Due to the limitations of productivity levels, winter has always been a kind of restricted zone for agricultural production. Once agricultural production is impossible in an agricultural society, the countryside inevitably appears desolate and bleak. However, relatively speaking, cities and villages, on the contrary, will hold large-scale gatherings that are usually impossible to hold because the slack season is suitable for it, and then carry out corresponding political and religious activities.

A heavy snow came unexpectedly and then cleared up quickly. Regardless of whether Qin Hui, Hong Ya, and others on the north bank of the Yellow River were determined to carry out an unyielding struggle against fate for themselves and their families' future, almost simultaneously, within the territory of Zhao Song on the south bank of the Yellow River, cities and villages gradually became lively.

And among them, the one who fired the first gunpowder shell of winter was none other than the Zhao Song Emperor... In early November, after announcing that all the national debt from last year had been repaid without error, this Emperor once again peddled the so-called 'Winter Special National Debt' in the capital.

The Di Bao (official gazette) provided detailed and thorough explanations for this matter... According to the Di Bao, this debt was still a formal national debt personally signed by the Emperor. This time, the detailed household registration information of the purchasers, including the head of the household and family composition, had to be recorded by the Ministry of Revenue. Moreover, it could not be sold exclusively, but only exchanged with the Ministry of Revenue on a household basis.

As for the purpose of this national debt, it was also made very clear: it was to be used for various daily affairs during the winter, such as winter relief, troop stationing, city and village New Year activities, and Taixue (Imperial Academy) discussions.

Even the Di Bao bluntly stated the reasons for this 'Special National Debt'. Firstly, the impact of the Yao Mountain battle last year had resulted in a lot of expenditure and rewards, which led to the early pre-payment of one year's tax revenue from the various circuits of Sichuan, so after the Yao Mountain battle, Sichuan could only pay half the tax for two years. Secondly, the Dongting Lake rebellion had caused a financial gap in the Jingxiang area. Thirdly, the comprehensive reorganization of the army had resulted in extra expenses for resettling the demobilized troops.

Therefore, approaching the end of the year, there was a shortfall of about two million strings of cash.

After discussion by the various chief ministers, the Emperor agreed to be lenient and specially issued a national debt totaling three million strings of cash, with a term of half a year or one year, calculated at an annual interest rate of three percent.

Among them, 900,000 strings were taken by the Emperor himself, with Zongzheng Zhao Shi㒟, the Pan family (related to the imperial family through marriage), and the Wu family (related to the imperial family through marriage) acting as purchasers; the remaining 2.1 million strings, all in denominations of one thousand and two thousand strings, were still personally signed by the Emperor, and then directly supervised and recorded by the Ministry of Revenue, and publicly sold by the Inner Palace Department inside the leftmost gate of Xuande Tower, limited to thirty days, with a quota of 70,000 strings per day.

Frankly speaking, this national debt was still a passive and helpless measure, because there was indeed a fiscal deficit again, and this time the deficit was so large that both Emperor Zhao and several chief ministers had some doubts and worries.

This was also reflected in certain details of this national debt.

For example, the name "Winter Special National Debt" was somewhat misleading... After all, the main reasons behind the fiscal deficit, without mentioning those, were indeed those, but the ongoing suppression of the Dongting Lake rebellion certainly counted as one of them. However, it was still somewhat justifiable to say that the court took the daily winter expenses and used them as military expenses, and then the daily winter expenses were gone.

However, subsequent facts proved that the popularity of this national debt market far exceeded everyone's imagination.

The 900,000 strings that Zhao Jiu took on himself were swept away by many high-ranking officials who had been waiting in the homes of the three powerful families for a long time through verbal agreements before they were even issued.

An even more direct scene appeared under the Xuande Tower. After the sale began, the quota of 70,000 strings for the first day was instantly bought up by merchants from Quanzhou who came to deliver seafood from three families.

For this reason, Emperor Zhao had to add a notice, limiting each household to purchase 5,000 strings per day.

As a result, starting from the second day, there were hired helpers queuing up, but this time they were immediately stopped by the Imperial Guards.

From the third day, scenes similar to on-site price increases and transfers began to appear. Many people were willing to pay directly, asking the people in front to give up their positions, in exchange for the opportunity to register with the Ministry of Revenue and purchase a certain amount of national debt, without any profit, or even at a loss in terms of actual cost.

Having made some psychological preparations for this, Zhao Jiu hesitated for a moment, but immediately ordered the Imperial Guards to stop such things, using the most stable and basic method to maintain financial order... In other words, it was still necessary to queue up for purchase, and it was still on a first-come, first-served basis. For this reason, the Imperial Guards had to take over half of the Imperial Street to maintain order.

But soon, Emperor Zhao slapped himself in the face, because on the fifth day, a middle-aged man suddenly burst into tears on the Imperial Street... Yang Yizhong, who was personally watching this matter closely, stepped forward to ask and learned that this person was not buying for himself alone, but was being publicly recommended to buy on behalf of hundreds of villagers in a military garrison turned village near Yuetai in the west of the city, only seeking a national debt of one thousand strings. As a result, after entering the city, he had been unable to succeed for several days, and it was not good to return empty-handed to face the elders of Yuetai, so he cried bitterly in the street.

The villagers who came from military garrisons were basically refugees from Hebei and retired soldiers, and such things could not be ignored.

Therefore, Emperor Zhao immediately slapped himself in the face and changed the rules again, namely, a special queue was set up for such collective households inside the left-second gate, with a limit of ten opportunities per day, and each family was allowed to purchase a maximum of two national debts with a face value of one thousand strings. Then, a special file was created, and legally treated as clan property and charity villages invented by Fan Zhongyan, that is to say, during the period of holding the national debt, the personal crimes of the nominal holder would not affect the actual ownership and safety of these funds.

As soon as this policy came out, it immediately set off a second wave of purchasing climax, because after many officials and students of the Imperial College woke up, they purchased in the name of their clans without hesitation... After all, this special semi-collectivized property of clan property had been widely praised and recognized immediately after Fan Zhongyan's invention, and it had a strong Confucian ideological propaganda effect and a further value-preserving effect.

However, that was all.

Having said that, by this point, Zhao Jiu and those shrewd officials in the court had basically realized what the problem was.

This was not a question of patriotism or unpatriotism. For a small number of high-ranking officials, this matter might also mean their position in Emperor Zhao's heart, meaning their distance from the Emperor, but for everyone, including all high-ranking officials, the root of the problem was actually that there was currently no safer means of savings than a national debt personally signed by the Emperor.

During the previous six years, there had been constant wars. Not to mention Hebei, Henan, Guanzhong, and Jingdong, which were directly affected by the war, nor those at the bottom who had almost lost everything, even the high-ranking officials who had been able to avoid the war all along had seen their family wealth severely shrink.

Now that Zhao Jiu was providing credit guarantee in the name of the Emperor, and the Ministry of Revenue was providing actual wealth guarantee with the tax revenue of the world, it was no wonder that these people were vying to pursue it.

Of course, some credit should still be given to the court and Emperor Zhao... Think about it carefully, if it were those two Supreme Emperors who plundered the wealth of the entire city to give to the Jin people during the Jingkang Incident sitting behind this Xuande Tower, who would dare to trust them? If it was still the precarious situation of the Jingkang Incident, who would dare to buy it?

The victory of the war, the firm attitude that the court had maintained since its exile from Huaishang, and the long-term stability of the political situation were the underlying foundations for the sudden appearance of this rational economic phenomenon.

And it was precisely based on this consideration that Zhao Ding then proposed expanding the scale and term of the national debt, and specially setting up a quota for officials; Zhang Jun proposed relaxing certain local restrictions and expanding the scope of issuance to the local areas; the Ministry of Revenue directly submitted a memorial, suggesting extending the term of the national debt, lowering the interest rate of the national debt, and so on and so forth seemingly reasonable suggestions... All of them were rejected by Emperor Zhao.

Because Zhao Jiu felt that the current political and military foundation was still very fragile, it was not the time for financial innovation, and no one knew where the bottom line of this kind of thing was, so there was no need to try it forcibly, so as to make things worse.

Moreover, he was too young, and he had enough time to institutionalize this thing in a stable manner.

Back to the present, after the national debt, the court had money, and some messy things were immediately put on the agenda.

For example, Emperor Zhao personally issued an edict, ordering the Department of State Affairs to allocate money and food, and then hold large-scale, institutionalized Cuju (ancient Chinese football) competitions and Sumo wrestling competitions in the Henan area... Among them, Jingxi North Road and Jingxi East Road took the prefecture, state, and army level as the basic unit; Kaifeng Prefecture and the Henan part of Huaizhou and Kaide Prefecture took the county as the unit; the Imperial Army stationed in Henan took the Tongzhi (military officer) directly led army as the unit. Each first held internal elimination matches, and the four teams finally selected would gather in Tokyo City in late December on behalf of their respective affiliations, and conduct the final finals in a round-robin积分赛 in front of the Emperor.

Emperor Zhao was obviously going to have fun with the people, and of course, there was also a deliberate appeasement of Henan, the place that had suffered the most from the war.

But in any case, the effect was immediate. The entire Henan region immediately became lively, and the people, young and old, flocked to the cities during the slack season, just to get a glimpse of the outcome.

At the same time, the literati also began to become active.

After all, Emperor Zhao had mentioned before the sale of this national debt that he would conduct Taixue (Imperial Academy) discussions again... Not only that, this time, Emperor Zhao seemed to have evolved even further. He actually put forward many topics in the Di Bao (official gazette) in advance.

From large issues such as the strategy to destroy Jin, to medium issues such as whether to establish a special institution for the issuance of Jiaozi (paper money) and national debt, to small issues such as the discussion of the coexistence system of the Sanshe Law (three-dormitory system) and the Imperial Examination, to minor issues such as whether to create a special Cuju league... He asked about almost everything.

By doing this, one was to stir up the topic and shift the focus of the Taixue discussions to these things; the other was equivalent to fishing on Zhihu in later generations... By putting these questions out in the Di Bao, countless officials would naturally understand and submit memorials discussing these things, which would also make it convenient for Emperor Zhao to select people in the Taixue to answer.

"The Emperor's methods are becoming more and more skillful, and the style of Hu Bianxiu's writing is also becoming more and more subtly ingenious."

As December approached, clans gradually gathered, and in the increasingly lively back garden of the Duke Xiang's mansion, a poetry gathering was being held. However, although it was called a poetry gathering, it inevitably involved discussing the current affairs of the Di Bao. At this time, many members of the Lü family were quietly listening to a middle-aged man in his forties with a long, slender face sitting at the head of the table speaking jokingly. "Throwing out the topics in advance, and seeing the battle between the two chief ministers, Zhao and Zhang, in the Taixue discussions in a few days..."

Just as he was talking vividly, suddenly, there was a flurry of activity in the front yard, with various noises and clamors, disturbing everyone in the back garden... At this time, Duke Lü was reclining on a newly built Kang (heated brick bed) in the mansion, and the members of the Lü family were all participating in the poetry gathering in the back garden. Who would dare to be so presumptuous?

However, Buddhism in the Lü family's academy was almost second only to Confucianism, emphasizing randomness, and many people even ate vegetarian food and took vows. Therefore, even though the clamor in the front was getting louder and louder, these people in the back only frowned and watched, and not one or two of them got up to investigate.

Of course, there was no need to investigate. After a while, the members of the Lü family and their relatives and friends saw Lü Haowen in casual home attire personally accompanying a young man in cotton military uniform with quite elegant demeanor walking along the corridor into the back garden. Behind this person and Lü Haowen, there were also many burly men in cotton robes, as well as some civil officials and young attendants. Further behind, there were countless armored warriors with swords in hand... There was no need to ask who this leading man was, and how the previous commotion had been caused.

Therefore, the members of the Lü family and their relatives and friends dared not neglect, and quickly got up and stood respectfully aside.

Zhao Jiu was not at all polite, directly sat down in the seat of the middle-aged man, and then waved his hand repeatedly, pointing to Lü Haowen to sit in the first seat on the left, and Han Shizhong with a jade belt to sit in the first seat on the right. Then, Zhang Jun, Zhang Rong, Qu Duan, Yang Yizhong, Liu Yan, Wang De, and Li Qiong lined up in order of the Prince of Yan'an, and the members of the Lü family also stood out seven or eight at Zhao Jiu's suggestion, and sat down in order of the current Duke Xiang.

As for the remaining people, they obediently stood in the lower positions opposite Zhao Jiu, lined up and stood respectfully.

"Are you writing poetry?" Zhao Jiu looked down at the paper and pen on the table, and couldn't help but laugh.

"The young ones are idle in winter, so they can only do these things." Lü Haowen stroked his beard and replied with a smile. "It's a joke to the Emperor."

"It is indeed a joke." Zhao Jiu nodded, and then became serious again. "Writing poetry cannot save the Filature of the Song, nor can it restore the Two Rivers!"

The members of the Lü family and their relatives and friends looked at each other, each with a look of awe. Even Li Qiong, who was seeing this kind of scene for the first time, was a little flustered. Of course, Lü Haowen had long been accustomed to this Emperor, and only smiled lightly, without much words.

"Why is it all plain porridge and pickles?" Zhao Jiu looked around and smiled again after setting aside the topic of poetry.

"Many family members believe in Buddhism, and many people have become accustomed to being vegetarians." Lü Haowen smiled even more bitterly. He could already imagine Zhao Jiu scolding him again.

"Believing in Buddhism is believing in Buddhism, but meat still needs to be eaten." Zhao Jiu shook his head repeatedly. "How can you be considered a good monk if you don't eat meat? I've told Duke Lü, haven't I... The most Buddhist monk I've ever seen is one who drinks alcohol and eats meat. Before the Jingkang Incident, it is said that this person uprooted a weeping willow at the Daxiangguo Temple."

Lü Haowen shook his head helplessly, and on the right side, except for Zhang Rong and two Imperial Guards who had slightly strange expressions, everyone else was talking to each other for a moment.

"Your Majesty." After a pause, Han Shizhong couldn't help but reply seriously. "There is absolutely no monk in the world who can uproot a weeping willow... Your Majesty must have been deceived by that bald thief. May I ask what the background of this Daxiangguo monk is, that he dares to be so boastful?"

"A native of Weizhou, he served as a military officer under the command of the old Zhong in Yan'an Prefecture in his early years, and later transferred to the command of the young Zhong in Weizhou..." Zhao Jiu recited as if counting his family treasures, almost blurting out. "Later, because he killed a butcher named Zhen Guanxi, he fled to Mount Wutai, and then fled to the Daxiangguo Temple to manage the vegetable garden."

Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun looked at each other, and after a moment, Zhang Jun firmly asserted: "Your Majesty, this person is indeed a cheater who only knows how to perform sleight of hand. I have served under the command of Lord Zhong Jinglue for half my life. If there really was a military officer who killed a butcher named Zhen Guanxi and fled to become a monk, how could I not know the details?"

"That's true." Zhao Jiu nodded thoughtfully. "The Great Scholar Su said it well, 'Since ancient times, not poisonous, not bald, not bald, not poisonous, turn poisonous, turn bald, turn bald, turn poisonous, poisonous then bald, bald then poisonous...' You can't believe a word of what this monk says. You must also take this as a warning. As for the words of Buddhism, it's enough to recite a few sentences and make a show of it. We good men must never really eat vegetarian food and take vows, what kind of sight would that be."

Five or six of the generals on the right nodded repeatedly, and Lü Haowen only remained silent helplessly... The words of the Great Scholar Su were obviously a joke with his Buddhist friends, and it was not good to argue.

"Duke Lü." After rambling for a while, Zhao Jiu turned his head and continued to ramble about this trivial matter. "Under Mount Shaoshi and in front of Yiyou Gate, didn't you successively promise me that you would pick out the Buddhist sayings in your Lü family's academy and insert some new learning? How are you still letting your family members eat vegetarian food?"

Such absurd and inexplicable words made Lü Haowen instinctively want to refute, but just a moment's thought turned half a circle in his heart, and the one in charge of military affairs immediately fell silent.

Zhao Jiu did not stop at all, but urged on the spot: "The foundation of the country lies in new learning. Duke Lü, as the public minister, should set an example for the world! In the future, you must not drink porridge and eat vegetarian food, it is better to eat more meat!"

Lü Haowen knew that he was being cornered by the Emperor today, and there was no way to escape. He was helpless for a moment, and sighed, preparing to seriously talk to the Emperor.

Just as this public minister was being pushed to the wall, the middle-aged man who was sitting in the first seat beside him took the initiative to get up, stepped aside, and saluted, as if preparing to make some defense for Lü Haowen: "Your Majesty..."

"Who is this person?" Before the other party could finish speaking, Zhao Jiu asked curiously.

"My eldest son, Lü Benzhong." Lü Haowen quickly explained.

"How have I never seen him before?" Zhao Jiu continued to ask.

"First, Cai Jing was in power, and the Six Villains were rampant. I was unable to advance because of my status as a Yuanyou Party member, and my sons were naturally implicated. Later, Emperor Yuan Sheng and Your Majesty loved me so much, and I was suddenly promoted to a high position as a chief minister, so he had to avoid it a little... He has been guarding the door in his hometown in Huainan, and only recently did I let him come over." Lü Haowen gave a general introduction.

Zhao Jiu nodded, but suddenly slapped the table, pointing to Lü Benzhong and looking at Lü Haowen, saying with certainty and rambling: "I see that this son of Duke Lü has a face like the character '田', obviously a face that will be granted a marquis?!"

Lü Benzhong looked up, stunned and speechless for a moment. As for Lü Haowen and the surrounding members of the Lü family, as well as the several commanders and generals, looking at Lü Benzhong's long face, they didn't know what to say.

However, none of these people felt as absurd and powerless as Lü Benzhong himself, the designated figure of the Jiangxi Poetry School... It must be known that '面如田字非吾相，莫羡班超封列侯' (My face is not like the character "田", don't envy Ban Chao being granted the title of marquis), this is exactly a former sentence from one of his own thousands of poems!

Now, not to mention Lü Haowen, even Lü Benzhong, who was meeting the Emperor for the first time, knew that this Emperor was coming to collect debts on the occasion of the New Year!

The kind that cannot be avoided!

ps: I've been taking online courses at Lu Yuan since the day before yesterday... The schedule is getting tighter and tighter... Coupled with my dogshit-like work and rest habits, it's really awkward and tiring...