Yelu Hongji of the Northern Liao Dynasty was very leisurely. Even if he had already decided to lose the four states of Yunying, he would still wander around.
It is reported that the Spring Festival has ended and it has begun to slowly move towards the southwest.
According to the old rules, the time when the two emperors arrived at the signing place should be synchronized. Of course, this refers to the day when the covenant was signed.
As for when to set off, there are no rules.
The improvement of the Guochao rail network has shortened the time from Bianliang to various state capitals, but Zhao Xi didn't want to wait any longer.
What he arranged to do on Hedong Road was not just to sign a covenant.
While the court was arranging all the affairs for staying behind, Zhao Xi left for the trip.
In the past, the Ministry of Rites had strict regulations on how kings traveled. Unfortunately, this no longer applies.
Except for the grand procession in Bianliang City, which followed the old system of setting out the ceremonial guards, after leaving Bianliang City, the entire contracted team boarded the rail carriage heading north.
There was considerable debate about this in the court.
Some courtiers who took it as their duty to defend tradition dragged out piles of torn papers and protested them in the court one by one. As for the memorials, they never stopped.
Sima Guang, who devoted himself to studying history in the Gongyuan, also came out again. Even Ouyang Xiu, who taught martial arts about self-cultivation and devoted himself to changing the education of military generals, was also aroused.
That’s a huge momentum!
Wang Anshi said: The ancestors are not worthy of the law! It was this sentence that made the group of ministers who defended the Tao focus all their artillery fire on him.
Finally, because of the silence of the princes in the entire political hall, the courtiers were even more excited. It seemed that not following the etiquette was treason and the Song Dynasty would be overthrown...
Zhao Xi always stays in the middle and does not send out.
Emperors of the dynasty did not travel much, let alone Taizu and Taizong. The so-called travels were basically for battles.
And the late emperor, Zhao Xi's father, went to Bianliang once in his life...to worship his ancestors.
That is to say, there was such a time in the Zhenzong Dynasty. It was after the Tanyuan Alliance that there was a Taishan Consecration.
Zhao Xi ordered Xue Xiang to select some officials who were good at mathematics and began to extract records of emperors' travels from past dynasties.
The purpose of doing this is not to look for the etiquette that an emperor should follow like those retro-conservatives. Rather, it is to let them calculate the money and food consumed by an emperor's trip.
Moreover, the Ministry of Revenue was asked to extract the travel expenses of the late emperor and Zhenzong, and then compile them into a book.
At the same time, General Wang Anshi was asked to calculate all the money and food consumed by the court since the Liao-Xia coalition attacked Yanmen.
All the data were compared with those traveling north by rail carriage, and were summarized on a chart. Wang Anshi used these data to write a memorial...
"The people are the most valuable, the country is the second most important, and the king is the least important, so where are the etiquette? If there are those who ask to follow the old etiquette when traveling, we will consider it as a way to solve the problem without disturbing the people and spending too much money and food, and follow the old etiquette when traveling!"
Zhao Xi originally wanted to say: Whoever talks nonsense again will reimburse the travel expenses...
It was related to money and food, so I finally managed to stop the chaotic situation and decided to take the rail carriage to go north.
The track cannot reach directly to the east of Hedong, the southern foothills of the Taihang Mountains and the Yellow River, which is still an insurmountable natural hazard today.
Turn north from Luoyang, cross the Yellow River at Puzhou, and then go all the way north...~
It was also at Pujin Ferry that Gao Jingxian returned, and the official escort affairs were handed over to Cao Lin and others, that is, the old guard camp.
More than ten years have passed, and each one of them has led the team independently. When they return to the team, they can still remember the previous formation.
Zhao Xi looked at the somewhat sparse formation... and felt a little emotional.
"Your Majesty, the guard battalion should be 2,000 strong, but the actual number is 1,459. Please review!"
Zhao Xi didn't say anything, but just looked at each other... The flames of war turned these young men into uncles.
He could remember the names of everyone who was vacant in the formation, and he could recall that they were killed or wounded in that battle...~
Zhao Xi whispered the names of soldiers who had not yet arrived...
Although there are only less than 2,000 people, one can feel the overwhelming force of thousands of troops.
Following the prince, they also arrived at the military camp of the Military Academy at Pujin Ferry. They couldn't help but straighten their chests... This was their senior, a legend in the army.
"Proud and proud against Wan Zhonglang..."
Zhao Xi was speechless, only the song he had plagiarized could express his emotions.
Zhao Xi started with choked sobs, followed by the sonorous singing of the soldiers of the old guard camp, followed by the military camp of the Jiangwu Hall, and the entire new army of the Forbidden Army responsible for escorting the army...
The traveling team stopped in Puzhou for a while and then set off, without even having time to meet with Puzhou officials.
"How is this going?"
Zhao Xi looked through the car window and saw soldiers standing guard on both sides of the track.
The most fundamental way to persuade courtiers to travel by rail carriage is to not waste people or money, and not to allow local and state capitals to welcome and transport them.
But setting up soldiers to guard both sides of the track like this made Zhao Xi more disgusted than welcoming people to and from the local state capital.
Even the return of soldiers from the old guard camp was superfluous in Zhao Xi's opinion, let alone such a mobilization of troops.
"Your Majesty, the imperial court had earlier requested the Imperial Guards of Gyeonggi Province to move north slowly. After the armistice negotiations with Bei Liao were agreed upon, the Imperial Guards who were transported halfway were temporarily stationed in various state capitals because the Imperial Court decided to travel by track and needed to clear the tracks along the way."
After hearing Wen Yanbo's words, Zhao Xi understood. It was just recycling waste.
Although they are not very good at fighting, they are very good at scaring the people. It is well used in this place.
"Your Majesty, after the convoy passes, they will camp on the spot. We will discuss their whereabouts after the negotiation is over."
Wen Yanbo wanted to remind the officials that it was the officials' idea to send these useless imperial troops north, and it was intended to build momentum.
Now that the armistice is being negotiated, this time the useless imperial army is marching north, it is really a waste of money and food.
The exploration team led by Su Song and Shen Kuo has been wandering around Hedong Road for more than half a year, not only conducting resource exploration in the four Yunying prefectures, but also in Longde Prefecture, Taiyuan Prefecture and Puzhou.
In Su Song's opinion, this exploration was quite fruitful...
"Guanjia, Shuozhou, and Yunzhou have quite large coal reserves. Even Taiyuan and Longde Prefectures are also rich in coal resources. To the east of Shuozhou, the coal is almost exposed on the ground..."
"At the same time, Weichen and others discovered gold, silver, copper, iron, aluminum and other resources in the Longde, Qianlan, and Zhongtiao Mountain areas...~"
"This is a topographic map where Wei Chen and others have discovered resource reserves. Most of the places where resources can be produced are wilderness areas. Wei Chen believes that the imperial court should classify resource producing areas as forbidden areas and implement military control."
"The imperial court can selectively mine according to the current development needs, and the overall mining must be planned. In this way, first, it can avoid excessive mining, resulting in low prices of raw materials, which are not enough to maintain the expenditure of the mining city. Second, it can prevent excessive waste, and also
Available resources can be reserved for future generations.”
Su Song, who was tempered by the cold wind outside the Great Wall, looked tired and dusty.
Zhao Xi did not expect that Su Song in this era would actually have a vision for sustainable development.
"Zirong, thank you for your work! This matter also requires your team to plan and write regulations on the exploitation of various resources in the country, and at the same time formulate an order for the resource extraction on Hedong Road."