Chapter 1712: Yuan Gui of Cefu

In February, the Goryeo envoy asked for the "Cefu Yuangui".

event.

"Cefu Yuangui" is one of the four major books of the Northern Song Dynasty summarized by later generations.

The Four Great Books of the Song Dynasty are the general name of "Taiping Guangji", "Taiping Yulan", "Wenyuan Yinghua" and "Cefu Yuangui", also known as the four major categories of books.

Leishu means "informative books", among which "Cefu Yuangui" contains historical events, "Taiping Yulan" contains hundreds of schools of thought, "Wenyuan Yinghua" contains articles, and "Taiping Guangji" contains novels.

They have historical, encyclopedic, literary, and strange values ​​respectively.

Except for "Taiping Guangji", which has 500 volumes, the other three volumes have 1,000 volumes each. The compilation of each volume took several years.

The scale of "Cefu Yuangui" is particularly huge, several times that of the other three books, so it is also called the first of the four major books of the Song Dynasty.

His book was originally titled "The Deeds of Kings and Ministers in Past Dynasties". It took eight years to complete from the second year of Jingde reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty to the sixth year of Dazhong Xiangfu reign.

The great thing about "Cefu Yuangui" is that it draws extensively from official history and actual records instead of notes and miscellaneous histories.

This determines the credibility of the information and its official authority.

Although the book is still a thousand volumes, the content of each volume is much richer than the other three volumes. The main content is the historical records of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, and there are also relevant historical records from ancient times to the Five Dynasties.

It is compiled according to people, events and objects, and compiled in chronological order. It has extensive historical materials and basically summarizes the seventeen histories.

The broad categories are divided into emperors, pre-positions, hypocrites, kings, imperial concubines, clans, relatives, prime ministers and assistants, generals, Taiwan provinces, state affairs, constitutional officials, admonitions, ministers, national history, in charge of rites, schools, criminal law,

There are thirty-one chapters, including ministers, supervisors, sanitation, selection, tribute, envoys, ministers, ministers, commanders, palace ministers, shogunate, accompanying ministers, general records, foreign ministers, etc., totaling more than 1,100 categories and nearly 100 words.

Million words.

The department has a general preface describing its system.

It can be known from these category names that no matter which dynasty owns this book, it can basically imitate the cat and the tiger and build a feudal state management system similar to that of China.

Therefore, this book has always been an official secret file and has not been widely circulated. Even if you want to borrow it in Kezhen Hall, you must be an official of the seventh rank or above of the imperial court and cannot leave the reading room.

This request of Goryeo immediately aroused opposition from many courtiers.

This matter is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites. For example, Su Shi, the Minister of Rites, was among those who vigorously opposed it.

Su Shi listed several reasons. The first was that the imperial court was too kind to Goryeo.

Every time tribute was paid, the imperial court spent more than 100,000 yuan on decorating pavilions, organizing markets, and dispatching people and ships. However, Goryeo's contribution was "all useless things," and all it cost was "the blood of the people."

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However, Goryeo was still a vassal state of the Liao State, and if the Khitans were not given the gifts, the Khitan would not be able to pay tribute. Therefore, giving benefits to Goryeo was a benefit to the Liao State. It was obviously stealing grain through the use of invaders.

Also, Goryeo came to the court under the name Mu Yi, but actually it was for profit, because the Khitan could control his death, but I couldn't. So whether Goryeo wanted it or not, he was actually a spy for the Liao Kingdom. Today, Goryeo envoys come to describe the situation of the mountains and rivers, and spy on it.

If it is true or false, it must not be in good faith.

Also, during the Qingli year, when trouble occurred in the Liao Kingdom, the reason for the establishment of additional ponds in China was first used.

Although the Liao Kingdom is now obedient, it may one day cause chaos again. Now that China is so kind to its vassal states, "the cunning enemy uses this as an excuse, and I don't know how the court will respond"?

Su Shi said that if this is done, "the regulations will become more mature. Even if thousands of copies are bought, some officials will not dare to implement them again. Then Chinese books will be accumulated in Goryeo, and clouds will be spread in Khitan. I don't know if this matter will be stable in China."

?

"Let the enemy know the dangers of mountains and rivers, the dangers of border defense, and the danger will be great." Therefore, "the enemy sent beggars to buy books, including the records of Yuan Gui, the history of the past dynasties, and the imperial edicts of Taixue, but the headquarters did not dare to sell them."

Along with Song Qiu of the Korean Academy, he wrote: "It was given to me by the previous dynasty. This is not a Chinese secret. How can I show my greatness if I don't share it with you?"

So Su Shi went to check the old files, and then wrote: "I found out that it was allowed to sell Goryeo history books, but it was also forbidden to trade wrought iron with envoys. How could it be that there is no wrought iron in foreign countries? Based on this reasoning

It is impossible to say that it already exists, but it is no longer prohibited."

This is unreasonable.

Su You disagreed with this. Cultural export is an issue that everyone understands for future generations, and it will definitely be of great benefit.

However, things also have stages. Economic invasion and cultural invasion are only things of later generations.

Anyway, what Su You knew was that the surrounding vassal states stole money from the Song Dynasty, which once led to a widespread "money shortage" in the southeast of the Song Dynasty; and in terms of culture, the defection of two Song Dynasty literati led to the rise of Xixia; and the absorption of the Liao Kingdom

Part of the Chinese system, after the north-south system was implemented, also brought stability and prosperity for a hundred years.

However, Su You believed that today's Song Dynasty is closer to that of later generations, so the economic and cultural exports and its pros and cons are also closer to those of later generations. Therefore, Su's worries are actually somewhat unnecessary.

So Shangzou analyzed the current situation of Goryeo and believed that there is now a female straight between Goryeo and Liao. In fact, the influence of Liao on Goryeo has become very weak, and Duke Yong of Jilin is obviously more and more dependent on China.

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In the past, the Korean people helped the Liao people buy books. This was because diplomacy and trade were not clearly distinguished, which led to countless profit-seeking merchants fishing in troubled waters.

This situation no longer exists.

In addition, the Song Dynasty now treats the Liao Kingdom in a reasonable and restrained manner, and is no longer afraid of the Liao Kingdom's unreasonable troubles, so Su's worries no longer exist.

On the contrary, Wang Yong's support has become an important means for the Song Dynasty to fight against the pro-Liao faction in Goryeo, so granting books is not out of the question.

Since the Song Dynasty regarded itself as the defender and disseminator of Chinese civilization, it should be fair and square for the vassal states to get closer to Chinese civilization and break away from the barbaric temperament.

There is also a big problem with the edict quoted by Da Su. He believed that although there was wrought iron abroad, the imperial court ordered not to sell wrought iron to those "envoys". This was a well-thought-out decision, but it did not take into account the huge international trade between the Song Dynasty and surrounding areas in recent years.

Variety.

Wrought iron is now the flagship product exported by the Song Dynasty!

This is the generation difference brought about by the golden finger issued by Suyou.

Wrought iron is pure iron with extremely low carbon content. Today's metallurgical processes around the world make it easy to obtain pig iron, but difficult to obtain wrought iron. The smelted iron generally contains too high a carbon content.

This subtraction is not easy to do. For example, in Japan, they use the steel massing method. After the iron is burned, the iron is sorted into high carbon and low carbon based on experience, and then proportioned in a purposeful manner and forged into one place.

This controls the carbon content and turns it into fine steel.

Many iron works before the Song Dynasty used the "iron frying method", which was to stir up the molten iron to oxidize the carbon in it with the air, and then repeatedly beat the semi-melted iron to remove the iron regenerated during the frying process.

Obtained from oxides.

The invention of the blast furnace and the later maturity of the electrolyzed water process allowed the application of the oxygen blowing decarburization process, making it possible to produce wrought iron on a large scale and at low cost.

The biggest military use is the dense barbed wire fence in Hebei.

For large steel plants, the preparation of wrought iron is actually not necessary except to make money.

Because to put it bluntly, wrought iron is steel that has been excessively decarburized.

But for Japan, Korea, Liao, and the countries in the South China Sea, except for the Song Dynasty, wrought iron is even more valuable than steel.

This is actually the case among the people in the Song Dynasty, so another big business of the major steel factories and machinery factories in the Song Dynasty is to use wrought iron as "iron mother" to sell to major blacksmith shops, so that they can obtain it with their own methods.

Together with pig iron, they forge steel, which allows them to reduce the cost of steelmaking and meet the huge gap in civilian use.

Therefore, the export of wrought iron has become a high-quality product for the Song Dynasty's foreign trade this year, and the profit is even higher than that of silk and porcelain.

In the end, the imperial court recognized Song Qiu and Su You's argument and "went with it."

In Xinmao, Su Yue, the judge of Guangnan East Road Transfer, began to inspect the states within his jurisdiction after obtaining Liu Zhi's approval.

Along the coast of Guangnan East Road, there are nearly twenty large and small salt fields. In addition, the east and west produce lead and tin, and the northwest produces copper. The entire region produces silver, large and small lead, tin, copper, and silver.

There are also dozens of factories. In addition, there are two money affairs offices in Shaozhou Yongtong Prison and Huizhou Fu Min Prison.

In addition to the traditional wet smelting of copper, the Song Dynasty also developed zinc wet smelting.

At first, Tianshi just wanted to remove excess zinc and lead from the silver. After being reminded by Su You, the School of Chemistry found that this method could be used in reverse. The concentrate powder was passed through hot acid to dissolve iron and zinc.

solution, and then use the goethite method to remove iron impurities, and the remaining solution is used for electrolysis to obtain pure zinc.

This is a new category of metal smelting that utilizes the endless electricity provided by water plants and avoids the difficulty of roasting and reduction.
Chapter completed!