The chamberlain took Su Jin and hurriedly came to the outside of the imperial study to report loudly, Zhao Zhen was pacing with his hands in his hand, and when he heard the report, he was busy ordering Su Jin to meet him.

After saluting, Zhao Zhen pointed to the set seat and motioned for Su Jin to sit down and speak, Huang Peisheng brought a tea tray and poured a cup of tea for Su Jin, and then took the palace maids out of the room and closed it gently.

Zhao Zhen looked at Su Jin with a smile and said: "Su Aiqing, it is inconvenient for me to express my gratitude above the main hall, this time you have made a lot of contributions, not to mention the conspiracy of the Liao people, and also took the opportunity to let the two tigers fight, weakening their strength, and greatly boosting the morale of my Great Song Dynasty, I am really happy in my heart." ”

Su Jin hurriedly said: "Thanks to the emperor's blessings, if there is no strong support from the imperial court, how can it have such an effect." ”

Zhao Zhen sighed: "To tell the truth, when I received your request to go to the Xia State to command the Xia army to fight against the Liao army, I really sweated for you, and my approval was not to agree with you to go, but the official who passed the decree said that you had already left the camp on the front line in Youzhou, and I was worried for a while; Now it seems that you are full of confidence, and I am worried about you. ”

Su Jin secretly praised Zhao Zhen's methods of entrapping people, Zhao Zhen meant that he was worried about his own safety, so he didn't let him go, but the actual situation was that Zhao Zhen had no confidence in himself, for fear that he would mess things up.

Su Jin didn't break it, and said with a smile: "Thank you for the emperor's concern, the minister is very moved, but if you fight against the Liao army with superior forces, if you are defeated, isn't it unreasonable?" ”

Zhao Zhen laughed and said: "That's it, I also figured it out later, the battle of Weizhou 40,000 against 120,000 did not lose, how can I lose this time, so I looked forward to it day and night, and finally looked forward to the news of the victory of the Xia army, I was happy all night without sleep, and talked with Yan Xiangdu and them all night, I told them that there are successors to the Great Song Dynasty, and in time, Su Aiqing will be able to stand alone and become my most powerful minister. ”

Su Jin smiled: "How about the minister?" The emperor wants me to have more experience, understand the affairs of each yamen, and make up for my previous lack of learning and skills, right? ”

Zhao Zhen laughed and said: "What don't you learn and don't know, you think of yourself a little lower, but you have to learn government affairs, military affairs and property, and not only in official affairs, up and down coordination, interpersonal affairs, etiquette and regulations, you need to learn, you know your own problems, but once you are a minister of Zaifu, you need to set an example for hundreds of officials, and your words and deeds affect people's hearts; Look at Lu Xiangyan, which one is not old and serious, and his speech and demeanor are practiced and calm, that is an example for you to learn. ”

Su Jin smiled and said: "The minister understands, thank you for mentioning the emperor, I do have a lot of problems." ”

Zhao Zhen said: "No one is perfect, even if it is me, there are shortcomings." ”

Su Jin can't interface on this topic, serving tea and drinking.

"But I am a social burden, I can't speak as freely and decisively as you, every decision I make will affect the joy and anger of tens of millions of people in the Song Dynasty, so I have to be cautious, maybe in the eyes of many people, I am an indecisive person, but who knows my hardships." Zhao Zhen sighed, his expression a little gloomy.

Su Jindao: "I understand, the emperor doesn't have to care about other people's opinions, the former ministers were a little impatient, and they didn't understand the emperor's hardships, and there were a lot of angry words in the words, and the emperor tolerated the past, which made the ministers extremely grateful." ”

Zhao Zhen said with a smile: "I am very pleased that you can say this, this shows that you have gradually grown old, it seems that you are different after adulthood, you have a beard on your chin, you do things carefully, and the ancient proverb is honest and not deceive." ”

Su Jin smiled, deliberately repairing the relationship with Zhao Zhen may be his own maturity in character, he would never say such a thing before, especially when he had several disputes with Zhao Zhen and the gap was getting bigger and bigger, it was even more impossible for him to take the initiative to show goodwill; Of course, Zhao Zhen's words can only be believed in Sancheng, but Su Jin would rather believe that Zhao Zhen is sincere, and rare confusion may be a sign of maturity.

"On the night of Shangyuan, you take the whole family into the palace to enjoy the lanterns, the queen mother and the queen want to see your wife and concubines and children, and I haven't enjoyed the lanterns with others on the night of Shangyuan for a long time, because I haven't been in that mood. This year, I was finally in a better mood, and naturally I wanted to relax and relax, but your words in the hall today made me quite anxious, and I was thinking, maybe I am not in the mood to enjoy the lanterns this year. ”

"Your Majesty, are you talking about using troops against Liao to win over the Xia people?"

"Yes, tell me, what are the chances of winning against Liao?"

Su Jin thought for a while and said, "If it's less than half, you may lose." ”

"Then you still suggest using troops against the Liao?" Zhao Zhen said with wide eyes.

Su Jindao: "Of course, Song Liao has a battle sooner or later, it is better to fight late than early, of course, if you want to increase the chance of winning, you must be completely crushed in the military and national strength, and you can only encounter by chance and not force to win more with less, generally speaking, it is natural for the strong to win." ”

Zhao Zhen frowned and said: "How can it be completely crushed, the national strength of the Great Song Dynasty has recovered, but the Liao people have been operating for a long time, unlike my Great Song Dynasty who has experienced several years of war against Xia, natural disasters also occur from time to time, and the consumption is too great, if it is not for the loss of more than 200,000 horses this time, it is really difficult to determine who is strong and who is weak." ”

Su Jin smiled and said: "The emperor is right, so if we want to win the battle with the Liao, the first thing we need is to speed up the enhancement of strength, so that the development of such a slow take-off, we are developing, the Liao people are also recovering, more than three or five years, the Liao people will be even more difficult to deal with." ”

Zhao Zhen sighed: "It's easy to talk about, it's easy to talk about." ”

Su Jin said: "The emperor blames me for revisiting the old matter, the new deal was an opportunity, but it is a pity that it ended in failure in a hurry, if you can slowly figure it out, the situation will be very different now." ”

Zhao Zhen's face changed slightly, and he looked at Su Jin and said, "I can't give up more important things for the sake of the new deal, you don't need to argue about this." ”

Su Jin said: "The minister is not justifying this matter, the minister means that if you want to develop rapidly, you still need to take extraordinary measures." ”

"You mean reopening the New Deal?" Zhao Zhen was surprised.

Su Jin shook his head and said: "Good horses don't eat back grass, the new deal is already a thing of the past, so why mention it again." ”

"Do you have any good ideas?"

Su Jin thought for a while and said: "The emperor should take the time to go to the Northwest Fourth Road to parade once, to see how the ministers are doing in the northwest, and the minister is accompanied by Li Daren, the chief warehouse of the Northwest Fourth Road, where does he have some specific numbers, if the emperor can summon him to listen to his face, he will know the general situation of the Northwest Fourth Road now." ”

Zhao Zhen said: "I know the situation of the Northwest Fourth Road, the third division has made statistics, compared with the second year of Qingli, the number of people in the Northwest Fourth Road has increased from 120,000 to 190,000, an increase of 500,000 people; The increase in cultivated land from 200,000 hectares to 500,000 hectares is indeed a rapid development, and it has only been five years. ”

Su Jin said with a smile: "The emperor praises falsely, but the emperor has not said what I am most proud of, that is, the business of the Northwest Fourth Road, 190,000 households, nearly 40,000 households have left the land to do business, so that other people can have a large amount of land to plant, with an average of 30 acres per household, and most of them are paddy fields; The fields near the left of Qinzhou dug ditches and ditches to divert water for irrigation, which has become the image of the north and the south of the Yangtze River, and in the past, it was said that the northwest produced a large amount of rice, who could believe it? Merchants are more profitable, Pearl City, Qinzhou, Yanzhou and other places have become a huge place for the distribution of commercial goods, in the past, said that the northwest is a place where merchants must fight, who can believe it? The tax revenue of the Northwest Fourth Road has long been self-sufficient, this time to aid Xia to resist Liao, part of the military supplies are spent by ministers from the Northwest Fourth Road's fiscal and tax expenditures, and next year, the Northwest Fourth Road will supply more taxes to the imperial court, which is the effect of the change. ”

Zhao Zhen said excitedly: "There is such a miraculous effect? What did you use? ”

Su Jindao: "The minister has explored a set of methods, and the trial in the northwest is also very successful, and the minister intends to ask for the emperor's permission, so that the minister will promote it throughout the country, and the minister dares to say that within two years, the Great Song Dynasty will have a new look, and then it can fight with the Liao." ”

Zhao Zhen said: "You tell me in detail. ”

Su Jin then told Zhao Zhen about his ideas and steps for operating in the northwest in 1510, and new terms kept popping out of his mouth, such as "special economic zone", "radiation by points", "no business, no wealth", "if you want to get rich, build roads first" The most important thing is that none of these things proposed by Su Jin involve government affairs, and they basically do not touch the inherent policies, which makes Zhao Zhen feel at ease, Zhao Zhen is most afraid that Su Jin's method will touch the interests of officials and attract everyone's opposition, and now it seems that Su Jin has carefully bypassed this point.

Su Jin said for nearly an hour, Zhao Zhen listened to it with relish, and finally decided to summon Li Chongchang to talk about the matter, because the specific implementation is Li Chong's business, Su Jin just moved some development models in later generations to tell Li Chong that Li Chong is the real practitioner, in a sense, Li Chong is an expert, and Su Jin is just a theoretical peddler.

After saying goodbye to the palace, Su Jin breathed a sigh of relief, all of this is his careful design, from the analysis of the current situation in the main hall to the astonishing proposal to fight with the Liao, just to play this step of chess, the success of the northwest has strengthened the dream in Su Jin's heart, he will not be like Fan Zhongyan and others to carry out changes from top to bottom, that has been proven to be a failed measure, from the perspective of not touching interest groups, to carry out economic and cultural changes, but it is a safe and effective way, maybe such a change is not complete, But Su Jin's goal is just to make the lives of the people of the Great Song Dynasty better, and the people's wisdom will be opened up a little, so that they will not live a chaotic life like ants, which is enough.