As time goes by December, the weather becomes colder and colder. I don’t know if it is because of the Little Ice Age.

Ouyang Bian vaguely remembered reading a paper that believed that the third cold period was the second year of Yongxi, Emperor Taizong of the Northern Song Dynasty to the third year of Shaoxi, Emperor Guangzong of the Southern Song Dynasty.

According to some historical records, after the second year of Yongxi (985 AD), the climate suddenly became colder again, and the strange cold scene of ice and snow in the Jianghuai area appeared again.

All the citrus and other fruit trees that could be planted in Chang'an and Luoyang after the Tang Dynasty were frozen to death. The Huaihe River Basin, Jiangnan, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake were all completely frozen, and carriages and horses could pass through the frozen river surface.

Bianjing is getting colder and colder. Ouyang Bian is lazy and naturally doesn't want to go out in such cold weather. Unless necessary, he stays at home and lies on his body every day. Oh, no, he doesn't have time to lie on his body, he has to write a book.

He didn't go to see the work of Xu Fu and Fat Chef. Anyway, they would come to him if they had something to do.

There was nothing to do with Wang Anshi, so he had to go and dig Mao.

After almost a month of sorting out his "The Wealth of Nations" has been almost done. For the sake of easy understanding, he did not write it in classical Chinese, but in vernacular Chinese, and did not even use half of the text or half vernacular, for fear that someone would misunderstand the meaning in it.

Ouyang Bian's room was burning a charcoal stove, and a white iron pipe was installed on it to discharge the charcoal gas. The kettle was rumbling and the whole room was warm and without the charcoal gas.

Ouyang Bian sat up from a thick felt lounge chair, picked up the kettle, and began to water the teapot and teacup on the tea table, preparing to make a cup of hot tea for Ouyang Xiu who was sitting beside him. Ouyang Xiu had just returned from the History Museum and was covered in air conditioning.

Ouyang Xiu held a stack of manuscripts and frowned while reading, "The content is wonderful and quite consistent with the situation. It's just that the writing is a bit poor. It's all plain language, so it makes people feel like they don't have a beautiful article at all."

Ouyang Bian laughed so hard that he almost didn't even take the kettle. He must have never expected that someone would revolutionize the ancient prose that he advocated hundreds of years later.

Ouyang Xiu said disgusted: "Why are you laughing at? Is there anything wrong with it?

If someone asked if this article was taken out, would it be written by Ouyang Xiu's son?

Isn’t Ouyang Xiu good at writing articles? Why didn’t he even teach his own son well? I’ll lose my face!”

Ouyang Bian smiled while rinsing the tea set, saying, "At first, I wanted to write the book a little better, but then I decided to write it in the plainest words, either because of anything else, or to convey the truth.

It is already very difficult for people to understand the concept definition in this book. If people still face textual suffering, it will be deterred. I will reduce the difficulty of reading this book, otherwise this book will not be able to spread it."

Ouyang Xiu asked in confusion: "Is this book that difficult to understand? I read a page and there is nothing that is difficult to understand?"

Ouyang Bian laughed: "What you read is just the preface, it is an overview, and the real in-depth thing is not involved. Moreover, the book I wrote has gone from shallow to deep, which has reduced the difficulty of reading. It is normal for you to read it easily, so you might as well continue reading."

Ouyang Xiu nodded, reached out to take the teacup handed over by Ouyang Bian, drank a cup while it was hot, and warmed up all over. He rushed to the warmth and buried his head in the book. The room became quiet, leaving only the gurgling sound of the kettle and the sound of Ouyang Xiu turning the pages of the book, oh, and Ouyang Bian snoring slightly.

Ouyang Xiu occasionally looked up and saw that he was lying on the chair without any correctness. His expression was very complicated. Then he buried his head in the book. When he arrived at the back, he couldn't help but get up excitedly and walked around, but he was afraid of waking up the youngest man and didn't dare to speak out. He just clenched his fists and waved them a few times to express his excitement.

Ouyang Bian didn't know when he fell asleep. When he woke up, Ouyang Xiu was still there, but he stopped reading, so he sat at his desk and looked through the reading notes he made.

When Ouyang Xiu saw him wake up, he hurried over and handed him a cup of warm tea and said warmly: "Are you very tired recently?"

Ouyang Bian smiled, how can he not be tired? Writing such academic works is the most tormenting.

The book "The Wealth of Nations" is profound enough, and it must be edited locally based on the situation of China's dynasties. It also has to incorporate other basic economic works, explain the principles of economics as much as possible, and analyze and give examples of the disadvantages involved in the Song Dynasty. Finally, it is necessary to arrange these contents in a simple way to reduce the difficulty of reading, which doubles the difficulty of his work.

More than a month seems to be plenty, but for writing an academic book that can stand the test, it is just a time to write an outline, but Ouyang Bian did this.

Ouyang Xiu seemed to have calmed down and said slowly: "Your book is indeed not easy to understand, and I can only understand about 60% or 70% of it, but only 60% or 70% is enough to make me feel very surprised."

Ouyang Bian stood up in surprise: "Can you understand 60% or 70%?"

Ouyang Xiu glared at his eyes and said angrily: "What do you say? Who do you look down on? You use vernacular language, give examples and data. If I can't even understand 60% or 70% of them, aren't you going to go to heaven?"

Ouyang Bian smiled: "After all, these are economic things, it's normal that you don't understand."

Ouyang Xiu was a little confused: "Do you mean economics to benefit the country or the country or the people?"

Ouyang Bian nodded and said, "This is the meaning, but it is not just the meaning. Economic and economics refer to the source of state or household income and the part of wealth involved in management. Salt, iron and tea tax is only part of the economy. It has more meanings. As long as it involves activities involving money, it can be called economy."

Ouyang Xiu said seriously: "What is your purpose in writing this book?"

Ouyang Bian smiled and said, "Father, what kind of qualities do you think a qualified official needs?"

Ouyang Xiu raised his eyebrows: "What do you mean?"

Ouyang Bian smiled and said: "Governance of the country is not poetry, songs, or writing articles. It requires special skills. The so-called governance of the country is the national economy and people's livelihood. The so-called national function is to safeguard national security externally and maintain national stability internally.

How to maintain stability is not just about culture and education. What can be done by setting up a government office. The most important thing is to allow the people to live and work in peace and contentment.

How to make the people live and work in peace and contentment belongs to the category of economy.

If you want the people to live and work in peace, first of all, they can support themselves, have work to do, have fields to cultivate, and society can also provide a lot of resources for their lives. This is the economy.

But now officials do not have this ability, and it is already considered awesome to not mess around, so the court has very poor ability to deal with natural disasters.

If they have such professional economics capabilities, they can maintain economic activities, make the people richer, and allow the court to collect taxes. The taxes collected know how to carry out infrastructure and how to invest in the army. Are they still afraid that the country will not be strong?"
Chapter completed!