Volume 2 Chapter 15 Rumors (Part 1)
For the ministers who received the note, they didn't know whether to be happy or sad during these few days in late March, because Emperor Zhao was out of the city for more than three days.
There were 12,000 soldiers in the imperial camp, including Wang De's army, Fu Qing's army, Huyan Tong's army, Qiao Zhongfu's army, Zhang Jing's army, Xin Xingzong's army, and Xin Yongzong's army. Zhao Jiu visited them one by one. In addition to reissuing the military salaries, he also took the opportunity to check the vacancies, draw up a rough roster, and promoted some grassroots officers. Then he watched more than a dozen sumo matches, two Cuju games, and saw countless weird tattoos... Finally, he personally wrote a rough military medical regulation, such as not allowing drinking raw water, spreading quicklime on the ground, and boiling bandages in boiling water. Then he returned to the city with satisfaction.
However, just after returning to the city and before entering the palace, Emperor Zhao met Yan Xiaozhong, the acting prefect of Nanyang Prefecture, on the street outside the palace, whom he had not seen for only two days, and then learned an absurd thing from Yan Shaoyin.
"I...what does this mean?" The weather was a little gloomy, but there were many pedestrians and officials who were hurriedly bowing and greeting on the main street of Nanyang Prefecture. Although they did not look up at this time, they were all listening with their ears perked up. Emperor Zhao's face was flushed, and he was stunned for a long time before he reacted.
"What I mean is," Yan Xiaozhong replied solemnly, "Your Majesty has just arrived in Nanyang, and the people of Nanyang are seeing you for the first time, so the people in the city are curious and everyone is watching your behavior. At this time, please be careful to avoid rumors."
"That's not what I meant." Zhao Jiu came back to his senses and looked at the crowd of people around him. He was also extremely helpless. "What I meant was that I definitely didn't ask anyone to look for famous beauties in Nanyang! You, Yan Xiaozhong, clearly accompanied me to distribute military pay outside the city a few days ago, how could you not know? As for marrying all the women in Nanyang to the imperial soldiers... Even if I did have an order for the ministers to pay attention to marrying the soldiers to put their minds at ease, can you believe such a rumor?!"
"Of course I know." Yan Xiaozhong stamped his feet in front of his horse and said loudly. "Of course I don't believe it! I guess those who spread the news just thought it was a joke when it first spread, but as it spread more and more, people became more and more convinced! And in my opinion, the incident may not be caused by the usual marriage of soldiers, there must be some eye-catching twists and turns... Your Majesty, the reason why I came here to wait is because there are rumors that more than a dozen famous beauties and a hundred newly selected palace maids are already in the palace!"
Zhao Jiu was stunned, but he looked at Yang Yizhong and Feng Yi who were accompanying him.
The latter two understood and immediately went to the palace. But after a moment, they hurried back and spoke in a low voice with Emperor Zhao.
Emperor Zhao finally understood what was going on, and issued an order in public to summon all the famous beauties and palace maids out of the palace.
In this way, they waited for another half an hour. Everyone watched helplessly as seven or eight small curtained carriages, each surrounded by a dozen maids and servants, drove out of the palace. Emperor Zhao then shook his head repeatedly, reined in his horse and stepped forward, and personally spoke to the pile of curtained carriages:
"My dear ladies, it's not that I don't like your looks, nor that I don't want to enjoy a gentle and peaceful life. It's just that the country is in danger, and the Jin people can come at any time... It's not that there is no point in going home until the Xiongnu is destroyed, but that in the future, I may have to go out on military business like I have these few days, and not live in the palace... If I were not here, you would have lived in this temporary palace for a few days, and you should have seen how deserted this palace is, how scarce things are, and I'm afraid it's not even as good as ordinary wealthy families. So why do so many of you spend your youth in such a place for nothing? You must know that even my original concubines were settled in front of the Queen Mother of Yangzhou and have never come here. So, I will make the decision for you today. Those who want to go home can go home, and those who don't want to go home, I will find a good marriage for you! What do you think?"
After a while, apart from the laughter coming from the two curtained carriages, there was no other movement. Even the many trusted ministers behind him watched and kept silent, because this kind of matter was not something that the ministers should get involved in, and the only good opportunity for the ministers to get involved was snatched away by Yan Xiaozhong, so they could only pretend not to see it.
When Emperor Zhao saw this, he simply stepped forward and pointed with his hand, giving the eight curtained carriages in turn to Han Shizhong, Yuwen Xuzhong, Lü Benzhong (Lü Haowen's eldest son, the newly appointed Zhongshu Sheren), Zhang Jun, Hu Yin, Lin Jingmo, Yan Xiaozhong, Liu Ziyu... Except Han Shizhong, all of them were ministers, famous scholars, and close officials who did not have many family members accompanying them. He hoped that these people, who were born as civil officials, would be more particular and would be better to the women.
However, Liu Ziyu knelt down again and said that he was in mourning, so the curtained carriage assigned to him was again assigned to Yang Yi Zhong by the emperor.
After dealing with this mess, Emperor Zhao finally breathed a sigh of relief, and then led everyone outside the palace into the palace.
Since they had entered the palace, Emperor Zhao did not pursue the intentions of Lan Gui and others. Instead, he changed his clothes and hurriedly issued an edict, asking the ministers, the Chief Censor, the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Camp and the Assistant Military Officers of the Ministry of Personnel under the Privy Council, as well as the Secretary of the Central Secretariat, the Academicians of the Jade Hall, the Palace Censors and other close ministers, plus a special person named Yan Xiaozhong, the Acting Governor of Nanyang Prefecture, to gather in the palace to discuss military and national affairs.
These are basically all the core personnel in the so-called secondary capital.
Those who had originally come to the palace naturally did not mention it. The other ministers and important officials who arrived in a hurry naturally learned about what was happening outside the palace on the way. However, with so many military and national affairs in front of them, although everyone looked at each other awkwardly in the palace, they did not dare to mention it for a while.
"Mr. Lu is the Prime Minister of the temporary capital, let's have a brief summary first!" Zhao Jiu, dressed in casual clothes and with a normal expression, hurried into the hall, as if such an embarrassing thing had never happened before. After he sat down on the cold throne, he heard the constant gurgling sounds outside the hall, but he didn't care much about it. Instead, he spoke directly to the matter.
"Reporting to the emperor." Lu Haowen stepped forward awkwardly, took several deep breaths to calm down, and then reported his work. "The matter of local rule is under the overall supervision of Minister Xu, and he has made a rough proposal. However, this matter involves a lot of things, and the central departments, temples, and courts are very short of staff. Local officials also have many vacancies after the war from last winter to this spring. Therefore, we can only ask some people to stabilize the military and prefectures and let them do a rough job first. If we want to come up with a proper proposal and deal with it properly, I'm afraid we have to wait until the personnel are in place..."
"I understand this." Zhao Jiu remained calm, but paused. "On the way here, I figured it out. We are determined to fight against the Jin. The first thing is to be able to fight. In order to fight, in addition to selecting generals and training soldiers on the front line, we also need to gather food and money in the rear. To properly gather food and money, we have to do two things: one is to increase revenue, and the other is to maintain stability... Tuduan is both to increase revenue and to maintain stability. It is a long-term plan. We can do as much as we can. We don't expect you to succeed in March and be ready in May."
"The government is wise." No one knew whether the words "open source" and "maintaining stability" hit the nail on the head, or whether the government's unhurried attitude made people feel at ease, or whether it was because he was embarrassed about some things, anyway, Lu Haowen's attitude today was very good, and he even said the word "wise".
"But I have two more points to make about this matter." Seeing the other party's praise, and having a great time outside the city these days, Emperor Zhao couldn't help but feel a little flattered, so he recalled his high-end online knowledge and said a few more words. "One is to set up pacification envoys and control envoys... In short, in places where troops are stationed, we must handle it properly. On the one hand, we recognize that they do some things to attract refugees in order to support and comfort the troops, but on the other hand, we must adhere to the big principles and not let them do anything excessive. We can't control the faraway ones now, but if Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun make trouble, there is no need to worry. Just come to me to impeach them, and I will talk to them! You must know that they may be bastards, but they will not have ambitions after all!"
At this time in the palace, apart from Yang Yizhong and Liu Yan who were as stiff as wood on the left and right, and a few eunuchs, the ones who were qualified to discuss politics were actually all civil officials, except for Wang Yuan, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Camp... When everyone heard this, they had different thoughts. Some thought that Emperor Zhao had thought it through properly and knew to guard against these military generals, while others thought that Emperor Zhao still trusted Han and Zhang too much.
But for a moment, apart from Lu Haowen bowing his head and saying "I have received the order", there was no other sound, as if they were waiting for the second point.
"The second is the problem of the officials." Zhao Jiu hesitated for a moment as he looked at the civil officials in the hall, then gritted his teeth and said, "Officials and officials are separated, and their relationship is like fire and water. This is a common problem in the local area. Officials cannot suppress their officials, so they will be bullied by them... I don't understand local affairs, but this should be the case, right?"
"yes!"
"Exactly."
Officials from local areas such as Yan Xiaozhong and Liu Ji immediately responded sporadically.
"Just now I heard that there is a shortage of local officials." Zhao Jiu sighed. "But most of the administrative affairs are handled by clerks. In this extraordinary time, can we give them some benefits from a political perspective?"
"What does the official mean?"
"I think, in times of national crisis, can we take advantage of this opportunity to make exceptions and allow some officials with outstanding contributions to be promoted to county magistrate and assistant magistrate?" Zhao Jiu asked tentatively.
The silence in the hall was eerily quiet for a moment, but this silence was different from the previous silence... In fact, as soon as Emperor Zhao spoke, he realized that he was a little impatient, and then regretted it slightly.
Again, the bureaucrats of the Song Dynasty generally had conservative characteristics. This had nothing to do with the New Party or the Old Party's advocacy of war or peace, but was due to the political ecology created by the style of scholars, national policies, Confucianism, and the political traditions formed by the officials and scholar-officials of the Zhao and Song dynasties.
Although there have been successes for new parties and officials doing things under the banner of new parties, there are many things that people feel are wrong deep down, let alone such particularly excessive behavior.
This is blatantly using officials to encroach on the lifeblood of the scholar-officials!
Even Lu Haowen, who was born under the influence of a family, dared not say a word about this kind of thing... In fact, there are such officials, and the so-called "selection of people" still exists . In other words, Emperor Zhao's strategy is not without precedent. However, those remote military states that are common in the south and Guanxi are basically impossible to successfully become regular officials in the capital without passing the imperial examination. The military states that need to be judged are either the large states along the Huai River to the west of the capital, or the wealthy military states behind. These positions are originally exclusive to officials in the capital, so how can they be the same?
Here, leaving aside theories, there is only the reality that "once an official, always an official."
In the final analysis, the official civil servants of the Song Dynasty, or the so-called Beijing officials, were mainly those who came from the imperial examinations or those who were granted imperial favors, with a small number of people such as students from the Imperial Academy mixed in. Among them, the proportion of officials who were granted imperial favors was extremely high, and they could also reach the top positions, but it is worth mentioning that scholars are scholars, literati are literati, and those who were granted imperial favors can also be scholars, not to mention students from the Imperial Academy, so the boundaries between the groups are extremely clear, and even those who were granted imperial favors must have sufficient knowledge to be actually accepted by the literati.
Back to the present, it is not uncommon for the literati to be squeezed by the unlearned officials among the imperial officials, and even in this time of national crisis, there appeared a prime minister like Lu Haowen who was born in the imperial family, but is this not enough? What are the clerks? Can they also be appointed as county magistrates and magistrates on a large scale?
"It's just a temporary measure, a temporary emergency measure, and it's limited to the basic national policy of Tuduan." After a pause, Zhao Jiu suddenly laughed. "Besides, aren't you guys shouting about the lack of personnel? And didn't we use the recommendation system of the Han Dynasty on the road before? Will we continue to use it? When things are settled and the threat of the Jin people is lessened, we will eventually hold an imperial examination to recruit scholars. Otherwise, just stop at the county magistrate?"
Everyone was relieved at this point... Just think of it as the government granting special favors to a group of people.
And Lu Haowen looked back at the expressions of the other ministers, then bowed his head again and shouted, "Your Majesty has received your order."
After Tuduan, Lü Haowen wanted to report the matter of Fan Qiong, but was suppressed by Emperor Zhao, who instead talked about Guanzhong. Prime Minister Lü also quickly put forward Yuwen Xu's countermeasures, which was "strengthen Wuguan and move forward cautiously", "send envoys from Hanzhong to inquire", and other usual strategies. He also listed a very valuable list of Western Army generals in the note!
It is said that this was the result of several days of hard work by Prime Minister Yuwen, who made inquiries from various sources and ranked the possible survivors based on their qualifications, merits, and troops.
All I can say is that these men are not really incompetent. If you assign tasks to them, you can still squeeze out some money.
As for the next 'Sun Mo' case, Liu Ji proposed a strategy of posthumously awarding Sun Mo the title and transferring Pei Dezuping to Huaidong... Emperor Zhao did not care about this, because before clear witnesses and evidence appeared, this case could only be a Rashomon with no truth. And what Emperor Zhao wanted was Liu Ji, a semi-'party involved', to personally mediate, so as not to affect the two real important officials, Liu Ji and Zong Ze, as well as the related recruitment work in western Beijing.
After this incident, everyone couldn't help but feel awkward, because the next thing to come was the mess of "military marriage".
