"Retreat."

In the palace and in Chongzheng Hall, the official Zhao Xu still couldn't get any appetite when facing a table of delicacies. Moreover, he didn't want to go to the harem to face a group of beautiful beauties' most painful things in life. It must be that they didn't have delicious food, and they didn't have Yan Ruyu.

But he can't eat anything and can't use Yan Ruyu anymore... What makes Zhao Xu even more depressed is that he is only in his twenties this year!

The most exciting time of life has just begun, and he is the emperor that everyone wants to be. Why is it almost impossible to get enough? Why can’t you eat good things and don’t need Yan Ruyu? People still want to be debauchery for decades!

"Your Majesty, tonight..."

Yang Jian, the eunuch who served Zhao Xu, almost stepped forward to ask, asking Zhao Xu that he wanted to hold the empress's hand!

This matter is really a fuss! But when he was having this business, he had to bite the bullet and ask. Fortunately, the officials in the Song Dynasty were kind-hearted, and even if they were annoyed, they would not kill anyone to vent their anger. At most, they would go to the Northwest Army to endure hardships, which might not be a bad thing, and they might have made meritorious service.

"Go to the queen," Zhao Xu said, "go later."

"Here."

Yang Jian breathed a sigh of relief and was about to go to pass the order, but Zhao Xu called him again.

"Are both Li Zhong and Tong Guan in the palace?"

"exist."

"Let them come to Chongzheng Hall."

"Here."

Li Zhong and Tong Guan were both internal officials who had been to Liao Kingdom not long ago. Tong Guan came back early and did not participate in the Qingzhou meeting later. However, Zhao Xu did not let him be idle, but let him become an internal official in the National Trust Institute and asked him to be responsible for contact with the people of Bohai.

Li Zhongze stayed in Xijin Prefecture for a long time and was also responsible for discussing the affairs of Jiehe Commercial Market with the Liao Kingdom. He did not return to Kaifeng Prefecture until the "Qingzhou Meeting" was completed.

Today is the day when Li Zhong returned to Kaifeng Prefecture. It is different from Zhang Shangying, Zhang Shuye, Wu Haogu, and others who went back home first. Li Zhong went directly to the palace to wait for the emperor to summon him. Tong Guan also realized at the first time that the emperor might ask him about it today, so he stayed with Li Zhong in the Hanlin Picture Academy near Chongzheng Hall.

Therefore, Yang Jian quickly brought the two into Chongzheng Hall, and after saluting, he was called by the emperor to the table before the case.

The dining table in front of Zhao Xu had already been removed, and he changed into an imperial case filled with memorials. He picked out a memorial with a yellow note and handed it to Li Zhong.

"This is the last memorial you sent to me when you were in Qingzhou." Zhao Xu's fingers unconsciously hit the imperial case, "You said in the memorial that the Liao people believed that as long as Jiehe Shangcheng could prosper, Song and Liao would become brotherly countries?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, this is the truth that Xiao Bao, the commander of the Liao Kingdom, first expressed at the banquet. He said that our Song Dynasty was equivalent to putting a box of money on the border for them to be kept by the Liao Kingdom. It was not a brotherly country and would never do anything."

"Do you think it makes sense?" Zhao Xu asked.

"Some truths," said Li Zhong, "The Jiehe Commercial City does have both advantages and disadvantages... Although the Commercial City will be beneficial to our dynasty's stockpiling of troops and food needed to attack Liao and convening civilians after the Daxing of the Shang City, at the same time, once the Commercial City is broken by the Liao people first, it will probably play a role in investing in the enemy."

Seeing that Li Zhong wanted to speak but stopped, Zhao Xu said, "If you have something to say, I'm not a person who can't listen to the truth."

"Here." Li Zhong paused, "and those who can get great benefits from Jiehe Market must be relatives and wealthy people in Kaifeng Prefecture... Will they agree with the Liao and Song raid?"

This is a bit heartbroken!

Although Jiehe Commercial City was established by the new party, those who can invest money in the commercial market are undoubtedly supporters of the old party. The old party supporters are rich! The foundation of the old party was originally the wealthy northern literati and officials who merged with Kaifeng generals and wealthy people. They not only occupied a large amount of land, but also accumulated huge wealth through business operations. Only they have the ability to invest in Jiehe Commercial City.

The old party’s political philosophy is very clear, just cause less trouble and live a stable life. Most of them are northerners. The court provoked Liao people or wanted to prevent the “Four Changes” of Liao and the “Five Changes” of the Yellow River. They are the ones who are unlucky! So they must be anti-war!

In other words, the Jiehe Market built to attack Liao will eventually be controlled by supporters of the old party who opposed the attack Liao!

"Where is Wu Haogu?" Zhao Xu asked, "Will he oppose the attack on Liao?"

"Your Majesty," Tong Guan answered the question, "Wu Haogu has always opposed the attack on Liao."

"How could it be? Didn't Ma Zhi bring him to Kaifeng Mansion? Mr. Murong also brought him."

"Your Majesty, Wu Haogu, Ma Zhi and Mr. Murong both believed that the Liao Kingdom would perish." Tong Guan said, "They only advocated taking action when the Liao Kingdom was destroyed, and took Yan Yun to prepare for the newly rising barbarians.

If the Liao lord could work hard to govern and revive the country's power, they would not advocate attacking Liao."

"Can Liao Kingdom revive?" Zhao Xu asked.

"No." Li Zhong replied, "Only one hundred thousand palace soldiers can do anything to Mogus. The Liao Kingdom is in a state of great power. Now, just wait for the female Naoto and the Goryeo to decide the winner, and the Liao Kingdom will be attacked on both sides."

"The only 100,000 elite troops in the Liao people can be used?"

"There are 200,000!" Tong Guan replied, "According to Mr. Murong, the Liao Kingdom can fight for 100,000 palace tent soldiers and up to 100,000 tribal soldiers... These 200,000 combat soldiers are the foundation of the Liao people. However, now the palace tent soldiers are pampered and weak, while the tribal soldiers are exhausted in fighting hard and are no longer as brave as before.

Moreover, the Khitans and the Xi people worshiped Buddhism too much, so that their descendants were reduced and their ferociousness was insufficient. Therefore, the battle between North and Tubu would be unsuccessful. If there was another powerful country in the east, the Khitans and the Xi people would inevitably lose their tribes. By then, there would be no question of whether to restore Yan Yun.”

In the face of the Khitan's demise, no matter the new and old party, they cannot sit idly by. Because the Song Dynasty would not take Yan Yun down and turn back to the fierce captive who had just risen, would the Song Dynasty still want a stable life? They don't know that there is the Chanyuan Alliance!

"Where is the aid of Liao?" Zhao Xu suddenly asked, "At that time, some people may want to aid of Liao for peace and wealth, right?"

Neither Tong Guan nor Li Zhong could answer Zhao Xu's question. Because Zhao Xu was talking about what happened behind him... If he was still alive, the relatives, nobles and wealthy merchants in Kaifeng Prefecture would dare not promote support for Liao for wealth and the comfort in front of him.

But if he was gone, especially the old man Zhang Dun was gone. I am afraid that the old party in Kaifeng Prefecture would collude with the profit-oriented merchants to destroy the imperial court's plan to attack Liao.

There was silence in Chongzheng Hall. I don’t know how long it took before I heard Zhao Xu sigh: “The market cannot be controlled by merchants. There must be a court… No, there must be people in the palace.”

In the palace?

Tong Guan and Li Zhong looked at each other, but seemed not to understand what Zhao Xu meant.

Zhao Xu seemed to be talking to himself and whispered: "Why don't you set up a Yingfeng Bureau in Jiehe Commercial City? It is specially designed to collect medicinal materials, horses, fat sheep, jade... and also add a stream in Jiehe Commercial City." He suddenly raised his eyelids and looked at Li Zhong and Tong Guan in front of him, "Who are you going to look at Jiehe Commercial City for me?"

...

“Republic…”

At this time, Zhang Dun was also talking to Zhang Shangying in his house. When he mentioned the "Shangshi Republic", Prime Minister Zhang couldn't help but shake his head.

Of course, he knew the origin of the word "republic", which was the history of King Zhou Li being expelled by the people and was ruled by Duke Mu of Zhao and Duke Ding of Zhou for fourteen years.

In other words, the world is not ruled by the emperor, but is jointly administered by two ministers, and most of them have to give the power to discuss politics to those who commit rebellion. This is the republic!

In the "Qingzhou Agreement", the word "Republic" was actually used after the Shang market.

"Mr.," Zhang Shangying understood Zhang Dun's thoughts very well, so he frowned and said, "The officials also know that these two words are inappropriate, but they cannot find a more appropriate word than the Republic to reflect the governance of Jiehe Shang City.

This Jiehe Shangshi is not my Song family, so the court naturally cannot appoint officials to take charge of the jurisdiction, otherwise the Liao people would not agree. However, the Shangshi was not the Liao people, so our court would not agree. But at the same time, the Shangshi was not jointly managed by both parties... If the Shangshi was jointly managed, we would not be able to control the situation.

So Wu Haogu proposed this republic... The shareholders of the chamber of commerce discussed and promoted a yamen in charge. Because there were many rich people in our dynasty here, most of the shareholders of the chamber of commerce must be ours, so the market is called the Republic, and in fact it still belongs to the court. Just like the Republic of the Western Zhou Dynasty, did it end up returning to the king's political system?"

It is not the late Qing Dynasty, and the word republic is not that negative... not only is it not negative, but it is also relatively positive. After all, the result of the republic of the Western Zhou Dynasty was still the king. Wu Haowen used the word "republic" to describe the political system of the Shang market, which seemed to indicate that the Shang market would eventually return to the Song Dynasty court. There is nothing wrong with this.

But Wu Haogu is a profit-oriented businessman. Isn’t this a little bigger skill? Is it really good to take care of the market?

"It's just that there is an additional general." Zhang Shangying saw Zhang Dun's thoughts and said with a smile, "What Wu Haogu wants is nothing more than that he can be granted a noble official after pacifying Liao and restoring Yan in the future. So what if he is the governor of the army? There are so many generals in Kaifeng Prefecture, but not many of his family."

Of course, the Jiedushi Zhang Shangying mentioned was not the kind of Jiedushi who had troops to occupy the territory, but a military officer. The Taiwei was the Jiedushi. Wu Haogu is now a military officer, and he should be satisfied if he could become a Jiedushi in the future.
Chapter completed!