People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 277 A glass of wine relieves the red army

Zhao Jun obviously didn't know how chaotic Jiangmen was before.

Due to the indulgence of the imperial court, the noble sons of the generals were allowed to act wantonly.

From the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin released his military power with a glass of wine, so that he allowed generals and nobles to collect money according to orders.

According to historical records, Shi Shouxin "served in various towns for many years, specialized in amassing money, and accumulated a fortune of tens of millions"; Wang Quanbin "destroyed Shu and seized the treasures and silks of the children of the people" and sent troops to plunder the center of Shu.

On the day when Wang Rengan defeated Shu, he "acquire Li Tinggui, a prostitute, and open the Fengde treasury to get gold and treasures"; Chu Zhaofu "was quite stingy, and gave thousands of plans before and after, gathering them all and raising them."

The rest of the early Song generals such as Cui Yanjin, Cao Han, Zhang Duo, Tian Jingxian, Wang Hui, and Li Hanchao all made a lot of money.

Strictly speaking, I don't blame them. It was Zhao Kuangyin who forced them to do this. For example, Wang Quanbin was a good person before he released his military power over a glass of wine. He "disregards wealth and favors people, does not seek reputation, is generous and tolerant of people, and enjoys military service."

After a glass of wine and releasing his military power, he seemed to be a different person. On the day of conquering Shu, he actually took the lead and allowed his subordinates to plunder Shu. Collecting goods and wealth will gather the resentment and resentment of the people, causing the robbers to swarm."

Obviously doing this is purely to protect yourself from self-destruction, and it is a last resort.

But the result of this was that although the generals Men Xungui in the early Song Dynasty lost their military power, they had a high political status and were very arrogant and domineering. Even if they did bad things, Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Guangyi would often protect them.

With such actions and deeds, many of the noble generals' descendants would naturally not be too restrained. They were domineering and arrogant. Some even killed people at will. One of the second-generation generals, Wang Jixun, was a cannibal.

However, during the period of Song Zhenzong and Song Renzong, the situation became much better. The first generation military generals were basically relieved of their military power, and the military power was firmly in the hands of the emperor.

In addition, Zhao Heng and Zhao Zhen did not have a deep relationship with the generals, so they basically did not protect them very much. Instead, they began to reuse civilian officials. Once the censors, admonishers and the like impeached the generals and nobles, they would often be severely punished.

Therefore, at this period, the second and third generations of military commanders have restrained themselves a lot, at least they dare not cause trouble openly.

Therefore, Zhao Jun thought that the generals and nobles were particularly low-key, but he did not know that he did not know much about the internal situation in the army, and had no idea that the generals and nobles had done many illegal and disciplined things in their own three-quarter acre of land.

I naively thought that the generals and nobles were worried about the future. As long as they set an example and let the Cao family become rich, other families could follow suit smoothly and solve the problem of redundant troops.

Therefore, at the regular meeting of the Constitutional Yuan in early September, Zhao Jun proposed a vision plan for the fourth year of Qingli to completely solve the three-redundancy problem.

That is, in the army, a large number of old, weak, sick and disabled people were eliminated and fields were distributed to the old and weak. State-owned companies were established to allow young people who could not fight to participate in projects such as building rivers, digging canals, and water conservancy facilities, and even participating in overseas voyages.

The number of troops currently retained is about 800,000, and it is expected that about 400,000 will be eliminated. Among the remaining 800,000 people, the Xiang Army accounted for 300,000, and the Forbidden Army accounted for 500,000. If the local Xiang army is too old and weak, part of the forbidden army will be transferred to the local Xiang army.

In terms of weapons and equipment, firearms are first supplied to the 50,000 elite Imperial Guards led by Fan Zhongyan. The other 750,000 troops are still mainly equipped with cold weapons. Even if steel production capacity is about to explode, it will take time. How can it be so fast?

Therefore, the best choice is to focus on the supply of elites first and ensure the combat effectiveness of the army.

In this way, some measures can also solve the survival problem of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have been eliminated. At the same time, the original military expenditures are transformed into construction expenditures of the Ministry of Industry, which in disguise reduces military expenditures and increases construction costs. It can be said that Kill multiple birds with one stone.

Regarding officials, it is emphasized that officials should be prioritized and promoted, and those with outstanding political performance should be prioritized for promotion and transfer. If the political performance is not outstanding, or even very poor, even if they are not greedy or embezzling, they will not be promoted, and will have to record demerits, demote, and dismissal. deal with.

In terms of redundancy, we should reduce government spending, slowly reduce the benefits of officials at all levels, and transfer this part to performance-based pay. And restrictions were placed on royal expenditures to prevent the Ministry of Internal Affairs from paying eight taels of silver for one egg.

The only good thing about the Northern Song Dynasty was the strict control over the clans. clans in the fifth service were not allowed to leave the capital. They adopted the policy of "supporting them well but not using them". They were only given salaries, fiefs and food, but no official positions or military power.

Moreover, the state of Zuo in the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties was not very long, only more than a hundred years, so the number of clans was not large. By the time of Song Renzong, there were only four generations: Zhao Kuangyin, Zhao Guangyi, Zhao Huan and Zhao Zhen.

The three brothers Zhao Kuangyin, Zhao Guangyi, and Zhao Tingmei have a total of 24 sons, 60 grandsons, and 227 great-great-grandchildren. By the fourth generation, the entire clan has only 1062 descendants.

At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the number of the clans of the three brothers was less than 10,000. The Jin army went south and massacred the clans. Therefore, at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the number of clans surnamed Zhao was less than 50,000. Compared with the clan troubles in previous dynasties, there was still a big gap. big.

Therefore, Zhao Jun, apart from proposing to let Da Zongzheng Sicheng, whose surname is not known, be responsible for the strict management of the clan, did not take any action on the clan's expenditures. He even planned to wait for the right time in a few years to relax clan control and allow outstanding talents in the clan to become officials. Serve as an official or something like that.

According to Zhao Jun's calculations, the current annual expenditure of the Northern Song Dynasty can reach more than 80 million guan, including 50 million guan in military expenditure, about 16 million guan in official salary expenditure, and millions in redundant expenses.

Then there are the messy expenses such as education, construction, research and development, subsidies, acquisitions, subsidies, etc. that add up to only about 10 million yuan.

If the army can be reduced from the current registered strength of about 1.2 million to 800,000, military expenditures can be directly reduced by one-third, and redundant officials and redundant expenses can be reduced by several million more. It can save about 20 million yuan a year.

Calculating the expenditures of Wang Jing in the Han Dynasty and Pan Ji in the Ming Dynasty to repair the Yellow River, if this money had been invested in the management of the Yellow River, not to mention one Yellow River, three or four Yellow Rivers would have been repaired.

Therefore, Zhao Jun still attaches great importance to this matter.

In order to dispel Jiangmen's concerns, Zhao Jun, while conveying goodwill to Jiangmen, led the Cao family to form a sea trade fleet.

Naturally, this fleet was not heading to North America, but to Korea and Japan. Although the number of fleets heading to Japan and Korea is increasing, and the market share is gradually becoming saturated, Zhao Jun still has people in Japan.

From the formation of the fleet in September to the departure in October, it first arrived in Korea and then went to Japan. After dumping the cargo on the ship, they returned at the end of November and arrived at Tongzhou Port in early January of the fourth year of Qingli.

And since the trade was in hard currency, the sulfur, copper, and iron brought back from Japan were basically digested by the imperial court and purchased directly with money, so it was almost a guaranteed profit.

The Cao family invested more than 100,000 yuan, and finally divided more than 200,000 yuan, doubling the profit.

In addition, Zhao Jun also asked the Cao family to clear out some of the approximately 4,000 soldiers in some of the camps they had previously directly managed, form an engineering and construction corps, and contracted out several river construction projects downstream of Bianliang to them.

Construction started in September and was basically completed in January of next year. Apart from the wages paid to the soldiers to build the river, this trip brought in another 70,000 to 80,000 yuan in net profit.

The Cao family made a lot of money.

Cao Cong himself had no intention of rejecting the imperial court, but his family could not represent the opinions of other families.

Zhao Jun believes that as long as the Cao family sets an example, other families will soon follow suit.

On January 10, the fourth year of Qingli, at the regular meeting of the Constitutional Yuan, Zhao Jun sat in the main seat and looked around at everyone.

Because tomorrow is Zhao Jun's thirtieth birthday, he is still very happy.

Although a birthday makes you one year older, it is still a happy day, not to mention that this afternoon is the time to prepare for the showdown. "Corps, sweet potatoes, potatoes and other crops have also been promoted and planted in Gyeonggi Road. The yield is not so exaggerated that the yield per mu is 1,000 kilograms, but it is slightly higher than that of rice and wheat."

"And it does not occupy farmland. In this case, as long as the court provides certain subsidies, I believe that a large number of people will be willing to cultivate these crops."

"The production method of chemical fertilizer has been promoted across the country and has been included in the performance considerations of local governments. The disadvantage is that the price of gypsum is skyrocketing. Now the court is urgently digging gypsum mines, but there is no shortage of this stuff. It is available all over the country. .”

"Through the expansion of production, the Wu'an Iron and Steel Plant has reached a half-year output of about four million kilograms of steel, which is about more than 20,000 tons when converted into the tons that Hanlong often talks about. It is comparable to one-eighth of the current annual iron production of the Song Dynasty. "

"There are some other miscellaneous matters. Looking at the work summary of last year, various data have improved significantly. For example, the revenue from marine trade in the second half of last year has reached 19 million yuan, an increase of 3 million yuan compared with the second half of the previous year. Well done, congratulations."

Fan Zhongyan was making a speech and said with a smile: "In addition, after the planning of this year's major disarmament project is completed, we will have enough manpower to start digging the canal between Mingshui and Zhangshui, and we can build a steel plant in Handan. Let us Steel production has increased again, which is good news."

“As long as you’re at the bottom of the valley, you’re always going to climb up.”

Zhao Jun also said with a smile: "The Song Dynasty is now on the rise. What it lacked before was just a vision for the future. Now there is the Constitutional Yuan to control the situation. As long as we follow the Constitution Yuan unswervingly, the country will be better. , within a hundred years, my eastern pole strategy will inevitably be completed."

Lu Yijian and Wang Zeng actually already knew about this year's plan. They kept it secret from them before because they couldn't find a particularly good solution, which caused them to severely oppose it. But now that they have found a way, it doesn't matter.

Anyway, they have no conflicts of interest in the army.

Lu Yijian coughed twice. Since the beginning of this spring, several elderly people in the Political Institute have been in poor health. Historically, these people have died one after another in recent years. They are still alive solely because of the medicine brought by Zhao Jun.

After he finished coughing, he said in a deep voice: "On the matter of redundant officials and redundant expenses, it is not impossible to make up your mind and find a way to implement it. But on the matter of redundant troops, I have always felt that we should do it step by step. It’s enough to lay off tens of thousands of people every year, so why do it across the board?”

"How long will it take to lay off tens of thousands of people every year? How long will it take to lay off more than one million people?"

Zhao Jun frowned and said: "Now is a period of great development, so we can't be timid. What's more, the court has found a livelihood for these people, and their future is better than in the military camp."

"It's still the same problem. If it's stable in the military camp, the soldiers may not agree to it."

Lu Yijian hesitated for a moment and didn't say anything.

"And what?"

"And in fact, we have all heard that the vacancy may be more than 200,000."

Wang Zeng said tentatively: "I'm afraid the gap is very big."

They actually don't know the specific situation, but after all, they have been prime ministers for so many years, so naturally they have heard something about it.

"."

Zhao Jun was silent for a while and then said: "Well, it doesn't matter much. As long as they all agree and cooperate with the reform, it doesn't matter if the quota is larger. I have to pay for the sins my ancestors have done."

Who asked his ancestors to release their military power with a glass of wine, and let the generals and nobles collect wealth according to orders? If this matter were pursued, Zhao Kuangyin would probably have to be pulled out of the tomb and whipped.

Therefore, Zhao Jun really has no way to blame the generals and nobles. He can only blame his ancestors for laying the groundwork for future generations.

"I hope they can accept the conditions we offer."

Yan Shu said finally.

Now that Zhao Jun has pointed out the direction, everyone naturally agrees to support solving the problem of three redundancies.

After all, first of all, it does not involve their own interests, and secondly, the civil servant group does have some opinions on the three-redundancy issue, so even with some supporters, everyone is still willing to follow Zhao Jun.

Then everyone talked about last year’s harvest summary and this year’s planning direction.

The meeting didn't end until early in the morning, that is, around 9 o'clock in the morning.

Zhao Jun did not work in the Constitutional Yuan today. He planned a lot of things last year, but he mainly did a lot of preliminary work to solve the disadvantages of three redundancies.

For example, we increased supervision and investigation, organized production and construction, continued to develop water conservancy facilities, built canals from previously unusable wasteland around Bianliang and in Henan, and developed approximately 800,000 acres more farmland.

From Song Zhenzong to Song Renzong, cultivated land increased explosively, from 2.9 million acres in the early Song Dynasty to 4.6 million acres in the early Song Renzong years. However, in the late Song Renzong period, it suddenly dropped to 2.3 million acres.

This is naturally caused by a large number of land annexations, landlords and land-owning officials concealing their land and paying less taxes.

In fact, land annexation is now serious, but the court is curbing this phenomenon and the scale has not continued to expand. And as local governments withhold part of the tax revenue, they can develop water conservancy facilities and increase the number of acres.

Therefore, we are in the period of national construction at this time, and the annual growth is still very good. Last year alone, the country added more than 7.2 million acres of farmland. It is expected that in the next twenty years, the number of farmland will reach million acres at the peak of the Northern Song Dynasty, allowing productivity to explode. increase.

Seeing that the current situation is very good, Zhao Jun naturally has to start preparing to solve the three-redundancy issue. He plans to let Lao Fan preside over the new policy to reform the three-redundancy issue in February this year.

In this way, starting from the first year of Qingli, the first round is to govern, the second round is to recuperate, and the third round is to eliminate ills.

Three rounds of New Deal.

The entire Song Dynasty will become healthy and progressive.

The only problem now is to appease the vested interest groups of the generals.

So in the morning, he asked Cao Xiu to inform all the generals and nobles, and in the name of Zhao Zhen, invite everyone to have a lunch together to discuss this issue.

Zhao Jun did not work in the Constitutional Yuan. Around ten o'clock, he went to Chongzheng Hall and talked with Zhao Zhen about what was going to be said at the meeting.

This time can be regarded as a different kind of drinking to release military power. It is best to have a good talk with them and solve the problem peacefully.

After the details were discussed, at noon, the generals and nobles who were raised like pigs from all walks of life dragged their families with them and were summoned by the emperor to the palace in the name of a banquet to participate in the meeting.

(End of this chapter)