It's late February.

Several spring rains, which are as precious as oil, not only moistened the large plains on both sides of the Yellow River, but also caused the temperature to rise rapidly, making people feel a lot more comfortable.

Because of the death of Emperor Zhezong, Wu Haogu's work plan was also disrupted, and he was supposed to go to Jiehe to take up his post, but now he is still in Kaifeng Mansion and has not moved his nest. He stayed in Kaifeng Mansion mainly to deal with "personal affairs" for Zhao Ji, which were all very personal matters, what women, money, calligraphy and painting.

After arranging "redundant" women for Zhao Ji and selling some low-quality collections, Zhao Ji's private money is less than 30,000 yuan, which is no longer a lot of money in Kaifeng Mansion, but Wu Haogu also has to seriously help Zhao Ji operate.

After discussing with Pan Xiao'an and Gao Yu, he took out two or three taels (Wu Haogu took out 30,000 yuan), made up 100,000 yuan, and opened a Yuntai trading house. let Hua Manshan be the shopkeeper, and transferred a few stewards from the Pan family to Haizhou together. Prepare to rush before this year's tea picking, buy the tea fields located on Yuntai Mountain at a high price, and after the harvest, ask a group of tea-making craftsmen to make the best "dragon and phoenix tea cakes" and send them to Kaifeng Mansion, and strive to play the name of tribute tea as soon as possible.

In addition, Yuntai Xing will also acquire some land near the sea in Qishan County, and begin to build mansions and towns there, in preparation for the arrival of degraded officials (referring to the organization and resettlement of officials) from all over the country.

By the way, the Republic Bank of Wuhaogu Holdings is now also carrying out the same construction in the joint stock of the commercial bank of Ji Yi's family in Qishan County - that is, on the land where Pan Qiaolian married, so the joint venture firm formed (named Donghai Xing, the shopkeeper is Ji Yi's cousin Ji Lei) also has shares in the Wujia's internal account office.

At the same time, Wu Haogu did not leave behind the work of the Jiehe Merchant City. The senate and government office of the Shang City were established in Kaifeng Mansion. Wu Haogu served as the chief senator of the Senate (referred to as the head of state) and the mayor of Shangshi. Huang Zhisheng was also appointed as the director of the commercial city construction office, Lin Wancheng as the director of the commercial city police patrol office, and Zhang Xizai as the director of the commercial city finance and taxation department.

The three directors had already taken the manpower they had recruited and tens of thousands of funds, and under the escort of a team of forbidden troops led by Lin Chong, they set off for the Jiehe Commercial Market, which was still an open space.

According to the latest plan, they will complete the initial land acquisition and the construction of the senate, the municipal office, the police patrol station, and a wharf, as well as a number of residences for civil servants. After all is completed, Wu Haogu will set off.

After arranging the above things, Wu Haogu was dealing with the business of the Republic every day, in addition to entering the palace and facing the saint (in fact, chatting with Zhao Ji), accompanying his pregnant wife Pan Qiaolian, playing with Ximen Qing's mother and son, and practicing martial arts and teleporting painting skills to Zhang Zeduan and Du Wenyu.

Oh, by the way, Wu Haogu is still waiting for the Ministry of Rites to release the trial list. Although he did not take the exam, he also had something to do with this exam.

Because he had already asked Zhao Ji for a holy decree to paint portraits of all high school jinshi, and to print their portraits in the magazine "Wenqu Xing", and also to accompany their high school articles, his own inscriptions and inscriptions.

In short, this "Wenqu Xing" must be a monthly magazine in the literary world.

Occasionally, Wu Haogu would return to his mansion on the bank of the Jinshui River to discuss with Wu Haowen and Wu Zhongyi the questions that the Son of Heaven might come up with during the palace examination. These two martial arts talents who are inferior in rank are now full of confidence, as if they are bound to succeed in this course.

"The title is definitely a question." Wu Haogu said with great certainty, "The palace examination is rarely examined, and the official family is not a great Confucian, so he can't see how high the arguments are."

When I took the Ministry of Rites exam, I had already tested the external current policy, and I thought I should take the internal policy for the palace exam. It is estimated that it is similar to the question of the palace examination of Ding Moke in the fourth year of Zhiping. ”

The fourth year of Zhiping was the first year of Song Shenzong's accession to the throne, and the situation was similar to today. Emperor Yingzong died in the first month of that year, and Shenzong also ascended the throne at a young age, and he wanted to be a Ming monarch, so he took an exam on how to make the government achieve the rule of three generations (the topic is to the effect of this).

"Big Daddy, Second Brother," Wu Haogu thought for a while, and then said, "Today's officials and Empress Dowager Xiang are all hoping to ease the old and new party disputes. If you mention 'change' and 'description' in the palace examination, you will definitely not have a good ranking. ”

The so-called "change" is actually the meaning of restructuring and changing the law, which first appeared in the Han Dynasty, when benevolence replaced severe punishment and Confucianism replaced Legalism. Therefore, when the Empress Dowager Gao was in the court, this word was used to describe the restoration of the old law.

And "Shaoshu" is the meaning of inheritance, specifically referring to the new law of Zhezong inheriting the old father Shenzong.

"Big brother, it's neither 'change' nor 'Shaoshu', so what should I do?" Wu Zhongyi asked seriously.

He did really well in this subject, and he was very sure, and he felt that he was bound to win. Although his beard is white, he still wants to be a good official, so he is very interested in the policy of the imperial court.

Wu Haogu looked at his younger brother Wu Haowen, "Second brother, what do you think?" ”

"I think that if it is peaceful today, the court should rest with the people and compete less with the people." What Wu Haowen is talking about is actually the idea of "change".

It is normal for him to have this view, although he is a Confucian scholar, but he is not a landlord Confucian from the countryside, but a Confucian student of industry and commerce in Kaifeng Prefecture, although he is not an industrial and commercial household, but in fact he is an industrial and commercial household, so his political views are still more inclined to the "market economy". Naturally, he was quite disgusted by Wang Anshi's new law and the "state-owned monopoly" that inhibits industry and commerce.

"That's right," Wu Haogu said with a smile, "but the article can't be written like that...... Empress Dowager Xiang is not Empress Dowager Gao, and Jinshang is not the first emperor. Mixing old and new, mixing different theories is what they want. ”

"Mixed use of old and new, mixed with different theories?" Wu Haowen shook his head, "Isn't that nondescript?" ”

Wu Haogu smiled bitterly: "It's just nondescript...... The world is too big, and the situation is too complicated. You can't treat everywhere as Kaifeng Mansion! Therefore, the views of the new party are meritorious, and the ideas of the old party are not necessarily good......"

Although the commerce of the Song Dynasty was far more developed than that of the previous dynasties, it still inevitably had a tendency to suppress commerce and official management. Although through "buying" and "money citation", to a certain extent, the official camp has become a contract. But officials who want to strengthen the official camp still exist, and Wang Anshi is one of them. An important part of his new law was to improve the economy and increase revenue through the state's operation of industry and commerce.

However, most of the methods of operation of these countries were not restored during the reign of Zhangdun, so the industrial and commercial economy of the Northern Song Dynasty performed well in the Zhezong Dynasty, which is also an important reason why Zhangdun's rule was quite smooth.

However, it is still impossible to implement the line of "resting with the people" and "competing with the people for profit", and the reason for this is not that the bureaucrats of the Great Song Dynasty were evil, nor that the officials did not have the spirit of contract.

The problem lies in the fact that the Great Song Dynasty was not Kaifeng, nor was it a city of industry and commerce like Haizhou, Yangzhou, Mingzhou, and Quanzhou, but a huge empire with 400 military states and hundreds of millions of li.

And among the hundreds of millions of people in the Great Song Dynasty, peasants accounted for the vast majority! In later generations, many scholars estimated the urbanization rate of the Great Song Dynasty, with 30% of the high ones, 12% of the low ones, and an average of 20% at most. Of the 20 per cent of the city's inhabitants, not all of them are engaged in industry and commerce, but many are large landowners and bureaucrats living in the cities, the forbidden army, and their vassals. Real industrial and commercial households, even including Wu Haogu and Pan Xiao'an, who derive the vast majority of their income from industry and commerce, account for less than 10% of the total population at most.

Therefore, when formulating national policies, the imperial court could not only consider the large cities where industry and commerce were concentrated, but ignore the vast rural areas and the peasants who accounted for more than 80 percent of the population.

Again, the Northern Song Dynasty was no longer based on the manor economy like the Han and Tang dynasties, and complete self-sufficiency was theoretically impossible, so there were many landlords who also ran a little bit of industry and commerce. However, they are not the same as citizens living in large cities, where the vast majority of their income comes from industry and commerce. Fundamentally, they are still landlords who depend on the tenant economy (small peasant economy), so they still have to keep the small peasant economy from being subverted and destroyed by urban industry and commerce......

Well, the end of industry and commerce, the development of capitalism is all evil, of course, subversive!

If nothing else, the destruction of the small-scale peasant economy by the textile industry in the initial stage of capitalism is a complete disaster! Not to mention sheep eating people, silkworms eating people, and so on, just talking about the pastoral life of "men ploughing and women weaving, and landlords collecting rents" will be subverted because of the great development of urban handicraft workshops. Because the "female weaver" simply cannot compete with the handicraft workshop.

And once there is no "female weaving", the tenants' ability to bear taxes will be greatly reduced! The financial revenues of the landlord class and the feudal dynasty also declined. Moreover, the bankruptcy of a large number of tenants and small yeoman farmers will also cause social unrest, which will further break through the bottom line of the Great Song Dynasty.

The textile industry is only one aspect of the destructive power of capitalism, and once industry and commerce are uninhibited and barbaric develops, the impact on the small peasant economy, the foundation of the Great Song Empire, will be completely destroyed!

At the same time, due to the limitations of productive forces, the population that industry and commerce could accommodate was limited in the early stage of capitalist development.

Before the First Industrial Revolution, bourgeois regimes in Europe existed only in free cities, urban unions, and united provinces with a limited number of people, and at most economies of a few million people, and they were all export-oriented – that is, they exported destructive products in exchange for all evil money.

And this kind of economy, which has a population of several million people at most and relies on industry and commerce to accumulate wealth, will certainly not formulate a national policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business, so it has become a hotbed of the bourgeoisie.

And the Great Song Dynasty, a huge economy based on the small peasant economy, cannot completely let go of heavy commerce in any case, and then the world will definitely be in chaos!

Whoever is in power, it is impossible!

The only feasible thing is to start with a small special zone......