People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 489: Rank and Rating
In mid-April, the Song Dynasty delegation crossed the Strait of Malacca and sailed towards the Chola Empire on the Indian Peninsula.

During the Han Dynasty, kings of the Western Regions often colluded with the Xiongnu and killed Han envoys.

So Zhang Qian, Fu Jiezi, Ban Chao and others were sent to the Western Regions, where they formed alliances and defeated various countries in the Western Regions, uniting them under the leadership of the Han Dynasty.

Now, Srivijaya has attacked the Song Dynasty's navy, expelled and even wanted to kill the Song Dynasty's envoys, which has aroused the Song Dynasty's wrath.

However, the Song Dynasty's envoys had other important matters to attend to and had no time to join forces with Brunei, Java and other countries to encircle and suppress Srivijaya.

So I have to do it myself.

Just as King Sirichi of Srivijaya thought.

The Strait of Malacca is the farthest distance that the Song Dynasty Navy can currently reach.

Logistical supply is difficult and costly.

If he could destroy the Song army in Pu Luozhong, the main force of the Song army in the South China Sea would launch a large-scale attack, which would cost a lot of money.

If Srivijaya is not destroyed, the Song Dynasty navy will not be able to come here often.

The Song army in Puluozhong is currently building fortresses, houses, and ports. Every three months, supply ships are dispatched from Guangzhou to Puluozhong to transport various materials and people willing to settle there.

Even the soldiers in Pu Luo had to grow vegetables and cultivate the fields themselves to reduce the cost of transportation to this side by the imperial court. This shows how difficult it is to expand into the Malay Peninsula.

But difficulties and expenses aside, the only thing that Xilichi had not calculated correctly was that the fighting power of their Srivijaya army was not proportional to that of the Song army.

There is no need to even deploy the navy on a large scale. The firepower of the Guangzhou alone is enough to destroy them.

Simply put, Xili Chi underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Song Dynasty's envoys and thought he could easily defeat them.

But the problem is that the King of Loulan and the King of Gaochang thought the same way back then, but what was the result?

With just one ironclad ship, the Guangzhou, and hundreds of soldiers, they bombarded the enemy with muskets and cannons, killing thousands of Srivijaya soldiers in an instant.

Afterwards, the Song army rushed into Palembang, captured the Srivijaya king Silichi alive, and captured all of their cronies.

Pu Jin was originally a powerful businessman in Srivijaya. Naturally, he had the support of his tribe and confidants in his own country. With the help of the Song army, he easily stabilized the situation and became the new king.

Although the metaphor is a bit inappropriate, the fact that the Qing Dynasty, with its huge size, was unable to stop the British and French forces that marched all the way from Tianjin to Beijing shows how big the gap was.

Under such circumstances, it took the Song Dynasty envoys less than two hours to destroy a country with a capital of more than 100,000 people and a national population of over one million, which was no less than the size of the Western Xia country.

Pu Jin, who was originally the translator and guide of the diplomatic delegation, became the new king in a daze. When the diplomatic delegation returns in the second half of the year, he will follow the diplomatic delegation to the Song Dynasty to participate in the New Year celebrations.

The diplomatic envoys, hiding their achievements and fame, will cross the Strait of Malacca and then the Great Strait, sailing nearly 2,000 kilometers, crossing the vast ocean and heading towards Sri Lanka.

The Chola Empire was a kingdom in southern India that owned half of Sri Lanka, which was the next destination of the Song Dynasty delegation and was expected to arrive in early May.

The vast ocean is boundless. While the fleet is sailing, apart from encountering Middle Eastern merchant ships from time to time, it is difficult to see even an island.

Most of the time, they could only see blue sky and white clouds, and the occasional storm.

While the Song Dynasty envoys were sailing alone on the Indian Ocean, more than 4,000 kilometers away in Kaifeng City, Bianliang Prefecture, Henan Province, the Song Dynasty, the Political System Council was discussing new matters.

In midsummer May, the temperature in Kaifeng gradually rises, and the temperature outside is around 30 degrees all year round, making people feel hot and uncomfortable, with sweat pouring down their backs.

Factories outside the city stopped production, and schools were closed for lunch and afternoon classes. Classes were changed to after six in the morning and evening, and lasted until ten o'clock.

This is also a disadvantage of rapid industrial development.

During the more than 100 years of development of the Western Industrial Revolution, with the advancement of physics and chemistry, various industrial products gradually appeared.

Air conditioning, for example, compresses chemically synthesized gases to create cold air, and since then humans have gradually gotten rid of the scorching heat.

However, the Song Dynasty's industry was concentrated, with textile and transportation industries as the priority. Chemistry also focused on agriculture, such as the current Academy of Sciences' School of Chemistry, which is working hard to develop fertilizers.

There is almost no research on household appliances such as refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, or even on communications phones.

After more than ten years of development, the accumulation is far from enough.

However, Zhao Jun knew that this was only temporary. As education became more and more popular, various inventions would emerge sooner or later.

The wisdom of the Chinese people is never inferior to that of others.

"Economic and political stability ultimately depends on strong military capabilities. In the past, everyone criticized the Song Dynasty for valuing culture over military power and castrating itself. I know the reason, but I still criticize it."

Inside the Constitutional Court, the temperature was slightly lower than outside by seven or eight degrees, because there were ice cubes and basins of water in every corner of the room, which were constantly emitting cool air.

Zhao Jun knocked on the table and said, "You can do this at the beginning of the Song Dynasty, but not afterwards. Too much is as bad as too little, and it will only backfire on you."

"Well, what about the list sent by the Ministry of War?"

Fu Bi asked, "Should we send it back and ask them to redo it, or should we issue the order directly after giving our approval?"

"Well"

Zhao Jun looked at the list in his hand and pondered for a moment before saying, "The list is generally reasonable, but Zhang Kang and Di Qing are only major generals, which is obviously abnormal. Everyone's rank should be raised by two levels."

"Then we will have six generals, more than thirty lieutenant generals, and more than a hundred major generals. Isn't that a bit too much?"

Fu Bi said with some concern.

"Not many at all. In the early days of our new era, there were ten founding marshals, ten founding generals, fifty-seven founding admirals, one hundred and seventy-seven founding lieutenant generals, and an even more exaggerated number of one thousand three hundred and sixty founding major generals."

“How many soldiers did you have at that time?”

"Forehead"

Zhao Jun thought for a moment and said, "It seems to be more than five million."

All the prime ministers present, including Fan Zhongyan and others, were speechless.

My goodness, more than five million people, wouldn’t that mean more than a thousand generals?

How many people are there in the Song Dynasty?

After so many years of military reform, the army has only 600,000 soldiers and the navy has only 35,000 soldiers.

"It was actually like this in ancient times. It was normal for any founding dynasty to have more than a hundred founding heroes."

Zhao Jun knew what they were thinking and said, "Now that the Song Dynasty has so much more land, we can just think of it as starting a new country."

"Ok."

Fu Bi still looked unhappy and said, "It's just that Wang Deyong is not bad, after all, he has real military merits, Cao Cong, Li Yonghe, and Li Zhaoliang."

"Well."

Zhao Jun was also a little troubled.

At the beginning of this year, he and Fan Zhongyan implemented a new policy, intending to formally begin to improve the status of soldiers.

At that time, the military and politics will be separated, with one system for the military and another for officials.

Among them, military rank is very important and represents the level of the soldier.

Since lieutenant, colonel, and general have been the classification of military generals in ancient my country since ancient times, and this system was also followed in later generations, this system was continued.

Just like later generations, there are second lieutenants, first lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant colonels, colonels, major generals, lieutenant generals, and generals. They correspond to the nine ranks among officials, but there is no distinction between the eighteenth rank and the first rank.

Many prime ministers in the Political System Council had no objection to improving the status of military generals. Zhao Jun had made it clear to them that the army was the cornerstone of the country, and if the Song Dynasty wanted to maintain long-term stability, it could not suppress the army too much. Therefore, it was only natural to reform the army and improve its status.

The grand ceremony of awarding ranks will be held at the beginning of next year. At that time, Zhao Zhen will personally award ranks and medals to the generals and give them the newly designed imperial medals as the highest honor.

As a result, the joint selection department, led by the Ministry of War and assisted by the Privy Council and the Three Yamen, submitted the list of conferment of titles. Zhao Jun's blood pressure rose a little when he saw it.

Not even a lieutenant general.

Forget about Fan Zhongyan. Although he played a decisive role in the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War, as a prime minister, he naturally could not participate in the selection.

Zhang Kang, an important figure who had made many military achievements in the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War, led his troops to win key battles many times, and had been promoted to the Privy Councilor, was actually only a major general.

The same goes for Di Qing. As the main general who first destroyed the Vietnamese Li Dynasty and then destroyed Western Xia, Gaochang, Black Khanate and other countries, he is now the Deputy Privy Councilor and is also a major general.

Although Di Qing mainly served as a general under Fan Zhongyan and Zhang Kang in his early years.

But later, as Western Xia and Liao were defeated, Fan Zhongyan and Zhang Kang had too high status, and if they destroyed another country, there would be nothing left to be done for them, so they gave up the credit.

Among them were a large number of senior generals such as Di Qing, Ge Huaimin, Ren Fu, Liu Ping, Zhao Zhen, Gao Jixuan, Shi Yuansun, and Xu Huaide, all of whom made great contributions in these wars.

Moreover, except for Di Qing who climbed up from the lower military ranks, the others were high-ranking generals of the Song Dynasty. In history, they were various military commanders and deputy commanders in the Song-Xia War.

Being able to stand out among such a group of senior generals represents Di Qing's ability. In terms of military achievements, he has even surpassed Zhang Kang and is not inferior to Fan Zhongyan.

In the end, he was only a major general, which made Zhao Jun laugh.

However, Zhao Jun also knew what the situation was with those people in the Ministry of War and the Privy Council.

After Fu Bi was promoted to prime minister, Gao Ruone took over as the Minister of War. Except for Di Qing, all the members of the Privy Council, including Zhang Kang, the Privy Envoy, were Jinshi graduates.

So this is not necessarily the case that the civil service group is rebelling against the orders of the Constitutional Yuan, but it is very likely that they think this is how it should be arranged.

Even though they vaguely guessed that the Constitutional Council was trying to change the current awkward situation of the military generals' status, they still chose to do so.

It has nothing to do with interests, it's purely because they instinctively don't want to improve the status of military generals. It's something that is ingrained in their bones.

"Of course, the Constitutional Council cannot shout everywhere that we want to improve the status of military generals, so we can only use policies and rules to steadily improve it. This kind of reform is the best way."

Zhao Jun pondered and said, "If their status is raised, I think the officials below will also understand the meaning of the Constitutional Council. As for Li Yong and them."

He thought for a moment and said, "Let's report this to His Majesty this afternoon. Li Yonghe and Li Zhaoliang, who had made military achievements before Cao Cong, are His Majesty's men after all."

"Well, that's all we can do. Let your majesty decide."

Fu Bi responded.

In the past few years, the chief officials of the three yamen were Cao Cong, Li Yonghe and Gao Hua. Later, Gao Hua died of illness, and they were first replaced by Wang Deyong and then by Li Zhaoliang.

Later generations believed that the Privy Council in the Song Dynasty was the highest military institution.

But in fact, the Privy Council was just an institution for mobilizing the army, similar to a certain committee in later generations.

The real military chief, or the nominal military chief, is actually the three commanders of the three yamen, commonly known as the Palace Marshal, the Cavalry Marshal and the Infantry Marshal.

Among them, the cavalry commander Cao Cong was the uncle of Zhao Zhen’s wife, the infantry commander Li Yonghe was Zhao Zhen’s uncle, and the palace commander Li Zhaoliang was also a relative by marriage.

Therefore, when deciding the list, the military commander must naturally be taken into consideration, even if only in name only.

Zhao Jun looked through the list again and decided to confirm these six people first, and then Zhao Zhen would make the decision.

He originally wanted to cross out Wang Deyong. Wang Deyong has now retreated to the second line, but still serves as the envoy of the Southern Court of Xuanhui.

But after thinking about it, I forgot about it.

Wang Deyong participated in both the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War. He was the deputy general second only to Fan Zhongyan. He had also fought in the battles of Li Jiqian and Chanzhou before, and was a veteran on the battlefield for many years.

Not awarding a title to someone before he or she has fully retired is obviously a bit like killing the donkey after it has served its purpose.

Cao Cong had been on the battlefield before and served as the commander-in-chief of the troops in Huanqing Road. Zhao Zhen was his deputy commander-in-chief. Later, he was transferred back to Bianliang to serve as the commander of the cavalry.

In terms of military achievements, if it weren't for the Song-Liao War, he would have had a hard time being promoted to major general.

But who can blame him for having connections?

As for Li Yonghe and Li Zhaoliang, neither of them had ever been on the battlefield for a day. One was Zhao Zhen's uncle, and the other was the youngest son of Li Jilian, the brother of Zhao Guangyi's wife. They were both royal relatives.

no way.

During the feudal empire period, these things had to be taken into consideration, and there were always concerns from all sides.

Therefore, the selection of generals has temporarily been decided on six people: Zhang Kang, Di Qing, Wang Deyong, Cao Cong, Li Yonghe, and Li Zhaoliang.

There are more people on the lieutenant general side.

There were a large number of senior generals including Ge Huaimin, Ren Fu, Liu Ping, Zhao Zhen, Gao Jixuan, Shi Yuansun, Xu Huaide, Wang Kai, and Fan Ke.

The Song-Xia War, the Song-Liao War, and later the War to Destroy the Yue Dynasty and the War to Destroy the Western Xia Dynasty, produced a large number of meritorious military generals.

Except for a few who died of illness, such as Jingtai, Liu Hu, and Wang Xin, most of the senior generals who participated in these wars were general managers and deputy general managers.

Basically, as long as these people do not make any mistakes, they can be promoted to lieutenant general. The total number of people has reached more than 30.

There are even more major generals, more than a hundred of them.

Including Zhang Yu, Zhe Jimin, Zhong Shiheng, Zhou Mei, Wang Zhongbao, Li Shibin, Jia Kui, Wang Gui, Guo Zun, Zhang Ke, Yang Wenguang, etc. Most of them were originally middle and senior generals in the army.

Such as the general managers, deputy general managers, seal officers, and supervisors of various provinces and cities under the general managers and deputy general managers.

Unless one has no military achievements, one can become a major general.

Among them were also brave soldiers or low-level officers who fought their way up to the rank of major general.

For example, Zhang Yu was a small soldier of the Yulong Guard who followed Di Qing. At that time, Di Qing was the squad leader, and he was a senior soldier under Di Qing.

There were also Zhe Jimin, Zhou Mei, and Yang Guangwen, who were all lower-level military officers but became major generals based on their military achievements.

After all, there were only a few people like Di Qing who rose from a private to a general. There was only one Di Qing in the entire Renzong Dynasty. For the rest of the low-level soldiers and officers, it was already a miracle if they could reach the rank of major general.

Therefore, the entire rating process basically revolves around qualifications, official rank before rating, and military achievements in previous battles.

Judging from the current situation, the Ministry of War and the Privy Council have no major problems except that they downgraded too harshly, with those who should have been promoted to general being promoted to major general, lieutenant general being promoted to colonel, and major general being promoted to lieutenant colonel.

"That's it for now. Anyway, there's still half a year before the rank awarding, so we can discuss it further to see which people are qualified and which ones have problems."

Zhao Jun closed the list and said, "How are the statistics for the first half of this year?"

"The statistics department handed it in today. I've been talking about military ranks before, but I haven't looked at it yet. I just took a quick look and it's not bad."

Yan Shu pointed to a thick stack of official documents on his desk and said, "The data is growing rapidly, and the results are encouraging."

"Ha ha ha ha."

Zhao Jun laughed: "Let me see."

As he said this, he asked the clerk of the Imperial Decree Office to bring the document over and place it on his desk.

(End of this chapter)