Chapter 506: Tribute From All Nations (1)

"Shocked, the imperial seal that has been missing for a hundred years was found in Luoyang."

"From the end of the Qin Dynasty to the end of the Tang Dynasty, the past and present of the imperial seal are described in detail."

"After identification by the university scholars, the imperial seal found in Luoyang recently is authentic."

The next day.

The news of the appearance of the imperial seal quickly became the headlines of all newspapers in Bianliang.

Various newspapers reported it one after another.

In particular, Zhao Jun's theory that Ran Wei exchanged the imperial seal for the Eastern Jin Dynasty was supplemented in detail.

It has to be said that all newspapers nowadays are talented.

They not only studied the authenticity of this set of reasoning in detail, but also produced various historical materials to prove it.

The most intuitive example is that before Ran Wei, the seal had a clear history and no one questioned its authenticity.

As a result, after Ran Wei, it was passed to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the words on the seal changed, and was questioned by academic staff of the Eastern Jin Dynasty as a forged fake seal.

And the seal of the Northern Wei Dynasty was obtained from Yecheng, and it happened that the capital of Ran Wei was Yecheng, which was besieged by the Former Yan.

So in order to prevent the seal from being cheated by the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Ran Wei gave a fake one to Dai Shi, the prefect of Puyang in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the real seal was hidden in a clay statue in a temple in Yecheng.

Under such a large-scale report, the matter of the imperial seal quickly became the front page of Bianliang, and there was a lot of discussion among tea stalls and wine shops.

People didn't even pay attention to when the number of foreigners in the city increased.

At this time, Bianliang City was prosperous.

After the first batch of rubber trees matured, they brought a large number of steam engines to the Song Dynasty, which quickly promoted the development of the industrial revolution.

What followed was the increase in steel production by tons.

By the end of the 12th year of the Qingli period, the data obtained by the court was already at the level of 5 million tons per year.

At that time, the annual production of other countries in the world combined was probably less than 100,000 tons of steel.

Such a huge steel output not only created a large number of steel processing plants, but also gave birth to many construction companies.

Cement plants and brick factories also sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Once there were more factories, they would inevitably attract a large number of laborers to work in the city, and the court had to start spending money.

Spending money, steel plants, cement plants, and brick factories would have orders, and orders would support workers, and workers would go out to consume and drive economic growth.

So where does the money come from?

Naturally, it is the domestic consumer market plus foreign trade.

The silver mines exported by Japan alone each year can produce millions of silver coins in the Song Dynasty.

And small-denomination banknotes can also be printed all the time.

However, considering the current gross domestic product, blindly printing money will lead to inflation, so the court has been controlling the issuance volume.

Then there was a series of adjustments.

For example, it is called Jiaoziwu, but it is actually a financial system of banks.

Jiaoziwu was originally established not to serve the people. It only issued super-large Jiaozi to merchants for bulk trade, and deposits would not be given interest, and a custody fee of about 4% per year was charged.

For big businessmen, this is extremely convenient. Compared with carrying a large amount of copper coins to trade, it is obviously more cost-effective to carry Jiaozi.

At the beginning of the Qingli period, the Jiaozi Bureau was reformed and the custody fee was cancelled. After that, small silver coins and banknotes were issued one after another, and after that, ordinary people were allowed to deposit money in the Jiaozi Bureau.

Today, the Jiaozi Bureau has been opened all over the country. In addition to major cities, the business of various administrative centers, state capitals, and even local county towns is gradually opening up.

The next step is to deposit money for interest, recycle coins, ensure the integrity of the financial system, and also provide lending business so that banks can have both inflows and outflows.

Under such a system, the economy of the Song Dynasty flourished for a time.

The court spent a lot of money on construction.

It can be said that the appearance of Bianliang is a new change every day.

Needless to say, the outer city has high-rise buildings rising from the ground, groups of bicycles shuttling between them, walled factories standing in rows, and wires crisscrossing.

There are also tea stalls in the streets and alleys. In addition to the tea culture of Bianliang people who love to drink tea, the tea stalls near the factory have the best business.

Especially herbal tea. The factory is working hard and sweating. After work, a bowl of cold herbal tea can cool down and quench thirst, which is the most comfortable.

The commercial street is full of various clothing and goods, and it is crowded every day.

When summer comes, there are countless people sitting on reclining chairs and beds outside the courtyards of the residential area, holding cattail leaves to cool off.

With the dim yellow light of the street lamps outside the city, the elderly and children can chat and play outside from the evening until the moon rises at night, and go to bed at nine or ten o'clock.

However, it is winter now. Although it has not snowed in Bianliang recently, the temperature has dropped sharply.

During the day, the workers on the river docks outside the city wear thick cotton clothes. Some of them feel too hot when they are motivated, so they simply take off their cotton clothes and work in long gowns, which is also out of breath.

Every afternoon, the jingle bells of various schools rang out, and students in various school uniforms walked out one after another, with youthful smiles on everyone's face.

And the city was not completely unchanged.

The court finally began to formally engage in real estate, spending a large amount of money on demolition and expropriation of houses.

Just expropriating the area from Xihuamen to Zhaoshiwan Street cost tens of millions of strings of cash, which was equivalent to half of the tax revenue during the Jingyou period, and only demolished half of the inner city.

There was no way.

When my country first started demolition in later generations, land and housing prices were not expensive at all. A street could be demolished for a few million yuan, and the price increase of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan was after 2010.

The soaring housing prices at that time naturally led to a surge in the cost of land demolition, so that in later generations, there were many second-generation demolitions in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other places.

The national conditions of the Song Dynasty were different. It was the housing prices in Bianliang that soared first, and then real estate was started.

So if you want to demolish the inner and outer cities, you have to spend a huge amount of money.

The only good news is that during the Northern Song Dynasty, houses were not adjacent to each other. There were many vacant lots in the city. These lands belonged to the court, and they were not allowed to be bought and sold in previous years, so only houses needed to be compensated.

Although the soaring housing prices in the inner and outer cities in recent years are also closely related to the court no longer allowing the sale of these vacant lots.

But it can be regarded as a blessing and a curse.

Otherwise, if even the land is to be collected, the money spent on the entire inner and outer cities is estimated to be an astronomical figure, and the tax revenue of the Song Dynasty for several years will have to be spent on it.

After several years of demolition and construction, the six market towns of Jingmingfang, Huihefang, Guangfufang, etc. from Donghuamen to Zhaoshiwan Street have been demolished, and high-rise buildings have sprung up, and various stores and shops have emerged.

Just for this project, the state-owned enterprise that contracted this project made a lot of profit, and the court also received a large amount of value-added tax from it, not only recovered the cost but also made a profit.

Because the contracted project was a state-owned enterprise rather than a private enterprise, the cost of private enterprises in real estate in later generations is not low, including land cost, construction cost, sales cost and tax cost. After selling the house, the profit is often only between 10% and 30%.

The main expenditure of the court in this project was only the land cost of expropriation and demolition, and the rest of the construction cost was relatively low. First, there was no need to build elevators and second, there was no need to build so many facilities and equipment. Anyway, they were just six or seven-story tube buildings.

In addition, after the construction of the tube buildings, the location of the inner city was there, and the housing prices did not drop much, and even the sales cost did not cost a penny. There was no need to advertise at all, and a lot of rich people came to buy the buildings.

Therefore, the profit margin is huge.

Although the time cost is indeed a little longer, it is still a business that is sure to make money.

It is no wonder that in later generations, not to mention those big cities, even local counties have to raise city bonds to build houses. It can only be said that land is indeed a way to make a fortune.

"Is this Bianliang?"

"There are so many people."

"The temperature is colder than ours."

"But they are not cold at all, this cotton coat is very comfortable."

"Look, look, the building over there is so tall."

"Much taller than the building in Xiangyang."

At Bianliang South Railway Station, a group of short and slightly dark-skinned people got off the train and walked out of the station under the guidance of the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

They looked around curiously. Although they had been to Guangzhou and Xiangyang, they were still shocked when they really arrived in Bianliang.

Although Xiangyang relied on railways to develop, it was not as good as Bianliang in terms of development and urbanization.

In Kaifeng Prefecture, except for the outer city and two-thirds of the inner city, the rest of the area is full of buildings, including the other two-thirds of the inner city, which is also preparing for demolition.

So most of the areas in Kaifeng are now urbanized, and the overall architectural style is not the Shanghai style of the 1930s, but the Beijing style of the 1970s and 1980s.

After all, Shanghai has too many foreigners, and the architectural style tends to be Westernized, while the oriental characteristics have always been the square tube buildings.

And there is a certain difference from the style of the tube buildings in later generations. Since the traditional architectural culture of the Song Dynasty has not been lost, these tube buildings have eaves and arches above them, and each floor also has protruding carved buildings.

Similar to the protruding arches on the beams of the buildings in the Northern Song Dynasty, the original wooden structure was replaced with a reinforced concrete structure, and the white walls and foundation showed the profoundness and breadth of Chinese culture.

These envoys who got off the train were from Brunei.

In addition to the King of Brunei, Xilimanuo, he also brought several important ministers, queens and concubines.

Originally, as a king, he shouldn't come.

Once he is not in the country, for small countries like theirs, if there is a rebellion, the country may be destroyed in an instant.

But the Song Dynasty guaranteed him the security of the regime.

If someone really dared to let him destroy the country, then the Song Dynasty's navy in the South China Sea would personally take him to restore the country.

So Xilimanuo naturally accepted the invitation with pleasure.

This time, the tribute of all nations began as early as the beginning of November, and neighboring countries such as Goryeo, Liao, Dali, Vietnam, Champa, etc. had already arrived one after another.

By the end of November and the beginning of December, the kings of Pagan, Aladdin, Halibanchao, Sina, Angkor, Pegu and other countries in Southeast Asia and the Japanese emperor arrived in the Song Dynasty.

It can be said that except for the Liao King Yelu Chongyuan, all the kings of countries within 1,000 kilometers of the Song Dynasty were present.

The people of Brunei walked out of the train station under the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Dozens of people looked around one by one, some of them showed desire in their eyes, some touched their cotton coats, lowered their heads and felt a little inferior.

They were all powerful and noble in their own country, wearing luxurious silk clothes, but compared with the Song people, they were like monkeys wearing human clothes, because every Song person here was wearing expensive cotton coats or down jackets.

As long as the people here have legitimate jobs and occupations and work hard, their income in a year can be the entire property of the powerful people in these small countries.

It can be said that except for the unaffordable houses in the inner city and outer city, they can afford to live no matter what kind of life they live in. Even high-end entertainment venues and places like Fan Tower are not inaccessible for consumption.

In comparison, even if they are powerful people, whether it is entertainment life or normal life, they may not live as well as a Bianliang commoner in the Song Dynasty.

This is the difference between a superpower and a small country with perhaps only a few hundred thousand people.

Just like in the 1960s and 1970s, an ordinary worker could live a middle-class life, afford a villa, live in a mansion, support a family of three, and even have a dog in the villa.

But those countries in Africa live like primitive societies.

After coming out of the train station, the group was led to the carriage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As foreign guests, it was naturally impossible for them to walk on two feet.

But cars haven’t been built yet, and trolleybuses haven’t been researched, so they can only use traditional horse-drawn carriages.

Soon, more than ten carriages pulled the Boni Kingdom envoy and his party slowly towards the outer city. At noon, they passed through the Nanxun Gate and headed towards the inner city.

After the major renovation of Bianliang and the expansion of the imperial palace, the area from the north of Bianliang River to Xuandemen is now almost all within the scope of the imperial palace, with a large number of state agencies and departments.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is just outside Zuoyemen. Due to expansion, Zuoyemen now occupies the former Secretariat Department outside Zuoyemen. It used to be that across the street from Secretary Department was Qianming Temple, which is now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

There are not only many institutions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here, but also some buildings, one of which is called Bianliang Restaurant, which is dedicated to entertaining foreign guests.

Although there is no elevator, the interior is luxuriously decorated, making it even more grand and grand.

It was just that the convoy ran into trouble as soon as it entered Nanxun Gate.

Although the streets in the city are as wide as six roads, the increasingly prosperous commerce still causes traffic congestion in the city.

The traffic congestion problem itself was already present during the Zhao Guangyi period, became more obvious during the Zhao Heng period, and is even more congested now, with various vendors, people, horse-drawn carriages, and bicycles slowing down the road ahead.

This has nothing to do with traffic order. It's simply that there are too many people. There may be tens of thousands of people on one street. The carriages behind them can only move slowly with the crowds. There is no way.

"There are too many people here."

Xili Ma opened the curtains of the car and looked out. All she could see was a sea of ​​people.

A man next to him, who was also short in stature and had dark skin, glanced at Xili Ma in the carriage next to him and said to the people around him in a strange language: "Where did he come from again?"

Xili Ma looked over when he heard the voice. Seeing that the other party looked similar to his own, he said in broken Chinese: "Where are you from?"

"We are the envoys of Korea!"

The man also answered in Chinese, but the language was much better.

After all, as a native of Bo Ni, Xili Ma Nai only started learning Chinese this year, and it took less than a year.

The dignitaries of Japan, Goryeo and other countries had to learn Chinese and be able to use Chinese characters since the Tang Dynasty, so that was naturally different.

"Korea?"

Xili Ma'er asked doubtfully: "Is it far?"

"It's very close to the Song Dynasty."

The Korean envoy said proudly: "You should be far away from the Song Dynasty."

"Yes, very far."

Xili Ma Nao replied honestly: "It will take a month on a boat at sea."

"We'll be there in just ten days."

The Korean envoy was very proud.

"Are there so many people in Korea?"

Xili Ma asked again.

The Goryeo envoy hesitated for a moment, then said even more proudly: "Goryeo does not have so many people, but Goryeo is the most important vassal state in the Song Dynasty. Under the Song Dynasty, Goryeo is the strongest country!"

"Awesome, awesome."

Xi Lima nodded repeatedly and said, "If I have the chance, I would also like to visit Goryeo."

"Welcome to our country."

"Then can you tell me how many people are here?"

"It is said that there are millions of people."

"There are too many. There are not as many people in our country as there are in this city."

"This is the Song Dynasty, the most powerful country in the world."

"How powerful is the Song Dynasty?"

"No one knows how powerful it is. I only know that under the Song Dynasty, we, Goryeo, were the strongest."

Taking advantage of the traffic jam, the Korean envoy explained to Xili Maer vividly.

Not only did he brag about himself, but he also introduced the local customs, customs and magnificent events of Bianliang to the other party.

At this moment, he completely forgot that it was actually his first time to come to the Song Dynasty, and the time he came to the Song Dynasty was only more than half a month.