Song Dynasty: Yuan Dynasty, you didn't expect this, did you? I'm still alive.

Looking at the mountains of gold and silver piled up in the inner treasury, Zhao Yu stroked his chin, a look of confusion on his face.

He frowned slightly, tapping his fingertips lightly on the table, repeatedly calculating in his mind:

He led his troops into battle, expanding his territory by thousands of miles. His treasury's wealth increased rather than decreased, which must mean he had won.

Merchants sold him massive amounts of grain and slaves, making a fortune, and finally he obtained the official position and title he had always dreamed of, enjoying immense prestige and success.

The Eastern Song Dynasty gained access to the fertile raw material production area of ​​Cambodia and a vast market for its products, which further strengthened its national power, and it naturally won as well.

"Who really lost?" Zhao Yu muttered to himself, his eyes filled with confusion. "It can't be that everyone won, can it? That's not fair!"

Of course, although Zhao Yu liked to use his cleverness and tell small lies, he also adhered to the bottom line of "Song people do not deceive Song people".

Since official positions and titles have been sold with a clear price tag, it's only right to give merchants an empty promise.

Therefore, he simply handed over the corresponding administrative powers of Siam to these merchants who had bought their official positions.

But this put the merchants in a dilemma.

They bought official titles for the prestige they had when traveling and to gain influence when doing business. They never considered dealing with the tedious government affairs—the official documents, civil disputes, and so on were a headache to think about, even more troublesome than running a long-distance merchant fleet.

Many businessmen even privately plotted to get a refund from Zhao Yu.

Upon learning this, Zhao Yu thought to himself, "This deal can't fall through; the after-sales service must be perfected."

His eyes darted around, and he quickly came up with an idea.

Drawing inspiration from the Wenhua Pavilion of the Eastern Song Dynasty, he recruited a group of scholars from impoverished families who, despite lacking the funds to buy official positions, were eager to enter government service and formed a "cabinet".

If businessmen don't have time to handle government affairs, they can hire a scholar from the cabinet to take care of them. They only need to take a few moments every now and then, depending on their mood, to give the hired scholar a few "advice" and enjoy the title of an official, satisfying their desire to be an official. All the dirty and tiring work is taken care of by the cabinet scholar.

Upon hearing this plan, the merchants were overjoyed and exclaimed, "Your Majesty is wise!"

Zhao Yu originally intended to have fun, and handled the affairs of Siam in such an absurd way. However, he did not expect that later rulers would continue this tradition in Siam.

Through generations of refinement, the merchants gradually united to form a parliament, which, with the help of the cabinet, firmly controlled the political affairs of Siam.

More importantly, since the King of Siam was also the Emperor of the Song Dynasty, merchants had an additional way to directly contact the Emperor of the Song Dynasty and influence the politics of the Eastern Song Dynasty.

Siam unexpectedly became the birthplace of democratic thought, and its influence quickly spread to India.

However, where will the fierce clash between democracy and monarchical power ultimately lead the Eastern Song Dynasty?

This is clearly not a problem that Zhao Yu would consider.

He was currently facing another problem: when he became the King of Siam, he wanted to be able to make decisions independently and be free from constraints, but now that he had sold off all his power, wasn't he back to the situation where he was restricted everywhere when he was in Australia?

Was all that fighting over the past few years for nothing?

"No, no, no, of course not." Zhao Yu quickly shook his head, a playful smile returning to his lips. "I've had enough of the Indochina Peninsula. Next, it's time to go to India."

It just so happens that he also wants to meet his good brother—King Shunyi, the Turkic Grand General Kajir.

The two went hunting together in Xinxiang years ago, full of youthful vigor. More than ten years have passed since then. I wonder how my good brother is doing now, and whether his hunting skills have improved.

Zhao Yu recalled that Kargil was already in his thirties back then, and now he's probably almost fifty. Even if he practices diligently, his hunting skills probably won't improve much, and he couldn't help but chuckle.

However, he did not intend to go directly to India, but decided to play a little trick first.

"His Majesty is leaving Siam!" When the news reached Australia, the officials of the Eastern Song Dynasty were immediately moved to tears, and they trembled with excitement. They loved their emperor deeply and were even more afraid that he would cause even greater trouble abroad.

"Your Majesty, the Song Dynasty cannot do without you!"

"We, the Song officials, cannot do without you!"

The courtiers all sighed in admiration.

Although the current emperor remotely controls government affairs in Siam, which seems similar to the Holy Ancestor ruling from the palace, the Holy Ancestor never made any trouble, while this emperor destroyed Siam and annexed Cambodia in his own name, and recently even engaged in the business of buying and selling official positions.

They were truly afraid that if the emperor continued like this, he would unify the six countries of the Indochina Peninsula and establish a new Great Song Dynasty there.

At that time, wouldn't these old ministers of the Eastern Song Dynasty become the most abandoned ministers in history?

"That kind of thing absolutely must not happen!"

The ministers secretly made up their minds.

If we had known this would happen, we should have fully supported the Emperor's personal campaign from the beginning, and we wouldn't be in such a state of anxiety and fear.

Which treacherous villain actually obstructed the emperor?

Kong Yuanheng and Gongshu Yan exchanged a glance, their eyes blazing with fury. They both silently cursed inwardly, "So it was you!"

But now is not the time for internal strife; the most urgent task is to bring the emperor back as soon as possible.

Therefore, the Confucian officials devoted all their learning to writing memorials, praising the emperor's achievements in this southern expedition to the utmost, and expressing their longing for the emperor in every word, earnestly requesting that the emperor return to Xinxiang as soon as possible.

Not to be outdone, the Taoist officials also presented their latest research findings on natural philosophy and sent them to Siam by fast horse, hoping to attract the emperor's interest.

Under the combined "inspiration" of his ministers, Zhao Yu finally led 5,000 Song soldiers away from Siam by boat and headed east toward Xinxiang.

Wei Zuowang specially dispatched several warships to escort the emperor, and strictly ordered his soldiers to be careful to prevent petty people from disturbing the emperor's presence.

During their voyage, the fleet encountered an unidentified merchant ship.

Since the merchant ship had neither a permit to sail from the Eastern Song Dynasty nor was it flying the Eastern Song dragon flag, Wei Zuowang immediately ordered: "Sink it!"

The warships roared with gunfire, and the merchant ship quickly sank in the barrage.

When the soldiers were retrieving the people and supplies from the water, they were surprised to find that the owner of the ship was none other than Sok, the younger brother of the former governor of Zhenla.

It turns out that after Soe Khe escaped from Angkor Thom, he intended to seek refuge in the other four countries of the Indochina Peninsula. However, he did not expect that these four countries had witnessed the tragedy of the Khmer Empire and were already terrified. They all ordered a reward for Soe Khe's capture, fearing that they would incur the wrath of the "Great Khan of Heaven, Earth and Man, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe".

With no other options, Sok had no choice but to buy a merchant ship and prepare to flee overseas.

Little did he know that the Eastern Song Dynasty had an ironclad rule regarding the sea: without a permit, everything would be sunk!

As the territory of the Eastern Song Dynasty continued to expand, the naval patrol range could no longer fully cover it. Therefore, the imperial court introduced new regulations, allowing Eastern Song merchant ships to sink illegal vessels on their own. The court would not take a penny of the materials and money obtained in the battle.

For the people of Song, the permit might have been just a formality, but for people from other countries, it was an insurmountable prohibition.

Perhaps in the shallow waters near the shore, Eastern Song merchants would not easily sink illegal ships out of consideration for the face of the local country, but once they entered the deep sea, the only fate awaiting the illegal ships was to be sunk.

Sok never expected that he would fall into Zhao Yu's hands in such a dramatic way.

Upon learning this, Wei Zuowang was secretly delighted and planned to present Suo Ke to Zhao Yu in order to win the emperor's favor and allow him to return to the Eastern Song Dynasty safely.

Unexpectedly, Zhao Yu had already lost interest in Sok Khmer – the population of Khmer had been reduced from 1.5 million to only 300,000, and his anger had long since dissipated.

"Tie him to the ship's side, throw him into the sea, and feed him to the sharks," Zhao Yu said calmly, as if dealing with an insignificant object.

Wei Zuowang was old and lacked energy, so after dealing with this matter, he returned to his cabin to rest.

But when he opened his eyes again, he received news that made his world spin: "Lord Wei! It's terrible! The Emperor says he's going to India!"

"What?" Wei Zuowang felt a sudden darkness before his eyes, and before he could catch his breath, he fainted on the bed.

"Lord Wei! Lord Wei!" The attendants around him panicked and rushed forward to help.

That's right, Zhao Yu was just trying to feint, first creating an illusion for the officials that the "emperor had returned," and then cruelly shattering it.

Looking at the chaotic scene outside the cabin, Zhao Yu burst into laughter: "Now I understand the joy of King You of Zhou playing with the feudal lords by lighting the beacon fires!"

He counted on his fingers the characteristics of a doomed monarch: extravagant construction projects (building Buddhist palaces), lack of integrity (playing tricks on his ministers), aggressive military campaigns (conquering Siam and Khmer), selling official positions, associating with sycophants (relying on his playmates from Xinxiang like Ji Bai), neglecting state affairs (indulging in war and pleasure), and indulging in pleasure... As he counted, Zhao Yu laughed at himself, realizing he couldn't possibly list them all.

However, he didn't care at all.

My grandfather went to Southeast Asia and endured countless hardships; he had long since suffered all the hardships of his generation.

He was born to enjoy pleasure.

……

In the same year, a privately-run academy in the Eastern Song Dynasty sent shocking news throughout the country—the students of the academy had successfully invented a cotton gin.

Before the invention of the cotton gin, cleaning cotton seeds from cotton was an extremely time-consuming and laborious task. A slave could only clean about five kilograms of cotton in a whole day of hard work.

The advent of the cotton gin increased cleaning efficiency by a full fifty times!

The surge in efficiency directly led to a sharp drop in the price of cleaned cotton raw materials.

This not only provided a sufficient, cheap and stable supply of raw materials for the booming cotton textile industry in the Eastern Song Dynasty, but also further reduced the price of cotton cloth in the Eastern Song Dynasty.

Previously, the price of Dongsong cotton cloth was already one-third of that of handmade cotton cloth from India and the Indochina Peninsula, and now it has fallen to one-fifth of that of handmade cotton cloth.

Large quantities of cheap Song Dynasty cotton fabric flooded the Indian and Japanese markets like a tidal wave.

Without tariff protection, the already crumbling handicraft textile industry in both regions suffered a fatal blow.

In a short time, countless hand-woven textile factories went bankrupt and closed down, and tens of thousands of textile workers lost their livelihoods and became vagrants.

On the streets and alleys, the desperate figures of unemployed workers can be seen everywhere, with cries and curses rising and falling. The once bustling textile workshop area is now desolate.