The Shangyuan Festival in 1090 was particularly lively, or exceptionally bright. The number of lanterns has increased significantly, and even the tenants who could not afford to light too many lanterns in previous years have hung one or two lanterns in front of their homes, trying to make the gods of heaven look at it twice, so that they can have a better time next year.

If this kind of behavior had to be scolded to death by the villagers two years ago, it would have been stinky or something, and the days of lighting the lamp and boiling wax all night would not have passed!

But this year is an exception, with a bumper harvest for two consecutive years, and the family's food and drink is finally no longer a problem. Didn't the ancients say that they were full of warmth and thought about it, and it was also natural to engage in a little entertainment before reaching full warmth.

In fact, just having two spare money in hand will not make the poor family so extravagant, and the main reason is that there is lamp oil instead of candles.

There used to be lamp oil, but it was smoky, smelly, and not very bright. Candles don't have black smoke or strange smell, but candles are too expensive for people to light them.

I don't know who got the new lamp oil, the price is about the same as the old lamp oil, but the brightness is similar to that of a candle, and there is no black smoke and peculiar smell. Now the people can not only buy some for home use, but also have a luxury, and also let the lanterns be lit all night like the people in the city.

The people gave it a mysterious name, CNOO. Some people say that it is boiled out of seawater, because it always arrives in the harbor on a large ship, and when the jar is opened, it will show a clear blue blue, much like the color of seawater.

The Great Song Liangwang in Yangzi Town also went against the norm this year, dozens of people from all over the house joined the carnival crowd in a high-profile manner, and three baby babies who were still swaddling were also carried on the lightboat and scurried along the Cao River near Yangzhou City.

What is a lightship, this is another invention of Hong Tao. He felt that it was silly to go to the street with his neck tilted to look at the lights, and the eldest princess was not too close to the people, which would cause congestion, so it was better to have a lantern parade.

Decorate the training ship with lanterns, hang the front and back, left and right, including the mast, instead of raising the sails, use a brace, and slowly walk along the Cao River. In this way, you can not only enjoy the festival beauty in Yangzhou City, but also let the eldest princess not get too close to the crowd, and let the people appreciate their creativity.

The gentry of Yangzhou City thought it was very funny, so they simply hung lanterns on their boats and followed the big ship of King Liang.

The more lightboats, the more lively the scene, the more lively the more lightboats to join, and finally even the flower boats of the Qinglou came to join in the fun, forming a long line of lights several miles long on the canal, attracting countless people on both sides of the strait to stop and watch, the scene is very spectacular.

But it also caused a little trouble, and a few ships were not fixed properly due to the haste of the decoration, and accidentally ignited the sails. The greased sailgear soon burned the mast into a torch, and the flames flew more than ten meters high.

But these small accidents did not dampen everyone's interest in the slightest, but instead attracted enthusiastic cheers. The people simply feel that the more they burn, the better, symbolizing that this year is a prosperous year! As for the boat owner's family, who said that the water dogs were generally shivering from the cold, ignore it, disappoint the fun, and don't mention it during the holidays.

It's a pity that the prayers of the people are too weak, and the tributes are relatively shabby, and the gods in the sky are a little dismissive, and usually rarely work.

Before the first month of the first month, bad news came: the Great Song Dynasty Zhi Zhi, the Duanming Palace Bachelor and the Hanlin Attendant Bachelor, the Shangshu Zuo Servant and the Door Servant Lang Xing Men Servant Zhongshi, Shangzhu State, the Founding Duke of Hanoi County, 2,200 households in the food eup, 900 households in Shishi, and the purple gold fish bag, Sima Guang hung up at the age of 71.

The fat old man has worked hard all his life, desperately trying to keep the policy stable and unchanged, maintain the vested interests of the scholar class, and preferably make the country rich and strong.

It's a pity that he survived the sharp combination of Emperor Shenzong and Wang Xu, united with the new party of his political opponent Wang Anshi, and withstood the menacing rising stars Zhang Duan and Su Shi.

"Be loyal to the king, fear the heavens and love the people, be frugal and upright, win the trust of others, and abide by the laws of the ancestors."

The ancient Chinese paid attention to the conclusion of the coffin, that is to say, it is easy to evaluate after the person dies, and these 21 words are the conclusion of the coffin that Hong Tao gave to Sima Guang.

The first sixteen words are full of praise, which is an affirmation of Sima Guang's personal conduct. Regardless of whether he is a political enemy or not, Hong Tao still expresses his admiration for Sima Guang's personality. If he does things like himself, he has no bottom line and unscrupulous means, and he will have no chance to implement the new policy.

In addition, this fat old man has been frugal and dedicated to public affairs all his life, and his material needs are not high, and he really wants to govern the country well. Although the effect is not very good, it can be called conscientious.

The last five words sound like praise, but they are actually criticism. The world is changing every day, and it can be said that it is changing with each passing day, but people always abide by a fixed and unchanging law as a code of conduct, and it is incompetent to say that it is light, and it is stupid to say that it is serious.

Sima Guang's death had a great impact on the political pattern of the court, coupled with the fact that Wen Yanbo and Lu Gong were seriously ill and bedridden, and the three bigwigs of the old party fell one after another.

Now Wang Anshi is still the right servant of Shangshu and the servant of Zhongshu, and he is one of the positive phases. The subordinate squire Zhang Dan, the Chinese scholar Liu Zhi, Su Song and Su Shi were appointed as the left and right of Shangshu respectively.

Among these five people, only Liu Zhi is still holding high the banner of upholding the law of the ancestors, but he and Wang Anshi have always been mortal enemies. Now there is no Sima Guang to act as a buffer and glue between the two people, and it is difficult to say whether these two will fight directly.

Su Song is an interesting person, and it is said that he is presiding over the construction of a hydraulic timing system that will combine astronomy, celestial phenomena and time signaling. If this is possible, he must at least be proficient in mathematics, astronomy, and a little bit of physics and mechanics.

In addition, he was also an accomplished doctor and poet, who compiled the book "Tujing Materia Medica" and wrote many poems. At that time, he was also one of the guests of the Horse Mansion, and his literary level must not be bad. In this respect, he is a bit like Shen Kuo, not a pure politician, but more like a technocrat.

In fact, Su Song is indeed not a conservative or a reformer, but more like a pragmatist, and he will support whoever has reasonable ideas. At that time, he was demoted because he refused to let Wang Anshi's students be promoted, and later participated in the official reform instructed by Emperor Shenzong, and regained the emperor's favor.

As a result, he turned his face and wrote to the emperor again, complaining that the emperor had given plaques and hair to the temples indiscriminately, and suggested that there should be fewer temples and less burdens on the people.

To put it bluntly, he is mixing sand into the leadership group and adding a variable between the reformists and the conservatives, so that neither side can occupy much advantage. This is exactly what Hong Tao did on Jeju Island, which is all playing with checks and balances.

Originally, the conservative forces in the center of power were superior, but with the death of Sima Guang, the balance of power between the conservatives and the reformers seems to be biased in favor of the reformers, and it is a very delicate question who will fill the vacancy that Sima Guang left.

"The mountain rain is coming, the wind is full of buildings...... who will take over the post of prime minister of Sima Guang, Hong Tao can't guess, but he feels that Zhao Hao has not much choice.

The ministers who opposed his ascension to the throne and advocated for the succession of the sixth prince Zhao Fu would definitely not be reused, which was a certainty, otherwise the supporters would be greatly disappointed, so there was a loss of nearly one-third of the candidates at once.

The group of courtiers who were reused by Emperor Shenzong and actively supported the reform were not easy to promote, and a few more had to be crossed out of the list of qualified ministers.

Wang Anshi's supporters can't be used, Zhang Dian and Su Shi's followers can't be used, and there are almost no conservatives who can confront Wang Anshi, so you can't just find someone to come up and make up the numbers, and then become Wang Anshi's echo worm, which is not in Zhao Hao's interests.

Therefore, Hong Tao felt that the emperor who had just sat firmly on his ass was afraid that he was going to go off the rails, and he would promote a newcomer who could be loyal to the emperor to enter the center, even if he couldn't be directly the prime minister, it was also necessary to have a vice-prime minister.

At present, the emperor wants to suppress the conservative forces represented by Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, and at the same time, he cannot let the reformist forces represented by Zhang Dian and Su Shi become too strong, which is originally a means to check and balance Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, and he can't send away a wolf and usher in a tiger.

Now that the conservative forces have been greatly weakened, the reformers will soon not be supported by the emperor.

However, Hong Tao felt that Zhao Hao still underestimated the strength of the Northern Song Dynasty scholars and doctors who worked hard to realize their personal ideas, and Zhang Dian and Su Shi's ideas attracted many young and middle-aged officials to join, and the momentum has grown day by day in the past two years.

With Sima Guang, Wen Yanbo, and Lu Gongshu withdrawing from the political arena one after another, a large number of their followers are also approaching their twilight years, and they have long lost the vigor and vigor of the past, and they can't fight against these new forces.

Even if Wang Anshi is still very strong, he is only three years younger than Sima Guang. Age is an important attribute of a follower's bet, and if you can't do it soon, and you're facing a group of opponents who are at the height of their political lives, the prospect of following is immediately dimmed a lot.

As long as Wang Anshi and the conservatives cannot crush the reformers in an all-round way, the court will be caught in an increasingly fierce power struggle. Neither side wants to be killed, but neither can kill with a single blow.

At this time, he suddenly found that a new force rushed in and planned to pick up the cheap, Wang Anshi and Zhang Dian were not novices, how could they not know the emperor's intentions. The result is likely to become a three-kingdom kill or even a four-cornered game, and it is not yet known who will kill the deer.