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

At the end of the ninth year of the Qingli reign of the Song Dynasty, the old year came to an end amidst great joy.

This was the tenth year of the Qingli reign.

It was also the year 1050, the 14th year since Zhao Jun came to the Song Dynasty.

In just 14 years, the Song Dynasty experienced reforms in all aspects, including politics, economy, military, culture, and education.

The national strength showed a qualitative leap.

Judging from the GDP data, the gross domestic product has more than doubled compared to the Jingyou reign.

According to the tax revenue of the Jingyou reign and the tax rate at that time, it can be calculated that the GDP of the Song Dynasty at that time was about 300-400 million guan.

But in the fourth year of the Qingli reign, it increased to 1.6 billion guan. In the eighth year of the Qingli reign, with the full development of the steel industry and various constructions driving economic development, GDP reached 3 billion guan.

And the tax revenue in the Jingyou reign was very high. The tax rate was 10% on the surface, but with various levies and layers of exploitation, it generally reached about 20-30%, which was particularly severe for the oppression of the lower-class people.

Now the agricultural tax has dropped significantly, and only the landlords with more land and the wealthy with more assets have a higher tax rate. The overall tax rate remains at 12%, and the tax rate for the poor with less assets is reduced to less than 7%.

In this way, the total income of the Song Dynasty court can reach more than 300 million guan a year, but about two-thirds of it will be attributed to the central finance, and the local government will only retain one-third of it.

It can be said that the current Song Dynasty is the best era among the feudal dynasties, the richest era in the true sense.

Rather than the poor and weak Northern Song Dynasty in history, which only used higher taxation methods to keep the financial income of the central court of the Song Dynasty high, but the lower classes lived very hard, so that rebellions emerged one after another.

Of course.

The ninth year of Qingli in 1049 AD was naturally not completely smooth sailing. There is no historical dynasty in this world where there is good weather everywhere in the country and no natural disasters.

In essence, the harm caused by some corrupt officials in a place is far less than that of a natural disaster, such as drought, floods, insect plagues, etc.

Because no matter how corrupt the officials are, it is impossible for them to embezzle the food that everyone in the county depends on for survival. That is unrealistic.

But natural disasters can.

Overnight, a county, a state, or even a whole road can be left with no harvest, and the people without food can become disaster victims. They can eat up everything that can be eaten like locusts passing through.

However, now the Song Dynasty has almost no large-scale turmoil caused by natural disasters. Even if there are disasters, they will be quelled quickly.

For example, in the ninth year of the Qingli period, there was a drought in the sixteen states of Yanyun, including parts of Hebei.

This disaster involved more than twenty states in three routes and affected millions of people. It was enough to shake an ordinary dynasty and even become the last straw that broke the camel's back in the late years of the dynasty, but it did not cause much splash.

Almost as soon as there was a clue, the Song Dynasty court immediately mobilized food and grass to rescue it, and then quickly eliminated it.

It was because of the strong national strength of the Song Dynasty.

From here, we can see that the comprehensive national strength of the Song Dynasty has surpassed the Qing Dynasty, which is recognized as the peak of the feudal dynasty, and has entered a new era - the industrial age.

The productivity of the industrial age is huge, and the ability to resist disasters is much stronger than that of the feudal dynasty.

Even if trains are not yet popular in transportation, the grain mobilization through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal can complete disaster relief work and stabilize the domestic situation in the first time.

In this regard alone, the political coordination ability, macro-control ability, and grain reserve ability of the Song Dynasty have reached an extremely high level, which is completely higher than the feudal dynasty!

And all this is inseparable from Zhao Jun's transformation of the Song Dynasty in the past ten years, from top to bottom, and then from bottom to top, back and forth plowing-style innovation.

But this is the Song Dynasty.

First, the Song Dynasty seems to be powerful, but in fact, the military power has always been firmly in the hands of the emperor. As long as the gun is held, even the hardest class can be washed.

Second, the literati in the Northern Song Dynasty have not broken their spines like the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Maybe there are soft bones, but they still retain the moral bottom line.

Lü Yijian, Wang Zeng, Yan Shu, Fan Zhongyan, Bao Zheng, too many historical capable and famous officials.

Many times, with Zhao Jun as the core, things are told and spread out, then many things will naturally be able to go smoothly, and there will not be too many shackles and constraints.

Otherwise, if it was in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, people like Yan Song, Xu Jie, and the Donglin Party, who owned so many acres of land in Jiangnan, were absolute interest groups.

Even if you state all the interests to the emperor, I am afraid it will be difficult to break through the blockade of the literati.

Therefore, Zhao Jun, as a political strongman, appeared in an era when the emperor was relatively weak, the literati were still morally just, the folk business atmosphere was strong, and the country was not closed to the outside world. It was also a lucky thing.

Zhao Jun spent the New Year in Jiangxi. He originally planned to go back to his hometown in Hunan to have a look, just like the last time he toured the world. But unfortunately, plans cannot keep up with changes, and there will always be delays.

On the other hand, Zhao Zhen was much more comfortable. Although he was still unable to leave the palace and was confined to a small place, he could climb the city wall to see the lights all over the city.

Yes.

At the end of last year, Zhao Zhen used steam engines to generate electricity, so that thousands of electric lights in the palace would light up.

At the end of this year, the Song Dynasty officially began to build electric poles, set up wires, and generate hydroelectric power through rivers such as the Bian Canal and the Jinshui River, so that electric lights could illuminate thousands of households.

"Our great Song Dynasty is technologically advanced. We have just established the Song Dynasty Power Grid. Now there are so many electric poles in the city. That is a very reasonable thing."

This was the important speech made by His Majesty Zhao Zhen, the Emperor of the Song Dynasty, at dusk at the end of the year, when he looked at the lights on the entire Donghuamen Street outside the Donghuamen Palace Wall and announced it to the civil and military officials.

The smiling expression and the way the corners of his mouth were almost stretched to the back of his head were full of pride and pride.

He deserves pride and pride.

Because throughout history, no matter in the past or in the future, there has never been an emperor who can do scientific research like him, and no one in the scientific community can be an emperor like him.

And if nothing unexpected happens, after the recovery of the Western Regions, his evaluation among the emperors of all dynasties can at least rank in the top five, and even compete for the top three.

If he completes the feat of destroying the Liao Dynasty and unifying most of East Asia, it will be no problem to maintain the second place and threaten the position of Ying Zheng.

In the current scientific community, even if Newton and Einstein traveled through time, it would be useless. He has laid the foundation for himself to be the first person in the scientific community and become the founder of the Eastern scientific system.

With such a double champion in scientific research and imperial power, Zhao Zhen's historical status is destined to be unprecedented and unparalleled, and he will achieve unprecedented greatness!

It is hard to say whether people will discuss whether Wang Mang is a time traveler in the future Internet era, but Zhao Zhen.

Under the light of Zhao Zhen, Zhao Jun seems to become ordinary.

After all, the achievements of a dynasty are often attributed to the emperor.

If this emperor happens to be more outstanding.

Just like the world only thinks that Emperor Wu of Han is wise and brave, but forgets that Wei Qing and Huo Qubing are the real fighters on the front line.

In parallel with the rapid development of science and technology in Bianliang, there are also changes in the city.

After a year, Kaifeng Bianliang City has also changed greatly. The city has begun to demolish houses one after another and carry out small-scale modern urban construction.

As Zhao Jun said before, Kaifeng Prefecture must start land acquisition work as soon as possible, otherwise the longer it is delayed, the more expensive the land price in Bianliang will be, and the more money the court will need to spend on land acquisition, which will be even more unprofitable.

Then there are all kinds of bicycles and rickshaws shuttling around, and telegraph lines are being laid. There is a railway station outside the south city, which can directly reach Xiangyang.

The first batch of rubber transplanted to Hainan has matured. Although some of them died due to not adapting to the environment or unreasonable planting, the surviving rubber trees quickly took root and then thrived. By the eighth and ninth years of the Qingli period, they were almost ready for harvest.

The industry is ready, and many things have been laid out long ago, except for the raw materials. For example, the design of bicycles has been completed long ago, and there are no problems with various tests and manufacturing afterwards. It is just that rubber tires are being mass-produced.

There are too many benefits to having Zhao Jun as a pioneer. After the industrial revolution in later generations, the development of commodities must be based on demand and innovation. People will start to invent and create when they think that bicycles are useful.

But Zhao Jun didn't need to look at the current market. He knew what would happen in the future and just ordered it to be built. Through the court's macro-control, it was almost predicting the market demand.

So with such a vision that was far ahead of the times, the development of the Song Dynasty was naturally far ahead of the others, and it was galloping at a speed that ordinary people could hardly understand.

To some extent.

The current Song Dynasty is a bit like the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.

Kaifeng is Shanghai, where all kinds of novel things will first appear, colliding with feudal society to create strange sparks.

The rest of the Song Dynasty is still the same as before, without much change.

In addition to living a better life, being able to eat and wear warm clothes, and fewer people being oppressed and exploited, the entire social outlook and overall structure are still the same as those of the ancient feudal dynasties.

The clan power in the south is still strong, the local government still holds huge power, and the social atmosphere and feudal superstition in the countryside are still prevalent.

But Zhao Jun believed that with the passage of time, with the continuous rise of the Song Dynasty's scientific and technological level, and with the popularization of educational ideas, these feudal remnants and old customs will sooner or later slowly disappear in the long river of history.

Under such circumstances, Zhao Jun spent the New Year in Jiangxi and entered Hubei in the first month of the year. Since he could not go to Hunan for the New Year, he should not take a long detour. He went south from Hubei to Hunan, then to Guangzhou, Guangxi, Guizhou and other places, and finally entered Sichuan from the Yangtze River.

Along the way, he found that the old customs in the north were relatively good, and the south was the hardest hit area. There were endless things like killing people for sacrifice, drowning babies, village fights, and worshipping evil gods.

Many games and movies in later generations have such frequent strange things in the village. The masterminds behind the scenes are often villagers or village heads. They worship gods such as the Six Burial Bodhisattva and the Great Black Buddha Mother, but in fact they are all evil gods. The source of the prototype lies here.

Among them, the most famous evil god in ancient times was Wutong God. In the history of Kaifeng City in the Northern Song Dynasty, a secret temple dedicated to Wutong God was uncovered, and the scene was extremely bloody and terrifying.

Wu Zeng, a contemporary, recorded in his notes "Nenggai Zhai Manlu": "Push the doors of two rooms and read them. There are many women and babies nailed to the four walls of one room; there are countless prisoners in another room, who are being tortured and crying." It can be seen how rampant this kind of evil god worship is.

For this reason, Zhao Jun stayed in the south for a long time, went to the grassroots everywhere, and went to the rural areas of various counties. He not only required each village to put up various anti-cult slogans, but also made many speeches, angrily denouncing the evil cult for harming people.

This situation lasted until the second half of the tenth year of the Qingli reign. In October, he finally traveled through Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou and other places, and entered Sichuan to investigate the situation in Shuzhong.

Originally, he thought that Sichuan would be slightly better, but he found out after he went there that because of the closed news, the situation here was no worse than that in Huguang, and in addition to these feudal superstitions, there was even a serf system.

It was mainly concentrated in the western Sichuan plateau west of Sichuan. It was out of the control of the Song government, but nominally it was the territory of the Song Dynasty. Many of them were local ethnic minorities and chieftain regimes.

Zhao Jun knew that he could not solve this problem in a short time, so he had to give up.

However, a few areas in Badong also existed, such as Shizhou, Dazhou, Kaizhou, Kuizhou and other areas. The mountains were high and the land was scarce, and the government had insufficient control, so that the serf system was rampant, and even slaves were used for sacrifice.

For this reason, Zhao Jun repeatedly urged local officials to strictly investigate and crack down on such acts. If they resisted stubbornly, the army could be dispatched when necessary to directly eliminate these slave owners.

It's not that these slave owners rebelled.

But many slave owners are ethnic minorities in the local mountains and forests, and they have many bad habits from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, such as burial, human sacrifice, killing slaves, etc.

The government asked them to make corrections, but these people never took it seriously. Only by sending troops to eliminate their upper-level controllers and forcibly changing their customs and habits can these bad habits be permanently eliminated.

Zhao Jun stayed in Sichuan for two months. It was almost at the end of the tenth year of Qingli that he left Sichuan, took the Chencang Road, and arrived in Baoji. By the way, he also inspected the construction of the Sichuan-Guanzhong Railway.

As the second railway, it was already under construction at this time, but the mountains and forests were steep and the roads were difficult to travel. The progress has not been fast. In some places, the mountains had to be blasted to open the road.

Fortunately, the project was not blocked.

Because the road selected by the Song Dynasty was actually the first railway from Sichuan to Shaanxi in later generations, the Baocheng Railway route opened in 1952.

Although there are many difficulties along the way, the construction plan of most areas is still smooth, except that some areas need to move mountains to open roads, so the project is progressing steadily.

In this way, when the Yuehan Railway is built, a railway will be built from Bianliang to Beiping, which means that Sichuan can go north to Shaanxi by railway, and then take the Yellow River to Bianliang by ship.

Going south, it can go to Zhejiang and Guangdong via the Yangtze River and Xiangshui. Guangdong has a railway directly to Beiping, and Zhejiang has a canal to Bianliang, so the national economy can be revitalized.

It is no longer necessary for Sichuan's goods to be transported to Zhejiang via the Yangtze River first, and then sent to Bianliang and the north via the canal as before. The overall economic situation, including domestic trade and overseas trade, can be greatly developed.

On December 16, the tenth year of the Qingli period, Zhao Jun arrived at Baoji County, Qinfeng Road. All officials of the Qinfeng Road Pacification Department and the Transportation Department came to greet him, including an old acquaintance.

His former bodyguard - Di Qing!