji originally wanted him to go to Ceylon to be king, but he also agreed with Mo Niang that the principle of Guangming was the state religion of Ceylon, and also chose a beautiful woman with good character and appearance for Zhao Shu to be the concubine of Zhao Shu.

But the plan could not keep up with the changes, and before Zhao Shu could get into the country, the world was in chaos.

Zhao Shu and several other princes of the Song Dynasty who were named overseas princes were not at first settled. They wanted to contact Zhao Kai, hoping to gain a country with the support of the Eastern Song Dynasty.

But they never expected that Zhao Gou would be "bright in the sky"!

This scared a group of princes to death. They all dismissed their subordinates and kept their doors behind closed doors and pretended to be the little white rabbit prince.

The Ceylon Prince Zhao Shu was obsessed with learning and followed Zhao Mingcheng to become the king of learning, and showed no interest in politics and military.

Zhao Huan didn't want to act too cruel, so he let the "Study King Zhao Shu" take charge of the Qingcheng Academy with Li Qingzhao after Zhao Mingcheng's death.

Today he also went to Huaqing Palace with Li Qingzhao to meet the emperor. After Li Qingzhao finished speaking, he added: "Brother, the Palace Museum received news from the Shanghai University of Arts and Sciences that the continents found by the Eastern Thief on the other side of the East Ocean and the continents found by the Eastern Thief on the Southern Ocean are actually two continents... Among them, the continent east of the Eastern Ocean is now named America. The continent in the Southern Ocean has been renamed Xinsong."

"Hmph!" Zhao Huan hummed coldly when he heard the word "Xin Song". Zhao Shu was frightened and looked at his brother in horror. The tragic situation of his ninth brother Zhao Gou suddenly appeared in his mind.

Li Qingzhao said lightly: "The name of the New Song Dynasty was born out of the East China Sea traitor. Your Majesty thought it was inappropriate, so just change it."

Zhao Huan said coldly: "What are you changing? The East China Sea things will be named by him! No matter what name you change, you will not become my territory!

It’s not easy for me to go out to sea now…”

Zhao Huan's efforts to go to sea from Jiaozhi hit Zhao Qi's soft nails. Zhao Qi asked someone to arrest Duan Yu's family and sent it to Dali to Yue Fei. At the same time, he also called his brother but did not submit to him, and he also built a bastion along the Fuliang River bordering Dali.

Zhao Huan also knew that he had no strength to go south to Jiaozhi. After all, Jiaozhi was too far away from Guanlong and Bashu, so the transportation was inconvenient, and it was also a place for miasma and diarrhea.

Even if he wanted to start a war, the military aircraft of the Privy Council were not interested.

Even Yue Fei, who pacified Dali Kingdom, reported that he could not invade Jiaozhi Kingdom along the Fuliang River.

Finally, the Western Song Dynasty and Jiaozhi held secret negotiations and reached an agreement to "go from Fuliang River to sea in the name of the Dali Chamber of Commerce."

Although the Western Song Dynasty could set up a Dali Chamber of Commerce on the ground of Jiaozhi, build sea ships, docks and ports, and use the Fuliang River trade routes to achieve a certain amount of sea trade. But the actual meaning is almost nothing, it is just a symbol.

After all, the Western Song Dynasty was a landlocked country with extremely inconvenient transportation!

Moreover, the Western Song Dynasty was a militarized country with a very feudal color. It was impossible for this country to play with maritime trade and capitalist industry and commerce.

By the way, the Eastern Song Dynasty did not block the trade channels on the Yangtze River now, and any merchant ship from the Western Song Dynasty could sail freely on the Yangtze River.

But at the same time, the Western Song Dynasty court only opened up the Ezhou port and the Eastern Song Dynasty to trade.

Commodities in the Eastern Song Dynasty must be paid heavy taxes before they can pass Ezhou Pass!

In fact, the Western Song Dynasty did not want to trade with the Eastern Song Dynasty and the New Zhou Dynasty. Moreover, they did not have enough currency to support this kind of trade.

Even though the Jingchu Palace received 20 million taels of gold and silver shipped from Xuzhou, the Western Song Dynasty still lacked money.

The precious metal minerals in the Western Song Dynasty were limited (in fact, there was copper in Yunnan, but it has not been discovered yet), and Sichuan had to use iron coins!

Moreover, there is no industry and commerce that has been launched to absorb gold, silver and copper from the outside world.

Therefore, the internal circulation of the Western Song Dynasty has now regressed to the level of the early Tang Dynasty, and Shu brocade has been used extensively as tokens.

In the face of inconvenient transportation and insufficient currency, the Western Song Dynasty court also adopted a series of policies to curb commercial development under the influence of the "Jingkang Staff".

For example, there are strict curfew regulations in Chang'an City now! And the "kufang" structure of Tang-style cities has been restored, that is, "fang walls" are used to separate many small cities within the big city.

Now there are "street walls" on both sides of the streets of Chang'an City, so you cannot set up stalls to do business!

All commercial activities are concentrated in "Guofang". Most of the "Guofang" only have the most basic small businesses, such as selling rice, vegetables, etc.

Larger transactions are concentrated in the east and west markets. However, the transaction time of the east and west markets is very short, one only opens in six hours. It is also stipulated that the service officers and civil servants above the court are not allowed to enter the east and west markets without orders!

Under the influence of such laws and the special geographical environment of the Western Song Dynasty, private industry and commerce in the Western Song Dynasty shrank extremely, and there was no ability or motivation to expand externally.

However, while industry and commerce lost their momentum, the semi-feudal military officers of the Western Song Dynasty became increasingly warlike.

They need more military merits and more land!

...

After Zhao Shu and Li Qingzhao left, they then entered the Qinzheng Hall were Geng Nanzhong, He Li, Qu Duan and Yue Fei.

Geng Nanzhong and He Li are now the ministers of the left and right, and the name of Shaozai has been abandoned and has been changed back to their original title.

Qu Duan and Yue Fei were appointed as officials of the Privy Council and the Privy Council. The two represented the Guanlong Army and Jingchu Army respectively.

These four are the most powerful people in the Western Song Dynasty court now.

"Yue Fei," Zhao Huan glanced at his beloved general Yue Fei and smiled, "Have you seen Han Shizhong?"

"See you already."

Han Shizhong is now the Grand Secretary of Ren'ai Pavilion in the Kingdom of Xiliang!

The route of the Xiliang Kingdom was to play the role of bandits as scholars. They were obviously a group of feudal knights who were very knowledgeable about literature and literature, but they wanted to call them grandmasters, bachelors, etc. All kinds of official names sounded unique to knowledge.

Among all the "scientific officials", the "Renai Pavilion", "Zhongyi Pavilion", "Lihe Pavilion", "Ruozhi Pavilion", "Integrity Pavilion", "Wenwen Pavilion", "Good Kid Pavilion", "Gongjin Pavilion", "Qingjin Pavilion", "Qinqian Pavilion", and "Forbearance Pavilion".

The ten bachelor's titles are taken from "benevolence, righteousness, propriety, knowing, trustworthy, gentleness, kindness, respect, frugality and mercy."

The Grand Secretary of the Ten Pavilions is not distinguished from the top and bottom. They can discuss politics in the court and lead the party when they go out. They are the most powerful knights under Tianlizi of Xiliang.

This time, Han Shizhong and Han Renai came to celebrate Zhao Huan's birthday as the birthday envoy of Xiliang Kingdom. After congratulating his birthday, he did not return immediately, but was left in Chang'an to discuss important matters.

The important thing to be discussed is the transfer of Xiliang to the seal!

Now the Western Song Dynasty has no way to enter the sea, so it will definitely not be able to reach the sky, so of course it can only expand to the Western Regions.

And the road to the west in the Western Song Dynasty happened to be blocked by Xiliang...

Therefore, the Privy Council of the Western Song Dynasty came up with a way to transfer the enthronement of Xiliang, taking back all the land in Xiliang, and then enthrone it to Zhao Huan's sons.

That’s right, Zhao Huan is now starting to be granted the title of vassal king!

After the Western Jin Dynasty, the policy of enfeoffing vassal kings was basically a task to cause chaos.

But Zhao Huan can't care so much now, because a group of Jingkang's staff members wandered under his nose every day!

So there is no need for the vassal kings to make trouble. A bunch of opportunities can turn his empire into a republic!

Therefore, the enfeoffment of the vassal kings became a means to restrict Jiyi...

As for the rebellion of the vassal king Jingnan... Haha, if there is such a vassal king, Zhao Huan would not be too happy. After all, the kings he conferred were all their own sons. It would be a good thing if a great man rose up and took power back.

"What did Han Shizhong say?" Zhao Huan asked.

"Han Shizhong was so surprised that he said nothing."

Zhao Huan paused, "Does Xiliang Hui also re-sealed?"

Qu Duan replied: "It will definitely be! Because Xiliang's land is large and barren, far better than the land of Qihe Rivers and the Qincha Grassland.

Moreover, the Western Liao Dashi had converted to the Guangming Heavenly Principle and betrayed the Western Liang Heavenly Principle Cult. Now Xiliang and Western Liao are no longer allies.

It turns out that the territory granted to Xiliang is roughly Kazakhstan! That is, Yelu Dashi's original base in the Western Regions, the Seven Rivers Land, plus the vast and boundless Qincha grassland.

This land was not very rich in the Middle Ages, but it was much richer than the rotten land in Xiliang!

Especially the Fergana Basin is next to the Seven Rivers. The output of this basin alone can match the Hexi Corridor, the core of Xiliang.

Qu Duan said again: "As long as the court can provide guns and cannons, and then give reinforcements, and use the power of Xiliang to drive away the subordinates left by Dashi in Qihe and other places, it is easy to get rid of the subordinates. The Qinzha grassland is basically unowned, and Xiliang can conquer it.

With Qihe and Qincha Grassland, Zhang Li's life is much better than in Liangzhou."

"Okay!" Zhao Huan nodded, "Send a minister and Han Shizhong to Liangzhou together."

Geng Nanzhong reported: "I recommend Zhang Jun to go to Xiliang."

Zhao Huan looked at Qu Duan again, "Your Majesty, I recommend Yao Pingzhong as the deputy envoy."
Chapter completed!