The attack on Ouyang Xiu was just a side blow. In fact, this matter was not important at all. Some people wanted to completely end the reform of the literary and Taoist Song Dynasty. The best way was to attack Ouyang Xiu.

The Song Dynasty's reform of literature and Taoism was not a very important matter. Compared with the long rule, the Song Dynasty had time to carry out this reform. Even if it was delayed for three or five years, what if it was five or six years?

It will not hurt your muscles or suffer too much, it will only delay it, but the interests involved will have problems, and some people are using this to distract people.

Zhao Zhen was in Lanzhou in order to leave the center of Shendu City, and see it more clearly, and let those who are interested see it more clearly that the emperor is not in Shendu City, but in Lanzhou!

Zhao Zhen has always advocated not taking action against Tubo for the time being. The main reason is logistics. Although the huge trench is invisible, it really exists. If you want to compete with Tubo on the plateau, you need to make sufficient preparations.

But at the moment, Zhao Zhen's decision has blocked some money-making path. War is the most profitable deal. Once the Song Dynasty is about to fight, the national treasury of the court will come out like a flow of money.

Those huge merchants are targeting this point. Ordinary merchants make profits from normal production and transactions. These huge merchants are different. The money they make is not earned from the people, but from the country. But in the end, the national treasury still comes from the taxes of the people and ordinary merchants.

That is, these giant merchants have long seen the problem. The people are easy to make, but they are scattered. After they are concentrated, they will be in the treasury of the court.

The only way to allow the court to "tilt" the national treasury on a large scale is to use the huge "gold-swalking beast" of war. All of these giant merchants have generals or clan members and clan backgrounds, that is, those who were pulled onto the "ship" by Zhao Zhen at the time.

After all, Zhao Zhen was blamed on this matter. He calculated countless times and finally found that it was all over the place he had taken them on the road of "making a fortune".

What is capital? It is just a business derivative without emotion and morality. But once these giant merchants become people who control capital, it will eventually only make the monster capital even more crazy.

Manipulating war has become the most profitable "business". These businesses have joined forces to absorb more businesses and build a seemingly loose but extremely solid interest group.

People with all interests in this group have common interests, and interests are the best "adhesive" to make them closely connected to each other. The seemingly loose organization is actually stronger and unbreakable than any organization.

Originally, these giant merchants were following the footsteps of the Song Dynasty. They existed when Zhao Zhen led the Song Dynasty to conquer the Dali Kingdom, and they also existed when developing the Jinghu South Road. They later attacked Dangxiang, recovered Yanyun, destroyed the Western Regions, and broke up Xinjiang. They all existed.

When they attacked the Khitan, they had become the most reliable supply line. It was Zhao Zhen who made them successful and allowed them to grow stronger in wars again and again.

Even the Song Dynasty's wars in the north and south for so many years had ordinary contributions to these huge merchants.

The court has money, but how can this money be bought as fast as possible for the army? How can this money be turned into gunpowder bullets, crossbow arrows, horizontal swords, and plate armor?

It is produced from dozens of military factories across the country, but how do you supply the raw materials of these military factories? It is solely purchased by the court?

The goods purchased by the imperial court have long been monopolized by these giant traders. In other words, the Song Dynasty has relied on these giant traders to supply logistics raw materials for so many years, then produce their own production, and finally put them on the battlefield and into the hands of the soldiers of the Song Dynasty.

The first person to discover this was Bao Zheng. The three sects controlled the exchange of wealth and goods, and even the purchases in the army and even the prohibited ones had to go through the hands of the three sects.

Bao Zheng was not good at developing his business, but he was good at observing things. Therefore, when Cai Boqi served as the deputy envoy of the Third Division to strengthen the development of trade in the Song Dynasty, Bao Zheng was supervising the flow of goods.

Bao Zheng trained a large number of talents for the Sansi. These talents are all accounting masters who are proficient in financial calculations. As long as they are accounting books, they cannot escape their eyes.

Others can't see what those giant merchants do, and they even feel that they are seamless, but in Bao Zheng's hands it is clear that it can't be clearer.

Bao Zheng once secretly submitted a message to Zhao Zhen, proposing to completely eradicate these merchants. After all, these people had already controlled the economy of the Song Dynasty in a sense.

But Zhao Zhen did not report it, and he also discovered this problem. After all, his understanding of business and capital makes Zhao Zhen more sensitive than anyone else

At that time, Wang Qixiong's incident had already made him find suspicious, but at that time, Zhao Zhen blamed everything on capital, without considering that this was someone's more secret planning behind the scenes.

Even if Bao Zheng took out the list roughly, Zhao Zhen still couldn't make a decision. It was not because there was no evidence, but because he didn't dare!

At that time, the Song Dynasty had just captured the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun. It was the time to recuperate and needed these huge merchants. Once the war broke out, logistics supplies would also need their help.

The weapons are fine, food, chariots, and labor, and these things cannot be raised for a while.

So Zhao Zhen compromised at that time, and Bao Zheng, the old man who had no choice but to compromise, also compromised. Over the years, the Song Dynasty fought south and north, and it took more than ten thousand yuan.

The success of the Song Dynasty was also the basis for the continuous expansion of these giant merchants. Until now, when there were no strong enemies around the Song Dynasty, these giant merchants became large-scale existences.

Bao Zheng regretted every day and stayed up all night. He had already felt deep fear and the limit of patience of the official family.

This time, Zhao Zhen secretly went to Lanzhou. Although he took Su Xun away, he still left a secret decree for Bao Zheng. This old man who worked in the Sansi in his life had his secret decree for the first time, he actually obtained the garrison tiger talisman of all the imperial guards in Liuyongshen Capital.

No one would have thought that in the Song Dynasty, in the Shendu City, it was not the crown prince Zhao Xu, nor the prime minister Fan Zhongyan, nor Di Qing, who was the Minister of War, but Bao Zheng, who was in charge of the financial resources of the Three Divisions!

Zhao Zhen’s loyalty to Bao Zheng was unconditional trust. All of this showed that he was the most loyal minister. None of them, Zhao Zhen was more willing to believe him on the plane.

Zhao Zhen’s most common sentence is: The white-faced old Bao is no worse than the black-faced Bao Zheng! No one can understand this, but Zhao Zhen himself understands it.

It is the safest thing to hand over all the garrison troops in Shendu City to Bao Zheng, including the personal guards in the palace. This garrison tiger talisman is only one of the entire Song Dynasty, just in Zhao Zhen's hand Zheng

Other tiger talismans can also mobilize the army, but they all have to hand over the military power in front of this tiger talisman and let it go. It can be seen that Zhao Zhen’s trust in Bao Zheng has reached the point of entrusting his wife to offer his son. After all, the prince and the queen live in the palace...
Chapter completed!