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

History is a magical thing.

Before Watt used rubber to perfect the sealing of the steam engine, which spurred the first industrial revolution, there were various great ideas and inventions in Europe.

Including Franklin's electrical experiment, Newton's steam car, Huygens' internal combustion engine, Pierre Jaquet-Droz computer doll, etc.

These colorful inventions laid a solid foundation for the West to take the lead in completing the Industrial Revolution in the future.

But Zhao Jun was not envious.

Because in his view, the path of the West was accidentally mixed with inevitable factors, but the Song Dynasty would definitely move in the right direction firmly.

First, after the Middle Ages, the West finally established the concept of the direction of scientific development through three major movements in the hundreds of years, thereby making basic education more popular and in-depth, and cultivating various talents.

With a huge base number, qualitative changes are bound to occur due to quantitative changes. This is a normal phenomenon.

Secondly, the wisdom of the Chinese people has never been inferior to that of foreigners. Now the Song Dynasty also has its own Huygens and is conducting research on internal combustion engines.

Even if Cai Zhi fails in the end, at least he has accumulated enough experience and may be able to improve in this area in the future.

Last but not least.

The Song Dynasty is also working hard to develop basic education, and it is still guided by the power of the state, and Zhao Jun can always provide the right direction.

As long as basic education is done well, with the population base of the Song Dynasty, and the wisdom of the Western race, I believe it will not be difficult to produce several giants like Newton, Einstein, and Faraday in the future.

Therefore, there are too many uncertain factors in the path of the West. Even if it succeeds in the end, it will take hundreds of years. Many of these are serendipitous findings rather than inevitable consequences.

The Song Dynasty only needed to have correct guidance, clear goals, and the power of the country under the leadership of Zhao Jun, which would naturally turn chance into necessity, thus greatly shortening the historical process and shortening the development time.

Maybe in the West, from the first industrial revolution in 1760 AD to the start of the third industrial revolution in 1950, the Song Dynasty only needed half of it to do it.

On March 26, after inspecting Wu'an, Zhao Jun drove away the officials of Luzhou Prefecture, and the convoy set off again, continuing north to Youzhou.

As early summer approaches, the weather in Hebei becomes increasingly hot at noon, and the sun rises high in the sky. Everyone has to stop and find a cooler place to rest during the hottest time of the sun.

This is Shahe County, Xingzhou. A few dozen miles to the north is Xingzhou City, which later became Xingtai City. In the distance, the wilderness fields are lush and green, the people use canals for watering, and the roadsides are densely forested.

Everyone drove the carriage into the forest, took the horses down and took them into the forest. There happened to be a small hill to the west of the forest. There was a spring flowing out of the mountain. They fetched water by the stream and were boiling the water to make sure it was clean and safe. health.

After Jiang Dalang boiled a pot of water in an iron kettle, he poured the boiling water into an iron cup, then put the iron cup into the cold stream to cool down, and finally sent it to Zhao Jun.

Zhao Jun took a sip of warm water, looked around, and then said to Wang Anshi and others beside him: "This trip to Wu'an has also yielded a lot."

Su Huan sighed: "This humble position just feels amazing. When I was a local official before, how could I have seen such a scene?"

"Yes, this tall building is amazing."

"It's a pity that only Bianliang and Wu'an have such a grand event in the country now, and the rest of the country"

"This is probably why Zhiyuan brought us here."

Several Wang Anshi and Li Xiaoji, who had only worked in local areas before and had never been to Kaifeng, expressed their feelings again and again.

In the final analysis, except for Bianliang and Wu'an, the rest of the places were what they were before and what they are now. After visiting Bianliang and Wu'an, I was naturally affected by the visual impact.

Zhao Jun smiled and said: "You have now seen the situation in Bianliang and Wu'an. Let's analyze it. How can we develop it nationwide?"

Wang Anshi thought for a while and said: "Xiaguan thinks that priority should be given to the development of cities like Wu'an with a large amount of coal and iron. Build more canals and roads in these places, and develop steel plants first. When such cities spread across the country, we can help Other urban construction.”

"Very good, get rich first and then get rich later!"

Zhao Jun nodded with satisfaction and said: "This is also my idea. Resource-based cities need to rely on resources to rise first. Bianliang is a special situation. It does not produce coal and iron, so it is not comparable. But if other cities want to develop , we must find our own path. As the saying goes, one is more important than two, and when there are pioneers in the steel industry, other cities can also be inspired.”

Yang Cha said: "Does the Supreme Court want to promote steel construction nationwide first?"

"Um."

Zhao Jun nodded: "Before, it was only on a small scale, and steel plants were built in various locations. But I hope that in the future, every state and county with coal and iron resources will have its own steel industry!"

Although the steel industry had been promoted during the New Deal in the third year of Qingli, the situation at that time was actually not very good.

At present, only one steel plant has been built on each road.

For example, the steel plant in Hebei is in Wu'an, in Henan it is in Pingdingshan, and in Hubei it is in Huangshi. Moreover, some of the first buildings have been put into production, while some of the later ones are still in the construction stage, and the progress is not uniform.

Therefore, although steel production has increased in recent years, there has been no explosive growth. This is because the Song Dynasty is still in the stage of laying the foundation and has not yet transformed from one to two.

In this way, as Zhao Jun said, the next focus of the court will be on the construction of these resource-based cities.

Just like it will be the same in future generations after the founding of our country.

The difference is that after the founding of the People's Republic of China, in order to catch up with the industrial progress of the West, we suffered a lot and suffered a lot. It took us many years to finally catch up with the United States and surpass the United Kingdom and complete early industrial accumulation.

Nowadays, the Song Dynasty is leading the world for countless eras with every step it takes. In particular, the construction of steam ironclads requires steel very much.

Once industrial construction changes from one to two, and steel production reaches millions or even tens of millions of tons from the current hundreds of thousands of tons, even if it is not as good as the 1 billion tons level in later generations, it will be enough to conquer the world under the iron armored ship.

Therefore, since the destruction of Xixia, Zhao Jun is actually not in a hurry to destroy the Liao Kingdom and surrounding countries. Attacking now is not worth the gain, and a lot of manpower and material resources have to be spent on governance.

It only needs to wait until the industrial capabilities of the Song Dynasty reach a higher level in the future, and it will be a matter of course and easy to conquer the surrounding countries.

Then everyone chatted for a while, and in the afternoon, when the sun was finally obscured by clouds, everyone set off again.

Before arriving at Xingzhou when it got dark, the group spent the night in a village in Shaxian County. In the evening, gongs and drums were played inside and outside the town, making it very lively.

Zhao Jun was originally resting in the inn and had to continue his journey tomorrow. He had just soaked his feet and called Chen Xiliang to chat. Suddenly he heard a sound outside, so he put on his shoes and walked to the window to look down.

His room was facing the window, and he saw a wedding procession passing below. Next to him, Chen Xiliang clicked his tongue and said, "There is another newlywed couple."

"Something's wrong."

Zhao Jun frowned and said, "Look at the people watching below, they seem to be avoiding this team."

Only then did Chen Xiliang notice this and said, "It can't be that he is a match for his daughter."

"Da Lang!"

"Zhiyuan."

Jiang Dalang pushed the door open and entered.

Zhao Jun said: "Go down below and ask what's going on."

"yes."

Jiang Dalang went out in response.

It didn't take long for him to come back and report: "In the Zhiyuan, the people watching said that this was a match for my daughter's bones."

"Have someone go talk to the Shaxian County Government and investigate the source of the bones."

"yes."

"Bad habits and bad customs are still a big problem."

After Jiang Dalang went out, Zhao Jun walked back to the chair, sat down and soaked his feet and said: "This custom has wandered on the edge of morality and law. If you are not careful, it may be a crime."

The Song Dynasty was the most popular dynasty in the history of ghost marriage. According to Kang Yuzhi's "Yesterday Dream Record", when an unmarried man or woman dies, their parents will ask a "ghost matchmaker" to arrange marriage.

In other words, in the Song Dynasty, as long as men and women died early, their parents would definitely hold a ghost marriage for them. This shows the importance of ghost marriage customs in the Song Dynasty.

As the saying goes, if there is demand, there must be a market, and if there are people buying, there must be people selling. What happens if the product is missing?

As a result, the ghost marriage market formed an industrial chain in the Song Dynasty, including "ghost matchmakers", "corpse diggers", and even eventually, people who kidnapped and sold the bones of murderers.

For example, when Zhao Jun first traveled around the world, he encountered a big landowner who planned to kill people to replace his bones, and he also followed the clues and caught a large number of corrupt officials.

But obviously as long as the market remains, this phenomenon will not stop. Just like this kind of thing still happens even in the 21st century.

"The lower official feels that this matter still needs guidance from the court and cannot be banned blindly."

Chen Xiliang also came over and sat next to him, soaking their feet together and saying, "If we directly ban the breeding of female bones, the people will be ignorant and will not understand the court's good intentions. But it should be much better if we find ways to guide them."

"Well, your advice is very insightful."

Zhao Jun thought deeply: "The reason for the prevalence of the practice of marrying daughters' bones in the Song Dynasty is that the court did not intervene, which caused this bad custom. But if it is forcibly banned, the people will definitely oppose it. Perhaps we can transition to legal ghost marriage first, and then wait for the development of education level Later, more and more people realized that this trend was evil and banned it completely. "

"oh?"

Chen Xiliang asked curiously: "What's the meaning of this legal ghost marriage?"

Zhao Jun smiled and said: "Simple, in order to prevent theft of corpses and even murder and matching of corpses, the imperial court ordered that anyone across the country who has a daughter's bones must register with the Civil Affairs Bureau, just like getting married."

Chen Xiliang thought for a moment, then gave a thumbs up and said: "Zhiyuan is very clever. In this way, the source of the corpse must be revealed when arranging the bones, so as to prevent those who steal the bones and even kill people to assemble the corpses."

"In fact, it is impossible to completely eliminate it. For example, if you collude with the local civil affairs bureau, you can hide it, but if you can reduce most of it, you can reduce a lot of crimes."

Zhao Jun said: "What's more, even if you don't find a suitable corpse, you can still go to the Civil Affairs Bureau to register. In this way, the Civil Affairs Bureau provides a platform for people who are willing to have bones to go, and they no longer have to go around looking for ghosts and matchmakers to find corpses like before. "

When Chen Xiliang heard this, he felt it was even more clever and said repeatedly: "Zhiyuan Yingming."

Only Zhao Jun smiled bitterly and said, "It's just a helpless move."

If it were to change to a new era in the next generation, no matter what kind of monsters and monsters you are, I would catch them all in one fell swoop.

Still worthy of a ghost marriage?

They were all sent to the police station to serve jail time.

But in the Song Dynasty, as long as a child died young, it was bound to be an era of underworld marriage. How could it be banned immediately?

Once the imperial court orders a ban and the people's thinking is not changed in time, it is likely to become like the alcohol prohibition in the United States in the 1930s. The more prohibition, the more prosperous and crime occurs.

Therefore, in order to prevent Zhao Jun from overstepping his limits, it is impossible to completely ban it.

We can only, as Chen Xiliang said, guide step by step to transform private behaviors into legal ones, and determine the source of the corpses, so as to reduce the crime rate.

Moreover, this can also facilitate the people and provide information to the people. There is no need for ghost matchmakers to earn high prices through information differences like before.

The only thing that needs to be prevented is officials from the local Ministry of Civil Affairs doing this kind of thing.

The next day, early in the morning, before Zhao Jun set out, the Shahe County Magistrate and County Lieutenant came in a hurry to report the situation to Zhao Jun.

They heard last night that Zhao Jun passed by Shahe and saw someone matching his daughter's bones. They asked for a place to search for the source of the body. They were almost scared out of their wits. They arrested the owner and the ghost matchmaker overnight.

After interrogation, it was determined that the source of the body was indeed stolen.

After all, ghost marriages are often time-sensitive. It is difficult to just happen to have a dead son here and a dead daughter nearby. If you are not suitable locally, you can only rely on the relationship between ghost matchmakers to go to other places.

If the ghost matchmaker asks someone to find the source of the body from other places, there are two ways. One is to buy it and the owner will reimburse it.

Second, if you don’t want to spend money to buy it, then naturally you can only steal it.

And compared to buying it yourself, the stolen bones are a cost-free transaction, so you can still get reimbursement from the owner and earn twice as much money.

Therefore, there are many cases of stealing and digging graves.

After learning of this incident, Zhao Jun told the local government to severely punish those involved, and explained that if there is anyone who matches his daughter's bones in the future, they must find out the source of the body.

The Shahe County Magistrate and County Lieutenant responded one after another, and then Zhao Jun set off again, heading towards Xingzhou.

Two days later, he inspected Xingzhou, passed Neiqiu, left the territory of Xingzhou, and arrived at Zhaozhou. It was on the border between Zhaozhou and Xingzhou, with Lincheng to the north.

It was in the afternoon when the motorcade passed by a village and saw a banquet held in the village. Dozens of tables were placed in the village. Groups of villagers were coming in and out, making all kinds of noise and excitement.

When Zhao Jun heard the sound of gongs and drums, he put down the book he was reading, lifted the car curtain and glanced outside. After looking for a moment, he frowned.

After a while the convoy stopped.

This is the junction of Lincheng and Neiqiu. A tributary of Sang River flows here, and the two villages are separated by the river.

The villages on the east bank are having a grand banquet, but the villages on the west bank are doing whatever they need to do. There are even a few old men squatting under the big trees at the entrance of the village to enjoy the cool weather, pointing to the other bank.

Zhao Jun felt there was a problem, so he got out of the car and told everyone to stop where they were. He only took Jiang Dalang, Huang Sanlang and a few other followers across the river to ask.

There is a wooden bridge connecting the two banks of this stream. The official road runs along the river. The motorcade is parked by the bridge. The old men are under the trees at the entrance of the village on the other side of the bridge. When they see a few strangers approaching, they all look at him curiously. .

"Everyone, we are businessmen passing by. The village opposite is beating gongs and drums. Why should we hold a banquet when there is no event?"

Zhao Jun asked, pointing to the opposite side.

"Ah."

The people in the village here may have conflicts with the neighboring villages. Someone immediately sneered and said: "What else can it be? It's just a family."

"How to eat it?"

Zhao Jun frowned even more tightly.

"The third son of the old Liu family has died. His sons have seized his family's property, sold his wife and daughter to a brothel, and are currently entertaining the village."

the man said.

In an instant.

Zhao Jun's expression became serious.

On this trip, compared to the previous trip, which was more official, he hopes to go deeper into the people.

Although the last trip was also among the people, the people were in dire straits at that time, and some of the shortcomings were overshadowed by bigger problems such as not having enough to eat and not wearing warm clothes.

Now that the people live and work in peace and contentment, more problems have emerged.