noffsinger Chapter 340 Yuanfeng Restoration!
Chapter 340 Yuanfeng Restoration!
From the fourth year of Xining to the middle of the ninth year of Xining, the Song Dynasty showed a development speed far exceeding the total of the previous hundred years.
In the atmosphere of vigorous mass production and construction, the Song Dynasty achieved astonishing and eye-catching high-efficiency results in many aspects such as politics, economy, culture, and military.
This was mainly due to the full implementation and successful completion of the "First Five-Year Plan of the Song Dynasty", which integrated the production and construction efforts of the whole country and finally allowed the Song Dynasty to usher in major social changes.
The "three redundancies" problem was finally solved after repeated "butchering an ox"-style methods.
The shackles that have plagued the Song Dynasty have now been broken, and the great changes that have not been seen in a century have finally begun.
In five years, with the court working together with all its strength, considerable achievements were made, shocking people both at home and abroad.
In particular, the transportation environment across the country has changed dramatically. Highways from east to west and from south to north run through the Song Dynasty, providing huge trade opportunities for land-based commercial trade.
Similarly, in the ocean sector, with the start-up of state-owned shipyards, trade imports and exports in major coastal ports have experienced a blowout, and goods have piled up like mountains.
The Maritime Silk Road, which has been famous overseas since the Song Dynasty, has also ushered in its own highlight moment.
A series of merchant ships including Nanhai No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 braved the wind and waves and headed for Japan, Southeast Asia, Indochina Peninsula, and even further to Sri Lanka and southern India.
Thanks to the court's policies and financial support, the volume of long-distance trade grew rapidly, which encouraged a large number of Song Dynasty merchants and common people to go overseas to seek gold.
In particular, the court's "First Five-Year Plan" stated that the "American Continent" on the other side of the ocean had gold and rich resources.
This attracted countless adventurous merchants and people from the Song Dynasty to flock to explore the oceans.
The farthest trip was made when someone set out from northern Japan and traveled northward along the continental shelf, only to discover an archipelago stretching for thousands of kilometers.
According to the caravan explorers at that time, these archipelagos generally have hard rocks and steep coasts, and are occasionally accompanied by natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions.
Therefore, the explorers were scared back to the team and left.
When he heard the news, Han Ming was a little surprised. According to the sailing time and distance, this caravan probably discovered the Aleutian Islands in later generations.
According to this estimate, as long as you go west along this archipelago, you can reach the famous Alaska region of the North American continent!
If the coastline had not changed much in the past thousand years or so, then if you headed south, you would go along the west side of the North American continent, reach Canada, and finally enter the coast of the United States.
Thinking of this, Han was ecstatic, because this meant that the naturally formed crops and seeds of the American continent would enter China earlier than in the Ming Dynasty in later generations.
To this end, Han Ming immediately reported to Emperor Shenzong, and spent a huge amount of money to build a sea cargo ship, preparing to arrange for a special court official to set off to explore the American continent.
With the court taking the lead, subsequent overseas exploration reached a new level, and the people followed suit, forming a huge fleet to venture out to sea.
For a time, the Pacific Ocean, which later became famous, was filled with people and ships. In order to express the court's support for ocean trade, they affectionately called this sea area the "Xining Sea."
This name also became the earliest name for this ocean that could be found by modern historians a thousand years later.
So much so that gossipers started to talk loudly, saying that the "Xining Sea" has been China's inherent territory since ancient times, which made the Americans on the other side of the strait jump up and down all day long.
But there's nothing we can do about it, our family has a long history!
. . . . . .
After the fourth year of Xining, the astonishing development of the Song Dynasty plunged its old neighbor in the north into silence.
They thought of countless ways to stop the Song Dynasty's crazy progress, but there was a "dirty thing" on the other side that was becoming more and more evil.
No matter whether it was a righteous conspiracy or a treacherous conspiracy, Yelu Hongji and the entire Liao Kingdom could not defeat Han, who had now reached the pinnacle of his power.
As the old saying goes: You can tell what the other person is going to do just by sticking your butt out. It's so easy.
With the completion of the "First Five-Year Plan", the military reform of the Song Dynasty finally came to an initial end.
After nearly a decade of large-scale military reforms, the Song Dynasty formed the highest military combat units in the five major war zones.
Among them, the Northern Army under the Northern Theater Command included Jingdong East Road, Hebei East Road, Hebei West Road, Hedong Road and the newly established Ningxia Road in the north of Liangzhou.
At the same time, it has a permanent army of 200,000 people, including 150,000 infantry and 50,000 cavalry, and a navy of 40,000 people as a landing force in the Bohai Bay area.
The Western Army under the Western Theater Command includes Yongxingjun Road, Qinfeng Road, Chengdufu Road, Zizhou Road, as well as the newly established Xingqing Road and Gansu Road in the central and western parts of Liangzhou.
The standing army has 150,000 soldiers, including 100,000 infantry and 50,000 cavalry. Most of them are composed of the original Western Army. It can be called the best army of the Song Dynasty!
The Southern Army under the Southern Theater Command included Guangnan East Road, Guangnan West Road, Jinghu South Road, Jinghu North Road, the newly established Guiyang Road in the former Southwestern Yi area, and the "Annan Protectorate" in Jiaozhi.
The permanent army has 100,000 soldiers, all of whom are infantry, and there is a navy of 30,000 soldiers responsible for patrolling the South China Sea.
The Eastern Army under the Eastern Theater Command included Fujian Road, Liangzhe Road, Jiangnan West Road, Jiangnan East Road, Huainan East Road, as well as the Ryukyu Islands and Liuqiu (Taiwan) Island recovered by the Eastern Army.
The permanent navy has 70,000 people and no army. They are mainly stationed on various islands along the coast to provide protection for ships passing by and leave boundary markers belonging to China.
The Central Theater Command is mainly composed of the four areas of Jingdong Road, Jingxi North Road, Jingxi South Road and Huainan West Road to form a network surrounding the capital.
The permanent army of 100,000 was stationed in the capital camp near the city of Bianliang, along with a considerable number of logistical support troops.
This is not available in other war zones, and it is also the best means for the court to use logistics to contain the war zones in all directions.
If you want to keep up with the logistics, you must obey the command of the central government. Anyone who dares to act on his own will be trapped in death!
. . . . . .
Looking at the bustling and prosperous court, Emperor Shenzong was filled with high spirits and felt relaxed both physically and mentally.
He then announced that the reign would be changed the following year to show his great achievements and contributions to the development of the Song Dynasty.
After the emperor issued the decree, the Taichang Liyuan, which was responsible for this matter, began to rummage through boxes and cabinets, looking for words in ancient books to give a meaningful and powerful reign title.
As a result, after mentioning several of them, Emperor Shenzong was not satisfied with any of them, thinking that they did not highlight his own abilities.
Among them, a close minister proposed two reign titles, "Meicheng" and "Fengheng", and presented them to Song Shenzong. Song Shenzong pointed at the word "Meicheng" and said, "It's like a big sheep carrying a spear, it's not allowed."
He also pointed to the "heng" in "fengheng" and said: "If you cannot have a son, you can remove heng and add yuan."
There was a preliminary rumor that they wanted to change the reign title to "Yuanfeng", but after thinking about this implication and explanation for a long time, the court officials did not feel that it had any special meaning.
In the end, I can only ask for advice from a Mr. Han who is now semi-idle at home, to see what is the point here.
Han Ming then directly stated: "Yuan means the beginning, which means the first, the beginning, and the root, and Feng means rich and prosperous."
"'Yuanfeng' means that from this time on, the country will be rich and prosperous."
Han's explanation was recognized by court officials and the emperor, but no one knew what it originally meant.
All I can say is that Emperor Shenzong was very pleased with Han Ming's flattery.
As time passed, the ninth and tenth years of Xining were quietly spent in the "Second Five-Year Plan", and the first year of Yuanfeng began.
From this year on, the national strength of the Song Dynasty officially surpassed its northern neighbor, the Liao Dynasty, and the era praised by later generations as the "Yuanfeng Restoration" officially arrived.