The knight in the big world of American TV series

Chapter 2322

Bang!
After kicking Thor away, Ger fell to his knees.

"Zeus's thunderbolts?! That old bastard actually lent you his divine weapon?"

Gol was extremely shocked, staring in disbelief at the golden lightning in Thor's hand.

Zeus is undoubtedly the pinnacle of the pantheon. At the same time, he's the guy Gell hates the most. Contrary to popular belief, everyone thinks Zeus and Gell have no connection, but that's not the case at all. On the contrary, Gell and Zeus have interacted, and more than once!
Yes, Zeus did approach Gell.

As mentioned before, the Pantheon's first reaction upon learning of Gael was naturally to annihilate him.

What else is there to say when they've already rebelled?

However, after the initial wave of suppression failed, the Pantheon quickly and smoothly offered amnesty. As discussed before, offering amnesty to rebels is a very economical approach.

Here we must mention the Song Dynasty, a very, very famous dynasty on the Chinese internet.

When you unfold the scroll of Chinese history, the Song Dynasty is undoubtedly a breathtaking masterpiece. The bustling city of Bianliang, the graceful Song poetry, and the timelessly famous "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" all captivate the viewer. Furthermore, scholars enjoyed an exceptionally privileged life in that era. The first impression of the Song Dynasty is: wealth! Aside from its shortcomings in warfare, everything else was top-notch. In particular, the unique system of "governing the country with scholar-officials" allowed Song Dynasty officials to enjoy unprecedented levels of welfare and benefits.

The Qing Dynasty scholar Zhao Yi once said: "Those who bestow favors upon officials fear they will not have enough, while those who extract wealth from the people leave no surplus for them. This is why the Song Dynasty system cannot be followed." (Notes on the History of Gansu and the History of the Song Dynasty)

Many people still yearn for this era, as if they could have a wonderful time if they went there... In fact, this was indeed the case for the scholar-official class. The Song Dynasty was indeed very comfortable, with a flourishing culture, an open social atmosphere, and the court treating scholar-officials extremely well. Many ministers could even point their fingers at the emperor and curse him in court.

But what are all these things built upon?
Of course it's the people's hard-earned money!

They are afraid of not giving enough to the officials, while taking money from the people, almost emptying the people's pockets!

Was Zhao Yi's statement an exaggeration, or was it true?

According to the "Official Records" in the *History of the Song Dynasty*, the salary of a prime minister consisted of four main parts: a basic base salary, a food allowance, a grain allowance, and a clothing allowance. The base salary was 300 guan per month; the food allowance was 50,000 wen; the clothing allowance included 40 bolts of silk, 30 bolts of brocade, and 100 liang of cotton for spring and winter clothing each year; and the grain allowance was 100 shi per month. During the Xining era of Emperor Shenzong of Song, a bolt of silk was worth approximately 1,700 wen, and one liang of cotton was worth approximately 80 wen. Therefore, the clothing allowance was approximately 180,000 wen per year, or 15,000 wen per month. At the price of 600 wen per shi of rice at the time, 100 shi of rice would be worth 60,000 wen. These four parts of the salary totaled over 500,000 wen per month. Converted to RMB, this means a prime minister in the Song Dynasty could earn over 100,000 RMB per month! Wang Anshi earned this much, and Bao Zheng, the upright official, earned over 10 million RMB annually. The "Official Records" section of the *History of the Song Dynasty* divides official salaries into three categories: "regular salary," "additional salary," and "official land." In addition to their regular monthly salary, officials received various subsidies, such as allowances for tea, wine, timber, coal, horse feed, clothing, food, and meals for their personal attendants, and expenses for official receptions—all paid for by the government in substantial amounts. This exceptionally high level of welfare wasn't exclusive to high-ranking officials of the first or second rank; any official of the fifth rank or above received astonishingly high salaries! Even fifth-rank, twelfth-grade civil officials like the *Chaosan Dafu* received subsidies for food, clothing, servants, and meals in addition to their basic salary. Officials serving in the capital received 30 strings of cash, while those serving in local areas received 10 *qing* of official land! On important occasions such as the emperor's birthday or sacrificial rites, they received substantial rewards, enjoyed generous retirement pensions, and received posthumous gifts. Therefore, Zhao Yi's words were not an exaggeration. No wonder Song Jiang, even after becoming the leader of Liangshan, still longed for the imperial court and dreamed of being granted amnesty.

The world's wealth is finite; it doesn't appear out of thin air, but simply flows from one place to another.

If officials and the scholar-official class are so rich and extravagant, where does all this money come from?

As mentioned above, the money is taken from the people, and they are almost draining the people dry!

On the surface, the Song Dynasty appeared economically prosperous, and the lives of its people were relatively stable. However, this prosperity concealed enormous social contradictions. Land annexation was rampant, the gap between rich and poor was vast, and many peasants lived in dire straits. However, due to the relatively advanced culture and education of the Song Dynasty, the people's mindset also changed. They were no longer as easily provoked to rebellion as in previous dynasties, but were more inclined to resolve conflicts peacefully. At the same time, the Song government's appeasement policies towards the people, such as reducing taxes and providing relief, also played a role, making it difficult for peasant uprisings to gain widespread support and response.

As one of the feudal dynasties in ancient China, the Song Dynasty inevitably faced several problems—external threats, internal strife, natural disasters, and political upheavals. Leaving aside the others, the Song Dynasty displayed a unique approach to internal strife, employing a policy of peaceful appeasement, primarily through surrender, towards peasant uprisings. If an individual or organization encounters problems hindering its development but fails to address them, there are only two possible reasons: either they have deeper plans, or they lack the capacity to solve the problem.

The Song Dynasty's policy of appeasement towards peasant uprisings was largely due to its inability to sustain repeated suppression campaigns. Of course, the consequences of war, such as economic damage and civilian deaths, were also a significant factor. Imagine if the Song Dynasty could have quelled peasant uprisings quickly and efficiently; the losses would have been entirely acceptable, so why resort to appeasement? The Song Dynasty's predicament stemmed from its infamous policy of bloated military strength. In any dynasty, appeasing large numbers of displaced people is a serious problem, and the Song Dynasty was no exception. To address this, the Song Dynasty absorbed all displaced people into its army, claiming that "for every person recruited, the court gains a soldier, and the countryside loses a bandit." When all sorts of people could join the army, it inevitably increased the difficulty of managing it. Issues such as cowardice, corruption, and deception increased significantly, directly reducing the Song army's combat effectiveness. If a general governs well, this negative impact can actually be mitigated. However, the problem lies in the objective conditions generals lack for effective governance. To prevent a repeat of the Tang Dynasty's late-era regional warlordism, the Song Dynasty implemented a system separating generals from their troops, meaning a general could not remain with an army for extended periods. This not only reduced the general's motivation to manage the army effectively—since their tenure was limited to a few years and the army's condition was largely irrelevant to them—but also deprived them of sufficient time for management and adjustments. Over time, generals became unfamiliar with their soldiers, and soldiers became unfamiliar with their generals. Coupled with the army's inherent vulnerability, its combat effectiveness inevitably declined significantly. Of course, the Yue Family Army, founded by Yue Fei, was a unique exception, primarily due to Yue Fei's exceptional abilities. Furthermore, to maintain firm control over the army, Song emperors required generals to report on tactical arrangements and encounters along the way. Sometimes, they even manipulated the army remotely; for example, during Emperor Taizong's reign, there was a period of "drawing battle formations, planning victories, issuing all discipline, remotely issuing orders, with the commander-in-chief following orders and high-ranking officials supervising"—a chaotic and inefficient system. After this series of actions, the Song Dynasty army appeared to be numerous, but in reality, its combat effectiveness was extremely low. Therefore, when facing rebel armies, the Song Dynasty government could only mainly adopt a policy of appeasement.

The most famous governing policy of the Song Dynasty was its emphasis on civil administration over military affairs. The Song rulers firmly believed that well-versed scholars could greatly promote national development and foster a healthy society. Of course, their primary concern was the potential for military generals to wield too much power and usurp their positions. Under this policy, the civil service examination system became increasingly popular, with countless ordinary people rising through the ranks to enter the political inner circle. Because of their own humble origins, they generally had a deeper understanding and sympathy for the lower classes, and consequently, a greater tolerance for their rebellions. Song Ci, who once served as the Provincial Judge of Hunan, stated, "The bandits of Hunan mostly arise from the poverty and hardship of the lower classes, who have no way to seek redress." They believed that the people's uprisings were not driven by ambition, but by irreversible misfortunes that led to the loss of their livelihoods, such as natural disasters, corrupt officials, and government inaction. Clearly, this was indeed the case; after all, not every peasant harbored a desire to become emperor. Therefore, they did not advocate using military means to suppress the rebels. In contrast, offering them amnesty would completely avoid the brutal scene of lives being lost at will, and this social problem could be effectively solved.

Many officials were also well aware that most of these bandits were simply unable to survive.

During the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, the minister Bao Zheng presented a memorial to the emperor. He first stated that the number of court officials had more than doubled in the past thirty years, exceeding the government's actual needs by several times, while fiscal revenue had more than tripled compared to the previous dynasty. He then pointed out the problem: the number of taxpayers hadn't changed much, and land harvests had decreased compared to previous years, yet the court's fiscal revenue had increased so significantly. Why? There could only be one reason: the current dynasty's taxation had increasingly leaned towards exorbitant and oppressive practices. Regarding the heavy tax burden of the Song Dynasty, another Song official, Chao, stated that "Song taxes and corvée labor were dozens of times greater than those of the Han Dynasty." Some even concluded that although the Song Dynasty's population and territory were smaller than those of the Han and Tang Dynasties, its national fiscal revenue was seven times greater than that of the Tang Dynasty. Clearly, the Song Dynasty's tax burden was extremely heavy. Bao Zheng continued, saying that because the court had increasingly more expenses in recent years, it had invented a new method besides levies called "conversion." For example, in the Jiangzhe region, one dou (a unit of dry measure) of wheat was converted into 34 wen (a unit of currency) of tax. However, the local transport department changed the regulation to convert wheat into cash, with each dou of wheat converted into 94 wen, resulting in the people's burden becoming three times heavier than before. Besides "conversion," the Song Dynasty also had "payment transfer." Payment transfer refers to the practice where, when households paid taxes in kind, the Northern Song government, wanting to make up for any shortfall with surpluses from other areas, often required people not to pay in kind to their local offices, but rather to pay at the Song army garrisoned on the northern frontier. Therefore, this transfer of tax payment location was called "payment transfer." Originally, people should have paid in kind near their homes, and the Northern Song government would then arrange for local officials to collect and transport the goods to the border. However, this transport, which should have been the court's responsibility, was also made the burden fall on the taxpayers. Therefore, any theft, robbery, loss, or damage during transport naturally fell on the people. The Northern Song government devised a clever strategy that not only significantly reduced its own costs and solved the food problem for its border troops, but also placed a heavier burden on ordinary people. During the unification process, in order to successfully eliminate various regional separatist regimes, the Northern Song government heavily promoted the idea that wherever its armies went, their primary task was to "alleviate the people's suffering" and reduce exorbitant taxes. However, in reality, the Northern Song government successfully inherited the various taxes levied by the separatist regimes. Even Zhu Xi later remarked that the exploitative methods of previous dynasties were "all present in this dynasty," and the burden on the people increased rather than decreased. The reason why the scope of taxation in the Song Dynasty was said to be even greater than that of previous dynasties is that ordinary people's daily labor and production, and everything they used in their lives, were all subject to taxation. For example, copper or iron coins carried by travelers going to the capital for the imperial examinations were taxed at tax checkpoints; marriages and weddings were taxed; building houses was taxed; and even agricultural tools such as plows were taxed, and so on. Many of these taxes were unreasonable, such as the "brewing yeast tax." During the Southern Tang Dynasty, in addition to regular taxes, the government levied more than ten miscellaneous taxes. Even after the Song Dynasty officially prohibited private brewing, the "brewing yeast tax" was still levied on the people within the former Southern Tang territory. With taxes of all kinds appearing everywhere, the people of the Song Dynasty lived like leeks, exploited and exploited.

Besides taxation, the imperial court's exploitation of daily necessities was relentless. After the Northern Song Dynasty allied with the Jin Dynasty to destroy the Liao Dynasty, it recovered some of Liao territory. Previously, the people in this land could buy a pound of salt for about 10 copper coins. After the Song Dynasty took over, it adopted its own long-standing practice of a government monopoly on salt, raising the price to 200 to 300 copper coins per pound—more than 20 times the original price. Therefore, it can be said that the Song emperors, adhering to their "ancestral laws," seemed to have neglected the poverty of the people, believing that the government's ability to extract wealth was what truly threatened the stability of imperial power. So, if you could travel back to any dynasty, unless you were a scholar-official, the Song Dynasty would not be a suitable choice for ordinary people.

In reality, very few officials paid attention to the lives of ordinary people! So you can imagine how hellish life was for ordinary people in the Song Dynasty.

Therefore, there were naturally many people who rebelled and became bandits.

The problem is that war costs money and people die, but the main issue is the cost.

War is always bloody, and its far-reaching impact is unbearable. First, there's a massive increase in government military spending, such as on military pay and weapons manufacturing. Second, all sectors, including agriculture and commerce, are affected; land is left uncultivated, businesses cease operations, and the entire society is preoccupied with the war effort, leading to economic stagnation and a decrease in government tax revenue. Third, there's the direct destruction of war zones, especially since peasant uprisings often occur in economically developed areas, requiring a long period to recover. Even worse, peasant uprisings disrupt social stability; this creates a vicious cycle where social stability is disrupted, peasant uprisings continue, and ultimately, the nation's demise is inevitable. As mentioned earlier, the Song Dynasty's military strength was relatively weak. This meant that if it attempted to suppress peasant uprisings militarily, the cost would be far greater, with a high probability of failure and loss of face. Furthermore, the Song Dynasty needed to constantly contend with foreign invasions, further necessitating that it not expend too much strength on internal strife, lest it lose its homeland altogether. Therefore, we should make good use of the peaceful and low-cost method of offering amnesty.

The Pantheon was far more excessive than the one in the Song Dynasty.

The Song Dynasty might have been known for its brutal exploitation, but the Pantheon? They wouldn't even spare you after you're dead.

As for the laxity in military preparedness, that's even worse.

Therefore, appeasement is a common tactic used by the Pantheon.

So Zeus met Gele in person, though not on the first attempt to recruit him.

There is something to say.

Demonstrate the value of united front work.

Zeus was only alarmed when Gele killed many gods.

But the two had a terrible first impression of each other.