Zhao Bing knew very well that for a long time, the military struggle with the Mongolian Yuan was still a long-term task, and it was unrealistic to make a quick battle and decisive decision. Later Ming Dynasty failed to completely eliminate the remnants of Mongolia until the destruction of the country. In the end, the Qing Dynasty relied on suppression and marriage to finally make the Mongolians surrender; another task was to maintain domestic political stability and achieve long-term stability.

Of course, social harmony was built step by step, and Zhao Bing knew it was unhurried, especially after experiencing the political darkness of the late Southern Song Dynasty, the deterioration of the government, the corruption of officials, and the cruel rule of the ten years after the Mongols and Yuan invasion. Although the people were determined, a series of political reforms and policy adjustments were still needed to change the long-term abnormal politics.

Zhao Bing now streamlines institutions, adjusts prefectures and counties, and even compresses the treatment of royal members. He has lived a life like an ascetic for a long time, all of which are based on political security. The implementation of new land policies and the implementation of oral land is also a struggle to ensure the survival of vulnerable groups in society. Because he understands that the lesson of history is that whenever major political security problems occur, there must be bad conditions in the land. This is the demise of the Han Dynasty, and this is the case with the demise of the later dynasties.

Through laws, Zhao Bing first distributes the land controlled by the court to farmers who have no land, and secondly distributes it to farmers who have little land, rents official land to refugees, suppresses gentry and land owners, and merges with will. Even if a peasant illegal incident occurs, the farmers' land will not be confiscated, thereby ensuring the basic life of ordinary people. In this way, it can benefit the majority of people and win the hearts of the people, and ordinary people who have enough food and clothing will not think about rebellion.

However, after Zhao Bing implemented a policy that benefited ordinary people, he found from the information he fed back that the people were still opposed to the Northern Expedition, which made him puzzled. At first, he thought that the people were worried that the war would increase military expenditure, which would lead to the court's increase in taxes and frequent husband vocations, which increased his burden.

However, through the current reform, Zhao Bing has greatly reduced taxes by reducing and eliminating heavy taxes, and has also reduced the levy of husband-fed troops by forming baggage troops. Most of the military expenditures are to aid trade and commercial taxes, which has not affected people's livelihood too much. He understood that if the Northern Expedition did not receive support from the people, not only would the recruitment of soldiers, but the impact of husband-fed will also cause people's hearts to shake, resulting in unstable foundations of the court and difficulty in having the energy to face the war.

Zhao Bing asked many ministers and understood the people's sentiments and opinions through the Affairs Bureau. Now he has gradually figured out the whole story and knew that he had taken the blame for history. According to the system of all dynasties, the court did not allow wealthy areas to have the ability to accumulate, and basically squeezed them out. In addition to satisfying the emperor's desire for extravagance, it also prevents the increase in wealthy local financial resources, leading to the emergence of military separatist forces. This led to the embarrassment of the fact that the proportion of fortunes in wealthy areas was mostly scary and the local finances had no money.

After the Tang and Song dynasties, Jiangnan was greatly developed, and its economic strength continued to increase, gradually replacing the north and becoming an important source of taxation. Therefore, Jiangnan's taxes were very heavy in all dynasties, both as the richest area and as a place to be "punished". So to be honest, he thought that the ancient Chinese court did not care much about output, but caring for the transportation of grain and wealth was the most important thing.

Therefore, the northerners could obtain great wealth when invading Jiangnan, which was also one of the driving forces for the war in the north; the southerners were unwilling to fight the Northern Expedition and were willing to separatist and defend themselves, and they did not want to bear the heavy financial burden of the North. Zhao Bing could understand that after just experiencing the forced taxes and fishing during the Mongol Yuan rule, the people could not help but worry that after the Northern Expedition, the political focus would shift northward, and that the Jiangnan would inevitably need continuous blood transfusions, thereby changing the current policy of light taxes and reducing taxes and re-increasing taxes.

Another contradiction is still repeated in the old tune - the struggle between civil and military. Zhao Bing now has a larger stage, which can also allow him to examine history from a higher and larger perspective and understand ancient Chinese political concepts. He found that the civil servants often said in ancient China were essentially the operation of the country and the important bureaucratic group.

From this perspective, whether it is releasing military power with a cup of wine, or the later imperial guard system and emphasizing culture over military forces, it is actually an act of directly placing the army in the hands of the central imperial power and bureaucratic group. This behavior is not only to avoid separatist rule by the vassal states in the late Tang Dynasty, but also to allow the court to more effectively formulate the military development strategy, but there is a big gap between theory and practice.

Since China's imperial examinations completely separate academic research and political knowledge from military categories, the Song Dynasty was often full of complaints in terms of military structure, training, and even command and dispatch. At the same time, the Song Dynasty also faced a long-term threat from the northern nomadic regime. The army full of problems naturally found it difficult to effectively resist foreign invasions.

In order to be able to dispatch the army to fight the threat, the bureaucratic group's intervention and command on the development of the army increased accordingly. This also caused the military development of the Song Dynasty to fall into a vicious cycle. Therefore, Zhao Bing had long realized that it was actually very difficult for the bureaucratic group to determine a correct military development route. And he also wanted to change this situation by supporting the military group and letting them intervene in politics. In addition to the need for the war of restoring the country, he also wanted to suppress civil servants and change the political system.

Of course, Zhao Bing's intention was known to the civil servant group, and the two sides were also fighting openly and secretly, and there were several intensifications. Now, the Northern Expedition has recovered the two Huai Rivers in one fell swoop, and the troops have entered the Central Plains, and then there is a possibility of recovering the old capital. With such honor, the civil servants understand that the court must reward the warriors, thus giving birth to a group of new military honors into the court, further strengthening the strength of the warrior group. Therefore, they are unwilling to see the recovery of Kaifeng.

When one is rising and the other is declining, the civil servant group will inevitably panic. Zhao Bing also understands that the people who manage the country now are still in the hands of scholars, and he also needs them to guard all directions for him. If they make trouble in secret, he will be unable to guard against it. A small loophole may be infinitely amplified in the war, which is enough to make the achievements of the Northern Expedition fail. Therefore, he stopped at Bianjing and did not want to stimulate the civil servant group too much. However, Zhao Bing also understood that emphasizing culture over military forces or using civil servants to control military forces is the inevitable result of China's military development.

Strictly speaking, although there are certain problems in most of the time, it does not mean that this system is completely unreasonable in theory. However, China's imperial examination system and its contempt for military affairs since the Song Dynasty have laid a huge shadow for this system and even the entire Chinese military development. However, the change of dynasties has never been a problem in one aspect. The shadow of emphasizing culture over military affairs is actually just a hole when the flood overturns the boat. Zhao Bing also needs time to adjust the political landscape to adapt to the current situation.

Money is another unavoidable problem. Whether it is war or consolidating new income, it requires a lot of financial investment, but Zhao Bing is well aware that his family is too weak. This war that lasted less than a year has already stretched the finances. Not only has the food accumulated in the official warehouses in various places for more than two years after entering Jiangnan, but it also risked the risk of inflation to over-issued currency to purchase the surplus grains in the hands of the people. It can be said that the Song Dynasty has almost no food accumulation, both the court and the people.

It is very dangerous to have no food stored in a country's treasury. Once a major natural disaster or sudden war occurs, it faces the embarrassment of having no food to buy even if you have money. If the court cannot allocate the food stored for disaster relief after the disaster occurs, it means that people are starving and living in the fields, and refugees travel through the state and the prefecture to survive, which will inevitably lead to a series of social problems and even lead to civil unrest. Similarly, after the war broke out, the court could only squeeze the little food mentioned by the people to ensure military supplies and cause serious political crises. This is a case in history.

Now the Song Dynasty started wars everywhere. Except for the battlefields of Jingxiang and Lianghuai, the war between Sichuan and Shu and Yunnan continued. The Northern Expedition battlefield seemed to have invested a lot of troops and the largest scale, but the consumption of Sichuan and Shu and Yunnan should not be underestimated. Both battlefields are located in remote areas, with poor people's livelihood and cannot solve the military supplies on the spot. They both need to be allocated from Huguang and even Jiangdong.

In this era, transportation is difficult, the distance is long, and there is no modern means of transportation. Even if food is allocated from Huguang to Sichuan and Shu, it will take two time to send it to the army. The losses along the way, plus the consumption of people and horse feeding is very heavy. As the saying goes, one ten is not stored in ten. Therefore, the battlefields of the two places seem to have little force to invest, but in fact, it is not inferior to the Northern Expedition battlefield, and it will take a long time to continue. If the strength is not enough, Zhao Bing needs to make a choice and end the Northern Expedition as soon as possible.

In addition, Zhao Bing also needs to face another new battlefield. Nowadays, a large part of the financial source of the Song Dynasty is the funds obtained by relying on overseas trade, and it is also an important channel for Zhao Bing's small treasury funds. It is no exaggeration to say that once there is a problem with overseas trade, the financial problems of the Song Dynasty will be problematic, and they will re-enter the old path of increasing taxes to maintain national expenditures.

Now, the sea trade fleet of the Song Dynasty has emerged, with a longer and longer voyage and a larger scale. Especially after controlling the spice production, it has broken the situation where Persian merchants monopolized the spice market. Seeing the Song Dynasty transporting ships of real gold and silver, not only commercial competitors, but also many countries are jealous, and the friction and conflicts between the fleets of the two sides are increasing day by day.
Chapter completed!