In the Song Dynasty, there was no law or order.

Zhao Jun looked at the mountains and fields, which were empty, without any villages or people.

"Southern History·Biography of Liu Zhilin": Emperor Wu said: "Your mother is old and virtuous; so I will meet you to return home in glory and take care of you."

Returning home in glory has been one of the proudest things for Chinese people since ancient times.

But at the same time.

The saddest thing in the world is that you return home in glory, but what you face is "children meet you without knowing you, and ask you where you come from with a smile."

The hometown you used to live in has long been different. People not only don't know you, but have even forgotten your existence.

That kind of sadness will surge in my heart.

However, at least for Zhao Jun, this is not the saddest thing.

Because even if things have changed and many people in your hometown don't remember you, as long as you have money, they will soon remember you.

When you drive your luxury car and stroll around the village, the villagers will recognize you immediately.

Oh.

So you are someone from someone's family. I remember that I held you when I was a child.

Even when you build the house of the old house into a luxurious villa, it is guaranteed that all the relatives who are not related to you will come to your house to join in the fun.

So as long as you and your hometown exist in the same era, even if more than ten or twenty years have passed and you have not returned to your hometown for a long time, the years will still not take away the traces of your life here.

But the saddest thing in this world is that you do not belong to this era, and you don’t even have any traces of living here.

Even your ancestors have not migrated here, and there is only a wilderness here.

Is it still your hometown?

Therefore, for Zhao Jun, the sadness is that he doesn’t even know whether he should recognize this hometown, because this is his hometown thousands of years later, not the wasteland in front of him.

Zhao Jun stood on the mountain and looked at this land for a long time.

He remembered that the bay by the river at the foot of the mountain was the town, and then going north along the town was his hometown Zhaojiawan. Although it looks different from a thousand years later, the entire mountain terrain has not changed much.

When he was a child, Zhao Jun often herded sheep on the hillside with his friends. The topography of the entire town and village has long been imprinted in his mind and has never been erased.

But now the plain farmland on both sides of the river is a dense jungle, and the location of the town is a grassland. The surrounding mountains are dense, and there is almost no trace of human life in the distance.

"Zhiyuan."

The mayor saw that he was looking at the bottom of the mountain ridge, and pointed to the distance and said, "Twenty miles away from there is Meishan."

"Oh."

Zhao Jun responded. He knew the location of Meishan better than the mayor. He pointed to the bottom of the mountain and said, "Looking at the terrain, it should be possible to build a village here. Why is there no one living here?"

The mayor smiled bitterly and said, "This place is too close to Meishan. The Meishan barbarians live on the mountain. The Han people are not allowed to come to the foot of the mountain, and they are unwilling to live at the foot of the mountain. These Meishan barbarians, except for occasionally coming to the town to exchange some food, rice, oil and salt, hide in the mountains all year round. Sometimes they will argue with the Han people and fight with weapons. We are miserable."

"Is that so."

Zhao Jun responded. He didn't know how his ancestors broke through this obstacle and settled here. But that was the Southern Song Dynasty after all. Maybe the barbarians had been wiped out by the government at that time, or they started to contact with the Han people. Who knows?

The mayor said, "There are no Han villages beyond this. Those barbarians will drive away anyone who comes close. The governor should go back."

"No."

Zhao Jun looked around and turned to the governor of Shaozhou and the magistrate of Xinhua County and said, "You have the responsibility to defend your territory. Go back. I will stay here for one night. You don't need to stay with me all the time."

He said so, but how dare they leave?

Since Zhao Jun was in their territory, he must be with him 24 hours a day.

The two hurriedly said, "It's okay, it's okay. It's our duty to accompany the governor to inspect the place."

"Okay then."

Zhao Jun did not force them, and then ordered Jiang Dalang and others, "Set up camp here."

"Yes."

Jiang Dalang and others actually didn't want to camp in this desolate mountain.

After all, the New Year is coming. Although the soldiers followed Zhao Jun to a distant place, they are all creatures who love to join in the fun, so they naturally want to hang out in the county town.

First, they saved a lot of reward money on the way, and they really wanted to find a brothel, tavern, gambling house and other places to spend it.

Secondly, it was the end of the year, and they still hoped to have some fun, which was much better than staying in the mountains.

But Zhao Jun's orders had to be obeyed, so the soldiers had to go down the hillside reluctantly and set up tents at the foot of the mountain.

As night fell, the soldiers camped by the stream, and it was silent.

The crackling of firecrackers could be heard in Baisha Town in the distance, and Zhao Jun just stood by the river, quietly watching the stream flow.

Thousands of years later, he often swam in this river. The stream was not big, only about 20 meters wide, and the deepest part was a pool under the dam. Now there was no dam built, just a high and low gentle slope, but the pool was there.

Zhao Jun looked down at the pool. He almost drowned in it when he was a child, and was pulled up by the adults who were bathing in the river together.

At that time, people often swam in it in the summer. When they grew up, they didn't know why, the stream became smelly, full of domestic sewage and garbage, and even dead babies and dead pigs, so naturally no one went into the river.

There is also a hillside on the east side. On the gentle slope of the winding mountain is the Zhao family ancestral hall. Later, the ancestral hall was built very large. It was donated by the wealthy people who left the Zhao family. It can accommodate hundreds of people for worship. At the annual sacrificial ceremony, Zhao Zhen's spirit tablet is hung high on it.

Zhao Jun just stayed by the river, staring blankly at all this. It was somewhat familiar, but more of a strange place. Everyone could see that he was not right, but no one dared to disturb him.

"What is the governor doing?"

Huang Sanlang was tidying up the tent and asked Jiang Dalang next to him: "It's weird today."

"I don't know."

Jiang Dalang scratched his head and said: "Maybe the government affairs are too busy, and occasionally go to the mountains to relax the body and mind."

"Wrong, the governor is worried."

Or the governor of Shaozhou is educated. After all, he was a Jinshi, and he saw Zhao Jun's state at a glance.

Worried?

Everyone looked at each other, confused.

No one understood why Zhao Jun suddenly changed his route and came to a barren mountain under a remote town in Shaozhou.

But no one dared to go.

Time flows slowly like water in a stream.

It was late at night, and the end of the year was approaching.

Zhao Jun spent the end of the fourth year of Jingyou in this mountain cave, and also came to the new year.

At the beginning of this year, Song Renzong Zhao Zhen announced that the reign title would be changed to Baoyuan.

At the end of this year, Li Yuanhao officially attacked the Song Dynasty, setting off a war between Song and Xia that lasted for several years.

The next morning, Zhao Jun set out on the road to the south again.

On the first day of the new year, he waited for the soldiers to pack up their luggage, stood on the ridge, took a deep look at the small mountain cave, and then left without looking back.

If he could change the fate of the Song Dynasty, perhaps the ancestors of the Zhao family would not flee here in the late Southern Song Dynasty.

At that time, there would still be no one here, and perhaps other Han people would move here.

But at least his ancestors would never come here.

Here, there is only a trace of his thoughts and memories, and he will no longer have any other connection with him.

"Let's go."

Back in Baisha Town, the boat rented by Zhao Jun was still waiting at the dock.

The Zishui River flowed slowly.

This time, it did not continue to go north, but went south back to Shaozhou.

On the boat, Jiang Dalang was still curious. Seeing Zhao Jun standing at the bow, with his hands behind his back, still looking in the direction of Baisha Town, he couldn't help asking, "Zhiyuan."

"Hmm?"

"I don't understand why Zhiyuan came here specially?"

"Just to see, something happened here before."

"Oh."

"Okay, let the boatmen speed up, we still have to go south to Guangzhou."

Zhao Jun didn't want to explain too much to Jiang Dalang, because there was actually nothing to explain, just to see his hometown.

That was just this time.

Maybe he will never come back in the future, and this time it can be regarded as breaking his thoughts.

Jiang Dalang left in confusion.

The boat slowly left the port, and Zhao Jun still looked at the distant mountain until the fleet turned around a cliff and the distant mountain was completely blocked by the mountain behind. He sighed and returned to the cabin.

In the past, he didn't have much sense of belonging to the Song Dynasty. Even though his last name was Zhao, and the Emperor Zhao of the Song Dynasty was indeed his ancestor, it was still a little bit off.

In Zhao Jun's cognition, the small mountain village that haunted his dreams was his hometown where he was born and raised for more than 20 years. Even though he later went far north to study in Beijing, he still couldn't forget everything in the mountain village.

But now, after taking this look, it was like officially saying goodbye to his former self.

Because no matter what, even his ancestors didn't exist here, and there was no trace of him at all.

So he came here, but couldn't belong here, so it was better to break off the relationship.

The future.

Then he devoted himself to the cause of the Song Dynasty.

The fate of his ancestors changed completely.

This hometown became the past, and it would only remain in dreams.

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In February of the first year of Baoyuan, Zhao Jun went south to Guangzhou and inspected the Panyu Port, where he saw many foreign ships parked densely at the dock.

This situation is actually a small scene that is not worth mentioning in any Chinese foreign trade port in the future.

However, in the Song Dynasty a thousand years ago, no matter which empire of the same period, there have never been so many foreign ships flocking here, just to take away the country's special products such as tea, porcelain, silk, spices, etc.

Zhao Jun asked local officials whether they had contact with Southeast Asian countries and whether they had taken the initiative to send ships to investigate their situation.

The answer he got was "It's a small country, there is no need to send envoys." "Only foreign countries have the right to pay homage to the Song Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty has never sent envoys to other countries, except the Liao Kingdom."

Hearing such arrogant words, Zhao Jun was speechless.

If it weren't for the investigation that Fan Shidao, the Guangnan East Road Transport Envoy who said this, was a strict person and a rare honest official, he really wanted to knock on his head and ask him, with the military power of the Song Dynasty, why is he so arrogant.

Finally, Zhao Jun ordered him to form a fleet this year and go to Nanyang for inspection.

Another thing is that Nanyang has abundant grain production. If conditions permit, I hope he can find a way to import grain from Southeast Asia to alleviate domestic food pressure.

In fact, the Song Dynasty did import grain. For example, the north traded with Tubo, Xixia, and Liao, and often bought cattle, sheep, and other livestock from each other. In addition, during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song, due to the disaster in the south, grain was imported from the Yue Dynasty to help the victims.

Champa rice was also introduced to China at that time.

It's just that importing grain is too troublesome and the cost is very high. It is estimated that more than half a year has passed since it was transported from Guangzhou to Hunan through the Lingqu Canal, then from Hunan to the Yangtze River through the Xiangjiang River, and finally to Bianliang through the Grand Canal.

So except for the disaster in the south, it was inconvenient to transport grain from the north, so it was imported from Nanyang to solve the problem at close range, the Song Dynasty did not import goods from abroad.

This is also why since the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, foreign trade has been so developed, basically with a trade surplus and a large amount of silver flowing in, but there are few Chinese regimes that import goods from abroad and have a trade deficit.

The Opium War in the Qing Dynasty started because even though Britain was industrialized, it could not compete with the local manufacturing industry of the Qing Dynasty. An industrial country still had a trade deficit with an agricultural country.

Britain needed to import a large amount of Qing Dynasty porcelain, tea and silk, and their wool and woolen cloth could not be sold at all.

The so-called empire on which the sun never sets was so angry that it used foreign guns and cannons to solve this problem by exporting opium, which was indeed despicable.

Now Zhao Jun asked Guangdong Road to import Nanyang grain. His original intention was that although the import cost was expensive, he knew that the war would start this year and the grain price would rise sharply. At that time, even if the cost was high, it would not be as good as the skyrocketing grain price in China.

Therefore, at that time, imported grain could be used to stabilize the grain price, which was at least much better than sudden inflation.

In addition to inspecting the port situation in Guangdong, Zhao Jun also went to see the cotton planting situation.

Last year, the Political System Council had already ordered Guangzhou to plant a large amount of cotton. Now it cannot be said to be fully promoted, but local counties have political tasks, and cotton has begun to take root in the Song Dynasty.

Just from the inspection, the output of this poisonous cotton is still not as good as Xinjiang cotton in later generations. After all, Xinjiang cotton is well cultivated, and the output quality is naturally very good.

In ancient times, cotton was not scientifically cultivated, and the yield was half of that in later generations, which was considered good. It certainly could not be as good as that in later generations.

Zhao Jun stayed in Guangzhou for more than two months, and handled some cases during this period. Some were people exiled to Lingnan who cried out for injustice, some were problems with local officials, and some were disputes between foreigners and Han people.

He recorded everything he saw and heard, and wrote a report on the governance and arrangements of Guangzhou and sent it back to the court. It was not until March of the first year of Baoyuan that he left Guangzhou and went to Guangxi.

In June, he returned to Hunan and continued his inspection tour.

At this time, the war in the northwest was intensifying. A special accident made the two sides tense and there was a faint sign of the beginning of the war.

I know that these two chapters are a little watery, mainly because of the change in the protagonist's mood, which made him feel more at home in the Song Dynasty. After that, it was basically a new beginning. The protagonist's inspection ended, the Song-Xia War started, and then the reform was fully promoted. It was the climax of the book, so stay tuned.