Inside the palace at Bianliang, Zhao Kuangyin, who had just reclined again in his lounge chair, was startled by the production figures of that so-called Gold Island.
He was not unfamiliar with this later unit of weight. What surprised him was seeing it attached to gold and silver.
According to what Zhao Pu had previously explained, among the Imperial Guards, a fully armored elite squad of ten men weighed roughly one ton in total.
Seventy-eight tons meant seven hundred and eighty fully armored strong soldiers.
And when he replaced those soldiers in his mind with gold…
Zhao Kuangyin's breathing inevitably grew heavier.
Since founding the Song, let alone compared with the emperors of Tang, even when placed beside pretenders like Zhu Wen, Shi Jingtang, or Li Cunxu, the lifestyle of the Zhao imperial house could be called frugal.
Yet on the other hand, whether it was the Worthies' Residence built in Bianliang, the mixed taxes later criticized as squeezing the people, or the Sealed Reserve Treasury established at the dynasty's founding, all of it had one purpose:
To accumulate wealth.
Not for personal indulgence, but to fund campaigns and bring the realm back to unity.
And in the end, all of it had been squandered by his younger brother…
Thinking of this, Zhao Kuangyin's teeth itched with irritation.
He knew better than anyone how many elite troops he had painstakingly trained over fifteen years.
He knew exactly how much wealth had been stored in the Sealed Reserve Treasury.
And what was the result?
Elite troops and fine generals, gone after two campaigns.
The stored treasury, exhausted within two reigns.
Hebei still unrestored.
Yanyun still unrecovered.
Internal rebellions everywhere.
External wars repeatedly lost.
Fifteen years of accumulation, all spent by his brother on currying favor with scholar-officials and funding that humiliating Mount Tai ceremony under Emperor Zhenzong of Song.
Lying with his head tilted back, Zhao Guangyi suddenly felt an inexplicable killing intent.
He turned his head, met his elder brother's pitch-black expression, and nearly jumped.
"Brother… the shamelessness of Japan surely isn't my fault."
"Heh."
Zhao Kuangyin did not bother explaining what he was thinking. He only sneered.
"I'd rather send you to Japan to spread Buddhism."
"With your talents, perhaps by the time I dispatch the fleet, the island would already surrender without a fight."
Master Kongjiong opened his mouth, unsure whether his brother was praising him or mocking him.
Zhao Kuangyin's gaze returned to the light screen.
At this moment, only one thought filled his mind:
Use the Sealed Reserve Treasury properly, unify China, then open sea routes, seize the Gold Mountain, enrich the people, and strip away the label of "Weak Song."
---
The light screen continued:
[Lightscreen]
[At the time, the Toi invasions and the Song emperors' frequent letters to Japan accelerated that country's historical trajectory.
During the Northern Song, Japan's political system was known as Regent-Chancellor Politics, a combination of Sessho and Kampaku.
Sessho meant regent. Kampaku came from the Book of Han, where it says, "All matters were first reported to Huo Guang before being submitted to the emperor." In other words, everything had to be presented to Huo Guang before reaching the throne.
In Tang times, the term entered Japan, where it referred to a chief minister assisting the ruler, roughly equivalent to a chancellor.
Regent-Chancellor Politics, put bluntly, meant the Japanese ruler had lost power and state affairs were controlled by great clans. At the time, that clan was the Fujiwara family, also known as the Regent House.
Japan's structure resembled a Western feudal manor system: large estates layered over smaller estates, protected by officials and temples. The Fujiwara stood at the apex of this network. Half of the central government's revenue flowed directly into their pockets. They were truly rich enough to rival a state.
The legitimacy of Fujiwara power came from marriage ties with the imperial family.
And the problem with that structure was obvious:
If Fujiwara daughters became scarce, or if those daughters failed to produce imperial heirs, the whole system would shake.
Around the same time as Wang Anshi's reforms, the Fujiwara daughters repeatedly failed to bear a crown prince. A ruler unrelated by blood to the Fujiwara, Emperor Go-Sanjō, ascended the throne. Faced with Song diplomatic pressure and the Toi raids, he launched a fierce struggle against the Fujiwara.
This was why replies to Song letters sometimes took years. The two sides inside Japan were already fighting hard enough to spark flames from their foreheads.
And all this background matters because in the end, the winner was neither the great clans nor the ruler.
It was the warrior class that the ruler had elevated in order to fight the clans.
Roughly five years after Yue Fei was unjustly executed in the Southern Song, Japan experienced the Hōgen Rebellion and the Heiji Rebellion. The warlord Taira no Kiyomori rallied the warriors, crushed the Minamoto, established Taira rule, and monopolized the highest offices.
The warrior class had originally formed after Japan's defeat at the Battle of Baekgang and its fear of invasion by Silla backed by Tang. Japan imitated the Sui-Tang militia system and created military colonies.
But as land concentration worsened, the system collapsed. Those soldiers gradually became private armed retainers recruited by estate owners. They were a lower tier within the Regent-Chancellor hierarchy.
When the ruler and great clans began openly fighting, the ruler extended an olive branch to these warriors, weakening their dependence on the clans.
These early warriors were small estate holders. Unlike great clans, they could not extract enormous profits from land. Yet because they had a little wealth, they desperately needed imported porcelain and spices to display status. Naturally, they were extremely enthusiastic about overseas trade.
Thus, once Taira no Kiyomori seized power as a warrior leader, he lifted maritime bans with a hardline stance and promoted Song-Japan trade.
After his death, power returned to the Minamoto. They absorbed the warrior class and established the Kamakura shogunate. By then Japan had already realized the enormous profits of maritime trade and consistently pursued that policy.
What happened afterward was simple.
The Yuan failed to conquer Japan, but the invasions devastated the Kamakura regime. It could not reward its warriors. Bankrupt warriors became a destabilizing force. Meanwhile, warriors enriched by war lacked loyalty to the regime.
Eventually Japan entered its Warring States period.
And China's problem with Japanese pirates began there.
There is one small detail in all this.
The Yuan's failure due to typhoons led to the rise of Japan's Divine Nation ideology.
Put simply: they believed they were number one in the world and protected by heaven no matter what they did.
The Muromachi shogunate in the era of Yongle Emperor believed Japanese piracy against China was justified.
During the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, they believed Japan was naturally the leader of all nations.
Later, they carried that same certainty into invasions of Korea and China.
All of it stemmed from this Divine Nation belief.
And this belief did not finally end until the Fat Man and Little Boy exploded over Japan itself.]
---
The Ming emperor's face had originally been indifferent.
Just like when reading the Yuan histories and stumbling over their strange names, this Japanese system of clans and hierarchies sounded exhausting.
But the general meaning was still clear enough.
"So this Warring States chaos," he muttered, "isn't that just our Five Dynasties warlordism?"
"Such a tiny country dares call it a Warring States?"
The emperor rolled his eyes.
But when he heard about the Divine Nation ideology, he nearly slammed the table.
"I thought those Japanese envoys came because they coveted Chinese goods and pitied their island poverty!"
"And it turns out they think piracy is justified?"
"Even beasts have some sense of shame! What happened to the propriety they learned from China? Did that Ming ruler just let them run wild like animals?!"
The timeline was easy to calculate.
If this attitude existed under the Yongle Emperor, that meant it already existed in his own Hongwu reign.
"To live beside beasts and not know it… no wonder they dared invade China."
"I will not leave this disaster for my descendants. Let these bandits see who truly leads the world!"
He paused.
"But this Fat Man and Little Boy…"
Then he saw it.
A mushroom-shaped cloud rolling across an endless landscape.
All of the Hongwu Emperor's questions vanished at once.