People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 471 The Song Dynasty Needs to Spread Civilization to the World
“Clatter, clatter!~”

The sound of rain outside was much louder at noon than in the morning.

It was almost time for dinner, and several prime ministers tidied up the documents on the table and prepared to get up.

Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan had just finished exchanging interests and were also planning to go out for dinner.

At this moment, the door of the Constitutional Yuan was pushed open with a bang.

A cold wind blew in from the gate, causing several prime ministers present to look up at the door with displeasure.

No one dared to push the door of the Constitutional Court so rashly when it was closed in winter, not even the prime minister. It was the rule to open and close it gently.

But after a moment, everyone changed their expressions, looked at each other, and started laughing.

Because they saw that the door was not pushed open violently, but someone slipped at the door, bumped in and fell to the ground.

Especially since that person was Jia Changchao.

Actually, Jia Changchao is not that old. At the age of 55, he is considered young at least in the Constitutional Court.

So when the old men saw him, a man who was more than ten years younger than them, fall down, they were overjoyed.

Only Zhao Jun saw him fall. Thinking that Jia Changchao had been a little worried recently and even walked in a shaky manner, he could probably guess that it was because he was about to retire.

This year is also the end of Jia Changchao's second term. He was appointed prime minister at the age of 45. In addition to standing on the side of Lu Yijian, what is more important is that he can repair the river.

Otherwise, you won’t be able to pass Zhao Jun’s test.

But precisely because he took office too young, he retired too young. Fifty-five is already old in other positions, but it is the golden age in the officialdom.

Although during the Song Dynasty, many high-ranking officials became prime ministers in their forties, such as Fan Zhongyan, Lu Yijian, Wang Zeng and others who all became prime ministers in their forties, but who would be willing to have their term of office be only ten years?
This made Zhao Jun start to think about this problem.

It is not about considering extending the prime minister's term of office, but about what will happen after the prime minister retires.

He had never thought about it before because many prime ministers in the past died of illness during their term of office. Even if they were able to retire peacefully, people like Cai Qi, Song Shou and Jiang Tang are now over 60 years old.

In ancient times, this was considered a relatively long life, so many officials in their 40s in later generations were only at the department level, but in ancient times they could become prime ministers.

However, we cannot ignore the fact that some prime ministers lived longer lives, such as Zhang Shixun, who lived to be over 80 years old.

These people have rich experience in governance and even various specialized abilities. For example, Jia Changchao has unique insights into river management. He is also a great scholar of the time and is proficient in the exegesis of ancient texts.

If such people enter the Constitutional Yuan in their forties and retire in their fifties, it would be a waste of talent for the country.

Jia Changchao is the only one who is facing retirement at the age of 50.

Thinking of this, Zhao Jun pondered that even if Jia Changchao retired, he still had to be assigned a position to allow him to make use of his remaining energy, and he could not be allowed to retire and return home.

"The bluestone slabs at the entrance should be replaced. As more people pass by, they become slippery and it's easy for people to fall when it rains."

Jia Changchao didn't know whether he was hinting at something or was really complaining about something. He stood up with the help of the clerk near the door, stretched his right hand that had just supported him when he fell to the ground, shook his head and smiled bitterly, "Or maybe I'm just getting old."

"Prime Minister Jia is still young."

Du Yan stroked his beard and said, "Compared to me, I think Prime Minister Jia can be Prime Minister for another ten years."

This is true.

In the Constitutional Court, Jia Changchao is 60 years old, the youngest after Zhao Jun. Then there is Zheng Jian who just turned 60, and the rest are between 80 and .

After the death of the oldest Zhang Shixun and the second oldest Li Di, Du Yan, 74 years old, is currently the oldest.

Therefore, it can be said that the Constitutional Yuan is currently basically in a state of gerontocracy.

To change this situation, we probably have to wait until this term ends and let Fu Bi, Wen Yanbo, Han Qi and other "post-00s" come to power to change the blood.

Hearing the conversation between the two, Zhao Jun rolled his eyes and said jokingly with a smile: "I think Prime Minister Jia is still very young. It would be a pity if he left during this term. I will ask the government to let you stay in office, so that you can make use of your remaining energy."

"Ok?"

Fan Zhongyan frowned and said, "Isn't this breaking the rules?"

"Rules are made by people, and Prime Minister Jia's situation is rather special. Some things should be handled specially."

Zhao Jun winked at him and said, "Although I am currently finalizing that employees of state-owned enterprises should retire at the age of 50 and receive a pension, that is because the average life expectancy in the Song Dynasty is still relatively short. When the average life expectancy increases in the future, the retirement time will be postponed. But how can being an official be the same as working in a factory? You can't retire at the age of and stay at home idle. That would be a waste of talent."

"That's true."

Fan Zhongyan was no longer the ignorant and foolish boy he used to be. Seeing the look in Zhao Jun's eyes, he probably understood that his request for mercy from Zhao Zhen was fake, and his real intention was to give Jia Changchao a different position.

After all, Fan Zhongyan actually knew that since Zhao Jun proposed a ten-year term for the prime minister, this order must be maintained.

Otherwise, if every prime minister can retain his position in the future, wouldn’t that lead to the emergence of powerful ministers?

There is a high probability that after Zhao Jun's death, his successor would only serve in the position of Zhiyuan for ten years at most, and it would be impossible for him to control the government for a long time.

It can only be said that Zhao Jun was extremely special. Otherwise, according to the practice of the Song Dynasty, he would have been demoted to a local position as a prefect. How could he have remained in the position of prefect for fifteen years like he is now?

"If that is the case, then I would like to thank you very much."

Hearing Zhao Jun's words, Jia Changchao was stunned at first, then showed ecstasy, and then quickly adjusted his facial expression and said, "It's not that I'm obsessed with power, but I'm really worried about the Yellow River control project. In addition, the Ministry of Industry has been exploring the big river in recent years. If we can build a water conservancy hub on the big river and regulate the water conservancy project, it will definitely benefit the people."

"It's natural."

Zhao Jun smiled and was already thinking about what position he should give Jia Changchao.

As he was talking, Jia Changchao suddenly remembered something important and took out a document from his pocket and said, "Oh, by the way, I just passed by the Jinzouyuan on my way here and happened to see that they had an urgent document to deliver, so I just took it."

"Oh? What urgent article?"

Zhao Jun became interested. Generally speaking, ordinary official documents reported to the central government from various places are not under the jurisdiction of the Political and System Commission, but are sent to a certain department based on the content.

For example, if a water conservancy department wants to plan a water conservancy project, such as a river dam, it will require a large amount of steel bars and cement.

However, the productivity along the way was limited, and the central government needed to coordinate the allocation of steel and cement powder from Wu'an Steel Plant, Bianliang Cement Plant or other steel and cement plants. What should be done? At this time, instead of reporting to the Constitutional Yuan, the central government should report to its direct superior, the Ministry of Water Resources.

The Ministry of Water Resources will send people to investigate. If they think the project is feasible, they will find the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Finance, Wu'an Iron and Steel Plant and Bianliang Cement Plant to negotiate, including costs, project design, production capacity supply, etc.

If these departments determine that there is no problem with the plan, they will jointly report it to the Constitutional Yuan.

When the Constitutional Yuan sees that these departments can provide the financial expenditure, project planning and production capacity, it will sign and approve it. In this way, the project can officially start.

Although this procedure may seem cumbersome, it also eliminates the need to report directly to the Constitutional Council, which would then have to send several lower-level departments to investigate and jointly issue a report. This greatly reduces the workload of the Constitutional Council, as a single matter does not have to be discussed at the Constitutional Council for a long time.

Simply put, it means delegating power to lower-level departments so that they can work freely. The Constitutional Yuan is mainly responsible for the general direction and the final approval, review, verification and other powers.

Therefore, most ordinary matters actually cannot reach the Constitutional Court at all. The matters that can truly be called urgent and sent to the Constitutional Court are generally national affairs.

really.

Jia Changchao handed over the document and said, "Di Qing defeated the main force of the Western Region Uighurs in just half a day, annihilated the Western Region Uighurs, and recovered most of the Western Regions."

"Oh?"

When Zhao Jun learned this, he raised his eyebrows and said, "It's not the entire Western Region?"

"It's not that simple. This is not the future where transportation is advanced."

Fan Zhongyan smiled bitterly and said, "You have never been to the northwest. You don't know how difficult it is to provide logistical supplies because there are often thousands of miles of uninhabited areas there."

"Of course I know that in later generations, we sent countless construction corps to Xinjiang to build it up."

Zhao Jun shook his head and said, "I just think that with Di Qing's ability, it should be no problem to recover the entire Western Region in a short period of time."

"In fact, it's almost the same to say that we have recovered the entire Western Region."

Jia Changchao said: "In the official document, Di Qing explained that most of the territory of the Black Khanate was not in our traditional Western Regions, but in the Central Asia of later times. It was thousands of miles away from Gaochang. Even if he wanted to fight his way there, he had to go step by step."

"I see."

Zhao Jun finally understood the reason. He had always thought that the Western Regions were actually occupied by the Gaochang Uighurs and the Kara Khanate.

It is only now known that the Gaochang Uighurs actually occupied most of the Western Regions, and the Kara Khanate only occupied a small part of the Xinjiang border area of ​​our country in later generations.

This is also due to the fact that the ancients really did not understand the situation in the Western Regions. Even in later generations, discoveries were often made through archaeology, so it was normal that he did not know the situation in this country that was almost 4,000 kilometers away from him in a straight line.

Zhao Jun then read the official document submitted by Di Qing, which detailed the situation in the Western Regions. At present, Di Qing planned to continue moving forward and station troops in the direction of Qiuci, which was the area around Kuche City in Xinjiang in later generations.

If the Kara Khanate refuses to submit to the Song Dynasty and the King of the Kara Khanate does not go to Bianliang to meet the Emperor of the Song Dynasty, then the army of the Song Dynasty will continue its westward expedition to destroy the Kara Khanate even if it is thousands of miles away.

"Di Qing does have the style of the Han and Tang dynasties."

Zhao Jun finished reading the document and said with a smile, "Is this kind of culture lacking in the Song Dynasty now?"

"what happened?"

Fan Zhongyan asked curiously.

Zhao Jun said: "Han officials have already gone to Qiuci. If the Black Khan King does not come to Bianliang to pay homage to the emperor, we will send troops to destroy the Black Khan. This is quite a bit like the Tang Emperor's decree, and all nations will come to pay homage to him."

"Yes, at the beginning of the 13th year of Zhenguan, all nations came to pay tribute, but only Gaochang King Qu Wentai was absent. So Emperor Taizong said to his envoys: "Gaochang has been neglecting tribute for several years and has not behaved as a vassal. The state has appointed officials and allowed all our officials to be vassal states. How can this be allowed! Now at the beginning of this year, all nations have come to pay tribute, but Wentai is not here. We should build a city wall and a deep moat to prepare for the attack."

Zheng Jian sighed: "If you don't come to pay homage to the great country, you will be destroyed. This is the foundation of the Han and Tang dynasties' prosperity."

"Yes, although the Song Dynasty has become powerful now, it has been weak for too long and still cannot stand up straight. This is the spirit and courage we need."

Zhao Jun looked around and said, "The reason why the Han and Tang dynasties were so powerful was because of their frequent military activities. They destroyed the Xiongnu and beat the Turks. If there were disobedient people in the Western Regions, even Dayuan and Tuqishi thousands of miles away would not be spared. Now it is time for our Great Song to revive the spirit of the Han and Tang dynasties."

“It seems we have achieved it.”

Xia Song, who had been silent, smiled and said, "Under the leadership of the governor, we defeated the Yueli in the south, conquered the Japanese in the east, defeated the Liao Kingdom in the north, and destroyed the Xia bandits in the west. Now that Gaochang has been destroyed, who in the world can rival us?"

"Forehead"

Zhao Jun was speechless for a moment. After thinking about it carefully, he realized that although Xia Song was flattering him, there was nothing wrong with this flattery.

The Han and Tang dynasties were so powerful that they forced all the surrounding heroes to surrender.

In addition, Chinese culture is profound and extensive. The surrounding countries were submissive to the military power of the Han and Tang dynasties, while being fascinated by their culture. This is why they voluntarily came to pay tribute.

Now the Song Dynasty is no less powerful than the Han and Tang Dynasties.

Having defeated all the surrounding countries, the only thing left to do is to destroy the Liao Dynasty in a few years, swallow up the entire northern grassland and the vast northeast area, and restore the peak territory of the Tang Dynasty.

In terms of military power, it seems that nothing can be better than the Han and Tang dynasties.

"Then fight to the Middle East."

Zhao Jun said: "The Tang Dynasty asked the Liugui Kingdom on the Kamchatka Peninsula to come and pay homage. There is no reason why we cannot intimidate places farther away. Even if we cannot destroy the country, we must see if there are any countries that provoke the Song Dynasty, and then destroy their regime with a single ship to form a deterrent."

"Last year, even the Green Caliphate (Fatimid Dynasty) came to pay homage. According to the world map of later generations, they were Egypt, Libya, Algeria in northern Africa and Saudi Arabia in western Asia. They also brought a lot of black slaves with them, saying they wanted to kill them as sacrifices for us, which almost caused the government to be furious."

Xia Song said.

"I didn't come back last year, so how would I know about this?"

Zhao Jun was also speechless.

West Asia, North Africa and Europe still need civilization and enlightenment.

Especially since Europe was still in the Middle Ages, and Africa and America were still at the primitive tribal level.

It seems that the Song Dynasty's conquest cannot be stopped.

The world needs to be given more advanced civilization and more brilliant knowledge so that they can realize their backwardness and ignorance.

(End of this chapter)