Brother Song Taizu

Chapter 244 The Dust Settles
Zhao Kuangyin's sudden arrogance broke Zhao Guangmei's waist.

He had given up at first and thought of just dealing with it, but he didn't expect that his eldest brother would suddenly take such a stand.

Such a decisive killing was so far from the image of Zhao Kuangyin in history that even Zhao Guangmei had to look at Zhao Kuangyin with admiration.

Of course, this change was actually established by Zhao Guangmei, because Zhao Kuangyin's rule was not stable in history. He was frightened by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms and the chaos at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and he had to put most of his energy into suppressing the warriors. On the other hand, they have done a lot to win over the civil servant group, but some things can actually be passed by turning a blind eye.

It was precisely because Zhao Guangmei founded a trading company that tied the interests of Zhao Song Sheji and the vast number of military households that he finally no longer had to compromise with the civil servant group or even the general group.

Under such a large-scale investigation, it is impossible to find out all civil servants, there must be military generals and even generals, but so what?Zhao Kuangyin believed that with this alliance between him and Zhao Guangmei, even if these corrupt officials joined forces regardless of civil or military affairs, it would still be impossible to shake his power.

And this time, because it is directly said to be anti-corruption, in fact, the anti-corruption is more about crimes of unknown origin of huge amounts of property. Especially those petty officials, even petty officials, and even relatives and white gloves of those officials are all targets of investigation.

For example, the police officers, arresters, captains, and even the officers of each house are all high-risk areas.

What's even more ridiculous is that in some counties and prefectures, the leading officials had just been arrested for judicial corruption, and the court took mercy and directly promoted the officials like the custodians. These officials were not happy for a few days, and then they were left behind. Because this time the investigation has come down again, and in severe cases, they may even be exiled.

Moreover, many of them have really worked hard in the past few months and are really not greedy.

A large number of items on the market were also investigated, and then traced back to various officials through them. Anti-corruption and anti-gangsterism were mixed together, and they were all mixed together.

For a time, everyone in the officialdom of the Song Dynasty was in danger, and officials were in dire straits.

In the local area, many gangsters reappeared, and even mutinies did occur among the Forbidden Army. Some civil servants forced the palace, some committed suicide, and some even collaborated with local powerful people to rebel.

Zhao Guangmei also personally took charge, once again acting as the fire-fighting captain to put out fires everywhere. She was very busy, but even though the world was so corrupt, the two brothers' determination to check the accounts did not waver at all.

Zhao Guangmei still used the method of deceiving the peasants to rebel and then recruit them, which was enough to stun most powerful landlords. He even directly sent people from the east and west factories to guide farmers in various places how to form associations.

Once the local government dares to collude with the powerful to resist the central government, it will immediately arrange for peasant cooperatives to rebel.

They don't feel bad when their own family's empire is harmed by themselves, so how can these officials threaten the two brothers?Indeed, I have never encountered such a strange ruler in history.

Zhao Guangmei really doesn't care. Only by smashing the old can we develop new ones. Sometimes it's not a bad thing to shed a little blood. To a certain extent, he even supports broken window economics.

That is to say, it is a good thing for children to smash windows, because buying glass and installing glass will produce economic benefits. Of course, the owner of the house could actually use the money to buy glass to buy other things, but in fact, the key to this problem is that the owner of the house is Not one of our own?

Modern countries generally focus on smashing the windows of other countries, but in the Song Dynasty, Zhao Guangmei felt that if the glass of the bureaucratic landlord class was smashed, it would be broken. They would lose money, and the working class and the business class would make money, a win-win situation.

Zhao Kuangyin didn't care, because Zhao Song's control of the army has become more and more firmly grasped at the bottom, and it is almost atomized. If any middle-level general wants to carry out a mutiny like before, and says he wants to rebel, all his soldiers will be killed. Wouldn't agree.

In his opinion, the fact that the army would actually rebel because of corruption investigations essentially means that the court does not have enough control over this army. That means that even if this army does not rebel now, it will sooner or later.

It's better for you to rebel now and I'll kill you quickly.

What's more important is that they are really not afraid of chain reactions.

This is called self-confidence.

Anyway, no one knows whether those reactionaries will launch a major counterattack in the future, but at least within half a year, under Zhao Song's brutal suppression, these reactionary forces did not make any big splash.

Of course, there are still troubles, and there are many. To be honest, in most areas of the current Song Dynasty, the social structure is actually very similar to Ah San in the 21st century. Many powerful people are still between landlords and business owners. Except for Feng Yangzhou The problem of slums in cities outside Chengdu and a few other big cities has not been solved well, and it still takes time. The riots caused by this have resulted in more than tens of thousands of deaths.

Some people whose interests were harmed by the New Deal are also taking the opportunity to cause chaos. After all, do any policies have side effects?

But no matter what, even in modern Asan, the lives of ordinary people are far better than in almost any other feudal era, not to mention that these ordinary people have come from the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, and their tolerance is actually very high.

Again, after the Song Dynasty court canceled the agricultural tax, the country was iron-clad and no one could shake it.

At the same time, the imperial court also took the opportunity to carry out political reforms. Because a large number of officials were investigated, and there were not enough replacement officials, the imperial court began to engage in Enco on a large scale. Within six months, it was enough Opened Enko eight times!
Because the shortage of officials is really too big.

And some officials who had done nothing wrong couldn't stand it anymore. To be honest, the officialdom rectification in the Song Dynasty was a bit too frequent. Officials with a slightly weaker spirit couldn't stand such a tossing method. They had no problem but were frightened into something. Come.

Instead of being an official who has to be on tenterhooks all day long and be engaged in activities every three days, it is better to do some business casually by using the contacts accumulated as an official.

Nowadays, it is easy to make a fortune doing business in the Song Dynasty, and the status of merchants is not bad. Big merchants are really no worse than ordinary officials.

Jinshi has not been cancelled, and young Jinshi are still admitted to the Imperial Academy. However, almost everyone who failed to pass the Jinshi has been appointed. Whether it is Mingjing Mingshu or Mingfa, they may even be more popular. There are countless The gap was waiting for them, being robbed wildly.

The number of Cao officials in each government has almost increased, and even the Yushitai has more than doubled as a result. Of course, the expansion is for officials rather than officials.

If it is really too late to make up for the scientific examination, then the only option is to imitate Zhu Yuanzhang and let them work in chains.

At the same time, a large number of people are recruited from the Forbidden Army to serve as subordinate subordinates at the grassroots level. Anyway, the education work in the army is doing pretty well now, and most of them are literate and have received basic Confucian education.

Even the Third Division led by Xue Juzheng took the opportunity to expand its recruitment on a very large scale. The Third Division is now getting bigger and bigger. Even Zhao Guangmei only learned that the Third Division is now chatting with Xue Juzheng when she asked casually that day. There are actually more than 4 people in company with officials and officials.

And according to Xue Juzheng, it's not fucking enough.

Now the three divisions at the grassroots level can barely function, and they have to rely on the county governments in each county. He estimates that if they want to be completely transferred away, the entire Song Dynasty may need [-] subordinate officials!
How many fucking people are there in the army? !

Then Xue Juzheng said that now the subordinate officials of the third division also receive regular military training, and they can still fight with weapons when needed.

However, such a large-scale subordinate staff can actually support themselves and earn tens of millions of fucking dollars for the imperial court every year. I am also convinced. This old Xue is now considered to be better than his predecessors. He can lead the three divisions without any guidance. The pipes are in order.

In fact, the functions of the three departments now are indeed very different from those in the past. They are basically equivalent to the Finance Bureau + Grain Bureau + Supply and Marketing Cooperative. They have basically replaced the original county government's management of the agricultural population, but they only focus on making money and not taking responsibility. Any governance responsibilities.

The power of his prime minister may have gradually surpassed that of Zhao Pu, but he was extremely low-key and unobtrusive. The entire system was an independent kingdom.

Of course, any policy has side effects. The phenomenon of redundant officials and redundant personnel, especially redundant officials, has actually begun to show its signs, but they are basically within the acceptable range.

It was noisy that this matter finally came to an end after more than half a year. Some people were happy and some were sad. The political ecology of the court was once again greatly changed, but it seemed that, for For ordinary people, there is no difference.Although the tax revenue during the summer tax season was much less than last year, the huge amount of fines and forfeitures made up for this gap.

On the contrary, his second brother Zhao Guangyi has hardly moved in the past six months. His most trusted direct descendant Shi Xizai was killed, but he acted like a normal person and did not intercede for Shi Xizai.

Of course, the entire movement ended at Shi Xizai's point, and indeed no bucket of dirty water was poured on him.

There have been a lot of gang wars in Kaifeng City during this period, with thousands of people killed and injured, and hundreds of officials implicated. But no matter who is interrogating, these things have nothing to do with him. , trying to be quiet during the whole process.

He even never returned to Kaifeng in the past six months. He was focused on the construction of Luoyang City and was very busy supervising the construction work everywhere. The only thing he told the court was that the construction of Luoyang was going very smoothly and it was expected that within a year If the basic construction is completed within two years, the relocation of the imperial court will definitely be completed.

This movement seems to have finally calmed down after half a year of turmoil.

At least it's calm on the surface.

Until a new major event diverted the court's attention.

………………

After the beginning of summer, the internal affairs of the imperial court finally stabilized. It seemed that everything was finally back on track and the dust settled, and the officials finally calmed down a little bit.

Then something fucking happened.

"The Southern Han Dynasty and Dali invaded our Song Dynasty? Huh? Have they all fought back?"

After receiving the battle report, Zhao Guangmei couldn't laugh or cry. She even wondered whether the military felt that there was no big thing recently and was too bored, so it was looking for trouble for itself.

Or maybe there is someone behind the scenes who is guiding them to divert the conflict, hoping that the two brothers will shift their attention abroad and stop focusing on such trivial matters at home.

As for saying that it was the Southern Han Dynasty and Dali who took the initiative to send troops to provoke the Song Dynasty, Zhao Guangmei definitely didn't believe it, and I'm afraid no one believed it, just like the Han envoys in the Western Han Dynasty who were often humiliated when they went out.

It was clear that the army could no longer hold it in any longer.

In fact, it is not impossible for the Southern Han Dynasty to take the initiative to provoke, because their emperor is a lunatic, severely mentally retarded, and his internal rule is really cruel.

For example, he felt that the ministers were all unreliable, so he ordered all ministers across the country to be castrated.

Especially for the generals in charge of the troops, he felt that only eunuchs leading the troops would not engage in the practice of wearing yellow robes.

I don’t know if he has never studied history or something.

Because all the ministers were castrated by him, and the wives of the ministers were all widowed. The kind emperor could not bear to let his loyal ministers and wives be lonely, so he went to work the fields himself.

Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the so-called provocation was intentional by some military generals or local civil officials in order to have the Song Dynasty soldiers rush to unify them.

To be honest, the reason why the Southern Han Dynasty can still maintain its power is probably because of their self-castration, decentralization of power, and the Forbidden Army command system that is more complicated and rubbish than that of the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty. Perhaps the most important thing is the North Look. These four words are Master Wang.

Everyone knows that sooner or later everyone will be unified by the Northern Song Dynasty, and there is no point in rebelling.

But to say that Dali took the initiative to provoke...

Who the hell is the letter!

It must be that boy Zhao Dezhao who is dishonest again.

He has always been thinking about playing Dali.

When the news of the two-front war spread back to the capital, the officials of the imperial court and Zhao Kuangyin himself were not in a hurry, but the Privy Council and the Imperial Guard in Beijing were really anxious.

Especially the imperial guards stationed in Beijing.

Several commanders asked for a fight while jumping high.

I'm afraid that if they make another mistake, before they can attack as reinforcements, the two countries will be wiped out by a wave of self-defense counterattacks by the border troops.

Military exploits!
Military merit can be exchanged for stocks for grassroots soldiers.

And the key is that there are not many military achievements left.

We have reached Khotan in the west, and the Silk Road is right in front of us. If we go further, we can only go to Luntai to eat sand.

The Khitans in the north were obviously not easy to eat, and the Song army had to admit that the Khitans were indeed brave, and they were not that easy to fight.

The only weak persimmons left are Nanhan and Dali.

Of course, Southern Tang may also be a soft persimmon. The problem is that Southern Tang is too soft. After the Southern Han Dynasty is defeated, they will be surrounded from all sides. Li Yu usually behaves so well. Then Southern Tang will not be able to defeat them. I'm afraid it's hard to say whether to fight or not.

Maybe he voted directly like Wu Yueguo?

Everyone has a feeling that this is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and whoever grabs it will make a profit.

In order to serve as reinforcements, it is said that several commanders of the two divisions even started fighting in the Privy Council.

At this time, Zhao Guangmei was actually having a headache, and was even a little embarrassed.

It is definitely possible to win a war, but when the Song Dynasty considers military issues, it has long stopped considering whether it can win the war. Instead, it has to consider the subsequent cost of governance.

Who should be sent to oversee the army?
Do we still need to send in supervisory troops?
(End of this chapter)